Hmm.. Yeezus and The Life of Pablo. Also I My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Watch the Throne.

Specific songs:
"Hold My Liquor"
"Fade"
"Guilt Trip"
"Gotta Have it"
"Runaway"
"Gorgeous"
"All Day"
"On Sight"
"Feedback"
"Blood on the Leaves"
"Send it up"
"FML"
"Freestyle 4"
"Wolves"
"Father Stretch My Hands pt.1"
"No More Parties in LA"

these are all brilliant, everything mark harwood's put out on penultimate this year has been absolutely stunning. so nice to see carla getting a lot of love as well, have seen her and the bum creek guys play in a bunch of really great bands over the years back home so it's really sweet to see tarquin et al really making it big via BEB, much deserved.

re: kanye west, wait until they release his last couple of records without his voice on them and they'll be pretty cool.

BABYFATHER "bbf hosted by dj escrow" / "419" / "platinum tears"
AUTECHRE "elseq 1-5"
GRAHAM LAMBKIN "community"
COUNTER INTUITS "monosylabilly"
DEAD C "trouble"
HAINO/O'ROURKE/AMBARCHI "I wonder if you noticed "I'm sorry"..."
FRANCESCO CAVALIERE "gancio cielo" 1 & 2
LOLINA "live in paris" / "sisters of control" (inga copeland x gast)
TYPHONIAN HIGHLIFE "the world of shells"
D/P/I "composer
POSSET "double jupiter"
TERRY "terry hq"
DJWWW "arigato"
M.E.S.H. "damaged merc"
YVES TUMOR "serpent music"
THE PHEROMOANS "i'm on nights"
VALERIO TRICOLI "clonic earth"
RENICK BELL "empty lake"
PITA "get in"
GATE "saturday night fever"
MARK VERNON "lend an ear leave a hand"
JACQUES BRODIER "xhos de villemahu"
BIBS "from the fish markets"
FOODMAN "ez minzoku"
IDEA FIRE COMPANY "the synthetic elements"
JESSY LANZA "oh no"
ECTOPLASM GIRLS "new feeling come"
CARLA DAL FORNO "you know what it's like"
JESSE OSBORN LANTHIER x GRISCHA LICHTENBERGER "conversations sur lettres mortes"
LANARK ARTEFAX "glasz"
BILLY BAO "lagos sessions"
HIELE "ritmische bezinning"
JOHN T. GAST "inna babalon"
THE HECKS "s/t"
0COMEUPS "one deep"
KLEIN "only"
TOMORROW THE RAIN WILL FALL UPWARDS "wreck his days"
N1L "wrong headspace"
ROY MONTGOMERY "rmhq"
FIS "from patterns to details"
RASHAD BECKER "traditional music of notional species ii"
CASS MCCOMBS "mangy love"
SHACKLETON "devotional songs"
BASIC RHYTHM "raw trax"
ELYSIA CRAMPTON "presents demon city"

in addition to most of the other stuff I posted about on here/some stuff that greenlight already mentioned. track of the year is undoubtedly the b2 on the new oren ambarchi lp.






*edit* think I might just keep adding to this as they pop back up

Where's Oh No? I thought you were into Lanza. What about DJ Earl? No love?

I will try to give it another go. it just that I have not like two things from their new album on youtube I saw and was not bothered to listen further. there is few more things I was not bother to listen to and probably u would go like whaaaat? like new autechre f.e.!

nice list. haven't hear Autechre, haven't heard Dead C, haven't heard new Pita (is new Pita good?) and I HAVE to listen to Haino O'Rourke Ambarchi, therefore no mention of these on my list.

Alright, I'll do mine. It won't be the obscure stuff, but it's good stuff all the same.

IN NO ORDER, well, except for number 1

1)Between Waves by The Album Leaf
A real great album from a band I decided to listen to on whim.

2)Moon Shaped Pool by Radiohead
Problem was that this album came out just I'd broken up with my girlfriend and it pretty much ruined me after listening to it consistently. It's an amazing album, but it's gonna be a while before I can listen to it all again.

