Listening to 2015: A Collaborative Music Project for ILM in 2016

Thanks for the feedback ulysses (is this your accepted new monicker of address?) and emil.y! Great that you're checking out those artists!

I likewise queued up things to listen to based on those write-ups - 6:33 and 4Minute - both promising! I'll keep them in rotation. I like them as two bookends of a 90s phonecall with the dialtone and dial-up sounds. 6:33 is unapologetically ridiculous - I have no problem with cheese as long as it's self-referential (metaphorically speaking...). It doesn't sound to me like they're stepping on Mr. Bungle's toes so much as doing their own mad, disjointed and yes, utterly nerdy thing.

That 2814 and Ballard might tesselate makes me wary. If I have anything to thank The Atrocity Exhibition for, it's for making me way less invested in postmodern discourses.

Can't wait to see this project expand into something like a cross between an encyclopaedia and a text adventure. I'll certainly be playing it that way anyway.

Oh and I'm done listening to the Punk playlist. Impressions to follow tomorrow.

lol, I like Ballard *and* vaporwave. I am a corny postmodern fux0r.

xp to rush:
1. yeah, i'm getting some youtube pushback too... apparently they think i'm evil. I will avoid utilizing them to link to.

2. sounds like 6:33 isn't for you and I can't really get too seriously behind trying to change your mind there... it registers as a bit trashy but i like that!

3. i dig you on the "orville redenbacher uncanny valley"; there's something about the MST3K taper / youtube poop aesthetic of vaporwave that connects squarely with my child of the 80's reptile brain. it's not especially defensible but I find it fascinating that consumer nostalgia is so nefarious and octopus cunning as to get into my heart even though I unreservedly hate the system and the products! I guess I enjoy confronting my brainwashing protocols

4. I wish you WOULD namedrop private press '70s lps by power pop cult figures! How else will we learn!
btw, in addition to being an independent ethnomusicologist (which, SURPRISE, doesn't pay that well), my father was and is a rare record dealer so i am intently aware that not only is spotify not a true celestial jukebox, neither is the internet. And yeah it's unlikely that we'll see all of human endeavor digitized and pressbutton and i appreciate your distrust of the suggestion that it even SHOULD be... I guess my thinking is that the wheel keeps turning and there's just so much new and exciting out there even if it's NOT so hard to find. My fave Vonnegut misquote is "genius is as common as daisies", which is to say it's not everywhere or even most of the wheres but it's not that hard to find if you care to look. So rare genius or common genius, my evolving catholic tastes find room for whatever you got.

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I'm good with vaporwave! Ballard not so much...

Also, I am still overly invested in postmodernism. DFW ftw… It's 2006 again. I'll just listen to this band shall I?

tangentx2: yeah, i'll answer to ulysses; why not!

my copy of atrocity exhibition is the RE/SEARCH version with the Phoebe Gloeckner illustrations. I'm not sure I see a direct line from something as inconsequential as 2 8 1 4... but different strokes! I never really got into ballard; last i remember trying was in college in the middle of a full blown burroughs gorging. I too am corny postmodern fux0r.

I look forward to getting punk feedback and to the ongoing choosing of our own adventure. You might want to link or repost your thoughts in the appropriate genre threads too if you're gonna dice the onions that way.

9 Muses is a K-pop band with 8 members, because, okay look it was nine members and then it wasn't but i dunno, just look at this chart and wonder at the complexity of the Korean multi-member studio built girl band phenomenon:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/timeline/072a1745b89b5875b91a8d1797edb469.png
9 Muses dropped 15 songs over three EPs in the past year and the K-Pop thread hit on the singles from all of them. Everything I tried was very nourishing and they’re good at a variety of styles. “DRAMA” would be right at home in a Parappa sequel, both ”Secret" and “Sleepless Night” (minus some of the bouncier guitar elements) would pass believably as the matrix for future Tinashe tracks, “TO.MINE” is solid pop-country and "HURT LOCKER always makes me think of The Cranberries “Zombie” when they get to the chorus for the strangest reasons. If you’re open to experimenting with K-pop, you are fairly likely to find something you like in their discog; it's all high-quality.

