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Staff
Reviews 40
Soundoffs 68
News Articles 11
Band Edits + Tags 13
Album Edits 102
Album Ratings 2094
Objectivity 84%
Last Active 09-07-22 7:15 am
Joined 05-07-11
Review Comments 3,955
| "Halfway" through 2023 (ranked) (empirical),
punctual as ever, from a leading tastemaker | | 37 | | Viper the Rapper
Crack therapy
this is what success sounds like. the man just straight up spits bars over the last 8 minutes of "It's a Wonderful Life". living in 2123 | | 36 |  | Andrea
Due In Color
Unusually, an album where the middle stretch provides the best material | | 35 |  | Surgeon
Crash Recoil | | 34 | | The Fun Years
Realness Converts | | 33 | | Yannick Dauby
Alang Skadang, Summertime
not enough frogs but also enough frogs | | 32 |  | Parannoul
After The Magic
diminishes with repeated listens but retains real charm | | 31 |  | Wednesday
Rat Saw God
Quickly runs out of steam but not enough that you can't alight happily at destination. Formula One must, one would think, be hot in contention for song of the year. | | 30 | | Jeph Jerman and Tim Barnes
Passenger
the likely lads are back at it | | 29 |  | Angelo De Augustine
Toil and Trouble
oh angelo / rarely toils and troubles his best, most emotive and comfortable work but we can concede him a depression album surely | | 28 |  | Horse Jumper of Love
Heartbreak Rules
The horse may be a one-trick pony but - what's this - the Kentucky Derby? | | 27 |  | The Tallest Man on Earth
Henry St.
generally improved award | | 26 | | Mark Vernon
Callback Carousel
least improved award | | 25 | | Christian Mirande
Beautiful One Day, Perfect the Next
most improved award | | 24 |  | Philip Jeck and Chris Watson
Oxmardyke
good first name very auspicious / put it in the category of "great albums made on deathbed" | | 23 | | Philip Sulidae
Troca Ionica
one of the best doing it at the minute. consistently just really engaging | | 22 |  | RXK Nephew
Till I'm Dead
STEPPED IN WITH MY WHITE 1s ON (and they ain't got a scuff) | | 21 | | Ricercar Consort
Salvator mundi
the racecar quartet really go "vrrom vroom brr" with this one! and their name is the same backwards as it is forwards... damn that's cool... | | 20 |  | Placeholder
Thought I Would Have Been Somebody By Now
[Placeholder for Andy Guthrie - Blemished. I will not deadname him, and his first release under his real name is as personal and lovely as one might expect. A gem. And cheap as chips. | | 19 | | Eric La Casa
Barrieres Mobiles
Lonesome barriers capture ominous threats of violence and hazards and the prospect of overthrow - but whether they're real or rather the product of paranoid inferences borne from seclusion/reclusion on a lonely estate is ambiguous; and what happens when they tumble down in the wind... | | 18 |  | Lana Del Rey
Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd
really great music for making a queen-sized bed destined for one occupant | | 17 |  | Yo La Tengo
This Stupid World
yea more like Stupidly good! Lotta great comeback LP's this year ay | | 16 | | Gabi Losoncy
Lieutenant
cute gabi ! | | 15 |  | Sea of Shit
Sea Of Shit
2023 iteration proves they're the hardest in the game still and i am rendered a coprophage | | 14 | | Lil Ugly Mane
singles
on God same calibre as Volcanic Bird | | 13 | | Taku Sugimoto
falls
feel like Sugimoto has really entered a phase where, after drifting for a bit, his minimalism has found real expression and genuine lyricism. long may it last. | | 12 |  | Dean Blunt
Give me a moment
Rinsed is my most listened to song of the year and this is my most listened to album of the year and dean is my boyfriend this year also, | | 11 | | Graham Lambkin
No Better No Worse (Vol. 3)
The first of three Graham Lambkin - related projects in the top 10. Unheard of. He's on one of the all-time runs. Some of this material was, unbelievably considering it's quality, discarded. Year of the Lamb. How about: Lambkino, | | 10 |  | DJ Rashad
Jukeworkz
[PLACEHOLDER FOR: Nondi - Flood City Trax. Footwork, Outsider House, U simply gotta listen!, more fulsome write-up soon, | | 9 | | Graham Lambkin
...and James Rushford - Gondolas
With piano even more beautiful and alien than Aphorisms (it's coming... oh yes it is coming) and bricolage that trades in mystery and enigma, I haven't fully assembled coherent thoughts on this. Other than. There's something... quite dirty about this? Like yes sure it is perverse, dark and contumacious, but there's something... sexy about it, in a way that teeters - but never tips into - sheer prurience. What I'm saying is that I want to be dicked down with a strap-on while listening to this, experiencing perverse and grotesques heights of pleasure with multiple senses. That is my review... and you can quote me! | | 8 |  | Swans
The Beggar
Finally - finally! - I find a Swans album I think is brilliant in entirety, and you all abandon ship? miscreant and incorrect behaviour, I simply cannot approve. | | 7 |  | Placeholder
I Don't Need Forgiveness
[Placeholder for Franciso Lopez' "Untitled 2021 - 2022", musique concrete album of the year.] | | 6 |  | Jeromes Dream