3)Barbara Barbara, we face a shining future by Underworld
Underworld are one of this bands I knew Born Slippy and that's it. However, I'd heard great stuff about this album so gave it a whirl. It's worth being on the list for the first track alone.

4)Blackstar by David Bowie
What is there to say that hasn't already been said about it this year?

5)The Hope Six Demolition Project by PJ Harvey
It's not a perfect album, but the tracks that hit the spot REALLY hit the spot. A Line In The Sand, Community Of Hope and The Wheel being notable highlights

6)Arrival Soundtrack by Johann Johannsson
I'm a big fan of movie soundtracks and this one was just something else. I loved the film, but the music was just something else. Sci-fi has been going through a resurgence the last few years and their soundtracks have always been first rate to match. Which brings us to our next one.

7)Third Law by Roly Porter
This is a sci fi soundtrack to a film that doesn't exist. I've no idea how he managed to make the sounds he has on this album, and tbh, I don't wanna know. Real good stuff on here

8)You Want It Darker by Leonard Cohen
Like Blackstar it's impossible to not have your listening affected post death. His voice never sounded sexier than it did on this album either.

9)The Life Of Pablo by Kanye West
I've had a bit of a love/hate relationship with this album. When it's good, it's really good, however one too many filler tracks spoil the listening of the album. However for me, the ups and downs of the album sum up Kanye's state of mind atm.

10)Stranger To Stranger by Paul Simon
His last couple of albums have ranked right up there with his absolute best stuff. Still pulling out great albums and long may it continue.

There's been a distinct lack of hip hop listening by me this year, and I've no idea why. I've not even been bothered about checking Danny Brown's new album and I loved his last one. Usually I go through phases of genres so I suspect I'll hit a rap phase soon enough.
I did listen to 6Lack's debut album, the new Tribe album and I thought they were fine enough. It's just nothing was grabbing me whilst listening to them.

soundracks are worth of mention too! definitely! I liked Arrival Sto. The Hateful 8, The Revenant were good from what I can remeber. I loved Approaching The Unknown Sto., shite movie tho.

Yeah. Agree. That first track is just amazing. Not groundbreaking (it's Underworld, y'know... we've been there) but just really goddamn good. Something about this album appealed to the starved, atrophied, little space-rock fan in me, who's had precious little to feed on in the past few years.


Hey, have you heard Mica Levi's phenomenal dark ambient soundtrack to Jonathan Glazer's film Under the Skin? Great film, great sci-fi, great soundtrack. I highly recommend it if you're into scores, especially bleepy/scratchy/bloopy ones.


Yeah, I think this is my favorite by Cohen. It didn't come out early enough in the year for me to really soak it in, but he kills it on this album.


It's all over the place. It took me a while to be able to listen to it straight through, even though I really did listen to it every day for months. I skipped over the "filler" tracks early on (at the time, I thought of "Freestyle 4," "I Love Kanye" and "Facts" as filler) but now I love it all, and listening to it from start to finish is never anything short of amazing. William Toldeo nailed it when he said the album was built on its transitions. One song necessesitates the next. I even love "Freestyle 4" since seeing it live. Real banger that. And emotionally it's just so rich, filled with the contradictions and conflicting feelings of real life. Powerful stuff. Heaven and hell shit.

It's Kanye's White Album. Said it before, will say it again.

Oh yes. I totally loved that film and she did a great job on it. Gonna be interesting to see how she goes from that to a biopic about Jackie Kennedy.

Shit, I totally forgot about that one!