Speaking as we're still talkin' 'bout vaporwave detritus, here’s a hearty vote for 18 Carat Affair’s album ‘Pleasure Control’. It’s like being stuck in a mall elevator in 1981… in a good way! Sure the presentation is a little same-y but the whole album isn’t much more than 20 minutes, so you're done before you know it. Three minutes is enough to see if it grabs you; try the 40 second "Feature Presentation" and let it slide into ”Foundation Application" for the full effecct.

45 ACP was a find on the Techno/Bobbins thread and, though I suppose “IDM” is a much reviled term (i never saw it as promoting a polarity against “stupid dance music”, it just provided a good catch-all basket for the abstract narrative electronic stuff i like… you would prefer maybe “input jazz”? Or “pousse-cafe”? or “electronika” BLEURGH), it’s what I think when I listen here. I liked the sample track, ”Ground to Ground” enough to listen to the whole ‘Change of Tone’ album; other standouts were ”Double Cross" (would be right at home in Sony's wipE'out) and ”Playing for Keeps" (like living inside a very chill Pachinko machine). Recommended if you prefer your ambient to get a little intrusive.

The 1978ers is yU on raps and SlimKat78 on beats, both out of the Washington DC area. They scratch that boom bap jazz rap spot that I tend to forget I really like and that I’m never sure is in style or not. Remember Pharcyde? Remember Black Sheep? Remember Arrested Development? Remember Digable Planets? Remember The Goats? Remember Ultramagnetic MC’s? Remember Pete Rock and CL Smooth? Remember 1992? These guys certainly do. The high points on a quick scan of the debut album ‘People of Today’ are "One Nine 7 T 8", “In the Way”, “FAR” and their excellent and highly recommended single ”Without a Clue".
Here’s a bonus non-spotify track to try for the non-opted in:
The 1978ers - 'A People’s Intro Act I'

I gave that 2 8 1 4 track a listen and I realized that I think that i _DID_ already give this one a shot… but it was so ethereal and barely there that it slipped off the playlist, out of my mind and into the ether. I’m okay leaving it there.

but do you answer to "hello sailor"

ok, top of my wishlist is "me... for the first time" by tommy marolda, who later went on to form (well, be) the toms. there's other stuff i'd like to hear, such as the second rosebud album, expo 80's "viva brazil", ahh! folly jet's "abandoned songs from the limbo", dave day's solo single, herb jeffries' and eden ahbez's "the singing prophet", (a record that i actually found just now because i was spelling it wrong all this time), the b-sides of patti jo's two singles, and Ciociaria. a land of ancient silences by ettore de carolis, but mostly i really want to hear that tommy marolda record.

xxp

Hooray for Burroughs!

2 8 1 4 is admittedly lovely, but it's so glacially chilled-out that I feel guilty for remaining chaotic in its presence. I'll save one though for moments of unusual quietude.

I'll be sure to venture into the as yet unknown world of the rolling threads once I locate them. I'm very slow at dicing onions. It takes me about two hours to make a stir fry. To your North is a knife, to your South is a portal of music...

but do you answer to "hello sailor"

Rush, are you on any private trackers? Dunno if that's part of your search span. I had never heard of Marolda (i have a big blind spot with 70's/80's pop) but I like the autoload on his website!

I HAVE BEEN KILLED BY A GRUE

i'm on the best-known private tracker, but i personally find it disappointing. doesn't have the breadth of the old blogs, like the much-missed mutant sounds. doesn't even have the breadth of youtube, which is probably the best place to find music right now. also, private trackers tend to have too much scenester jive for my tastes. i did the bbs thing when i was a teenager, but that was a long, long time ago.

i miss the tofu hut, that was a REAL music blog...
yeah, whatever the old musicblog world lacked in completeness it certainly did obscurity well.

> Nicole Sabouné's album Must Exist was quite good at first listen iirc.

Miman is better, and as I've said elsewhere, is a stronger album than Chelsea Wolfe's latest (which I like, too).

Hey, ulysses, I'm kind of in the midst of my own massive listening project rn, and so I can't fully accept your invitation. If you wouldn't mind, I thought it might be cool to pipe up with my own two cents whenever yours ends up brushing against mine, as it did recently with 2 8 1 4 ...

