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***Official Album of the Year 2016 Thread***





Buzzer

Languidly Clinical
Oct 1, 2006
26,121
That's the obvious 1/2 there!

Had totally forgotten about that Field Music album. Loved it, will be on rotation today now.

There's a few tracks on there especially 'Noisy Days Are Over' that are just brilliant but I thought the album tailed off quite rapidly after the first 4 or 5.

I do like that Fopp list though, whoever compiled it is into the same music as me although I'm surprised to see Bat For Lashes and Lambchop in the top 10. The BFL album lacks a killer bite for me, it's a solid album but there's no big tunes - a bit like the Radiohead album. The Lambchop album is another interesting one, ordinarily I'm a big fan of Kurt Wagner but not this latest album. I'm not keen on the unnecessary and heavy use of vocoder throughout. I'd love to hear his version of the album he wrote for Tim Burgess one day.
 


Machiavelli

Well-known member
Oct 11, 2013
16,546
Fiveways
There's a few tracks on there especially 'Noisy Days Are Over' that are just brilliant but I thought the album tailed off quite rapidly after the first 4 or 5.

I do like that Fopp list though, whoever compiled it is into the same music as me although I'm surprised to see Bat For Lashes and Lambchop in the top 10. The BFL album lacks a killer bite for me, it's a solid album but there's no big tunes - a bit like the Radiohead album. The Lambchop album is another interesting one, ordinarily I'm a big fan of Kurt Wagner but not this latest album. I'm not keen on the unnecessary and heavy use of vocoder throughout. I'd love to hear his version of the album he wrote for Tim Burgess one day.

How I Quit Smoking is brilliant, and Thriller isn't bad too but, beyond that, it's all too samey, and the songs aren't strong enough. They're another band I've given up on.
 


spring hall convert

Well-known member
Nov 3, 2009
9,608
Brighton
There's a few tracks on there especially 'Noisy Days Are Over' that are just brilliant but I thought the album tailed off quite rapidly after the first 4 or 5.

That's a fair call. The highs are very high and I've got a soft spot for 'It's a Good Thing' toward the end of the record but yeah, you're right.

Historically they've always needed to edit a bit more brutally.
 


Buzzer

Languidly Clinical
Oct 1, 2006
26,121
That's a fair call. The highs are very high and I've got a soft spot for 'It's a Good Thing' toward the end of the record but yeah, you're right.

Historically they've always needed to edit a bit more brutally.

Good point about the editing. There's something like 15 songs on the album. I wonder if it wouldn't have been better to cut it down to 8 or 9 and then release an EP a bit later with the rest.
 




Theatre of Trees

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
7,718
TQ2905
Here we go with mine, what was originally meant to be a Top 10 with a brief sentance has somehow expanded into a Top 20 with accompanying paragraph. Apologies for any verbosity in advance.

20. SNEAKS - GYMNASTICS

Sneaks consists of vocalist Eva Moolchan, her bass, and a drum machine, paired with an attitude that results in a minimalist post punk sound. The ten songs are little more than fragments which clock in at just over 13 minutes. ‘No Problem’ consists of the phrase repeated with various intonations over 40 seconds; ‘New Taste’ is little more than a list of different objects; whilst closer ‘Someone Like That’ ditches the bass and replaces it with an oddly tuned synth that is completely out of sync with what has gone on before.



19. ELA ORLEANS - CIRCLES OF UPPER AND LOWER HELL

Orleans continues with the theme of creating imaginary soundtracks for works of literature that was first evident on 2012’s Tumult in Clouds. Eight of these tracks appeared on last year’s Upper Hell, often with different song titles, that were given a superior polished production by Howie B. As a consequence hearing them the second time around with a more lo-fi sound is a tad disappointing on first listen with many of the remaining 17 tracks being little more than interlude instrumentals. However, repeat listens heightens the sense of whole as Orleans’ spectral vocals and musical meanderings takes you through the various levels of Dante’s Inferno.



