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2010 in Music

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KvP:

--- Quote from: David_Dovey on 19 Dec 2010, 11:02 ---
--- Quote from: KvP on 18 Dec 2010, 20:03 ---This Is Happening did not continually and perfectly elucidate the inner turmoil of white middle-aged creative types everywhere.

It is for this reason that This Is Happening iss a disappointment.

--- End quote ---

yes yes how dare a white middle-aged guy write about what it is like to be a white middle-aged guy HOW DARE HE

--- End quote ---
sarcasim

StaedlerMars:
Yeah, having a look at some (one) end of year lists:

Warpaint - The Fool
The Radio Dept - Clinging to a Scheme

really good.

KvP:
Here are my albums of the year.

10. The Internal Tulips - Mislead Into a Field by a Deformed Deer
While Mike Paradinas' tastes have brought his Planet Mu imprint more or less entirely into the realm of progressive-leaning bass music and (more recently) Chicago juke and footwork, he allows a few vestiges of the label's more adventurous and  noise/glitch/IDM past to remain. A collaboration between Lexaunculpt and Electric Company, who both released stuff in Mu's Venetian Snares-dominated heyday. Personally I find this music a lot more interesting than their former work - in place of nondescript glitch, Mislead Into a Field by a Deformed Deer features a lot of throwbacks to AM radio pop in Lexaunculpt's vocal harmonies, backed by lots of shiny electronic texture.

09. Gil Scott-Heron - I'm Still Here
I initially heard about this from a friend as "Gil Scott-Heron comes back, Scott Walker style", which blew my fucking mind (I was listening to the overlooked classic Bridges at the time), and while that didn't turn out to be exactly the case it was true in part - it wasn't so much a descent into avant-garde as a radical shift in sound that illustrated the journey Scott-Heron has taken. He's (mostly) no longer a soulful voice of conscience but a weathered elder statesman, with a new slur in his voice and a bluesman's gnarled croak. I wasn't as big a fan of the production as a lot of people were, and all in all I find myself listening to the snippets of conversation peppering the record (particularly those in the bonus disc that came with the vinyl version), but all the stories and the character in this album are enough to put it up here. I just hope he doesn't disappear again.

08. Demdike Stare - Liberation Through Hearing
When Peter Christopherson died, I listened to this album whilst going through my grief, and it helped quite a bit. I'd always been a much bigger fan of Coil's late-period run of drone-y/folk-y mysticism than its earlier, harsher music, and Demdike Stare looks to be, at least on some level, picking up that mantle. A lot of the songs here could have fit perfectly in the Equinox/Solstice series of Coil EPs (particularly "Regolith" and "The Stars Are Moving"). Top-shelf dark ambience. They're even named after a famous witch! I haven't had a chance to catch up with their other albums released this year (Voices of Dust arrived on vinyl just yesterday) but given the quality of this album I have high hopes.

07. Autechre - Oversteps
Despite my unabashed love for IDM, Autechre's shift in emphasis from hip hop/techno soundscapes to dense, glitchy procedural music was not something I took particularly well, and despite their run of records up through LP5 being some of my all-time favorites I didn't hold out much hope of their returning to that well again. So it was with no small amount of excitement that I heard Oversteps, which isn't just a return but an advancement of Autechre's sensibility, with songs like "known(1)" and "Treale" displaying a remarkable fusion of Autechre's IDM past with its more austere avant-garde leanings. I liked Move of Ten a little bit less, but it grows on me every time I hear it.

06. Black Math - Phantom Power
I only got this last week but it's making a huge, huge impression on me. Black Math are from Chicago and reside on the Permanent Records imprint, and on their latest LP they vacillate between the goth-glam disco of The Hundred in the Hands and a more pop-friendly version of Big Black. Considering I never really took to Steve Albini's lyrical provocations this is a very good thing for me. It's helped immensely by the lo-fi production (and I'm generally not enamored of lo-fi sound) and the "live" feel of the music.

05. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest
On those occasions where I listen to non-electronic music I tend to gravitate towards bands that explore dark subject matter have and insane / troubled / magnetic frontmen, so I latched onto Deerhunter pretty quickly around Microcastle day. For Halcyon Digest they dial back the murk somewhat with the help of AnCo's Merriweather Post Pavilion producer (who makes himself most heard in the first few seconds of "Helicopter", the worst few seconds on the album even though it's a great song) and explore the sounds of psychedelic pop at the expense of some of the band's shoegaze-y leanings. A lot of people thought this was an unwelcome intrusion of Bradford Cox's Atlas Sound guise into his day job band, but I thought it worked pretty well as a different expression of the band's sensibility and a progression into brighter, more hopeful territory after the oppressive darkness of Microcastle, which wore me down (and entered my life at an unfortunate time) to such an extent that I can barely listen to it now. If they follow the example of "Coronado" and make an album in the vein of Lust For Life I will be a very happy boy (though that will probably never happen).

04. Forest Swords - Dagger Paths
I really have no idea how this act keeps getting referred to as playing some sort of variation on dubstep. I think Forest Swords fits more into the conversation about lo-fi bedroom producers, of which he is an exceptional specimen. Perfect use of reverb and delay, simple-but-effective drumming, and more Morricone-esque guitar than you can shake a stick at. There are quietly powerful moments peppered throughout every song. At this point in the list it really becomes a tie for the #1 spot, because this could easily make it to the top in a slightly leaner year. The cover of "If Your Girl" is easily the best song of the year.

03. Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky
Like a lot of people I was both perturbed and excited by the prospect of a new Swans record 14 years after the last one, minus Jarboe. We should have had more faith - Michael Gira is not one to half-ass this sort of thing, and on MFWGMUARTTS (longest title of the year?) he reminds us why he is considered by all the right people to the be father of post-metal. There's only the slightest bit of Gira's no wave / industrial past on this record (the siren guitar[?] that ushers in "No Words No Thoughts" and the epilogue to the awesomely named "You Fucking People Make Me Sick" are perhaps the only glimpses we get) but you definitely get a sense of Gira's continued fascination with the darker sides of folk music he's promoted as head of Young God over the last decade or so. Like #9, it's criminally short, but MFWGMUARTTS is great both in what it provides and what it promises for the future. I've got tickets to see them live in February, and while I'll never get to see them in their apparently soul-shattering prime I fully expect to have my mind blown.

02. Solar Bears - She Was Coloured In
Based on all the hype surrounding this act I was expecting an Irish Boards of Canada, but while BoC is definitely embedded in Solar Bears' genome they set themselves well apart from that venerable group. Sharing an affinity for Morricone with #4 and a label with #10, the group is as New Age as it is IDM as it is post-rock as it is disco. It can get a little bit too chill-out at times, but it is impeccably produced throughout and possessed of more than a few really remarkable moments of beauty, and a singular focus and vision that's rare in a new act.

01. Nest - Retold
Definitely the best impulse purchase I made this year, Nest is a pair of Norwegian / UK producers,  Otto Totland (of Deaf Center) and Huw Roberts (who runs Nest's Serein imprint), who make cinematic ambient music. Perhaps it's just my peculiar taste but I just cannot get over how beautiful and evocative so much of this music is. It came at a perfect time, just as I received and was considerably disappointed by Eluvium's newest record. I made this album the custom soundtrack to my games of Fallout: New Vegas and it was damned perfect. I've also had some correspondence with the guys and they are as humble and generous as they are talented. Listen to it, maybe you'll like it as much as I do. If there's one album on this list that I could force people to buy, it'd be this one.

Didn't quite make it!
Starkey - Ear Drums and Black Holes
Nuearz - Face Lift
Lego - Hand Made
Lil B - Rain in England


Also... My five favorite Singles / EPs of the year!

05. Dexter - Not the Only Girl EP
2010 was, if nothing else, the year that I discovered a love for good House music, due almost entirely to Night Slugs and the Voyage Direct series overseen by Rush Hour. This was the first release in the latter series (they're up to three now, all excellent), a sleek euro-disco cut perfect for a night out. It was at this point that I admitted that yeah, a simple 4/4 beat might be just enough to make a great song.
(All sold out at boomkat :smithicide:)

04. Dextro - Zero Circle EP
Over the last few years I've become a voracious consumer of UK bass music but when I was growing up I listened to, breathed, slept and ate IDM of all sorts. The ponderous rate of output for most artists in the genre ('cept for good old Luke Vibert) drove me to greener pastures, but when something that's even vaguely braindance-y comes out I snap it up in a split second. This year I bought the Zero Circle EP on an impulse and as soon as I dropped the needle I was intoxicated by the melody and the drama of Dextro's clearly Campfire Headphase-indebted "Ring Cycle". The live version is even better! My only regret is that Alias didn't do much of anything with "The Pacifist", the slacker.
(All sold out at boomkat :smithicide:)

03. Keith Fullerton Whitman - Variations For Oud and Synthesizer
At first it was hard to believe that the avant-garde composer Keith Fullerton Whitman used to dispense with weird, sensational breakcore as Hrvatski back in the early aughts, but the more I listen to him (and I get anything I can from him) the more the Hrvatski alias seems to deviate from the "breakcore" moniker and become simpatico with his later, more esoteric works. Like a lot of stuff that KFW releases these days, Variations For Oud and Synthesizer is archival, but it's a bit of a departure from his other stuff in that it's anchored by an acoustic instrument (the Egyptian oud) and thus isn't as "procedural" or academic in nature. It recalls, to my mind, Selected Ambient Works Vol. II, Mark Morgan's original soundtrack for Fallout, and Coil's experiments in neo-folk all at once. But it is at the same time thoroughly and unmistakably KFW's baby.

02. EOD - Utrecht
Found about this one through SA, as it was made by a goon! Truly, truly excellent acid techno classicism, like vintage Warp. Every track here is pretty damned awesome, at least if you love IDM as much as I do, from the warmly oscillating pads of the title track to the harder AFXian acid of "Flab", there isn't a single ounce of fat here. It's just about pitch-perfect.

01. Ramadanman - Glut / Tempest
"Glut" was Ramadanman's breakthrough single for me, the one that really made me take notice of him and the first (and best) to really signify his signature tight juke programming and devastating chord drops. It's kind of sitting in for Ramadanman's considerable output in singles this year as a whole (the format definitely suits him, I think). Still, those fucking chords just get me every time I listen to that song.

Huh, that turned out longer than I thought it would! As an added bonus, here are the artists that made me, temporarily, hate sound and music in all its forms:
Shpongle
Bassnectar
Skrillex
Salem

Melodic:
KvP: Overthinkin' till the end of days

David_Dovey:
Parts of the post I heartily approve of:


--- Quote from: KvP on 19 Dec 2010, 15:24 ---Huh, that turned out longer than I thought it would! As an added bonus, here are the artists that made me, temporarily, hate sound and music in all its forms:
Shpongle
Bassnectar
Skrillex
Salem

--- End quote ---

Parts of the post I didn't even understand:

The rest

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