I wasn't planning on listening to that album for a few more weeks, as most of the albums I am checking out atm are either goth or sludge metal (that Nicole Saboune album might be in order soon), but I bumped it ahead so I could post a hot take here, and...I like it. A lot. I don't really know anything about the Night Bus micro-genre at all, but if it is even remotely related to the Burial track of the same name, then this album prob lands directly in the middle between that and, say, Peaking Lights' 936. It's way more chill than other albums like Alameda 5 and Suuns & Jerusalem in my Heart, but it is evety bit as oneiric, and tbh I hope it makes the albums poll, even though I didnt give it any points

Also, I listened to Boy Harsher on soundcloud, that's pretty rad as well; some of the songer's exhortations towards the middle of the song verge on Alan Vega territory, which is always positive

maybe i need to go back to 2 8 1 4 later, given that everyone's very much into it... it kinda went over (or under) my head.

Emo - done! Aided somewhat by the microscopic song lengths. Yes, I unashamedly love emo. I'll post in defence of that at some point along with many thoughts. My afternoon's listening is now clear for the albums rollout...

boy harsher rule! they played in my basement last year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Th_rEonmDM

Punk

This collection didn't really live up to my expectations after the strength of the entire goth playlist. I found myself wincing through some of the more watery depictions of what should be a hugely expressive music. I guess the accessibility of the form makes it easy prey to lazier, more derivative songwriting, which is such a shame given the wild extremes the genre should idealistically catalyse.

Anyway, the worst of these included Protomartyr, who I tried repeatedly to get into last year on the insistence of trustworthy sources claiming it was inspired, only to find what to my ears sounds like a dingier Mission of Burma album.

Worst song award goes to Tenement's 'Sitcom Moms'. "You guys wanna hear some cool bullshit?", it spoken-word-begins. God no. Actually just listened again…it's sort of sweet. I couldn't say why. I think my mind got melted today with all the emo heightening my dopamine and weakening my standards.

No more complaining. There were a sprinkling of highlights, like those of Dilly Dally, who are 1 part Pixies to 1 part Hole, but with their own genuinely inventive melodies. She has some powerful voice too.

PC Worship - Woooo! This made my ballot (just). Or rather, the album did. 'Social Fiction', represented here, was actually my least favourite track (though still blinding). Lots of discordant, piling on of extra extra guitars and rhythm. The title track is the clear winner for me - it sounds like a Bioy Casaresian creation being cranked up to full ambiguous potential.

No Negative - This was cool. Like an early, lo-fi Sonic Youth. And just as you suspect they could use something extra, lots of nice spaceship landing sounds are introduced and it all gets very interesting indeed at the end. I like that Spotify barely recognises them as a band too.

New Fries - Spikey, no-wavey female punk. It manages to fit a lot of tonal shifts into the space of 2 minutes 18, in which 40 seconds comprise white noise. I always find myself laughing through that last bit.

I Hate Sex - Lovely screamo! The vocal was so unexpected when I heard this in the tracks poll. It's like Kathy Acker fed through Straylight Run's smoothie blender. She'd hate that…but this is excellent.

Hagar the Womb - Favourite find! Yes! Her weird, dissonant, half-spoken vocals are incredible. Those and some slightly unusual chord progressions really make this. Can't fully make out what she's saying, but I'm going to assume her politics are amazing and thus enable her to sing about 'bullshit babies' all she wants.

KEN Mode - Steve Albini is all over this. I liked it a lot before now, but didn't really get it until this weekend, listening on headphones as I entered a football stadium (as spectator) to certain defeat. As a spectator, I was defeated. As a listener, I was triumphant.

it wasn't even a defeat in the end. maybe the players had been listening to KEN Mode too

Oh, forgot to keep bolding.

Emo tomorrow. How is your exploration unfolding forks/ulysses?

xpost

Reza had.

Some of those sound great. I know you played them to me earlier and they kind of merged into a pleasant punky mist but I will certainly check a few of them individually

(Obviously PC Worship is the best, we knew this)

it's going okay on the listening front but i need more time to devote to typing! Will try to post a few reactions tonight.

new fries and hagar the womb are making it into regular rotation for me, though from my research it looks like hagar the womb are an '80s band?