18. KAITLYN AURELIA SMITH - EARS

An album that did not click with me when first released, but returned to after appreciating ‘Riparian’ an outtake from the sessions recently released as a separate single. It is an album of mellow bleeps and bloops, processed strings and percussion, half discernible processed vocals that grows into itself the further you venture in. One I’m still discovering various facets from after each listen.



17. PUCE MARY - THE SPIRAL

Puce Mary is Dane Frederikke Hoffmeier who produces what can only be described as claustrophobic doom-laden industrial noise. For her third album we get more harsh abrasive electronics and more personal lyrics detailing decaying bodily functions delivered by a vocal style that can be likened to someone muttering to themselves in a corner oblivious to who is listening. The personal nature of these words coupled with the crashing stabs of harsh noise give the listener a feeling of ominous danger. Yet there are quiet subtle moments that break up the whirring building crescendo of sounds that many of the tracks follow, separating it from standard noise artists who equate these sounds with even harsher lyrics that leave little to the imagination. Still there is a kind of euphoria once the album is complete and your senses have recovered from the feeling of being pounded by a multitude of sledgehammers.



16. VARIOUS - THEY MAKE NO SAY; A POLYTECHNIC YOUTH SINGLES COLLECTION

A sampler album collating the singles released by the Polytechnic Youth label from 2014 and 2015. Very much a boutique label specialising in small limited edition releases of lathe cut singles advertised via Facebook and their website. It’s rosta concentrates on vintage retro futurism of the type synonymous with Tomorrow’s World circa 1979. As a result this compilation works very well as a whole blending the retro Euro synth pop of Groupuscule; the minimalist cold wave of Detox Twins; and the synth soundscapes of Volume Groop and Mass Defect. Occupying a similar musical landscape inhabited by the likes of Ghost Box and Pye Corner Audio.

 


Theatre of Trees

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
7,718
TQ2905
15. LIMINANAS - MALAMORE

French husband and wife duo flesh out their Stooges/Velvet Underground garage rock sound even further to include the influences of Gainsbourg, 60s ye-ye pop, and soundtracks from obscure French and Italian films from the 70s and 80s. The resulting psych-pop sound exudes an effortless Gallic coolness that Bobby Gillespie has spent his whole life dismally failing to achieve. The album is nicely split between instrumentals and vocals, sung by both male and female voices in either French or English, and also includes a guest appearance by bassist Peter Hook on ‘Garden of Love’ whose female vocalist intonations are defiantly French whilst whispering her way through the English lyrics.



14. EYE - SABINE

EYE is the current moniker of French musician, producer, and record label owner Laurene Exposito who previously recorded under the name of Micro Cheval. EYE’s sound meshes italo disco, cold synths, minimal techno woven in with sparse beats and oddball vocals. Like the Liminanas these vocals are sung in both French and English, the title track belonging to the former whilst the strange ‘Undress’ belongs to the latter. Underneath all the off kilter synths and trippy vocals is a distinct pop backbone and an eye for melody.



13. BEYOND THE WIZARD’S SLEEVE - THE SOFT BOUNCE

Erol Alkan and Richard Norris’s project harks back to the days of 60s psychedelia but twists and reimagines it for the modern era. Within those parameters are a number of styles from the riff laden ‘Iron Age’, looped cellos of ‘Door to Tomorrow’ and the gorgeous synth pop of ‘Diagram Girl’. The duo are helped by a number of guest vocalists; the ubiquitous Hannah Peel, Holly Miranda, Jane Weaver, Blaine Harrison (Mystery Jets), Euros Childs (Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci) and author of England’s Dreaming, Jon Savage, who delivers an almost nonsense verse made from cut up literature. The shifting styles, different vocalists and instrumental interludes gives the album a feel of being a DJ set or mix tape, albeit a very good one.



