quote:

Originally posted by RavingLunatic:
There's an Australian band called Season. They released an album called Avatar this year and it's pretty incredible. Similar to Explosions in the Sky, and probably equally good. It's a shoe-in for my top 10. THe only problem is you can't buy it unless you live in Australasia.

do you have a link to where we can hear this tasty treat? i would love to hear this, as i love the post rock.

Well, I had to use Soulseek. I think I'll send you a private message on that subject

i like out of egypt... reminds me of Boards of Canada's "zoetrope"

I've still not had time to update my 2005 list, but I'm so obsessed with the Ordinary Boys disc that I'm sure it will be a year-end Top Ten.

Although they're lumped in with the new wave of new wave, they're really less new wave or post-punk and more ska and first wave punk. I hear a fair bit of the Specials, a lot of early Jam, and, mostly, a ton of my beloved Madness. Awesome.

quote:

Originally posted by philosopherEric:
I've still not had time to update my 2005 list, but I'm so obsessed with the Ordinary Boys disc that I'm sure it will be a year-end Top Ten.

Although they're lumped in with the new wave of new wave, they're really less new wave or post-punk and more ska and first wave punk. I hear a fair bit of the Specials, a lot of early Jam, and, mostly, a ton of my beloved Madness. Awesome.

On the strength of your rave here and in Individual Tracks, I checked out the single "Life Will Be the Death of Me" on their web site. Good call on the influences and great call on the single. I'm going to have to find a copy of this one today!

Now Playing: "15 Hundred Miles" Kevin Tihista Home Demons Volume 1

Hmm..it looks like m leland was right about something in this thread.

Fiona Apple's new album 'Extraordinary Machine' was apparently being kept from release not by the record company, but because Fiona didn't like the final product.

Only two of the songs that have been floating around are the final versions and the other nine will be re-recordings of those songs.

Good thing, too. Most of the songs on the leaked version weren't very good.

I just got the new kompakt compilation "total 6".It is excellent.For the past 5 summers kompakt has released this compilation and all of them are equally good.Thsi one is a double cd so it has 24 tracks.It is very good.

On a similar note, i think superpitcher has released the best mix album of the year.'today' is an excellent mix of todays best tracks in the minimal scene.

It is easy to dismiss some of kompakts music because alot of times arists share similarities.But there are a handfull of artists that are making breathtaking exceptional electronic music.

Here is my newest attempt at a ranking for albums I like from this year.

Antony and the Johnsons - I am a Bird Now
Fruit Bats - Spelled in Bones
Mountain Goats - Sunset Tree
Son Volt - Okemah
Micah Hinson - Gospel of Progress
Feist - Let it Die
Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
Frank Black - Honeycomb

Los Super Seven - Heard it on the X
Eels - Blinking Lights...
Smog - A River Ain't too much to Love
M. Ward - Transistor Radio


I also expect, based on pre-release listens, that Sigur Ros, the Iron and Wine/Calexico ep, and The Silver Jews will be added to the list after their albums come out.

I ran across Spelled in Bones used the other day and passed on it. We share at least half your list in common, so I might have to go grab it during lunch.

I highly recommend it. I thought their last album, mouthfuls, was pretty good, but nothing special. I think 'Spelled in Bones' is much much better, and one of the most listenable albums of the year.

Illinois isn't sounding quite so amazing as it did at first on successive listens. Still good, but I'm not sure it will hold up in time as well as albums full of songs that are just plain amazingly written and put together, such as 'Love Kraft' by Super Furry Animals.

(Although it may not be the final version I'm hearing, logic seems to suggest that if it's not, the final versions will only be better. So I see no reason to wait till the arbitrary date they decided to release it in order to list it along with the others).

Same with 'Apologies to Queen Mary' by Wolf Parade. You know the songs on the EP are the final versions, and the questionably-final other songs I've heard...if they sound this good now, they'll only sound better on the final version. So I would also include it already with the best third-quarter albums.

So, including January-June releases, I'd say a tentative best-of-year-so-far would be..

White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
Sleater-Kinney - The Woods
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
Super Furry Animals - Love Kraft
M.I.A. - Arular
Andrew Bird - Mysterious Broduction of Eggs
Architecture in Helsinki - In Case We Die
Decemberists - Picaresque
Antony and the Johnstons - I Am A Bird Now
Spoon - Gimme Fiction
Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy
Wolf Parade - Apologies to Queen Mary

quote:

Originally posted by Bobthespirit:
White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
Sleater-Kinney - The Woods
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
Super Furry Animals - Love Kraft
M.I.A. - Arular
Andrew Bird - Mysterious Broduction of Eggs
Architecture in Helsinki - In Case We Die
Decemberists - Picaresque
Antony and the Johnstons - I Am A Bird Now
Spoon - Gimme Fiction
Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy
Wolf Parade - Apologies to Queen Mary

No Edan...i thought u liked that album quite a bit??

Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary
Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
Super Furry Animals - Love Kraft
Architecture in Helsinki - In Case We Die
Archer Prewitt - Wilderness
Spoon - Gimme Fiction
Stephen Malkmus - Face the Truth
Devin Davis - Lonely People of the World, Unite!
Jamie Lidell - Multiply
Eels - Blinking Lights and Other Revelations
Clap You Hands Say Yeah - s/t
The Boy Least Likely To - The Best Party Ever
Bonnie "Prince" Billy and Matt Sweeney - Superwolf
Sleater-Kinney - The Woods
Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock & Roll
New Pornographers - Twin Cinema
The Russian Futurists - Our Thickness
Engineers - s/t
My Morning Jacket - Z

The new Animal Collective and Rogue Wave might make a splash after they age some more.

quote:

Originally posted by Imprezu21:

quote:

Originally posted by Bobthespirit:
White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
Sleater-Kinney - The Woods
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
Super Furry Animals - Love Kraft
M.I.A. - Arular
Andrew Bird - Mysterious Broduction of Eggs
Architecture in Helsinki - In Case We Die
Decemberists - Picaresque
Antony and the Johnstons - I Am A Bird Now
Spoon - Gimme Fiction
Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy
Wolf Parade - Apologies to Queen Mary

No Edan...i thought u liked that album quite a bit??