Thanks for the hot takes on the punk stuff; will refocus as I get there alphabetically! Listening wise, I'm at Angel Haze, so I have lots of ground to catch up on. Doing those polls is distracting!

It occurs to me I never mentioned it, but I'm making an effort (though I sometimes forget) to bold the artists and songs that stand out the most to me. Consider bolding a strong recommendation on my part... and if you wanna do the same, I like that shortcut!

47 Soul's album Shamstep was a major exciting early find in this project and something I find myself returning to fairly often. "Sham" is a reference to the historical name for the united Middle East, encompassing Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, which speaks to the multinational nature of the band and of the influences on display. There's a lot going on: dabke, hip hop, dancehall, gospel... and if that sounds like a mess, it would to me too but they pull it off! Lyrics are sung and rapped in Arabic and English; the mood is resolutely positive and upbeat and inclusive. Highly recommended if you like Omar Souleyman (more modern sounding) or EEK (less manic). I fell hard for the whole album but if you're only gonna try one track, maybe start with "Don't Care Where You From", which sounds like the MENA version of "We're All in the Same Gang".

16-Bit Lolitas' "Not the Only One" and 33Hz's "What I Can Do" are both solid house tracks but where 33hz overpowers the Lolitas with bass and immediacy and mixability, the former has greater depth and staying power. Both deserve a spin.

Along the same lines, I strongly recommend 1127's industrial prog-house track "It Never Drops", the intriguing opener on a compilation of indie pop and dance from the African diaspora on NON Records. No, it never drops; it vibrates and ominously hums and pops shots and hurks and jerks and hisses GETMONEYGETMONEYGETMONEYGETMONEYGETMONEY and generally sounds terrifying and awesome
Here's a soundcloud link for the non spotified
https://soundcloud.com/non-records-1/1127-it-never-drops

Che Chen and Rick Brown are 75 Dollar Bill and 75 Dollar Bill's "Cuttin' Out" is 15 minutes of neatly structured but near-abstract electric guitar gutbucket blues dominated by a single bass note that nails the thing to the floor and trance inducing Eastern percussion that levitates it to the ceiling. This is one of those cases where three listens was what did the trick for me: I was convinced the first time that this was some too-long gimmicky lo-fi nonsense, the second time it got under my skin and by the third play I was surprised it was over so soon. Hell, playing it again now, I just realized I really need to listen to the rest of this album; every other track on it combined is about as long as "Cuttin' Out"! Into the hopper it goes.
For the non-spotifying - https://75dollarbill.bandcamp.com/

And that's the numbers! Let's try the A's.

Congratulations on finishing the numbers! I'll definitely be searching your impressions as I go. I don't know how you've managed to take on so much as it is. I assumed you had eschewed sleep in favour of some meditative waking-sleep-music-listening operation.

Will bold from here on out! I've been veering off course a bit, but hearing new things on the album rollout probably counts too, right? Just preparing for mountainous eulogy on emo.

whatever path gets you up the mountain is good by me!
Yeah, i don't sleep a lot these days and i try doing this to be "productive" when i can't.

I assumed you had eschewed sleep in favour of some meditative waking-sleep-music-listening operation.

misread this

I can't say that I'm surprised that people care about modern music but I never knew to what extant until I just now clicked on this and the eoy list threads.

I heard a 2015 song I liked today. Not surprisingly it was from an old dude and I've never delved into ELO before. I also like the new Bowie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfH8EJA-hg0

so maybe I can slowly work on an ILX Rolling Old People 2015 Spotify Playlist and add it here

i had no idea there was an elo album last year! Added to the pile

I was trying to remember where I heard about that Amara Touré anthology, and I'm pretty sure now it came from one of your playlists. Cheers for that!

you're welcome. it's SO good.

Hello!

work is making it where I haven't had a chance to talk up anything but the listening is continuing apace. I just knocked out the Angie Stone album and am chewing on Anna Caragnano (with Donato Dozzy) and Anna von Hausswolff. I may type a lot while I watch the superbowl over the weekend.

