2014 - Favorite Unheralded Album(s)

Hopefully this doesn't align with any other 2014 ILM threads. Basically, I'm looking for the album you've been playing nonstop, and loving, but not seeing much love from critical circles/ILM threads. It can be anything that you feel has fallen threw the cracks, attention-wise.

I have two albums, one about a month old, and one from June.

1.) Geoffrey O'Connor - Fan Fiction
2.) Strand of Oaks - Heal

Geoffrey O'Connor's album reminds me of a mix of Duran Duran, Ford & Lopatin, other 80's-based synthpop music.
Strand of Oaks' latest album is a mixture of classic rock, grunge and oughts indie.

Iamsu! -- Sincerely Yours

if the rest of Remember Me was as ill as "College Drop" I'd say that too. P Lo > DJ Grey Poupon (more like FOR ME TO POOP ON hah remember that)

Archipelago - Archipelago Matters

Sort of a nerdy, bouncy interpretation of the eighties with one foot in the present.

Geoffrey O'Connor! Used to see that guy manning the box office at the Nova Cinema on the reg. His first solo thing was decent (always liked him better fronting Crayon Fields). Will give the new one a listen.

William Ryan Fritch's Leave Me Like You Found Me - gorgeous clattering dustblown chamber-y stuff

pretties for you 'we have our reasons'

bomastic swedish new wavey type thing, way too good to be as ignored as it is

(holding my tongue on my opinion of the new geoff o'c)

Good thread

There is a (v brief) thread about them but I really love the protomartyr album

Also like... Alex g?

Leon vynehall do ppl care about him? He made like my fav electronic album of yr

I dunno Alex g is like if u were in my life in 1999 I would have been like omg

It's like fall of 2000 when i was rising jimmy corrigan and listening to tara Jane o neil

Rising = reading

Thousands - Dream Isle

This, by a guy I know: https://soundcloud.com/bamnan/sets/problems

Track 3 is one of the most astonishing things I've heard from a 'hey I also make music sometimes' messageboard poster, it's pure Hammill-meets-Steve-Mason

I can't stop playing Histrionic by Maria Minerva. Every week I've got a different hook from it stuck in my head.

I thought (and really hoped) it was going to be huge for her but outside of a decent review in Wire no one seemed to care :(

Comet Gain--Paperback Ghosts

odawas 'reflections of a pink laser'
sonido gallo negro 'sendero mistico'

stars in battle dress 'in droplet form'

Oh fuck SIB released an album!!! Will be on that asap

The Durutti Column and Roddy Frame albums are probably my favorite releases of the year, but have received next to no discussion that I've seen.

childbirth's early 2014 disc, it's a girl!. also already going to say girlpool's soon-to-be-reissued disc, featuring jane. i guess the album didn't get much traction when it was first self-released early in 2014. both great; hysterical lyrics, hook-y, full of attitude.

There was a Durutti Column record this year??

The three records I've been playing constantly are all different types of psychedelic rock, which never seems to get much notice from critics or ILM outside the rolling thread.

Black Bombaim - Far Out. Two long jams from Portugal's answer to Earthless, with a different guest on each track.
Comet Control - Comet Control. The creative forces behind Toronto's lamented Quest For Fire, Comet Control melds psych and pop and Pink Floyd and all sorts of thing into a catchy concoction.
Kikigaku Moyo - Forest of Lost Children. The latest record from this young Japanese psych band who blew me away at Austin Psych Fest. Dreamy and odd with 60s-style psychedlic roots. Really good electric sitar player.

Thanks for heads up on Comet Gain album. Had no idea it existed.

The Comet Gain record is my favorite of theirs in a long time.

https://bleep.com/release/51314-esteban-adame-day-labor

esteban adame - day labor

tasteful unfussy light touch techno / deep house

ed sheeran

Jennifer Castle's Pink City album deserves much more love.

Comet Control - Comet Control. The creative forces behind Toronto's lamented Quest For Fire, Comet Control melds psych and pop and Pink Floyd and all sorts of thing into a catchy concoction.

Uhh...yes, please. Loved QFF, going to check CC out rn. Thx, EZ!

yeah, that kikigaku moyo album is real nice

alpine static, I hope you like it.

