Vote for your favourite five albums. Make your selections clear please as it makes tallying up the scores easier. If you list a whole bunch of albums without making your selections clear I’ll take the first five mentioned as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th. No joint positions please. Sorry to be a pedant.
Your album of the month will get five points, 2nd placed album four points, 3rd placed album three points, 4th placed album two points and 5th one point. If you name only one album I’ll give that five points. If you name two albums I’ll score them with five and four points etc. You get the message.
My choices:
Jake Xerxes Fussell - The Old Beloved Path
Team Dresch - Furthermore
Sharp Pins - Mod Mayday 23
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A good month for me for live music and new releases. The best concert was the Stars, Broken Social Scene and Metric show at Brixton which I went to after six days in Vancouver. A nice end to a Canadian week.
The Jake Xerxes Fussell album is a beautiful soothing listen and loved it. I’m glad Team Dresch (like me) are still stuck in the 90s and it’s great to have them back; looking forward to their gig next week. I liked the new Sharp Pins album but his Radio DDR is always my go to.
Julia Jacklin has a new one out tomorrow and I enjoyed her Rough Trade East gig a few months ago promoting this album. I think The Red, Pinks and Purples have a new one out tomorrow but could be said of any week.
Please forgive any shameless bumps of this thread during the week. I’ll keep this thread open until Sunday 3rd October and so you’ll have over a week to listen to tomorrow’s releases if there’s anything out before choosing.
Vote now!! (Or later in the week) but make your choices clear please.
Told Slant
Sand Duney
Lily Seabird
This Is Lorelei
Formal Sppeedwear
Curbside Lambsear
Babehoven
Jake Xerxes Fussell
Beck
Neil Young
cowboyy
Julia Jacklin
Biita Houdei
Mr Husband
Windy & Carl
1: Maxime Denuc: Club Imperiale
2: 300SkullsAndCounting & Jenny Sparks: THIS IS SPA TOWN!
3: Space Afrika: Quiet Storm
4: Tinashe: Popstar
5: Gilla Band: Pugnello
No room for Harmony Index, Miles, Actress or Argento was tough.
Summary
I’ll say this for 300Skulls… I have absolutely no idea if it’s any good, if I’ll be listening to it in a month, or if it’s not just some wild-scam industry plant. Most will clearly, and maybe rightly just say it’s s**t. But as of right now, I adore it. It’s so wild, so British, it’s referential of stuff that’s aged well (rips Daft Punk at one point), and obviously stuff that hasn’t, but might make a bit of a comeback now. A lot of it has the feel of early-Streets. Jenny Sparks is two for two this year now as well, so not sure it’s entirely a joke. The single has split opinion in all the right ways, and ‘I Have The Pineapple’ is really quite beautiful. Maxime Denuc takes it though, and might take AOTY for me at this rate - just gorgeous, could listen to it for days (and have). Such a unique sound. Tinashe is pop album of the year perhaps (with Olivia and Charli) - and does the thing I look for in all great pop in that it’s clearly part of the wider conversation of things going on right now, but trades non of it’s idiosyncrasy to keep that company. And imagine Gilla Band will walk this poll but I’ve been really surprised by it. A great example of something that really normally isn’t my thing, but it’s so well done that it’s completely undeniable… love at least half the songs, Crisp Pop is insanely good. Space Afrika isn’t as immediate as I thought - really did think they might make a big popular swing - but it’s supreme lack of immediacy tunes me right into it. They really are unparalleled world builders, a true one off group.
I tried finding a 5th but since we were on holiday for 2 weeks in August I played catch up and all my 5th choices came out in August. Basically Space Afrika could never follow up the album of the decade in Honest Labour and it came out the same day as the album of the year at this point. That Tinashe I found just a bit boring really, prefer Quantum Baby.
Curbside Lambsear - Put Rings On All Of My Fingers To Weigh Down My Hands
Lily Seabird - Lightspheres On Their Way
6-10
Jake Xerxes Fussell - The Old Beloved Path
Mr Husband - Songs Of The Old World
cowboyy - revocder
Gilla Band - Pugnello
Beck - Ride Lonesome
11-20
corto.alto - SOME SMALL FORTUNE
Told Slant - What’s Up
Neil Young - Second Song
Julia Jacklin - The Gem
Ibibio Sound Machine - Chopping Mountain
Emma Ruth Rundle - These Killing Times
Windy & Carl & Optigan Conservatory - Windy & Carl Meet Optigan Conservatory
Formal Sppeedwear - Punch Card
Lou Terry - Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Spectacle
The Tubs - Hard Life
The Rest
Movements - Happier Now
Sand Duney - Plant Material
Harrison Gordon - BLISS
Green Lung - Necropolitan
Morabeza Tobacco - It’s Only Heaven
Frankie Rose - Hila
Celebration Guns - What Keeps Us Coming Back
kolezanka - Zone 2
Slow Pulp - Melodie
applied communications - applied communications bites the big one
Smidley - Murphy Horse
Ian Noe - Canyon Falls Trailer Band
Also listened to This Is Lorelei once but don’t know how I feel about it yet. Disappointed by The Tubs. Need to listen to Space Afrika, Actress, and The Black Dog’s Psychick Youth.
Great month, lots to like including a possible AOTY:
Klara Lewis - Opening
Gilla Band - Pugnello
Adam Wiltzie & Jóhann Jóhannsson - Friendship Survival Guide
Oren Ambarchi - Cooked
Arab Strap - Half Told Tales
Also enjoyed Windy & Carl, Zake, Beck, Protomartyr, Julia Jacklin and especially enjoyed Anushka Chkheidze & Robert Lippok and the Lusine LPs, which in any other month would both be in the top five.
The Mary Wallopers, Ezra Collective, The Tubs, Tra Phaidin, Lucas Lawson, Revival Season, Slow Pup, Actress, Sylvan Esso, Babehoven, Thee Sinseers, Orbital, Julia Jacklin, Blondshell, Penelope Isles