[Falling Down]

One more ring on the tree, four seasons gone.  Who knows where the time goes?.

I thought I'd stick this up now a bit earlier as I'm ill on the sofa not doing much and as it's coming up to the time of year when, if we're lucky enough, those close to us ask I'd we'd like anything for a Christmas gift or we're racking our brains thinking of what to buy as a present and you can't go wrong with a great album.

I'm only sticking these up here again as I really look forward to hearing what everyone else has been enjoying this year. 

#1 Spring (EP): Blixa Bargeld and Teo Teardo.  Only five songs, but blimey, what a little gem.  A collaboration between Bad Seeds/Einsturzende Neubauten guitarist, singer and composer BB and composer TT.  Soli si Muoro & Crimson and Clover, an Italian and English version of the same piece are just hair raising beautiful music. Millions of Eels tells the story, of, well, millions of eels making their way to the Sargasso Sea.  If you have a record player, there are a few copies still left and it's also available for DL online and on iTunes.  Their album "Still Smiling" from 2013 is just as good, but the EP really stands alone by itself.

#2 Steve Gunn: Way out Weather.   I've probably listened to this and last year's "Time Off" more than anything else.  Gunn's relaxed virtuoso guitar style from vintage Americana to clean fender jazz with a bit of krautrock would be enough on its own but its his ability as a songwriter and member of his group that puts this (and time off) right up there.  Again both this and Time Off worth buying on CD or (preferably) vinyl but also available on Spotify and other places. 

#3 King Creosote: From Scotland with Love.  Some find Kenny's stuff a bit syrupy and sentimental but I really like it.  He's taken Jon Hopkins influence from Diamond Mine and folded it into his more traditional approach to songwriting to great effect with a much bigger and broader spectrum with a full band, strings and chorus.  There are some real standout songs in Something to Believe In, Miserable Strangers and the rocking For One Night Only alongside interesting off-the-wall stuff like the kids nursery rhyme Bluebell, Cockleshells, 1 2 3 and the Hopkins influenced electro acoustic One Floor Down.  (I believe he voted Yes in the referendum...)

#4 Mac Demarco: Salad Days.  I really like this guy.  Reminds me a bit of Steven Malkmus (Pavement) with a bit more of an 80's Eagles/Cars/ yacht rock coke vibe.  Sunny, summery, lazy slacker pop rock.  Like a less serious and more stoned Sea and Cake.  His Mac Demarco 2 is just as good, if not better.

#5 Moodymann: Moodymann.  Maybe KDJ's best album yet or at least on par with Black Mahogani.  Syrupy soul, compressed reconstructed funk, Detroit codeine house beats.  Still opening up like a Japanese paper flower pill months on.

#6 Flying Lotus: You're Dead. Still exploring this one.. He's Alice Coltrane's nephew and it shows. Proper electric era Miles Davis (Live Evil, Agartha etc.) plus Kendrick Lamarr, Snoop Dogg and other vocalists.  It's like the Guru's Jazzmatazz take on mid-70's Herbie Hancock (he plays on it), Miles, Weather Report, Sun Ra but with modern electronica and Ras G thrown in. A messy Joyful Noise to the Creator.

#7 Oathbreaker: Eros/Anteros.  Sister (in real life and lead vocalist) group to the amazing Belgian avant metal outfit Amenra. Not easy listening; blistering hypnotic black'ish metal, it's ace with a female singer.

#8 Beck: Morning Phase.  I'm guessing he was on morphine when he fucked his back up 'cos this is about as blissful as one could get. Californian sunshine, waves lapping on the beach.  His old man arranged the strings for his acoustic guitar songs which wouldn't be out of place on a Denis Wilson mid 70's bootleg.

#9 Melanie de Biaso: No Deal.  She sings like Nina Simone and Sade and the music's great.