Between the new Kikagaku Moyo and the two North American reissues of their prior work they're owning 2014.

i love the leon vynehall album, the "butterflies" single is brilliant as well. warm summertime house vibes yessss

i feel like most of my favourite albums this year are critically and commercially unheralded

cher lloyd - sorry i'm late

a volte-face from the sugary bratpop of her debut: depressive emo powerballadry about weakness, vulnerability, despair, loss, the brokenness of being human. interspersed with a few token upbeat songs telling boys to fuck off. sold about three copies i think

khia shamone - lovelocs

khia of "my neck, my back" fame is back in her r&b guise. ludicrous, ludicrously inventive. nine-minute harp-led slow jams, vulgar hooks everywhere, a ragtime gender-flipped reprise of "my neck, my back". she's completely in her own lane these days

gangsta boo & la chat - witch

old girls killing it in rap this year (see also shawnna, remy ma), harder than your favourite hardest rapper. love the way they switch between horror and mean girls imagery and sound elephantine on both

francis harris - minutes of sleep

gorgeous, immersive electronic stuff (got into this through a dj sprinkles tip; would recommend to fans of voices from the lake)

mirel wagner - when the cellar children see the light of day

she's got her own thread that about 5 people post on; creepy as fuck, uncomfortably enunciated dark finnish folk

katie pearl - make it official

not strictly new but davinche uploaded the unreleased r&g album he did with her back in '05ish. ilm back then would've lapped it up

cher lloyds record is non-stop great fun
personal fav track is the finale 'alone with me' but truth be told any of the tracks could come on a shuffle list and i'd be happy

Agreeing with the love for the Kikagaku Moyo. Very nice.

Yeah "Alone With Me" is great, almost like Rachel Stevens in a more plaintive mode. That bit in "Sirens" though where she's like "I am tired, I'm growing older / I'm getting weaker everyday" is so unexpectedly sobering.

yeah her delivery on that! also "go on, put the knife in" on "sweet despair" (which i think was co-written by beth ditto)

I should stay off this thread because I rarely play any LP more than about three times let alone nonstop. BUT since you ask:

- the Kali Mutsa album Souvenance is very odd but well worth seeking out; you can stream all of it on Soundcloud. Chilean gypsy pop princess meets avant garde electronica. Half in your face, half Gilles Peterson presents..., with one-of-a-kind vocals.

- there's a new Gemma Ray album out, Milk For Your Motors. Apart from two or three nods from Doran, I'm still the only person who mentions this pop-noir songwriter on ILM. I've only listened to this once and the two tracks from her 'death disc' 7" from earlier this year leapt out as highlights and are still in my head now. But hoping that means the rest will grow on me too. She's returned to the outlaw country style of the early days of her career on this record (lots of guitar string bending) though Fiona Brice's orchestral arrangments add a further dimension.

Cher Lloyd CD is on order.

truly overlooked:

<a href="https://fishtankfriends.bandcamp.com/album/7day-4cast";>Little Weather, 7DAY 4CAST</a>

super young producer i met playing some shows in the northwest, impeccably put together 808s & sunshine.

much less overlooked but still:

mirel wagner
sd laika
poolboy92
jim-e stack
open mike eagle

oops

http://olewnick.blogspot.com/search?q=marc+baron

Hidden Tapes by Marc Baron

Haven't seen any mention on this site.. Album almost feels tailored to appeal to those interested in Graham Lambkin and Jason Lescalleet.

A record I haven't been playing enough (at least based on putting it on today and loving it from start to finish) is The Cult of Dom Keller's The Second Bardo. Another psych rock record, this time of the English post-Loop variety.

Alvvays - Alvaays
Frankie Cosmos - Zentropy

very indie choices (if not twee) so i figure they'll get ignored by large swaths of ILM, but I really really enjoy both of these.

Also Whoop Dee Doo by the Muffs, same narrative.

I finally got round to that Kikigaku Moyo album, it's very derivative but joyously wonderful as well.

just from a quick listen I like the mirel wagner album as well.

Going to give another shout for that brilliant Jennifer Castle album' Pink City and mention it's ILX significance in that Owen P did the beautiful string arrangements on it.

Nathan Roche Magnetic Memories

Maybe this will be heralded, dunno, but Pure Reality, the debut from Dark Blue, comes out in a couple weeks on the Jade Tree label; it's streaming in full here:

http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/228746/premiere-dark-blue-stream-debut-album-pure-reality-in-full/

Dark Blue is made up of Philly indie rock veterans John Sharkey III (Clockcleaner, Puerto Rico Flowers) Andrew Mackie Nelson (Ceremony, Paint it Black, Puerto Rico Flowers) and Michael Sneeringer (Strand of Oaks, formerly from Purling Hiss, Puerto Rico Flowers).