12. HINDS - LEAVE ME ALONE

A ramshackle mixture of broken English lyrics, out of tune vocals, simple guitar riffs and beginners drumming. What the Hinds lack in musicality they more than make up with an enthusiasm and sense of fun that is often missing from their more technically competent, career in music, po-faced contemporaries churned out from the various music colleges that now inhabit these shores. The screechy, emotionally tinged vocals of Carlotta Cosials are ably complemented by Ana Perrote’s more grounded bassier drawl that combine both call and response as well as belting out other parts in unison. The resulting scruffy poppy garage rock is without pretension and designed to be enjoyed with as much beer as you can drink.



11. LET’S EAT GRANDMA - I, GEMINI

Released around the time of Radiohead’s Moon Shaped Pool the Norwich duo’s experimental and eccentric take on music far surpasses that of Yorke’s middle aged band of miserablists. The two seventeen year olds rip up the pop rule book then stick the pieces roughly back together again in a way that suits their own oddball view of the world. The result is startlingly original as the individual songs mash up a vast array of influences, both lyrically and with the number of different instruments they utilise, that often develop over lengthy five or six minute tracks that rarely outstay their welcome. There is a fairy tale quality to many of the lyrics that is underscored by a malevolent darkness often redolent in teenagers’ views towards patronising adults. It is this discord and knowingness that gives I, Gemini its zest. Very much an album that is English to its core that refuses to kowtow to any global pop template.

 


Theatre of Trees

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
7,718
TQ2905
10. PRINCE RAMA - XTREME NOW

Art concept albums are pretty rare these days but the Larson sisters surpass their previous one detailing the final top 10 before the apocalypse with this one that deals with a future where high art, energy drinks and extreme sports combine as one. As is their forte the detailed accompanying manifesto (and back story involving time portals, black metal festivals and remote Estonian islands) has probably had more time spent on it than the actual songwriting. However, the album itself is a journey through a number of different pop genres: Moroder style disco for ‘Bahia’; Spiky post punk for ‘Now is the time for emotion’ and ‘Xtreme energy now’; Laid back folkiness for ‘Slip into Nevermore’. Similar in essence, if not musically, to the KLF, where myth making and conceit do not overwhelm the actual fun of the songs in their own right.



9. FANNY KAPLAN - FANNY KAPLAN

Some new wave/post punk from Russia, a reminder that the country’s underground music scene does not begin and end with Pussy Riot who long ago dispensed with writing actual songs. Named after the woman who attempted to assassinate Lenin in 1918 the all female group consists of electronics, drums and bass, the latter well to the fore in the mix of some songs reminiscent of early Killing Joke, particularly the fast and furious ‘Zaperto’ (Locked Up). Standout is ‘Smeh’ (Laughter) whose looped eastern synth provides a danceable melody to proceedings. Played at breakneck speed with yelpy shouty vocals sung in Russian it is both lo-fi and primitive, possessed of a rawness often lacking in many overproduced works elsewhere.



8. LAKKER - STRUGGLE AND EMERGE

Another concept album this time based on the relationship the Dutch have with water. The Irish duo subsequently raided the national audio archives as well as providing their own field recordings which have been chopped and mangled then merged with beefed up techno that recalls the industrial sounds of the 20th century. ‘Maeslantkering Gating’ replicates both the pounding of pneumatic drills and the hard Belgian and Dutch techno of the early 1990s; ‘Ever Rising’ the sound of ships’ horns and factory hooters; “Fierljepen’s’ percussion is reminiscent of the many individuals labouring on a ship’s hull. The net result is an album of electronica that is anchored in both time and place.



7. LORELLE MEETS THE OBSOLETE - BALANCE

When the Mexican duo dropped ‘La Distincion’ ahead of the rest of the album it appeared that little musically had changed from 2014’s Chambers. Yet the moment the slabs of fuzzy synths announce themselves in the wonderful title track that opens this new set a change is apparent. The harsher guitars have been sanded down and served only as part of the ingredients having previously been the whole, they are still there but introduced fleetingly at points in the individual song. The album becomes a fuzzier, spacier, dreamier take on psyche rock that is all the better for it, epitomised by ‘The Sound of All Things’ that evolves from natural sounds in the intro to the soft dreamy synth section that increases the tempo as first the voice then guitar join the fray and quicken the process before fading away leaving just the synths once more to close what has suddenly become six minutes of otherworldly stasis.



