Speaking as someone who has endured a bus full of kids scream singing Moana tunes, Tom is describing hell on Earth and I don’t blame that bus driver for a second.
I went back and listened to all the metal I had listened to this year before making my list and realized I had forgotten how much that A Pregnant Light album slaps
Some of my favorites
That Floating Points is very good
Leif - Loom Dream
Fennesz - Agora
Jacques Greene - Dawn Chorus
Steve Hauschildt - Nonlin
Rohbag Wruhme - Venq Tolep
Ulla Strauss - Big Room
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Tracing Back The Radiance
Also I saw someone talking some trash on BoC’s Tomorrow’s Harvest this week. I’m not going to defend it for what it’s not, but I will defend it for what it is: a gorgeous soundtrack to a never made 70s film about a nuclear apocalypse. Like an art house The Day After. At least that’s what it sounds like in my head.
READER LIST TOP 10
1. Obsequiae- The Palms of Sorrowed Kings
2. Flesh of The Stars - Mercy
3. Mystagogue - And The Darkness Was Cast Out Into The Wilderness
4. Inter Arma - Sulphur English
5. A Pregnant Light - Broken Play
6. Blood Incantation- Hidddn History Of The Human Race
7. Netherbird - Into The Vast Uncharted
8. Tomb Mold - Planetary Clairvoyance
9. Bhleg - Äril
10. Brutus - Nest
Considering Our Love is Rush Limbaugh’s favorite Carobou record, I’m gonna have to stay on the right side of history and say Swim is better.
*your reminder that a xannied out Limbaugh once ranted about how great “Can’t Do Without You” is on his radio show because this is the worst timeline
1. Purple Mountains - s/t
2. (Sandy) Alex G - House of Sugar
3. William Tyler - Goes West
4. Big Thief - UFOF
5. Mannequin Pussy - Patience
6. Wand - Laughing Matter
7. Steve Gunn - The Unseen In Between
8. Cass McCombs - Tip Of The Sphere
9. Crumb - Jinx
10. Whitney - Forever Turned Around
11. Strand of Oaks - Eraserland
12. Vampire Weekend - Father Of The Bride
13. DIIV - Deceiver
14. Fennesz - Agora
15. Jay Som - Anak Ko
16. Hand Habits - placeholder
17. Great Grandpa- Four of Arrows
18. Leif - Loom Dream
19. Nilufer Yanya - Miss Universe
20. Black Midi - Schlagenheim
21. Bon Iver - i, i
22. Empath - Active Listening: Night on Earth
23. Pure Bathing Culture- Night Pass
24. Big Thief - Two Hands
25. Jake Xerxes Fussell - Out of Sight
26. Rohbag Wruhme - Venq Tolep
27. Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Tracing Back The Radiance
28. Steve Hauschildt- Nonlin
29. Jacques Greene - Dawn Chorus
30. Ulla Strauss - Big Room
You know, I’ve tried but never managed to get into Arthur Russell beyond knowing he’s a supremely beloved and respected figure in dance and avant-garde. I have a big soft spot for dance music (which is admittedly a pretty big blind spot with Stereogum), any recommendations on where to start with Russell’s more disco-esque stuff? I’d be willing to give it another try.
I’ve kinda looked at it as a Very Online maximalist vision of emo funneled through the kind of access to tech and sounds that these bands have. Crying is another band that I immediately thought of here, where there’s just a lot going on, like a kid losing it at a candy store, but the store is the synthesizer section at Guitar Center. I like it, but it can be kind of exhausting.
20 songs, can’t order them
Hop Along - The Knock
boygenius- Ketchum, ID
Flying Lotus - Galaxy In Janaki
Yob - Marrow
Big Thief - Mythological Beauty
Whitney - Follow
The War On Drugs - An Ocean In Between The Waves
Kurt Vile - Ghost Town
Preoccupations - Death
Tribulation - Strange Gateways Beckon
William Tyler - Cult of the Peacock Angel
Wild Nothing - Shadow
Beach House - Silver Soul
Smith Westerns - Weekend
(Sandy) Alex G - Bobby
Real Estate - Green Aisles
Titus Andronicus - Four Score And Seven
Yumi Zouma - Persephone
Emeralds - Goes By
Deerhunter - He Would Have Laughed
1. The War On Drugs - Lost In The Dream
2. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest
3. Kirt Vile - Walk-in On A Pretty Daze
4. William Tyler - Behold The Spirit
5. Emeralds - Does It Look Like I’m Here
6. (Sandy) Alex G - Rocket
7. Beach House - Teen Dream
8. Obsequiae- Aria Of Vernal Tombs
9. Lotus Plaza - Spooky Action At A Distance
10. Destroyer - Kaputt
11. Jamie XX - In Color
12. Panopticon - Autumn Eternal
13. Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma
14. Preoccupations - Viet Cong
15. The War On Drugs - A Deeper Understanding
16. Bing & Ruth - Tomorrow Was The Golden Age
17. Titus Andronicus- The Monitor
18. Purple Mountains - s/t
19. Yob- Clearing The Path To Ascend
20. William Tyler - Impossible Truth
Purple Mountains deserves a spot here but I have no idea where.
This band is awesome. Active Listening is super underrated and they remind me a lot of an artier No Age, which I really dig. Their live show is great too, I saw them open for Mannequin Pussy and their drummer is a god damn octopus
The new DIIV is just gonna slip right by huh? Don’t let it! Oshin-era DIIV probably isn’t coming back, but grungy depressive DIIV is really growing on me
You might like “Shark Smile” off of Capacity, the guitar on that one is pretty neat. And “Jenni” off UFOF is slow but pretty heavy, especially towards the end
To get way too personal, I can’t listen to this album. I was an upperclassman in college at this point and living with one of my best friends, who was emotionally spiraling out of control due to some seriously awful family issues that were coming to a head. Due to his traditional “macho” upbringing he had no mechanism for emotional release or even assessing what he was fleeting so he self medicated with coke and painkillers, and I didn’t realize just how bad it had gotten. He also listened to this album and Modest Mouse’s The Moon And Antarctica pretty much constantly. In February 2011 it came to a head, and l’m pretty sure this is the last thing he listened to the night he overdosed and passed. I was a fairly casual fan of Kid Cudi’s music before that. I avoid the sound of his voice now, and pretty much stopped listening to Modest Mouse as well. It makes perfect sense though that a generation of young people who know they’re feeling awful inside but don’t know how to process it would be drawn to this album.
I haven’t felt this level of devotion to an artist in a longggggg time. I keep going back and digging up older albums that I haven’t listened to yet and each one blows me away. And I mean, Rocket has stuck with me to the point where it’s one of my favorite albums of the decade. If the singles are any indication this is probably my album of the year. Dude makes Twin Peaks indie for townies and it’s my jam.
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