The debut "Pure Reality" could be the soundtrack to a John Hughes movie provided that Ian Curtis wrote it. It and it reminds me of when I was a teenager in the '80s and I would turn to a then-nascent WHFS. The album is more catchy than twitchy which is fine, and I especially love the darkness that permeates the proceedings, punctuated with slashing guitars and stately baritone vocals.

Self-released and so far, unheralded: Caroline Peyton's Homeseeker's Paradise, cut w/ Lambchop's producer and pianist, and w/ William Tyler, who recently played a show in Nashville with her to mark album release. Some trax here.

oh, looks like the last track is, but w/e

Sanpaku: I don't know why I hadn't found it before but there's some live-in-the-studio Emma Ruth Rundle stuff on Youtube that's well worth watching. Love this so much ==> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3_WpBfsuFY

oh shit, sorry for imbed

Noura Mint Seymali's Tzenni is maybe even more amazing than xpost Jucara Marcal's Encarnado, because while the latter fits the highwire soul post-tradition of post-Tropicalia, almost post-avant (Arto/Ribot) melody x mutation---in other words, new configurations of known elements and urges---Seymali's sound expands my ears and vocabulary. Although, while reading the bio after listening, I did have a few associations reinforced by mention of colleagues Tinariwen and especially Bassakou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba, 'cause I sometimes had fleeting flashbacks toJama Ko while spinning in Seymali's wake. Even tried to say it on Twitter:

Noura Mint Seymali, Tzenni: Her voice ripples soars dips pivots around sinewy subtle elec 4tet griot Arabclassic psychfunkoid Sahel system

People let me tell you, Jane Weaver's album The Silver Globe is a doozy.

Yeah Tzenni has been steadily growing on me. I checked it out when the Quietus list came out a couple weeks back.

Re Arto Lindsay, those look like fine song selections, but I'm a big fan of his albums. Can't believe it's been a decade since Salt. I hope he gets back into it.

People let me tell you, Jane Weaver's album The Silver Globe is a doozy.

Just got plugged into this one. It's great!

Here's a couple of 2014 ambient albums I haven't seen people discuss on ILM:

Move D - Silent Orbiter

http://www.israbox.com/uploads/posts/2014-02/1391594408_front.jpg

A single-tune piece of old school drone ambient. According to his liner notes, Move D had it lying around for a few years and meant to release it via FAX, but then Pete Namlook died, and he realized it would serve as a requiem for him. Fitting to that description, it starts quite dark and industrial, but ends with a glimmer of hope and transcendence.

Oliver Lieb - Inside Voices

http://25.media.tumblr.com/9426d386c7b553dc1aace176d97767dd/tumblr_n35uwaD5Dh1rvg6x8o1_r4_400.jpg

This another dark ambient album, but it has shorter tracks with melodies and arpeggios and stuff, no beats though. If you like Lieb's 90s cosmic ambient material, this is like a creepier update of it, could be a soundtrack to some understated sci-fi horror movie.

Iotronica - Of Moons and Stars

Pretty impressive debut album of Vangelis-style, floaty space synth music, I started a thread of its own for this one:

Iotronica - Of Moons and Stars, the cosmic ambient / new age space music album of the year?

Hitherto unmentioned:
http://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000075826158-u4jmmc-crop.jpg

Eaux - Plastics

Sci-fi distopia soundtrack synth trio with cooing/obscure vocals on ATP Recordings, with jam-evolved motorik songs self-described as "never finished, just abandoned." Musical neighbors might include uptempo Seefeel and Factory Floor, but the tracks shuffle seamlessly in my end-year relistening to Andy Stott, Gazelle Twin, HTRK etc. Streams/samples: Spotify album stream, Head (Soundcloud), The Light Falls Through Itself (Soundcloud), Head (official video), The Light Falls Through Itself (Live at ATP video)

In a year with many good Pop albums, my personal favorite is Little Daylight's Hello Memory...