6. MARISSA NADLER - STRANGERS

I’ve never been a fan of Nadler’s older work, partly due to her overly introspective lyrics and also her original choice of instrument - the acoustic guitar - which causes the same reaction in me as Father Jack’s in the Father Ted Eurovision episode. The road to Damascus began with catching ‘Janie in Love’ by accident and discovering that Nadler had not only honed her lyrical style but had increased her musical palette too. Her Gothic Americana is much suited to the slide guitar and the additional strings and percussion give a richness of sound not evident to me before. The songs themselves have become observation pieces where Nadler’s awkwardness is transposed onto others, thus ‘Shadow Show Diane’ becomes a tale of voyeurism in a stale and listless existence and ‘All the Colours of the Dark’ sees the protagonist viewing the home where a former painful relationship took place despite having remarried and left some time ago. These tales are all enhanced by her plaintive vocals which somehow convey both the darkness of the past and the light at the end of the tunnel.

 




Theatre of Trees

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
7,718
TQ2905
5. KATE CARR - I HAD MYSELF A NUCLEAR SPRING

A chilled, ambient album of field recordings made in wetlands situated in deepest France. Set in a nondescript village with no services, frequently isolated by the surrounding flooded River Seine, with a huge nuclear power station looming large over both. Opener ‘Under the Wires’ consists of just the calls of nature backed by the static thrum of overhead power lines. After that Carr introduces some minimal instrumentation backing the natural sounds with slow rumbles of keyboards and lone singular riffs on arpeggio guitars heightening the eerie atmosphere and sense of ominous danger. Human involvement is minimal, limited to Carr’s heavy breathing on ‘Flicker, Flow’ and a distant calling voice on ‘Plumes and Sunsets’ which closes the album as if summoning the listener back to civilisation.



4. CARLA DAL FORNO - YOU KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE

Australian born, Berlin resident Dal Forno’s debut is a subtle and atmospheric piece that envelopes you into her own personal world. Alternating between instrumental and vocal tracks the album breezes by in just over thirty minutes. The former encompass the far eastern tinged ‘Dry in the Rain’, the rhythmic ‘DB Rip’ and the harsher throbbing synths of ‘Dragon Breath’. The vocals begin softly in ‘Fast Moving Cars’ where Dal Forno shyly eggs on her lover to take more risks, are more strident in ‘What You Gonna Do Now?’ where she has taken charge and end dreamily with ‘The Same Reply’. An album that requires a number of listens to gradually pull you into her enclosed little world.



3. DAVID BOWIE - BLACKSTAR

Bowie goes out with a bang. When the track ‘Blackstar’ dropped last November it rekindled an interest in the artist that had been lost in the aftermath of Scary Monsters and Super Creeps, through the dire 80s releases, the nadir that was Tin Machine, and the brief glimpses of form during the trying too hard 90s. The themes of ageing, mortality and decay are evident throughout even prior to the re-evaluation after his death. Whilst nothing matches the title track the closing pair of ‘Dollar Days’ and ‘I Can’t Everything Away’ are as fine a bookend to a recording career that anybody has produced.



2. EXPLODED VIEW - EXPLODED VIEW

An album that has Can and Faust as a starting point before heading into territory occupied by the likes of Public Image Ltd and Gang of Four. Recorded in one session the backing band of Mexican musicians sound fresh and spontaneous augmenting the dispassionate, monotone vocals of lead singer Anika Henderson. ‘Orlando’ is all disco punk, ‘Disco Glove’ is raucous and discordant, whilst ‘No More Parties in the Attic’ is both frightening yet moving as the band threaten to drown out the singer reminiscing about a long lost part of her life. The album closes with the atonal ‘Killjoy’ where Henderson is both tender yet dismissive forcing the listener to question whether she possesses any heart.