I'm totally a sucker for Thomas Newman too and he did a great job on Finding Dory (I know, I know).

it's on there...?? the earl record was really good but it just slipped my mind, obviously not a lot of floor-focused stuff on there which isn't to say I didn't enjoy any but it's just not at the forefront of my mind like all that stuff is. obviously forgetting a lot on there.

these records are all pretty similar in that they're veterans all working within singular niches they've carved out:
- the æ doesn't necessarily doing anything radically different, it's the same reverbed-out sound they've been working with for the last couple releases but they stretch out far further than they ever have, finally establish themselves firmly in the traditions they directly spawned;

- the dead c record is essentially an expansion of their 2013 live set with themes from their last lp and some gate releases from a couple of years back but sounds exactly as they should;

- the pita record is similar to æ in that it's rehberg returning to show up the 'rave abstractionists' with a far more coherent version of that concept, slots in very comfortably with his earlier stuff but updates the template for the post-rave paradigm;

- and the haino/o'rourke/ambarchi record isn't necessarily as fresh as what they were doing on other recent sets but slots it all together so beautifully and expands their palette a fair bit in the process, remarkably composed for free improv.

like if you'd have told me all these acts would be putting out records in a certain timeframe I would always comfortably say that it'd be on high rotation for me because there's a commonality in them refining a certain approach over time, furrowing into some set of ideas behind music which I can really get behind.

Oh, that Cass Mccombs record is really good too. dammit.

yeah really enjoy it, tuned out after whatever came after wit's end but my brother played me this one, otherwise wouldn't have bothered but such a great sound, could listen to it all day.

You know what was disappointing this year? Preoccupations (FKA Viet Cong). Their new album under the new name is just really generic poppy post-punk type stuff. Their album as Viet Cong had some teeth, and I really loved it. But I can't seem to enjoy the new one. I listen to it and I just think, "Why am I not listening to Joy Division or Wire? What's the point of this thing?" And that's not something you want to think when you're listening to music. :(

Bummer. I LOVED Women. Goddamn, Women was such a great band. Viet Cong seemed to carry the torch. But very publicly changing your name for political correctness reasons is extremely unpunk. It's like they were castrated when they did that. Lame.

1. A Tribe Called Quest - We Got It From Here...
2. Chance The Rapper - Coloring Book
3. Kanye West - The Life Of Pablo
4. Weezer - (White Album)
5. Anderson Paak - Malibu
6. Sonic Youth - Spinhead Sessions
7. Ariana Grande - Dangerous Woman
8. Heliocentrics - From The Deep
9. v/a - Suicide Squad soundtrack
10. Deftones - Gore

Totally agree. I totally lost respect for them for doing that. They knew it would get some people in a flurry, so not standing by the name when it did is just lame.

Unexpected.

I'd be able to overlook it if the album had some punch. But it just sounds like a bunch of vacuous imitations of cherished artists, from Berlin-era Bowie to Joy Division to the Cure. It's probably not really all that bad of a record, but I had high hopes because their Viet Cong album sounded energized and feral. This one (Preoccupations) just made my heart sink. Where did the skronk go?

Women and Viet Cong used to sound like a knife fight in a phone booth. "Preoccupations" sounds like goth night at a skating rink.

:(

viet cong were never half as good women were though, like that first record was solid but the cassette was unremarkable and the second LP seems a bit more...honest to me? not my style but their songs suit their sound a lot more, appropriately a bit more sluggish/atmospheric. it's obviously not as angry as their debut it's a lot more emotionally varied and mature, less angsty and more supremely bummed.

I still check "best of the year" lists, Metacritic and whatnot, but mostly just to feel the (faint) pulse of the times. I grew out of being addicted to lists years ago, thankfully. Magnet magazine asks its interviewees to list three things (musical or otherwise) in which they're interested at the moment; here's the respective sidebar from a 2014 article on Pere Ubu (note the last "item"):



Having said all of this, I'm gonna pull a not-quite-180º and, since consensus has its casualties, make a 2016 list BUT only without titles previously mentioned on this thread. In no particular order:

