morning
OK seeing as how its nearly the end of 2001, its time to drag out that hoary old chestnut, the best album of the year thread.
Rather than do the customary 'top five' this year I've decided to do a top four and then a 'biggest disappointment' (rather than worst album), because I never buy shit music. I never regret purchasing anything. Ahem.
OK top four albums (in no order) are:
SeaLifePark "Wildlife Documentary" (Quietly Suburban Records) Their first full-length proper album from this Sydney outfit and fuck me its amazing. Perfect quiet indie-pop with lots of noise (hmm contradiction there), female vocals, and stop start melodic guitar loops that stick in your head all day. I didnt think they could improve on their first eponymously titled debut but this is incredible. It's played to death on my stereo but I haven't got sick of it, I dont think I could. You can order it from http://www.quietlysuburban.com.au (best name for a record label ever).
Jan Jelinek "Loop finding Jazz Records" (~scape) This year was one of minimalism and stripped-down-to-the-bones for me, and this pretty much summed it up in two pieces of vinyl. Jelinek allegedly took famous jazz records and filtered them so much he came out with this, and although I cant hear anything along the lines of Kind Of Blue in there, the album has warmth and subtle changes in time and tone in a jazzy style (or maybe I'm still off my face) in amongst the clicks and hisses.
Herbert "Bodily Functions" (Studio K7!) Matthew Herbert incorporated the Manifesto of Mistakes into his PCCOM contract, and spat this out. A nice mix of low end soulful deep house, piano interludes, and minimal click. The female vocals (yes, I'm an easy target) mould beautifully into it all, ever teasing and sensual, never being overly blatant like many other house records. Extremely French, dare I even say a music for Situationists.
Richie Hawtin "Closer to The Edit" (Novamute?) Ok so its a mix album really so it shouldnt count as such (best mix album of the year actually goes to Weatherall for Hypercity on Forcetracks), but seeing as how the lad put so much work into it, I couldnt ignore it. As a 'mix album' there's not much going on really, no tackological build ups or 'anthems' to get the hands in the air; just loads of basic changes, deconstructed loops, and microscopic sampled pieces all glued back together again. But what made it for me was the fact that I had quite a lot of the stuff featured here already (scum trainspotter) and when you hear what he's done with the different tunes, it is actually quite inventive.
Ok then so biggest disappointment. A close second was "Drukqs" by the Aphex Twin (Warp), four years since the last one and only standard Aphex fare, but the winner (loser?) of this one goes to Spiritualized for "Let It Come Down" (Dedicated?). Since the ultra-masterpiece of "Ladies and Gentlemen we are floating in space" in 1997, I suppose only an album of biblical proportions would have satisfied me. After all the nonsense with the Lupine Howl (also shite) crew, and finally getting back to the studio, Pierce failed to recapture the buzz (maybe he just wasn't as skagged out of it as before). The album sounded more... mainstream than before, and the lyrics just didnt work, he could write that stuff in his sleep, and possibly did. By any other bands standards it's still a very good album but wasn't worth the wait.
I'm going to cross post this to ie-indie and thumped.com/bbs, hope you dont mind.
regards
OK seeing as how its nearly the end of 2001, its time to drag out that hoary old chestnut, the best album of the year thread.
Rather than do the customary 'top five' this year I've decided to do a top four and then a 'biggest disappointment' (rather than worst album), because I never buy shit music. I never regret purchasing anything. Ahem.
OK top four albums (in no order) are:
SeaLifePark "Wildlife Documentary" (Quietly Suburban Records) Their first full-length proper album from this Sydney outfit and fuck me its amazing. Perfect quiet indie-pop with lots of noise (hmm contradiction there), female vocals, and stop start melodic guitar loops that stick in your head all day. I didnt think they could improve on their first eponymously titled debut but this is incredible. It's played to death on my stereo but I haven't got sick of it, I dont think I could. You can order it from http://www.quietlysuburban.com.au (best name for a record label ever).
Jan Jelinek "Loop finding Jazz Records" (~scape) This year was one of minimalism and stripped-down-to-the-bones for me, and this pretty much summed it up in two pieces of vinyl. Jelinek allegedly took famous jazz records and filtered them so much he came out with this, and although I cant hear anything along the lines of Kind Of Blue in there, the album has warmth and subtle changes in time and tone in a jazzy style (or maybe I'm still off my face) in amongst the clicks and hisses.
Herbert "Bodily Functions" (Studio K7!) Matthew Herbert incorporated the Manifesto of Mistakes into his PCCOM contract, and spat this out. A nice mix of low end soulful deep house, piano interludes, and minimal click. The female vocals (yes, I'm an easy target) mould beautifully into it all, ever teasing and sensual, never being overly blatant like many other house records. Extremely French, dare I even say a music for Situationists.
Richie Hawtin "Closer to The Edit" (Novamute?) Ok so its a mix album really so it shouldnt count as such (best mix album of the year actually goes to Weatherall for Hypercity on Forcetracks), but seeing as how the lad put so much work into it, I couldnt ignore it. As a 'mix album' there's not much going on really, no tackological build ups or 'anthems' to get the hands in the air; just loads of basic changes, deconstructed loops, and microscopic sampled pieces all glued back together again. But what made it for me was the fact that I had quite a lot of the stuff featured here already (scum trainspotter) and when you hear what he's done with the different tunes, it is actually quite inventive.
Ok then so biggest disappointment. A close second was "Drukqs" by the Aphex Twin (Warp), four years since the last one and only standard Aphex fare, but the winner (loser?) of this one goes to Spiritualized for "Let It Come Down" (Dedicated?). Since the ultra-masterpiece of "Ladies and Gentlemen we are floating in space" in 1997, I suppose only an album of biblical proportions would have satisfied me. After all the nonsense with the Lupine Howl (also shite) crew, and finally getting back to the studio, Pierce failed to recapture the buzz (maybe he just wasn't as skagged out of it as before). The album sounded more... mainstream than before, and the lyrics just didnt work, he could write that stuff in his sleep, and possibly did. By any other bands standards it's still a very good album but wasn't worth the wait.
I'm going to cross post this to ie-indie and thumped.com/bbs, hope you dont mind.
regards