Also on the list... Swans: To Be Kind. Shellac: Dude Incredible.  J Mascis: Tied to a Star. Sun Kil Moon: Benji. Ryan Adams: Ryan Adams & 1984. Bob Mould: Beauty and Ruin. Sharon van Etten: Are We There?. Sleaford Mods: Divide and Exit; Chubbed Up (the singles). Mogwai: Rave Tapes. Fennesz: Becs. Scott 0)))

Reissues of note.

I Am The Center: Private Issue New Age In America - 1950-1990. Forget the New Age classification, this is great absorbing cerebral/body music.

Mick Harvey: Intoxicated Man/Pink Elephants.  Another Bad Seed alumni. His amazing translation of Serge Gainsbourg's best songs.

Led Zeppelin: all the albums up to Houses of the Holy.  I did question why these were getting remastered again but this time Jimmy Page has done a real proper job. They sound amazing and the alternative takes are all fantastic. 

Sleep: Dopesmoker.  The classic stoner rock high water mark.

Iggy and the Stooges: Raw Power. Iggy's and Bowies mixes on the same album.  Sounds really fresh.

Hawkwind: Astounding Sounds, Amazing Music.  My favourite Hawks album that wouldn't sound out of place in Roxy Music's back catalogue given the remaster and 180g repress treatment. 

There's a lot of guitar music on my list as I've been having lessons again & noodling a lot on mine, displacing bouldering as a weekend obsession & scales exercises instead of weekday fingerboard sessions.  Even ventured to write some songs that may see the light of day next year.

Looking forward to hearing what everyone else has been listening to. 

[andy_e]

Hang on, don't call it just yet, Bvdub's new album Tanto is out next Monday and is apparently one of his best yet!

OK, just had a search through my music collection. Highlights for me include:

Calibre - Shelflife 3 - The Irish drum and bass guru is so far ahead of the pack that even the third instalment of his bits-n-bobs-wot-I-made-and-never-got-around-to-releasing-until-now album is one of the best albums of the year. His blend of rolling beats and bass, downtempo piano samples and subtle vocal samples hits the spot every time for me and many others.

Yann Tiersen - Infinity - For a man famous for his film soundtracks, he really knows how to produce standalone albums. I get the impression he's trying to distance himself from Le Fabuleux Destin D'Amélie Poulain but it's such a shame that he's mostly known for that and he deserves to be known for his incredible music in general. His new album is rooted in his Brittanian upbringing, with vocals sung in the Breizh language by singers from Brittany. Intensely emotional, every track seems to send a shiver down my spine no matter how many times I listen to it (which is a lot). I was fortunate enough to see him play at the Southbank Centre and it was incredible (his warm-up band were a shit version of shit 90s indie bands and the lead singer was a pretentious numpty attempting audience participation on their first song, which was as strong as a homeopathic cup of tea). The raw emotion he puts into all his music is evident immediately as he picks up or sits down at one of the myriad of instruments he knows how to play. Even tearing his violin bow to shreds half-way through a solo performance Sur Le Fil, one of the only nods to Amélie throughout his performance, could not stop him and it sounded beautiful.

Biosphere - Patashnik 2 - OK, so it's not strictly an entirely new album but a reminder of just how far ahead of his time Biosphere was back in the day with tunes like Novelty Waves. One quote from a Leeds climber being subjected to this album in the back of my car on the way back from a CityBloc session was along the lines of, "For early techno, this is really good stuff." My personal favourite is The Seal and The Hydrophone, a tune which simultaneously captures the cold depths of sea-water with the playful nature of seals.

ASC - Truth Be Told - Another ambient album from the master of the deep on the brilliant Silent Season record label. Building on his regular themes of desolation, dystopia and industrial wastelands, Truth Be Told fits welll into the sequence of previous albums released under his own Auxiliary label as well as Silent Season. Rumours are that James is working on some film scores, which is very exciting indeed!