Lazarus: Original Cast Recording — Various Artists. If only for the three songs on the second disc that didn't make it onto ★.
Wild Stab — The I Don't Cares
The Ghosts Of Highway 20 — Lucinda Williams
Just A Little More Faith And Grace — Lucinda Williams
The Ship — Brian Eno (previously mentioned, but not listed :))
The Rarity Of Experience — Chris Forsyth & The Solar Motel Band
Glitterbust — Glitterbust
Heron Oblivion — Heron Oblivion
"Not A Word"/"I Won't Let You" — Low/S. Carey
Patch The Sky — Bob Mould
Forever Sounds — Wussy
Tense Nature — Brian Case
Feelin Kinda Free — The Drones
Fallen Angels — Bob Dylan
Eyes On The Lines — Steve Gunn
Hit Reset — The Julie Ruin
Strangers — Marissa Nadler
Bury Your Name — Marissa Nadler
Glenn Kotche: Drumkit Quartets — Sō Percussion
Nocturnal Koreans — Wire
Tween — Wye Oak
If You See Me, Say Yes — Flock Of Dimes
Lovers — Nels Cline
Schmilco — Wilco
Beyond Now — Donny McCaslin
"Feel It In Your Guts" — Thurston Moore & Bernie Sanders :(
"Chelsea's Kiss"/"Sad Saturday" — Thurston Moore
No Waves — Body/Head
Bleed For This: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack — Julia Holter
Crab Day — Cate Le Bon
PRN — Gate
Strung Out In Heaven — Amanda Palmer & Jherek Bischoff. Anna Calvi's performance on "Blackstar" is what truly elevates this one from the sea of tributes.

True, VC was never on the same level as Women. Women made one of the greatest rock albums of the decade. And another pretty goddamn good one. Gracefully updating noisey pop without giving too much of themselves away in the process (a la Deerhunter). I was just hopeful about Viet acing, and I think they delivered pretty sweetly on their self-titled.

I suppose I need to listen to Prepccupations more. There's a chance it will click for me, and I'll see what so many others see in it. That has happened to me before, many times, with albums I've initially written off. The VC album was too raw and of-the-moment to feel derivative or immature, but I can see how it would have been a little pathetic to make another album with that kind of sound. I can tell they went for a more spacious and textured sound on the new album, but so far it just hasn't hit me.

Yeah, listing always feels like a monumentally pointless exercise when you take a step back and look at it. I feel that. Feeling it right now, in fact. I think the entire hobby/habit may simply be a symptom of obsessive compulsion... specifically the compulsion to catalogue and order life's events. Provides the briefest sense of control over the chaos of the world.

I keep thinking of things I forgot. You mention Nels Cline, Feelin Kinda Free by the Drones, and a few others that slipped my mind altogether.

Fuck. Blah.

in no real order and missing some

mv/ee root/void CD (COM)
matt valentine heap zone CD (COM)
matt valentine solo CD (COM)
Steve Gunn eyes on the Lineines CD (Matador)
Steve Gunn "Ancient Jules" 12"(Matador)
Tom Carter Loren Mazzacane Connors live LP (Family Vineyard)
Bryan Ferry Avonmore
Licht - Akiyama Trios - Tommorow Outside Tomorrow (CD) Editions Mego (Alan Licht, Tetzuzi Akiyama with Oran Ambarchia and Rob Mazurek)
Carla Dal Forno - You KNow How It Feels (online)
Heron Obliovon CD (Subpop)
Blackstar by David Bowie (single of the year) Youtube
parallelogram 5 LP/10 artist set (threelobed) TLR-109 (hiss golden messenger / michael chapman), TLR-110 (six organs of admittance / william tyler), TLR-111 (kurt vile / steve gunn), TLR-112 (thurston moore & john moloney: caught on tape / bishop - orcutt - corsano), and TLR-113 (bardo pond / yo la tengo)

the new willie lane would be on here if I had obtained it

I was gonna list this one but I believe it came out in 2015.

haven't heard Heron Oblivion and Glitterbust yet.

Mine arrived mid December and with the holidays I never got to listen to it until January, and it has got a lot of spinning this year - the disc to which I most listen is Six Organs of Admittance and William Tyler

I had a thing for the Heron Oblivion album for a while, but it kinda wore off. It's good not great. The Glitterbust album is absolutely worth owning for any SY fan. It's not the best thing ever, but it's a nice record with a good sound.

