2014 - Favorite Unheralded Album(s)

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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.

dow, Friday, 2 January 2015 03:00 (nine years ago) link

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

dow, Friday, 2 January 2015 03:02 (nine years ago) link

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.

yusef latifah (unregistered), Friday, 2 January 2015 03:03 (nine years ago) link

^fuckin adore ashrae fax

don't ask me why i posted this (electricsound), Friday, 2 January 2015 03:16 (nine years ago) link

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

don't ask me why i posted this (electricsound), Friday, 2 January 2015 03:17 (nine years ago) link

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.

yusef latifah (unregistered), Friday, 2 January 2015 03:49 (nine years ago) link

are Hiss Golden Messenger any good, btw?

yusef latifah (unregistered), Friday, 2 January 2015 03:58 (nine years ago) link

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

ticket to rmde (seandalai), Friday, 2 January 2015 18:16 (nine years ago) link

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).

Dinsdale, Friday, 2 January 2015 18:23 (nine years ago) link

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.

Badmotorfinger Debate Club (MFB), Friday, 2 January 2015 18:54 (nine years ago) link

Alright, I'm sold.

Dinsdale, Friday, 2 January 2015 19:37 (nine years ago) link

^Nathan, is that you?

RAP GAME SHANI DAVIS (Raymond Cummings), Friday, 2 January 2015 20:21 (nine years ago) link

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

yusef latifah (unregistered), Friday, 2 January 2015 21:40 (nine years ago) link

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

Dinsdale, Friday, 2 January 2015 21:41 (nine years ago) link

Oh, ok. Just curious.

RAP GAME SHANI DAVIS (Raymond Cummings), Friday, 2 January 2015 22:54 (nine years ago) link

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

Dinsdale, Saturday, 3 January 2015 10:00 (nine years ago) link

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

Rod Steel (musicfanatic), Saturday, 3 January 2015 15:24 (nine years ago) link

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.

pelvic slang (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Sunday, 4 January 2015 13:46 (nine years ago) link

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

you've got no fans you've got no ground (anagram), Sunday, 4 January 2015 16:45 (nine years ago) link

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.

mark e, Monday, 5 January 2015 09:37 (nine years ago) link

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.

Elvis Telecom, Tuesday, 6 January 2015 23:26 (nine years ago) link

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

Dinsdale, Saturday, 10 January 2015 20:31 (nine years ago) link


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