Surprisingly excellent month. Could have easily picked 10 tbh.
1: FKA Twigs - Caprisongs
2: Iceboy Violet - The Vanity Project
3: Burial - Antidawn
4: Panoram - Acrobatic Thoughts
5: Shinichi Atobe - Love of Plastic
Love Twigs - thought it was a bit throwaway at first, but there’s so much going on and all the little transitions and stuff are pretty interesting, with 5 or 6 really great songs too. Opened a new frontier for her a bit.
Iceboy Violet is thrilling - FFO Sophie, Dean Blunt, Arca. Really extreme and really beautiful, it’s brilliant.
Burial - Best thing he’s done in half a decade. Not for everyone but if you give yourself over to it there’s plenty going on for an ambient release, and some gorgeous little standout moments.
Panoram is great - FFO Boards of Canada and slightly left of centre electronica. It’s not reinventing any wheels but it’s really strong and works so well front to back.
Shinichi Atobe might be reinventing some wheels. It’s not immediate but is full of intricacies and some of it really knocks. It’s going to grow and grow.
Narrowly missing out - The Weekend’s best album in a decade (just a bit long, but when it’s good it’s genuinely excellent), Earl Sweatshirt (which tbh I’m getting more into - it’s an excellent Earl album…), Soichi Terada (great, but samey - the high points are monstrously high mind) and Amber Mark which really is terrific and might have made my 5 if it was out a week earlier.
Kingston University Stylophone Orchestra - Stylophonika
Jocy de Oliveira - Raga Na Amazonia
Pan Daijing - Tissues
Cat Power was the big surprise for me, really don’t like Jukebox and the artists she’d chosen to cover didn’t inspire me at all, but it’s absolutely wonderful. First listen it felt like a nice collection of b-sides but second and third listen revealed it’s character. Ace.
The Anaïs Mitchell album is definitely going to be in the mix for my end of year list.
Not much bubbling under other than the Burial release and . I need to give the Summer of Soul soundtrack a listen. Really enjoyed the live single from Emma-Jean Thackray too.
Edit: Added Bonobo. Knocked out Eels.
Edit Number 2 - Blawan - Woke Up Right Handed E.P. came out in November. Eels back in the mixed.
More about depth than breadth for me this month. Didn’t click with loads, but really enjoyed those that did. Only had chance to give first listens to Burial, Earl Sweatshirt and Blood Red Shoes so far.
Really struggled to find anything this January - will check out the Blood Red Shoes album though, seems to be getting lots of fans and I like them a lot.
The perils of early voting! If I could update this to
Blood Red Shoes - Ghosts on Tape
Yard Act - The Overload
Molly Nilsson - Extreme
Cat Power - Covers
FKA Twigs - Caprisongs
That would be great. That Molly Nilsson album is absolutely brilliant, Sweet Smell of Success and Absolute Power especially. Great headphones album as someone up-thread mentioned
BAD Mode is probably one of the classiest pop albums I’ve heard in a while, AG Cook appears for a couple of clean, understated upbeat numbers, but it’s the Floating Points tracks that really elevate this album. The album’s 7 minute centrepiece Not In The Mood could easily be overlooked with it’s lounge jazz feel, but the powerful jazz/electronic/ambient coda that it ends on takes things to a whole new level. Somewhere Near Marseilles is a mix between Roisin Murphy and early 00s Music/American Life Madonna, clocking in at just under 12 minutes it’s a little self indulgent, but who else is doing this 20 years into their career? The bonus tracks are unnecessary, and Face My Fears really doesn’t fit into the ~vibe~, but it’s one of the strongest albums in their discography, and that’s pretty exciting. 9/10
The Weeknd and FKA twigs both put out some solid pieces of work, one practically a concept album set in it’s own universe, and the other so scattershot but tied together with it’s interludes. 8/10
Fickle Friends put out another batch of catchy synth-pop songs, there’s a couple of embarrassing moments but for the most part it’s quite solid, and I’m a sucker for Broken Social Scene, most of these songs were quite easy to find prior to this release but they’re mainly new to these ears, and even average BSS songs are better than most. 7/10
Got a dozen records on my to do list already but enjoyed all of these so far.
Thanks for the Imarhan shout in this thread can see that staying on rotation all year! Didn’t really get on with FKA twigs’ last album but I’m loving this one.