If something's one degree of separation from Sonic Youth, I pretty much act as though I have to have it or I will die.

Well then I will have to vaporize you. With my intergalactic vaporizing gun.

If I had to rank the albums I chose, Heron Oblivion would be just beneath ★ at the top. Comets jams (in perhaps a more contemplative mood than Field Recordings From The Sun and Blue Cathedral, but without the classic-rock traps of Avatar and Howlin' Rain) with the FORMIDABLE presence of Meg Baird on vocals and drums. BUY IT, FUCKOS!

I have it! I like it! I just kinda liked it less over time. I love Meg Baird, love early Comets. I'm not sure Heron Oblivion is better than, or an improvement on Comets on Fire or Espers. It's a strong album, though.

It came out really early in the year. Other records came out that filled the "rock" gap for me. Specifically the Thoight Forms album and -- I don't care how lame it sounds -- the Car Seat Headrest album. I know it's pretty over-saturated, but damned if it isn't a really good plain old indie rock album that satisfies some dumb need of mine from way back to rock out nerd style.

So yeah, vaporize me I guess. I'm lame.

viet cong bored me. rock music should just die already.

and Pablo is still one of the most boring albums of this year. fuck you Kanye and yr stupid album. fuck the cheap gospel shit that runs the first half of the album. boring junk. chance is junk. beats and samples make up like always for the bullshit. rather jerk off than listen to this like the rest of hip hop of the year.

dude gave us a half great track with 30 hours. the amazing no more Parties in LA and the somewhat good real Friends. the rest is a snoozefest. hip hop should just die already.

You're just plain talking to me when you say stuff like this. Wouldn't it be easier to just pm me? Or be like, "Hey Severian, I've been thinking and this time I really do hate Kanye for serious no take-backs." Would that not get your point across?

If rock should just die and hip-hop should just die, what, exactly, should... like... not die? I know you hate bleeps and bloops and electronic anything, and I think I recall hearing you condemn everything "avant" ... soooo... what's up man? You rocking Chris Stapleton or whatever-the-fuck now?


Anyhoo, you know damn well that Pablo isn't a traditional hip-hop record. It's not Migos or Yachty or Future, sounds nothing like any of it. Sounds nothing like itself half the time. I understand it's not for everyone, but if you ever liked Kanye and you don't like "Fade" or "Famous" or "Wolves" or "Ultralight Beam" then I don't know what to tell you. "Fade" is a cross-genre achievement. Most mesmerizing "mainstream" single of this or any recent year. And "Real Friends" is great and you know it.

Maybe hip hop should die. I feel that there are very few modern voices in the genre that are worth listening to. So much of it sounds the same. But Kanye? Fuck. Made a more interesting album than PJ, Radiohead, Aphex Twin, or, frankly, ANYONE else this year. The only album that is as artistically varied is Blackstar.

You have to admit it's impressive that the guy pissed off EVERYONE (me most of all) with the album's release, denied people a chance to buy it, crammed a bunch of stream of consciousness chaos onto the record and it STILL was one of the year's most consistently praised albums — and a number 1 record to boot. All he does is deliberately push buttons and defy expectations and dare people to write him off, but when it comes to the music, they just can't. Even though you hate the album (weirdo) you know that's impressive.

Not mentioned yet I believe:
Angel Olsen - My woman

This is quite a good album. I liked it, but never bought it, just streamed. I always listen more to albums I buy.

Anyway, it got a lot of praise from all over the critical spectrum. I feel like it was almost as common on best-of lists as Beyoncé and Bowie.

I gotta give Angel another chance; like Jenny Hval's Blood Bitch, My Woman sounded rather predictable to me. But that was through shitty computer speakers and with bullcrap distractions around, so...

My Woman > Blood Bitch

In my opinion at least. Maybe a bit predictable at times, as you say (or perhaps just a bit more traditional than we expected?), but Angel uses Americana to her advantage. There are traces of old boy rock singers like Roy Orbison, and it makes for an interesting, if not groundbreaking, combination of styles. I really need to explore it more... I'll probably buy it. I loved Burn Your Fire... but this album is a different beast altogether.

