Falling Down
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2004
- Messages
- 4,924
I think this thread's been running for at least a decade now after Soapy officially kicked it off in 2006. A year ago I suggested someone younger with more contemporary taste should kick it off and gave CSL a nudge on Twitter earlier last week when he said he'd got his list ready but no-one's taken up the baton so here goes. I'm not young anymore, tend to listen to music closely at home on the stereo and it's mostly much older music so I have no idea why I'm kicking off this thing again.. Can someone else kick it off next year?
2016 has been a great year for music. A poignant one with David Bowie, Prince, Lemmy, Leonard Cohen among the greats and other less well known luminaries like Phife Dawg, Alan Vega & David Mancuso and many others passing over to the other side. I suspect the next two years will be an even more fertile period with everything that's going on here in the U.K. and the rest of the world.
Here's some stuff that's been bought on vinyl/CD or had repeated playings on Tidal or Spotify.
Mark Ernestus' Ndagga Rhythm Force - Yermande: Ernestus, one half of Basic Channel and then Rhythm and Sound (all three R&S albums should be in anyone's record collection), aka Maurizio and founder of Berlin's Hardwax takes a headlong deep dive into Senegalese and Gambian music. It's absolutely mesmerising and I can't stop playing it. It's pulling in multiple directions Polyrhythms, Dub, Techno... elastic body/head music. Although these aren't in any order, if I had to pick a #1 to keep this would be it. Go to "Simbe" or "Yermande" if you're on Spotify but play it loud or on headphones for when the kick drum drops in.
Idris Ackamor and the Pyramids - We be all Africans: Its great to see and hear spiritual free-jazz getting an airing with a new audience appreciating it and this year thanks to Kamasi and the coverage on the radio and TV. Ackamor is a time served workman touring with Cecil Taylor back in the 70's and this band las played together back then. Think Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis and Sun-RA restrung for 2016 and you get the picture. There's more good stuff in the reissues down below...
Steve Gunn - Eyes on the lines. I didn't quite take to this at first after the really laid-back last two albums but it's really grown on me. Just great songs, immaculate musicianship and a lovely vibe. Joint top with the first one... went to see him the other week and he's really grown in confidence, warmth and style. Brill...
Shirley Collins - Lodestar. The matriarch of English folk-music records her first album for over thirty years. Her voice has deepened and is richer for it. She's ancient.. and the backing musicians have a long history and respect for her. Cyclone/Coil's Steven Thrower and Oysterband's Ian Keary set the stage perfectly.. dark evenings with a glass of something in front of the fire.
Zomby - Ultra: Post dub/rave/garage/bass/jungle. Ghost memories and fragments from banging clubs and drowsy dawns a long time ago with the urban bass sounds of now. The standout is S.D.Y.F which someone else described as like finding an LTJ Bukem mixtape covered in tobacco under the leather seat of an old M3.
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - The Skeleton Tree. Most of these songs were already written around the time of his son's tragic death and follow the musical template of Push the Sky Away with Warren Ellis calling the shots on arrangements. A tragic, raw and powerful piece of work in mourning but radiating and moving towards the light.
Jenny Hval - Blood Bitch: A visceral concept album anchored around her impressive vocal range from whispered poems to jagged angry hymns. Powerful stuff.
22a - I've bought a load of 12"'s from this independent label this year. Broken beats, hip-hop, UK garage, downbeat house, jazz, and noodly instrumentals all on the same records. All brilliant. Checkout Henry Wu, Jeen Bassa, Tenderlonius, Al Dobson Jr, Dennis Ayler on Soundcloud or Spotify. All this stuff would have disappeared off the shelves from Mark Jones' Store record shop in Sheffield in the mid 90's. I love it all... proper party music and nice to listen too at home with a big glass of red and a loaded vape mod.
Wilco - Schmilco: The best album for years with Nel's Cline in top form on guitar following his decade long Lovers project. Amazing songs, brilliantly arranged and recorded. Cry all Day is Ace.
Shackleton with Ernesto Tomasani: Shackleton continues his departure from bass/dub into really esoteric territory with this double pack 12" that's more Coil/NWW/Psychic TV/Current 93. Really strange.