Hmm...Edan would probably show up if I extended the list by a dozen or so more albums.

I guess I'll update my list since everyone else is:

1 - Thee More Shallows – More Deep Cuts
2 - Sufjan Stevens – Illinois
3 - Okkervil River – Black Sheep Boy
4 - Fiery Furnaces – EP
5 - Four Tet – Everything Ecstatic
6 - Mountain Goats – The Sunset Tree
7 – Season - Avatar
8 - Sleater-Kinney – The Woods
9 - Out Hud – Let Us Never Speak of It Again
10 - David Francey – The Waking Hour
11 - Caribou – The Milk of Human Kindness
12 - Decemberists – Picaresque
13 - Andrew Bird – The Mysterious Production of Eggs
14 - Greg Weeks – Blood Is Trouble
15 - Great Lake Swimmers – Bodies and Minds
16 – Magnolia Electric Co. – What Comes After the Blues
17 - Spoon – Gimme Fiction
18 - Eels – Blinking Lights
19 - Beck – Guero
20 - Architecture In Helsinki – In Case We Die


A few notes:

--The top 10 ones are the only ones I think I'll listen to much in the future. There's a big drop-off after that.

--I only first listened to the new Damien Jurado yesterday, and it will probably end up somewhere up there, but I'm not sure where yet. Most likely around 12-15. EDIT: Never mind. It won't even make the list.

--I've fallen in love with that Thee More Shallows album. It stands up well with my top albums from the past few years I think. There's also an EP called Cuts Plus 2 which has 2 non-album tracks, one of which is outstanding and the other decent.

--For me, this year is turning out to be pretty similar to 2004 in terms of number of quality albums. 2003 and 2002 were far better though.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: RavingLunatic,

Time to also update, with last ranking in ().(june)


(1) 1.Jaga - What We Must
(8) 2.Architecture In Helsinki - In Case WE Die
(4) 3.M83
(10)4.Black Mountain
(5) 5.Out Hud
(2) 6.The White Stripes
(6) 7.Caribou
(3) 8.Lemon Jelly
(11)9.Gorillaz
(18)10.The Books

(12)11.Spoon
(20)12.Eels
(7) 13.Vitalic
(14)14.Fiery Furnaces - EP
(15)15.Queens of the Stone Age
(17)16.Prefuse73
(13)17.System of a Down
(9) 18. NIN
(-) 19.P:ano - Brigadoon
(16)20.Edan

As you can tell, not much bought in last couple of months.

The Books is wierd for me. I think it is Top 5 for my headphone listening pleasure, but the CD is awful at editting songs together. I tried to listen to songs backwards 11-1 and enjoyed better. Try it!

To buy: Four Tet, Royksopp, Teenage Fanclub.

heres my LISZT

1 animal collective - feels
2 broadcast - tender buttons
3 excepter - self destruction
4 gang gang dance - god's money
5 black dice - broken ear record
6 mt eerie - no flashlight
7 deerhoof - the runners four
8 cariboux - milk of human kindness
9 sleater kinney - the woods
1
0 angels of light - sing other people


yow !

For those of you who haven't heard Black Mountain, I suggest you check this Vancouver band out. Now, finally reviewed on the Rolling Stone website...to tour with Coldplay...
check it out(CD in my top 5)

Reviewed at 3 1/2 stars:

Near the end of "modern music," a groovy sax-fueled nugget and the first song on their debut album, Black Mountain announce their true intention: The band downshifts into a viking ship of a riff and turns into an indie-rock version of Black Sabbath. Flying in the face of arch Eighties revivalism, the Vancouver fivesome melds heavy-metal thunder, black-light psychedelia and blues-powered sludge into a stylish brand of stoner rock -- as on the spaced-out single "Druganaut" and the low-fi Rolling Stones homage "No Satisfaction." Black Mountain somehow caught the ears of Coldplay, who invited the band to open for them on much of their North American tour. It's a weird pairing (especially if Black Mountain plan on breaking out the synth-heavy "No Hits," with the lyric "Lemme holler against the pop-star dream"), but there's no doubt that the band's Monsters of Rock sound is arena-ready.


JONATHAN RINGEN
(Posted Aug 25, 2005)

quote:

nojax

There's a name I haven't seen for a while. How would you describe the new Animal Collective, nojax? I've never been too crazy about them before, but I'm kinda looking forward to their new one.

haha yeah ! Sometimes I come back to post these little lists of mine

Feels is real nice. Pretty huge, weird pop songs, nothing like Sung Tongs, nothing too much like anything of theirs really. Kinda like really energetic like Here Comes the Indian but it's a cleaner energy and less raucous, except on "Grass", which is pretty terrific and so screamy

I said it in the other thread I think, but "The Purple Bottle" is pretty much the song of the year. Parts of the album really remind me of Cocteau Twins at times, the way they use their voices. I dunno, it may or may not actually be my album of the year after the novelty wears off, but man it's pretty fine

way better than the Vashti Bunyan EP, the whatsit