I am taking a lil breather for the rest of the night with this playlist collection of early polyphony. It's part of one of my OTHER OTHER projects: transferring my old high school era cassette tapes into playlists for quick reference and listening because my tape player has long since up and died and how else can I access this stuff in the sequencing I've become accustomed to in the core of my soul? The polyphony dubbed double c-90 set was a gift from a visiting scholar to my dad decades ago and it had no impact on him but it blew my mind and I used to play it to vibe out and fall asleep to through much of my early teens. Discovering that it was all on spotify makes me very glad; bless that obsessive cassette dubber for including titles and composers.

tangent, i look forward to you tackling the emo when you get 'round to it.

I'm still here btw (sort of). I've not had opportunity to post in depth recently (I habitually disappear, unfortunately) but I am keeping up to date with my listening. Almost finished time travel! I'll post more once atmospheric tectonics have reassembled a bit. I'll be catching up on all your recommendations too. Are people allowed sabbaticals for 'cultural engagement'?

Sure, the whole point of this is to do it on your own terms!

As it came recommended from a number of different sources and since I found a few solid tracks on his first album, I felt compelled to slog through more or less the entirety of A$AP Rocky's prog-pop rap album AT.LONG.LAST.A$AP and my takeaway is that the future of glossy-magazine cover rap is no longer speaking to me. Duets with Lil Wayne ("M'$"), Schoolboy Q ("Electric Body"), UGK and Juicy J ("Wavybone"), Kanye ("Jukebox Joints") and the unlikely duo of Rod Stewart and Miguel ("Everyday") do little more than highlight Rocky's lack of charisma and star power. His very few solo tracks lean to somnambulance. I respect the desire to push the envelope and leap from concept to concept, but it doesn't bear fruit here. I have some grudging appreciation for the breathy pseudo-psychedelica of "L$D" (imagine Zappa-by-way-of-Blind Melon), but I don't think I found a real keeper beside the RIP YAMS elegy and Yasiin Bey duet "Back Home". All in all, a lot of work for not much fun.

No such problem with the Nigerian R&B/hip hop trio A'won Boyz light and lovely ballad "Forever"; this is nothing but pleasure from the first listen. Autotuned guest vocals from another West African star, Tekno (who, at this rate, I'll get to in early 2017) round the song out nicely.
Also HIGHLY recommended is the A'won Boyz take on Future's "Fuck Up Some Commas", which proves that tricksy little piano hook was missing just one or two more drum presets for maximum adrenaline density.
Get it: https://soundcloud.com/awonboyz/commas-come-and-go

Londoner A-Minor's "Be Mine" is perfectly serviceable, unremarkable club anthem sugar water with somebody named Kelli-Leigh on diva duty. I think the brits call this "bog standard"?

A-Villa's Carry On Tradition album is nostalgia packed with "rapper's rappers" lyricists, including Cormega, NORE, Big KRIT, Kool G Rap, Freddie Gibbs, Vic Spencer, Elzhi, Roc Marciano, Guilty Simpson, Freeway, Sean Price, Joell Ortiz, Killer Mike, Action Bronson, Ras Kass... and that's not half of them. There's also a penchant for wallowing in boom bap beats, lengthy transitions and skits that ramble on; "A Hustler's Soliloquy" ends with a minute and a half of the Omar and Brother Mouzone standoff. I'm almost disappointed in myself that this didn't grab me; there's something more cypher than song in the production, a certain leaden monotone to the beats that carries over from track to track. I appreciate the aesthetic at play here more than it moves me; by album's end I was hard pressed to remember any individual song. "Sucker Free" with Saigon, Joe Budden and BJ the Chicago Kid was my keeper by the third spin and, on listening to it now, it feels entirely worth fighting for but damned if I could remember what it sounded like before I hit play again.

A-Wax's Everlasting Money is admittedly frontloaded but those first seven tracks are as good as any hip hop that reached my ears in 2015. Dude's nimble, nasal voice reminds me of Ice-T; he's blunted and laconic even when he's lacing a track with autotuned interior rhymes. A-Wax has a declamatory confidence to his style that reads as world-weary, learned and burned. There's dull rage on "Been A Long Time", murder ballad self history on "Tried As An Adult", vindictive loneliness on "Smoke Alone" and nauseous desperation on "Never Saw It". He's deeply sad and deeply defiant; Beckett's cadence lurks just beneath the surface of every song: I must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on. Great music for bad times.