David Bowie - Blackstar. I kind of missed out on Bowie being born in 1970. Most of my mates a few years older quite rightly hold him in very high regard but he's never been part of my musical canon as my first exposure was him rolling around in the sea on China Girl, singing on Live Aid, Tin Machine or his later stuff and knowing all the big songs through the radio and driving around in my school mate's big fan bohemian Mum's Volvo as a kid. I just don't know his albums inside out like some do so & whilst I appreciated the outpouring earlier this year I didn't feel the oh-my-god-Bowie's-died thing that gripped the media. It's a brilliant album anyway, and I kind of get it now..
A Tribe Called Quest - We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service: A really late entry; 26 years on from their first album; a fine tribute to Phife Dawg who features heavily before his untimely death earlier this year ; a fitting curtain call and wake-up-call for a post Obama political landscape.
Individual tunes and albums of note... De La Soul - Royalty Capes off And the Anonymous Nobody; Ryley Walker - Roundabout off Golden Sings That Have Been Sung; Cate le Bon - Crab Day; King Creosote - The Long Fade off Astronaut Meets Appleman; Aphex Twin - Cheetah; Solange - A Seat at the Table; Sex Swing - Sex Swing (only just heard this and I suspect it might have been in the top ones); Fat White Family - Songs for our Mothers.
Re-issues, yet again there's loads of stuff that's way better than anything that's new.
Mariah - Utukata No Hibi. An amazing 80's Japanese album ranging from electro pop through prog rock to jazz funk. It's really fantastic... seriously.
Betty Davis - The Columbia Years 68-69. Betty Davis heads into the studio with Miles Davis as producer with Jimi Hendrix's and Miles' backing bands to record a smoking album of heavy soul and funk originals. It's amazing.. especially listing to Miles and Betty discussing the recordings on the intros and outros. Betty and Miles married shortly afterwards. Essential...
Bert Jansch - Avocet. This is a flipping' amazing record that could have only come out of the time it was recorded. A concept album about birds recorded with various luminaries from ape tangle, the Albion Band and Fairport convention. A folk album on the surface, it plumbs ambient, cosmic jazz and rock. If you have a record player buy the double box set.
Twin Peaks soundtrack - A remastering and pressing of Angelo Badalament and David Lynch's score pressed on heavy 180g vinyl. It's beautiful.
Jack Rose - All his original LP's. Red Horse, White Mule; Opium Music; Raag Manifestos and Kensington Blues all reissued on CD and pressed on new vinyl. I was lucky enough to be around the first time so have them already but if you like instrumental weird Americana, post-Fahey finger style drone then these are utterly essential to own.
Dadawah - Peace and Love. Ras Michael's Rasta hymn. Mind expanding spiritual dub. Perhaps the greatest cosmic reggae album of all time?
Manuel Gottsching - E2-E4: THE ur-techno record made by AshRa Temple guitarist Gottsching in 1984. An hour long minimalist electronic and guitar track named after a chess move. Amazing stuff.
John Coltrane - Offering Live at Temple. A recently unearthed high quality live recording of JC's performance at Temple Uni in Philly not long before he passed away. Probably his greatest live performance. The apotheosis of his traditional and wild atomic free jazz. At one point in the transcendental version of My Favourite Things he pulls his sax away and starts ululating into the microphone, beating his chest in ecstatic abandon. Maybe one for the fans but my god it's utterly breathtaking, makes your hair stand on end and brings tears to the eyes.
Julius Eastman- Feminine. My mate who runs a record label Frozen Reeds in Finland released this to great acclaim this year. Eastman was a black, gay contemporary/modernist composer who wrote and recorded some incredible music and yet died destitute in 1990. Sleighbells, minimalist, clapping, hypnotic - the only known recording.
This Heat - Deceit, This Heat, Health and Efficiency. Re-releases of the seminal albums of the Camberwell experimental post-rock band that linked early 70's Krautrock with post-punk, industrial noise and industrial music. No This Heat = No PiL, No Birthday Party, No Wire, No Pop Group, No LSD Soundsystem, No Sonic Youth, No Swans etc. Etc.
