unfashionably late 2017 idk
hmm good list |
| 35 |  | Bibio
Phantom Brickworks
there's a hour-long window in any given day where this could feasibly be 1 on the list, but the window is too short. a haunting, plangent confessional marred by perhaps a little too obvious piano lilts -- where Bibio excels is conversely the crashes, where hopes break against the march of progress that you've long been excluded from. idk. |
| 34 | | Henning Christiansen
Strategygetarts
classic Christiansen in the best and worst ways; any further exploration and i'd run out of synonyms for esoteric |
| 33 |  | (Sandy) Alex G
Rocket
I'LL LEAVE HER 4 U IF U WAN ME 2 |
| 32 |  | Yves Tumor
Experiencing the Deposit of Faith
like a tumor, this has grown on me!!! thanks |
| 31 |  | Beck
Colors
more 90s stalwards need to lose their damn minds and create involuted, Delphic pop-hop imo |
| 30 |  | alt-J
Relaxer
i just want to love you in my own language |
| 29 |  | Primitive Man
Caustic
the length is integral to this album; it turns an keening elegy into a muddied, brutal dirge |
| 28 | | Akio Suzuki
Immediate Landscapes
me on the right |
| 27 |  | Playboi Carti
Playboi Carti
me on the left |
| 26 | | Vomir / Train Cemetery
Quiet
Just Train Cemetery actually, but the decayed drone approach to HWN works in a way it's astounding it hasn't been done before. a failed industrial. |
| 25 |  | Various Artists (Ambient)
Mono No Aware
bloop bloop |
| 24 |  | The National
Sleep Well Beast
grew off me hard, title track is the only thing that really moves me any more, but here because there was no denying the immediate impact |
| 23 |  | Art Contest
Two Songs
actually there are 17 of them |
| 22 | | Kazuo Imai
The Seasons Ill
solo guitar improvisations |
| 21 | | Various Artists
places and pages
a collection of Ryoko Akama compositions that uses sound sparingly, an aleatory and indeterminate endeavor that somehow lands double sixes every time |
| 20 |  | Jlin
Black Origami
Foot-twerk |
| 19 |  | Gabi Losoncy
HH
my sworn nemesis creates a swirl of twentysomething confusion that i resonated with more than i do most structural music -- Losoncy, like Lambkin before her, offers a narrative, more Bergman than Brackhage, and this year I held onto it gratefully. uhh, electroacousticy field recordings LOL |
| 18 | | Mark Kozelek
Yellow Kitchen
the Kozelek album released in 2017 that everyone forgot about was also his best but what can you do eh |
| 17 |  | Arditti Quartet / Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France
Pascal Dusapin: Quatuor VI; Quatuor VII
"six in the chamber" music |
| 16 |  | Jurg Frey
Ephemeral Constructions
Circular Music given spherical dimension |
| 15 |  | Stevens / Dessner / Muhly / McAlister
Planetarium
the loneliest album, suspended in space |
| 14 |  | Jens Lekman
Life Will See You Now
watching the thirty year olds vanishing |
| 13 |  | Sam Sfirri / Taku Unami
zymology
the boys (hibari) are back in town babey YEAH |
| 12 |  | Keith Rowe and Michael Pisaro
13 Thirteen
the best Erstwhile release of the year, combining gorgeous lowercase and drone impulses to form a heady, fly-by brew. |
| 11 |  | Chief Keef
Thot Breaker
you got trust issues? girl you are not alone |
| 10 | | Various Artists
Anything Ascends into the Firmament. Even Sorrow...
Anything ass-ends because it sounds like two blokes (Hisaharu Teruuchi & Chihaya Matsumoto) assing around! (making beautiful, tender free improv) |
| 9 |  | Mark Templeton
Gentle Heart
the wOOZ |
| 8 |  | Arca
Arca
baptism by fire: a cruel album, throughout the duration of which one could hear a pin drop or, more fittingly, a bead of sweat trickle to the floor, but there are few things as arresting and crystalline as this. |
| 7 |  | Mount Eerie
A Crow Looked At Me
tfw no wife :( |
| 6 |  | Angelo De Augustine
Swim Inside the Moon
tfw u miss late-night intimate talks in bed with a partner and remember you have no g/b/NBf and ur bed is in storage on the other side of the country but then u remember u have this album to approximate the feeling :') |
| 5 |  | John Cage
Klang der Wandlunger
I've long held that John Cage is the Gertrude Stein of classical music: great at drawing wonderful work out of others, and theoretically sound, but his work gets better the closer it gets to emulating the work of those under his consuming influence. So there are obvious signs of Scelsi and Feldman especially, but honestly 103 reminded me most of Greenwood's soundscaping work on Kid A, and the gorgeous, unresolved harp of "In a landscape" feels almost folkloric in it's easy simplicity. Easy listening sure, but captivating nonetheless. |
| 4 |  | Laurel Halo
Dust
"when i was young", Halo confesses on album highlight Do u ever happen "I liked lighting fires", and I'm glad she directed her pyromaniac impulses towards lighting fires underneath Art Pop and Electronica rather than her local movie theatre. Difficult, disorienting -- I have a google doc of a review that makes me throw my hand up in frustration because the words to describe this album never come out right, which is perhaps the point. I'm not ready to unlock a tangle of referents, concrete poetry, nods to her past work. Did this ever happen? Honestly, the album goes by in such a dreamy haze i'm not sure. None of us are ready. |
| 3 |  | GFOTY
GFOTYBUCKS
a masterclass in judicious tracklisting and curation, no easy feat when it comes to one of pop's -- hell, PC Musics -- recherche icons. DJ DJ DJ DJ / SLOW IT DOWN FOR AN EPIC BJ |
| 2 |  | Aaron Dilloway
The Gag File
This is the ideal male body. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like. |
| 1 |  | Simple Affections
Simple Affections
2017 belonged to the oneiric, and with waking life this frequently torturous and filled with mental duress previously unplumbed one can understand why; this is the saddest of the lot, a projection of past glories tainted by mordant humour, disjointed sound collage and a weird dialectic of beauty and ugliness that, of course, emphasises both. There's no synthesis -- this is simple, not complex, affections -- but that seems to be the price of losing oneself in a fantasy better than any you could concoct yourself. A marvel. |
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