I also like the Emm Gryner and Strand of Oaks albums mentioned earlier. And if you miss late-80s a-ha-style New Wave, Garbo STHLM are making it again!

some of these are probably heralded but here goes

The Budos Band - "Burnt Offering" (instrumental soul meets afrobeat combo. some powerful horns on this one, generally dont dig Daptone but this is great)

Posse - "Soft Opening" (minimal spindly indie stuff with some great lyrics about relationship headfuckery...if u like Pod-era Breeders, youd like this i think)

Isiah Rashad - "Cilvia Demo" (best rap album i heard all year, admirably neurotic, questioning and bullshit free..."heavenly father" will make you cry)

co-sign Isaiah Rashad, Cilvia Demo really consumed a lot of my summer listening & his performance was a highlight at Pitchfork

Just found out that John Zorn released the seventh (and apparently final) album by his Moonchild group (Mike Patton, Trevor Dunn and Joey Baron, plus guests, in this case John Medeski) in November. Ordered a copy immediately; Moonchild is the best thing he's done since Painkiller fell apart in the early 90s.

I've had the promo of this all year and yet haven't made/found the time to write a review. Great album, and I wish you could hear the whole thing below. These guys are the business.

http://sontagshogun.bandcamp.com/album/tale

Last year an old college roommate discovered The Budos Band. He was in the military for 25 years and did not keep current with music, but that band inspired him to go out and see them live with Electric Citizen opening! So they seem to be making some impact!

Lola Colt – Away From The Water (Fuzz Club) - This hits multiple pleasure buttons for me, psychedelic garage noir with a touch of post-punk.
http://shop.lolacolt.com/album/away-from-the-water

Kyle Bruckmann's Wrack – …Awaits Silent Tristero’s Empire (Singlespeed) - I used to see him in noise rockers Lozenge in the 90s. Now based in the Bay Area, highly regarded in the avant jazz/improv and modern classical world, which these days is kind of small community. Inspired by the novels of Thomas Pynchon, certain parts remind me of Charles Mingus' The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady in both instrumentation and spirit.
https://kylebruckmann.bandcamp.com/album/wrack-awaits-silent-tristeros-empire

Surely "Albam" by Love Is All needs to be on this list. Easily the most memorable release of 2014.

the new Biota record is amazing swirly alien goodness, unfortunately not available via streaming

probably gonna be my #1 for the year

I wanted to like the Cut Hands more. Something about it (shorter sample loops?) gave it a more mechanical feel than Afro Noise I, the only other thing I've heard. This kinda thing (from Congotronics to Crash Worship) benefits from a more loose, improvisational, ritual feel.

agreed, i was talking about n/a with this recently. everything is a one-shot sample and it feels super stiff. i like the Clap! Clap! record for a looser approach to Afro-Caribbean sample jacking (much less dark though).

haven't seen Thelightshines album mentioned anywhere, lovely lightly-psychedelic pop like a Shack album of mostly John Head's tracks

Surely "Albam" by Love Is All needs to be on this list. Easily the most memorable release of 2014.

Just sampled this on spotify. Not the same Love Is All as the band from the mid-00s, is it? If so, jeezus christ what a derailment.

definitely not the same band

I thank god every day that the Japanese Love Is All chose that name and that Spotify can't sort artists properly, or I never would have found the brilliance that is "albam."

Alice Gerrard - Follow the Music

http://i.imgur.com/SLBk95h.jpg

a survey of Appalachian roots music from her extensive repertoire — Roy Acuff style honky-tonk, upbeat fiddle tunes, spooky banjo-based country blues à la Dock Boggs, a hymn/lament backed by a droning fiddle line, an 8-minute a cappella ballad likening infant mortality to a vulture, and some singer-songwritery stuff. it harkens back to all those '60s-'70s Folkways and Rounder albums with extended track-by-track pedigrees in their liner notes, e.g. "I learned this song from Hobart Smith at the 1978 Newport Folk Festival, and he learned it from a woman named Ada Larkspur, who..." and it's similar in style and spirit to Alice's collaborations with Hazel Dickens. it's been getting a lot more press than I'd expect (including a Pitchfork review), probably because it's a Tompkins Square release.

