Year-End Critics' Polls 2013

Julee Cruise, yeah OTM.

Agree with Matt DC - Ekstasis is the one you can sing along to.

pazz and jop ballots out

"I'm thinking of getting the Lambkin / Lescalleet album for someone for Chrimbo but I'm a bit confused about the many many formats. Anyone more fmailiar with it than I am? Sounds like there's something like 8 different ways you can buy it. And not many places seem to sell it either?"

curious what you mean by this, as I run the label that released it, and there is only one way to buy it currently, as a somewhat pricy, elaborately packaged double CD (no vinyl, no legal DLs).

oh hi jon - okay, i only had a quick look online and there looked like there were loads of formats? where can i buy it?

beef, send me an e-mail at erstr✧✧✧@a✧✧.c✧✧ and let me know where it's shipping to and I'll get you a price, thanks!!

I guess that is for my protection, let's try it this way: e r s t r e c s @ a o l . c o m

Have just twigged what Call Back The Giants is. Graham Lambkin and Tim Goss both on the Wire list -> the secret ascendancy of the Shadow Ring.

xpost - cheers

Re that American Songwriters list - I tried with Jason Isbell a bunch of times but it never clicked for me. On the other hand in glad to see the Josh Ritter album show up somewhere on one of these lists (it shows up in the 30s). It's his beat album and seems to have been ignored all year long.

To me it feels as though it's been a really strong year for Wire-style music. That top ten is really really in line with my own EOY list. The Laurel Halo album is just so satisfying in the half-awake, twitchy way she seems to be able to do. The Rashad Becker album is like nothing int his wide world but so immersive and strangely (given the surface content) evocative. Still don't understand Tim Hecker but I'm sure it'll click one day. Same with Oneohtrix, always had trouble with him but the album's growing on me, especially since watching the film 'Le Ravissement de Frank N Stein' from where the album cover's taken from. RP Boo? Well as any fule'kno I'm a big footwork fan but I think DJ Rashad was making bigger waves in that genre this year and Double Cup is a really succinct record compared to this, but it's not without its moments. Wolf Eyes is Wolf Eyes, but more structured, almost song-based. THe Lambkin / Lescalleet albumn I've only just discovered and it's great - mostly made up of field recordings and interviews but hugely emotional for some reason. The Knife's is my AOTY.

― a beef supreme (dog latin), Wednesday, December 11, 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

For Hecker - listen as loud as possible. Also I like Virgins a lot but within Hecker's discography I'd rank it below Harmony in Ultraviolet and Ravedeath 1972.

good to see plenty of overlap between the wire list and my own personal list -- i wasn't so crazy about the holter album, though.

seen quite a few people saying they were surprised (and perhaps a little disappointed) to see so many things they were already familiar in the wire list. is this cos the wire are getting less militantly avant or cos we're all better informed or what?

pazz and jop ballots out

― katherine, Wednesday, December 11, 2013 10:17 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Always nice to see that I'm still on the mailing list.

I tried giving Ravedeath another listen today but really all I hear are sustained random piano chords fed through way too much digital distortion. It belies the ascribed genius of Tim Hecker and sounds like something I feel like I could make quite easily with home software. Still waiting for it to click really but I'm not getting any emotion or resonance, it just sounds like mess, tossed off.

Dummy - Best Albums
http://www.dummymag.com/lists/the-20-best-albums-of-2013

1. GLASSER - 'INTERIORS' [True Panther]
2. DANIEL AVERY - 'DRONE LOGIC' [Phantasy Sound]
3. KANYE WEST - 'YEEZUS' [Def Jam]
4. THE KNIFE - 'SHAKING THE HABITUAL' [Brille]
5. JAMES BLAKE - 'OVERGROWN' [Polydor]
6. DEAN BLUNT - THE REDEEMER [Hippos In Tanks]
7. ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER - 'R PLUS SEVEN' [Warp]
8. KA - 'THE NIGHT'S GAMBIT' [Iron Works]
9. E.M.M.A - 'BLUE GARDENS' [Keysound]
10. AUTRE NE VEUT - 'ANXIETY' [Software]

I liked some stuff on the wire list okay, a lot I haven't heard though.

Reading about Tim Hecker's process for making that album, 'tossed off' is probably about as far away from the reality as you could get.

Where's that whiney piece?

