Albums I've enjoyed so far (not in order):
The Alps - A Path Through the Sun
The Alps - A Path Through the Moon
The above are two cd-rs released by Root Strata and are culled from the same recording session that produced 'III'. They're gorgeous, hazy albums with heavy kraut-rock influence. Very cool stuff.
MONO - Hymn to the Immortal Wind
The best album I've heard this year. It's breathtaking. An immense, epic, soaring piece of work. Can't recommend it enough.
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Vs. Children
A great album about bank robbers. Oh, and also sometimes about parents and being a parent and being afraid of being a parent. Owen finally has a band working with him now and the extra instrumentation, while certainly fairly minimal, add a lot of depth to these poignant little songs.
Tarentel - You Can't Hide Your Love Forever Volume 3: Space Junk
A 7" with two tracks, both awesome. Tribal drumming, billowing waves of distortion, screeching, careening noise. Basically standard Tarentel at this point (which means it's great!)
Hildur Gudnadottir - Without Sinking
A beautiful album from avant-garde cellist Hildur Gudnadottir. A sad yet luminous album, Gudnadottir is joined by various other musicians contributing violin, viola, acoustic guitar and more to her droning, looping, mournful cello.
Seaworthy - 1897
A series of ambient guitar pieces mixed, matched, paired and complemented with field recordings taken in and around an old ammunition depot. Seaworthy is like a less distorted version of Eluvium (sort of) in that he uses primarily a guitar and some simple looping techniques to produce complex and wonderful songs.
Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words - Lost in Reflection
A haunting, droning piece of ambient brilliance. Minimal and dreamy and dark. Very cool stuff!
If These Trees Could Talk - Above the Earth, Below the Sky
These guys are one of the best new post-rock bands out there. This is their first full length and it's surprisingly mature and compelling. It's what you might expect from a very good post-rock band with heavy, epic, quiet-loud dynamics but they do have a recognizable sound. Probably better than the latest This Will Destroy You album and a very good holdover until the next Explosions in the Sky albums finds its way out.
Last Days - The Safety of the North
A conflation of story and music, this amazing album has bits of vocals, dialog and narrative throughout. It's a beautiful album, another very quiet, often ambient, restrained piece of work. Simple, elegant guitar manipulations, field recordings, electoacoustics and more make this a really gorgeous listen.
Looking forward to new albums by:
Eluvium
Do Make Say Think
Sunset Rubdown
Iron and Wine
Grizzly Bear
Isis
Arcade Fire (maybe??)
65daysofstatic
Tarentel/Seaworthy split (and anything else Tarentel cares to release)
Things that have let me down a bit:
Tim Hecker - In an Imaginary Country
This one didn't do much for me. I love Hecker but I felt not connection with this album. Maybe I should revisit it...
The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love
This was a very mediocre album. I dunno, I found myself a bit disinterested with it almost all the way through. Yes, there are some cool songs but the whole 'rock opera' concept kinda failed and resulted, mostly, in unnecessary and often irritating refrains from older songs more than anything else. I was let down by this.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!
What the fuck happened? This is an absolutely boring album at best. None of the angry energy of their earlier work, the band seems content here to make dismally bland synth pop in what seems to be a sad attempt to jump on the popular bandwagon. Quite sad indeed!