Andrea Schroeder - Where the Wild Oceans End

http://i.imgur.com/2X5qVda.jpg

classicist depressive Americana from a German singer-songwriter, riyl The Walkabouts, Marianne Faithfull, Nico, Mark Lanegan

Ichiko Aoba - 0%

http://imgur.com/8sPNV6J

live performance of solo classical guitar and vocals. 'intimate' and 'soothing' as fuck. I started a thread about her but it's not very good.

cover art: http://i.imgur.com/8sPNV6J.jpg

Co-sign the Isaiah Rashad love and I'm gonna mention that Wild Beasts album for the fourth time in this thread

xpost Alice Gerrard's album: she successfully personalizes most of it. My P&J comment:
Alice Gerrard, Follow The Music:
Strong subtle vox, smokey mountain ballads. Most brush by, eerie & beguiling, others hover; all are waiting 4 train. Trad & originals, 0 twang or trills needed. Fiddle, a cappella, dobro, ragtonk, just whatever's right.Hiss Golden Messenger produces it good.

I don't know much about her, but her sound gets to me much more than expected.

Ashrae Fax - Never Really Been Into It

http://i.imgur.com/Wdiov8K.jpg

dreampop/darkwave with lots of synths and primitive drum machines. it's not as visceral as their recently-unearthed first album Static Crash, but it satisfies my craving for stuff that sounds like Head Over Heels-era Cocteau Twins or early Lycia.

^fuckin adore ashrae fax

apparently the songs themselves predate the first album but weren't recorded properly til now

xpost Alice Gerrard's album: she successfully personalizes most of it. My P&J comment:
Alice Gerrard, Follow The Music:
Strong subtle vox, smokey mountain ballads. Most brush by, eerie & beguiling, others hover; all are waiting 4 train. Trad & originals, 0 twang or trills needed. Fiddle, a cappella, dobro, ragtonk, just whatever's right.Hiss Golden Messenger produces it good.

nice writeup. she definitely has an academic interest in the material (she published a journal on old-time music and produced a couple of documentaries with Mike Seeger), but she doesn't try very hard to emulate that old-time vocal style — her double identity of folk musicologist and modern singer-songwriter is part of what makes her style so distinctive. in the '70s she sounded more like a subdued Linda Ronstadt than a trad folk singer.

are Hiss Golden Messenger any good, btw?

I'm a fan. Poor Moon is his best album imo, a bit less smoothed-out than his more recent releases.

Does he have anything as dry as Bad Debt? I love that one to death but everything else I've heard from him has left me unimpressed (heard From Country Hai East Cotton, Haw and the latest one).

Lord I Love The Rain is my favorite by HGM.

Originally released as a digital-only EP, Hiss Golden Messenger’s "Lord I Love the Rain" has been reconstituted as a fully realized long playing album that juxtaposes grainy kitchen table gospel and dusted imaginary sci-fi soundtrack pieces alongside dead-of-night renditions of Michael Hurley’s “The Revenant” and Ronnie Lane’s “Tell Everyone.” "Lord I Love the Rain" is the sound of Hiss Golden Messenger after hours.

His proper LPs have been getting increasingly slicker, much to their detriment.

Alright, I'm sold.

^Nathan, is that you?

ah, thanks for the recommendations. their early stuff sounds interesting

(in case Raymond's question was directed at me: no)

Oh, ok. Just curious.

No problem. There is something very Nathan-esque indeed about the phrase "Alright, I'm sold".

An album I've been listening to the past few weeks nonstop comes from one of the worst named-bands ever - Mike Adams at His Honest Weight. The album, Best of Boiler Room Classics is pretty fantastic from start to finish. It's a bit of power pop with some psychedelic elements thrown in.

This will be one of my top ten ILM albums of 2014.

Check out

"Be Free, Live Well"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZSTR7HgAc8

"I'm Worried"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUn8sl0uZLk

"Count On It"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rakkYIkbAb8

Eaux - Plastics

I'm kind of surprised there isn't more talk about this, actually! It's pretty good, and the vocals remind me of an earthier (or more earthbound) Liz Fraser.

I thought the Heliocentrics/Melvin Van Peebles collab, The Last Transmission, would have gotten a lot more traction than it has.

I thought the Heliocentrics/Melvin Van Peebles collab, The Last Transmission, would have gotten a lot more traction than it has.

yeah that and their collaboration with orlando julius were definite highlights of the year for me.

that said, i do listen to the instrumental version of 'the last transmission' more than the proper album.

Eaux - Plastics

I'm kind of surprised there isn't more talk about this, actually! It's pretty good, and the vocals remind me of an earthier (or more earthbound) Liz Fraser.

Fans of this should check out Eaux's previous incarnation as the Sian Alice Group.

Listening to the Panabrite album. Really nice new age-y, synth-heavy ambient thingy stuff.