Nick - I subscribed to the Wire for the first time this year. Think my threshold for the kind of music they cover was really affected by Scott Walker, Laurel Halo, Neneh Cherry and Engine Kang releases from last year, but I've always liked 'new' music to an extent yet previously found Wire ' s coverage just a bit too obscure until now. So I don't know, is it a bit of both? I def have more time for' conceptual' music than I did before. It's also the Year I got into jazz.

here you go: http://www.spin.com/articles/tim-hecker-virgins-attack-of-the-drones-interview/

gotta catch a bus or otherwise i'd excerpt some bits but it's worth a read xp

Re: Hecker, I mean that's it, I always hear about how much effort he puts into his compositions but they always sound so cackhanded, like he just fed a bunch of notes through a distortion pedal and pressed record.

LOL @ "Engine Kang"

autocorrect, I know :)

one of the things about the Tim Hecker that I really loved was the layering of all those sounds, some of it's exquisitely detailed imo. sure it's sometimes surrounded by fog but it's all in there!

seen quite a few people saying they were surprised (and perhaps a little disappointed) to see so many things they were already familiar in the wire list. is this cos the wire are getting less militantly avant or cos we're all better informed or what?

― diego floorplan (NickB), Wednesday, December 11, 2013 5:53 PM (24 minutes ago)

Bit of both I think, though my claim that the Wire got noticeably more populist over the last several years is somewhat shot down by some of the covers from just before I started reading it. I think I started during a 'militantly avant' phase, though. We covered this in a different thread somewhere.

Engine Kang sounds like a vintage Japanese video game.

There's no way on earth that Glasser album is the best of the year.

Bit of both I think, though my claim that the Wire got noticeably more populist over the last several years is somewhat shot down by some of the covers from just before I started reading it. I think I started during a 'militantly avant' phase, though. We covered this in a different thread somewhere.

With both this year's Quietus and Wire lists I felt not nearly as... alienated+frustrated by year-end round-ups as I typically am

(still alienated and frustrated tho that goes w/out saying, just that "wow that's a lot of records I actually love")

The Quietus and to a lesser extent The Wire do the only year-end round-ups that are worth shit-all

Everyone else just circulates the same tedious highprofile bullshit (even if some of it isn't bullshit, the lists are invariably lazy & arbitrary)

Well my mind doesn't grade music numerically so lists are a waste of time and space as a rule, filed away next to games of "Babe or Minger", but it is nice to see "oh cool we listen to a lot of the same records"

well exactly

but I do feel that a lot of year-end round-ups are quite interchangeable in their breadth of listening, and while it's nice for people who've largely heard those albums to be validated over & over again, it's a little frustrating that there's so much amazing stuff out there getting next to no exposure

some of it's exquisitely detailed

This poncey nonsense is a consequence of me writing while i was rushing out the door but what i meant is i love the stratified depths of sound and the sometimes dizzying effects he creates from these. I won't lie though, mostly I love Tim Hecker cos it's gorgeous but powerful music to sit around feeling morose to, so maybe it's a temperament thing?

I know it's basically a christmas catalogue for tarts but I do love the end of year lists that Boomkat do, discovered so much good stuff through those.

so glad to see alasdair roberts on the wire list!!

a timely reminder that i need to listen to that one. how does in rank in the roberts oeuvre?

http://www.party-ideas-by-a-pro.com/image-files/alice-in-wonderland-party-jam-tarts.jpg

it's among the more flowery of his albums (compared to the solo/straight ahead ballad stuff) -- lots of guests, different instruments and arrangements on every song -- but there are lots of really good songs and an incest ballad that really takes the cake. it is one of those albums that creates and lives in its own little universe. this will probably make sense to anyone who likes him and not much sense to everyone else.

made sense to me apart from the incest cake thing

but i love it!!

this is brother seed, the aforementioned ballad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVme8xe7NNo

i meant that it was really good! it takes the cake!

always get that confused with taking the biscuit tbh

what has this to do with the tart catalogue

there's a hierarchy of baked comestibles i suppose. cakes at one end, biscuits at the other. i think this is wrong, but this is how it seems. jam tarts somewhere in the middle.

still think night is advancing is best ali roberts

i do like the chord progression on that song LL, nice overall sound too!

I liked the Alasdair Roberts, but I think Spoils is the best thing he's ever done. That album was just about perfect