Steve Reich - Four Organs; loads of cool stuff on Norway's Jazz Aggression label; Axiom.
Loads of stuff I've not heard, post them up. Happy Christmas and best wishes for the New Year.
2016 has been a great year for music. A poignant one with David Bowie, Prince, Lemmy, Leonard Cohen among the greats and other less well known luminaries like Phife Dawg, Alan Vega & David Mancuso and many others passing over to the other side. I suspect the next two years will be an even more fertile period with everything that's going on here in the U.K. and the rest of the world.
Here's some stuff that's been bought on vinyl/CD or had repeated playings on Tidal or Spotify.
Mark Ernestus' Ndagga Rhythm Force - Yermande: Ernestus, one half of Basic Channel and then Rhythm and Sound (all three R&S albums should be in anyone's record collection), aka Maurizio and founder of Berlin's Hardwax takes a headlong deep dive into Senegalese and Gambian music. It's absolutely mesmerising and I can't stop playing it. It's pulling in multiple directions Polyrhythms, Dub, Techno... elastic body/head music. Although these aren't in any order, if I had to pick a #1 to keep this would be it. Go to "Simbe" or "Yermande" if you're on Spotify but play it loud or on headphones for when the kick drum drops in.
Idris Ackamor and the Pyramids - We be all Africans: Its great to see and hear spiritual free-jazz getting an airing with a new audience appreciating it and this year thanks to Kamasi and the coverage on the radio and TV. Ackamor is a time served workman touring with Cecil Taylor back in the 70's and this band las played together back then. Think Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis and Sun-RA restrung for 2016 and you get the picture. There's more good stuff in the reissues down below...
Steve Gunn - Eyes on the lines. I didn't quite take to this at first after the really laid-back last two albums but it's really grown on me. Just great songs, immaculate musicianship and a lovely vibe. Joint top with the first one... went to see him the other week and he's really grown in confidence, warmth and style. Brill...
Shirley Collins - Lodestar. The matriarch of English folk-music records her first album for over thirty years. Her voice has deepened and is richer for it. She's ancient.. and the backing musicians have a long history and respect for her. Cyclone/Coil's Steven Thrower and Oysterband's Ian Keary set the stage perfectly.. dark evenings with a glass of something in front of the fire.
Zomby - Ultra: Post dub/rave/garage/bass/jungle. Ghost memories and fragments from banging clubs and drowsy dawns a long time ago with the urban bass sounds of now. The standout is S.D.Y.F which someone else described as like finding an LTJ Bukem mixtape covered in tobacco under the leather seat of an old M3.
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - The Skeleton Tree. Most of these songs were already written around the time of his son's tragic death and follow the musical template of Push the Sky Away with Warren Ellis calling the shots on arrangements. A tragic, raw and powerful piece of work in mourning but radiating and moving towards the light.
Jenny Hval - Blood Bitch: A visceral concept album anchored around her impressive vocal range from whispered poems to jagged angry hymns. Powerful stuff.
22a - I've bought a load of 12"'s from this independent label this year. Broken beats, hip-hop, UK garage, downbeat house, jazz, and noodly instrumentals all on the same records. All brilliant. Checkout Henry Wu, Jeen Bassa, Tenderlonius, Al Dobson Jr, Dennis Ayler on Soundcloud or Spotify. All this stuff would have disappeared off the shelves from Mark Jones' Store record shop in Sheffield in the mid 90's. I love it all... proper party music and nice to listen too at home with a big glass of red and a loaded vape mod.
Wilco - Schmilco: The best album for years with Nel's Cline in top form on guitar following his decade long Lovers project. Amazing songs, brilliantly arranged and recorded. Cry all Day is Ace.
Shackleton with Ernesto Tomasani: Shackleton continues his departure from bass/dub into really esoteric territory with this double pack 12" that's more Coil/NWW/Psychic TV/Current 93. Really strange.