EDIT: Is greater than!!!

That's... odd — from what I heard I thought My Woman was LESS rootsy than Burn Your Fire For No Witness. In any case, if you're saying Olsen's album is better than Hval's, you put the wrong symbol there, pawtna.

Shit, yes I did put the wrong symbol there. Goddam phone. And fingers.

My Woman is less "rootsy" but it's more polished, more direct. And it embraces some seriously rocky structures. At least that's my take. I think there was a deliberate attempt to embrace a kind of classic sound. Burn Your Fire... had all the markings of an indie record. You could hear the tape hissing, the guitar sound was a bit junked up. I think My Woman is cleaner, rockier. Indie is barely a thing anymore, so maybe that's part of it. But again, I'm really not very familiar with it, compare to her last. I need to listen more too.

‎2016 Best Albums
‎1. Eleanor Friedberger - New View
‎2. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Skeleton Tree
‎3. David Bowie - Blackstar
‎4. Car Seat Headrest - Teens Of Denial
‎5. Swans - The Glowing Man
‎6. Grumbling Fur - Furfour
‎7. Jherek Bischof - Cistern
‎8. Lubomyr Melnyk - Illirion
‎9. Mary Halvorson Octet - Away With You‏ ‏
‎10. Beyonce‏ ‏‎ - Lemonade
‎11. Sutcliffe Jugend - The Muse‏ ‏
‎12. Wrekmeister Harmonies - Light Falls
‎13. Dinosaur Jr. - Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not ‎
‎14. GNOD - Mirror
‎15. Case/Lang/Veirs - Case/Lang/Veirs
‎16. Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä
‎17. Æthenor - Hazel
‎18. Michael Formanek Ensemble Kolossus - The Distance
‎19. SubRosa - For This We Fought the Battle of Ages
‎20. Waclaw Zimpel - Lines ‎
‎21. Jackie Lynn - Jackie Lynn
‎22. Nate Wooley - Seven Storey Mountain V ‎
‎23. Blixa Bargeld and Teho Teardo - Nerissimo
‎24. Peter Brötzmann & Heather Leigh - Ears Are Filled With Wonder
‎25. Borbetomagus - The Eastcote Studios Session ‎
‎26. A Tribe Called Quest - We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service ‎
‎27. The Body - No One Deserves Happiness
‎28. Wilco - Schmilco
‎29. Krishna - Ascend To Nothing
‎30. Aluk Todolo – Voix
‎31. Heron Oblivion - Heron Oblivion
‎32. Various Artists - Day of the Dead
‎33. Mary Lattimore - At the Dam
‎34. Body/Head - No Waves
‎35. New Zion with Cyro Baptista - Sunshine Seas

Concerts
Tim Berne's Snakeoil - Levontin 7, Tel Aviv
Paul McCartney - Olympic Stadium, Munich
Mercury Rev - Barby, Tel Aviv
Eleanor Friedberger - Bascula, Tel Aviv
Brain Wilson - Raanana Park, Raanana
Alice Cooper - Raanana Park, Raanana
Blixa Bargeld and Teho Teardo - Reading 3, Tel Aviv
Peter Brötzmann / Steve Swell / Paal Nilssen-Love - Levontin 7, Tel Aviv
All Them Witches - Barby, Tel Aviv
Adumey Hasfatot - Reading 3, Tel Aviv
A Place To Bury Strangers - Barby, Tel Aviv
David Peretz - Bascula, Tel Aviv
Thee Oh Sees - Barby, Tel Aviv
The Stranglers - Heychal Hatrbut, Tel Aviv
Oren Ambarchi - Levontin 7, Tel Aviv
Minimal Compact - Barby, Tel Aviv
Psychic TV - The Zone, Tel Aviv
The Fall - Barby, Tel Aviv
Real Estate - Barby, Tel Aviv