Other than that, I can't really think of many new albums I've listened to this year other than Killing Joke In Dub, which is excellent and I highly recommend it for fans of Youth/Killing Joke/dub music in general. I wouldn't say I was enough of an expert on Killing Joke to comment on the album, having never really listened in the past, but this album is brilliant.

One which I somehow missed from 2013:

The Field - Cupid's Head - The Field's mesmerising loops are once again brought out on this six-track album and his progressive composition is as strong as ever. I've always thought his longer, more repetitive tracks in the past have been his forté and this is what he's concentrated on with this album. Fewer standard techno beats, such as those found on previous tunes such as Leave It, but more of a concentration on looping and more subtle drum patterns which has in some cases actually led to a harder sound.

[Wood FT]

for a lazy music varmit this thread is an annual gold mine!

[Fiend]

Mostly Behemoth - The Satanist

[JamieG]

Lost in the Dream by The War on Drugs has been a favourite of mine this year. Pure Americana. I think they might listen to a lot of Dylan . . .

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19094-the-war-on-drugs-lost-in-the-dream/

[Stabbsy]

War on Drugs - Lost in the Dream : The lead track got a fair bit of airtime on 6Music, so I gave it a try. Laid-back Americana with an occasional Springsteen/Dylan moment.

Conor Oberst - Upside Down Mountain :  Another one that came from 6Music's playlist - Zigzagging Toward The Light is one of my favourite tracks of the year. Melodic pop/folk, not unlike some of the Brendan Benson (Raconteurs) solo stuff.

Caribou - Our Love : Laid-back house/electronica. Only came out a month or so ago, so it's still growing on me.

Horrors - Luminous : I've since seen a few reviews saying this is very similar to the previous album (Skying?), but they were new to me. Very 80s, but not in a bad way.

Tom McRae - From The Solo Lands : Live album covering the best of his back catalogue. I got to see this tour in 2013 at an old church in York and the album reproduces it pretty well.

I've also been listening to :-

Bob Mould - Beauty and Ruin (not as good as Silver Age for me)
I Break Horses - Chiaroscuro (discovered their first album from this thread a few years ago, a good album but not as good as the previous one)
Mazzy Star - Seasons Of Your Day (one recommended from last year's thread)
Ray LaMontagne - Supernova (much more upbeat than previous albums, will always struggle to live up to Trouble)
Phontaine - Phontaine (10 years old but new to me, gets lots of play at the local wall)

Biggest Disappointment : Black Keys - Turn Blue

[Fiend]

#7 Oathbreaker: Eros/Anteros.  Sister (in real life and lead vocalist) group to the amazing Belgian avant metal outfit Amenra. Not easy listening; blistering hypnotic black'ish metal, it's ace with a female singer.

Duly noted. Have been loving extreme metal with brutal female vocals this autumn, although I don't think I've got anything from this year in particular.

[jwi]

Too early, but so far I've enjoyed Opeth's Pale Communion most, I also liked King Creosote's From Scotland With Love, I liked Prince's Art Official Age a lot more than anyone else, and now I'm listening to Azealia Banks's debut-album but haven't formed any firm opinon yet.

There might have been good records from the first half of the year as well, but I don't remember them.

[johnx2]

Makes me realise how little new music I encounter these days.  Not good but that said, here's another vote for Mac Demarco. Love the cheap bendy guitar. Stormed the Irish centre the other night. Apparently. I fully intend at some point listen to some of the stuff here...

[SA Chris]

for a lazy music varmit this thread is an annual gold mine!

Yup, it's the annual "obscure, me" thread.

Of everything listed the only thing I've heard (of!) is the Caribou album.

[andy popp]

I haven't bought much little music this year for some reason (been spending all my money on travel and books I guess)

Anyway:

Sun Kil Moon, 'Benji' - have been totally mesmerised by this ever since I got it. I still am.
St Vincent, 'St Vincent' - so much fun, brilliant live.
Sharon van Etten, 'Are We There' - pleased to see this in FD's list

At the moment, I'm in love with Angel Olsen's 'Burn Your Fire For No Witness' brilliant warped take on country.