1. KATIE GATELY - COLOR

A superior mixture of the avant garde and highly polished pop. Gately’s background lies in sound design and it this that underpins the whole of the album which is by and large made up of processed sounds that are twisted and warped into such a shape where the original component is barely discernible. Whereas her previous releases, ‘Pipes’, ‘Prayer’ and ‘Pivot’ were solely entrenched in the avant garde (The three songs have a combined playing time of 40 minutes) her debut full length release has retained the out there soundscapes but applied it to the pop format. The result is a wall of sound thrown at the ears that can be at times difficult to take in, indeed ‘Sire’ begins with Gately uttering the word “hush” before crashing in with harsh ear splitting processed percussion. The album’s closing title track mellows the atmosphere and returns the listener to some semblance of normality throughout its stately nine minute journey. It is more rewarding after each listen as the senses become immune to the surrounding din.

 


Prince Monolulu

Everything in Moderation
Oct 2, 2013
10,201
The Race Hill
Nice call Mr Theatre on the Marissa Nadler album :thumbsup:

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spring hall convert

Well-known member
Nov 3, 2009
9,608
Brighton
Always look forward to [MENTION=61]Theatre of Trees[/MENTION] effort. The Katie Gately record is indeed a cracker. A few new ones on me, Exploded View sounds cracking.
 






Herr Tubthumper

Well-known member
NSC Patreon
Jul 11, 2003
59,198
The Fatherland
The Avalanches long player is rather good isn't it?
 








spring hall convert

Well-known member
Nov 3, 2009
9,608
Brighton
The Cate Le Bon record is shooting up my list.

I deliberately avoided it earlier in the year as her gig in Brighton clashed with something I was putting on and I didn't really remember to come back to it that much.

Going to give that Drinks album from last year (CLB & Tim Pressley (White Fence)) and outing today as well, as that passed me by.
 


Buzzer

Languidly Clinical
Oct 1, 2006
26,121
The Cate Le Bon record is shooting up my list.

I deliberately avoided it earlier in the year as her gig in Brighton clashed with something I was putting on and I didn't really remember to come back to it that much.

Going to give that Drinks album from last year (CLB & Tim Pressley (White Fence)) and outing today as well, as that passed me by.

That's a good shout with Cate Le Bon. I'd completely forgotten about her.

BadBadNotGood, Whitney, Mass Gothic, Blood Orange and Regina Spektor are on my list of albums that I need to re-listen to, having not even considered them when compiling my little list and now I feel guilty about that.
 


Machiavelli

Well-known member
Oct 11, 2013
16,546
Fiveways
That Christine and the Queens album is featuring on a few (commercial) lists, but I'm not so sure I've seen it on any NSCers. Does anyone have a view on it?
 




m20gull

Well-known member
Jun 10, 2004
3,414
Land of the Chavs

I like these threads because:
1 They make me realise that there is a hell of a lot of good, creative talent out there that never comes across my radar
2 It makes me revisit the new music I have bought in the last year. I acquire a lot of music but much of it is rather old-school. I have bought more Miles Davis this year than anything else and a hell of a lot of Pink Floyd.

For 2016 I was always going to struggle to make a Top 10 but Raging Speedhorn, Discharge, Ravens Creed and Surgical Meth Machine were bound to be on the list. To my surprise a couple of the Drift Records top 100 are on my list too - Death in Vegas - Transmission and Goat - Requiem. I will keep listening and see if I can get to 10. However if I save enough to buy the Pink Floyd Early Years Box Set that will be the top 11!

edit: made it to 10 - add the King 810 second album, King Goat's lovely debut, Cobalt - Slow Forever and Murder Made God - Enslaved.
 
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