David Bowie - Blackstar. I kind of missed out on Bowie being born in 1970. Most of my mates a few years older quite rightly hold him in very high regard but he's never been part of my musical canon as my first exposure was him rolling around in the sea on China Girl, singing on Live Aid, Tin Machine or his later stuff and knowing all the big songs through the radio and driving around in my school mate's big fan bohemian Mum's Volvo as a kid. I just don't know his albums inside out like some do so & whilst I appreciated the outpouring earlier this year I didn't feel the oh-my-god-Bowie's-died thing that gripped the media. It's a brilliant album anyway, and I kind of get it now..
A Tribe Called Quest - We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service: A really late entry; 26 years on from their first album; a fine tribute to Phife Dawg who features heavily before his untimely death earlier this year ; a fitting curtain call and wake-up-call for a post Obama political landscape.
Individual tunes and albums of note... De La Soul - Royalty Capes off And the Anonymous Nobody; Ryley Walker - Roundabout off Golden Sings That Have Been Sung; Cate le Bon - Crab Day; King Creosote - The Long Fade off Astronaut Meets Appleman; Aphex Twin - Cheetah; Solange - A Seat at the Table; Sex Swing - Sex Swing (only just heard this and I suspect it might have been in the top ones); Fat White Family - Songs for our Mothers.
Re-issues, yet again there's loads of stuff that's way better than anything that's new.
Mariah - Utukata No Hibi. An amazing 80's Japanese album ranging from electro pop through prog rock to jazz funk. It's really fantastic... seriously.
Betty Davis - The Columbia Years 68-69. Betty Davis heads into the studio with Miles Davis as producer with Jimi Hendrix's and Miles' backing bands to record a smoking album of heavy soul and funk originals. It's amazing.. especially listing to Miles and Betty discussing the recordings on the intros and outros. Betty and Miles married shortly afterwards. Essential...
Bert Jansch - Avocet. This is a flipping' amazing record that could have only come out of the time it was recorded. A concept album about birds recorded with various luminaries from ape tangle, the Albion Band and Fairport convention. A folk album on the surface, it plumbs ambient, cosmic jazz and rock. If you have a record player buy the double box set.
Twin Peaks soundtrack - A remastering and pressing of Angelo Badalament and David Lynch's score pressed on heavy 180g vinyl. It's beautiful.
Jack Rose - All his original LP's. Red Horse, White Mule; Opium Music; Raag Manifestos and Kensington Blues all reissued on CD and pressed on new vinyl. I was lucky enough to be around the first time so have them already but if you like instrumental weird Americana, post-Fahey finger style drone then these are utterly essential to own.
Dadawah - Peace and Love. Ras Michael's Rasta hymn. Mind expanding spiritual dub. Perhaps the greatest cosmic reggae album of all time?
Manuel Gottsching - E2-E4: THE ur-techno record made by AshRa Temple guitarist Gottsching in 1984. An hour long minimalist electronic and guitar track named after a chess move. Amazing stuff.
John Coltrane - Offering Live at Temple. A recently unearthed high quality live recording of JC's performance at Temple Uni in Philly not long before he passed away. Probably his greatest live performance. The apotheosis of his traditional and wild atomic free jazz. At one point in the transcendental version of My Favourite Things he pulls his sax away and starts ululating into the microphone, beating his chest in ecstatic abandon. Maybe one for the fans but my god it's utterly breathtaking, makes your hair stand on end and brings tears to the eyes.
Julius Eastman- Feminine. My mate who runs a record label Frozen Reeds in Finland released this to great acclaim this year. Eastman was a black, gay contemporary/modernist composer who wrote and recorded some incredible music and yet died destitute in 1990. Sleighbells, minimalist, clapping, hypnotic - the only known recording.
This Heat - Deceit, This Heat, Health and Efficiency. Re-releases of the seminal albums of the Camberwell experimental post-rock band that linked early 70's Krautrock with post-punk, industrial noise and industrial music. No This Heat = No PiL, No Birthday Party, No Wire, No Pop Group, No LSD Soundsystem, No Sonic Youth, No Swans etc. Etc.
Steve Reich - Four Organs; loads of cool stuff on Norway's Jazz Aggression label; Axiom.
Loads of stuff I've not heard, post them up. Happy Christmas and best wishes for the New Year.