There must be more. I might start a gig thread as there has been a lot great live music (including all four of the above).

[jwi]

À propos reissues, Public Enemy just released a timely reissue of the greatest hip-hop album of all time It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back

[Stubbs]

the greatest hip-hop album of all time to feature a man wearing a big clock saying 'yeeeeeah boyeee

 

[JamieG]

Sun Kil Moon, 'Benji' - have been totally mesmerised by this ever since I got it. I still am.

Sharon van Etten, 'Are We There' - pleased to see this in FD's list

Forgot about these two belters! Good shout.

[fried]

This was probably the first year that I didn't buy an album, and didn't listen to anything that came out this year. Thanks to everyone for giving me some stuff to listen to.

I did go to a concert though, one of the best I've ever attended. At a small venue in the north  of Paris that has some connection with legendary group Magma.

Get the blessing - Ornette coleman meets weasels eat your flesh era Zappa for 40 something pill addled ex-cheesy quavers. They were selling albums, but I didn't have any cash. Look out for the album Lope and Antilope which came out this year or 2012's O C D C. Two ex-members of Portishead in the group to sell it to you phillistines.

Rediscovered hip-hop in the spring. Spinning..

Mobb Deep - The infamous.

Plenty of catching up to do.

[Jaspersharpe]

Another vote for the War On Drugs album. Superb.

[bigtuboflard]

I'll throw GoGo Penguin's album, V2.0 in to the mix. Kind of like Sigur Ros meets electronic jazz without the warbly Icelandic vocals. I like it; good listening to unwind me on the all to regular drive up the M1.

[dr_botnik]

Kogumaza - Kолокол
Don't ask me to pronounce that. Saw these guys at a wicked little festvial called "Sin Eater" and was massively impressed. A little four piece band from Nottingham who do some really good post/psych rock. They actually smash it live, well worth checking out if you get the chance.


Hookworms - The Hum
Totally psych, layers of lush dripping guitar all over your cock metal.
https://soundcloud.com/weirdworldrecordco/hookworms-off-screen

Richard Dawson - Nothing Important
Modern troubadour/storyteller, bangs 'em out.
https://soundcloud.com/weirdworldrecordco/richard-dawson-nothing-important

[fried]

Another vote for the War On Drugs album. Superb.

Cool, 1985 finally becomes rediscoved for being one of the best ever years for music.

[Falling Down]

Some great stuff again - keep 'em coming.

[skelf]

Twin Atlantic - the great divide.
Cracking album. Biffy are dead, long live twin !

[fried]

Some great stuff again - keep 'em coming.

Some really nice stuff, but that Flying lotus album is genius. They're  playing in the same venue I mentioned above in April.

[lagerstarfish]

Twin Atlantic

every time someone mentions this I hear "New Atlantic" and my heart gets a little lift; until I realize it isn't them

[the_dom]

Sleep: Dopesmoker.  The classic stoner rock high water mark.

This is one of my favourite albums. If you liked this, you may well enjoy Matt Pike's current band High On Fire (if you don't know it already). Another band in a similar attitudinal vein, albeit nowhere near as loud, is Earth (fronted by Dylan Carlson, who bought the gun that Kurt Cobain used to kill himself). The Bees Made Honey in the.. is a really good album. Oh, and the Sunn 0)) / Scott Walker collaboration (Soused) is also magnificently weird.

[Milford Cubicle]

Calibre - Shelflife 3 - The Irish drum and bass guru is so far ahead of the pack that even the third instalment of his bits-n-bobs-wot-I-made-and-never-got-around-to-releasing-until-now album is one of the best albums of the year. His blend of rolling beats and bass, downtempo piano samples and subtle vocal samples hits the spot every time for me and many others.

This.

Ivy labs missing persons is pretty special to.