Believe it or don't, I haven't fallen off on the listening portion of this project... just the typing.

Gotten through about 700 tracks for the year and up alphabetically to Benjamin Clementine. The chances of getting even to "J" this year are highly unlikely. The experience continues to be highly rewarding though! I suppose I should double back and write about a few things in the A's though, see if I can get caught up so that writing echoes the current listening before the summer gets here.

The PC Music Vol. 1 compilation sweats saccharine to the point of nausea but I will admit an affinity for A.G. Cook's "Beautiful", spastic bleating thing that it is. On the other hand, "Keri Baby" spackled with Hannah Diamond's Speak-N-Spell rapping makes me want to break neon lightbulb tubes with a crowbar. Just line 'em up and let the celery crunch pops drown out the atrocity nattering in my ear. Not a fan.

A.KOR's "Always" is not especially memorable late 80's AC nostalgia rock put through the K-Pop mill.

I've seen Aaron Diehl play live several times at Dizzy's and at the mainstage at Jazz at Lincoln Center on his own or with Cecile McLorin Salvant; he's a top notch jazz pianist but I hadn't heard any of his personal compositions on tape. His 2015 album, Space, Time, Continuum trapped me for a few days. From the slinky title track (featuring vocals from the striking vocalist Charenée Wade), the assured virtuosity of "Broadway Boogie Woogie", the silky soft "Flux Capacitor" and the likely-to-be-a-standard swing of "Uranus", it's excellent top to bottom. If you're only going to try one song, make it "Kat's Dance", a secretive call and response duet with Stephen Riley on sax. Diehl isn't much of an experimentalist but if you have any love for post-bop, you won't be disappointed.

Aaron Watson is a Christian warrior and honky tonk lifer of the variety that dodges major label support but still lassos a few top 50 country radio filler tracks every other year. The Underdog is his thirteenth album and his first Country (and Indie!) #1. The breakout hit is "That Look", a cockeyed cowgirl-on-a-pedestal love song that celebrates without minimizing. "Getaway Truck" is worth a listen or two as Eric Church lite. I gotta admit the 'everybody dies' glurge of "Bluebonnets (Julia's Song)" got under my skin, mostly on the strength of Watson's painfully honest delivery. Wikipedia informs me Watson is a Ted Cruz supporter which is a bummer.

Abra's breakout album, Rose, is chillwave alt&B or quiet storm electropop or whatever the hell I have to call it to get you to listen to it; it's warm milk and kahlua is what it is. The lead vocalist/composer/namesake has a gorgeous voice and good taste.
Discussed a bit here: Abra - Rose
The album's great but front loaded; I would've been happier with an EP. Even so, don't miss the Aaliyah influenced "U Kno", the Pet Shop Boys pastiche of "Roses" or the one-two punch of Fruit and No Chill. I'd be surprised if Abra doesn't blow up in the next few years; this feels distinctly marketable in a way that, say, Kelela does not.

Absofacto's "Dissolve" is craftsmanlike fizzy pop with Scandi touches that made me think of Komeda. That's high praise from me. Be warned though: if, after a few listens, there's no aftertaste tempting you to return, well he did tell you as much in the title...

Still doing this believe it or not.
this colin stetson and sarah neufield album omg

Are you alphabetising by first name or last name?

first name as that's how it's organized on spotify.
I've gotten through about 1600 songs from the 1975 to Colin Stetson at the moment. Almost nine months! At this rate, I should be done by 2015 in 2018 which would bother me more if a) this was all I was listening to (it's not) or b) i wasn't finding great gems on an almost daily basis.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: taken as an aggregate, ilx's taste in music has about a 70% hit rate with me, which is pretty fantastic!

November threw me out of whack (along with everybody else); at this rate, I should be about 2k songs and 130 hours of music down by the end of the year with another 6300 and 468 hours to go.
No reason to stop there as far as I can see tho'! Still finding great music on the regular so 2015 may last to 2019.