The Gray In Between
I honestly haven't been this excited, or absorbed by, a screamo album since I was getting into Off Minor. That was over a decade ago. Potential fully unleashed, beautiful to behold; the sparingly-used melodic sections cutting through the chaos feel like being bathed in sunlight after weeks upon weeks of rain. | | 5 |  | Andy Shauf
Norm
Goes down as smooth as a cool glass of water in scorching heat - until you splutter it back up. Shauf's brand of soft, soft rock and deft arrangements have never been so beguiling, but he continually troubles the notion of his own sheer palatability, all fluttering vocal intercessions describing a stalking scenario that discomforts the lines between the acceptable, or even the seemingly innocuous, with something far more creepy and fucked up. Who hasn't wanted to catch someone's eye at the supermarket - but what if that heady impulse goes unchecked? How can love be real if it isn't reciprocated? What if God didn't understand what love is? Big questions posed by the silky/silver-tongued voice that is just so, so nice, but which is the voice of the unctuous poisoner. | | 4 |  | 7038634357
Neo Seven
Touches the heart and leaves imprints, with distinct fingerprints. | | 3 |  | Arthur Russell
Picture of Bunny Rabbit
I actually can't believe how good this is. I've been skeptical of Audika's intentions in the past, like any doting father, but this has been compiled with love, dignity and frank astonishment that such sounds exist. The music itself is like nothing else except that also from its creator, who seemingly has access to a key and registers and chords that remain inaccessible to anyone else - and in these snapshots of whatever periphery Arthur Russell worked in, he communicates directly with the soul, so to call it "gorgeous", though it is, does a disservice to how *cleansing* it is. Likewise, to label it "innovative" ignores that 40 - fucking 40 - years later, it still sounds new. In the Light of the Miracle (the rendition of which closes the album perfectly) Indeed. | | 2 |  | Graham Lambkin
Aphorisms
Dislocation is not a new concern of Lambkin's, but here it finds its most direct expression; tracks dissolve, resolution is fleeting and ersatz, jump-scares and woozy grotesquerie abounds. One feels they're sinking, bones belonging to unchartered waters somewhere in the Atlantic. Yet for all that, it's frequently beautiful, especially as the meandering and displaced truancy of the first disc coalesces into something firmer - though not unyielding - on the second. Like, T.S. Eliot refused to let people publish excerpts of The Wasteland and I get that bc stripping any of this into constituent parts muddles a narrative that requires them to be part of the whole and disavows synecdoche, at least on the level of each disc (possibly split into two because of density/digestibility) - so does it matter that the second disc is superior when one needs the first to ground it? Anyway, moments of beauty. The melodic line that slinks out in the second half of Trilogy of Embers. Porpitus. | | 1 | | Graham Lambkin
Aphorisms
The captivating bee-buzz guitar of the title track, with domestic anchors playing percussion; the eventual, long-fought triumph of belonging. The emphatic need to replay it from the beginning upon conclusion. No longer sound collage (nothing borrowed, nothing blue) or musique concrete (indeed, a surprisingly instrumenty and original affair as he tinkers on pianos, guitars), something then like a singer/songwriter's confessional or a genre unto himself. A masterwork. AOTY AOTY AOTY | |
Winesburgohio
08.16.23 | really gotta tighten this up but i have football to watch ! | granitenotebook
08.16.23 | flood city trax is so so good, aoty for me so far | Jots
08.16.23 | v surprised to have overlooked a dean release ; / | someone
08.16.23 | How many more Arthur Russell recordings are they going to unearth and repackage?
Never heard of Lambkin, will check | Jots
08.16.23 | lambkin is one of the modern experimental-music greats | cylinder
08.16.23 | Aye, nice list! So stoked to check out 1, been waiting for a chance to soak it all in with headphones.
Also, what film are you referring to in 37? It’s Such A Beautiful Day or It’s A Wonderful Life? The latter is one of my all-time faves, so I would be absolutely tickled to hear that | ramon.
08.16.23 | hi wines | Ryus
08.17.23 | really great list, agreed 3 is incredible. need to spend more time with it but his discography is a veritable treasure trove | AsleepInTheBack
08.17.23 | Thanks for this Wines will browse / peruse / etc | Winesburgohio
08.18.23 | yes I was skeptical and even feared the Arthur Russell legacy was being mistreated, but it's so so not the case - obviously compiled with love and appropriate awe, really dignified (and I think his widower is heavily involved). I think he just taps into some facet of the universe (a secret?) that we're not (yet) privy to.
ha, corrected - though a mash-up of "It's Such a Beautiful Day" and "It's a Wonderful Life" would be... exquisite... | Winesburgohio
08.18.23 | hi ramon. thanks for saving my life! | ramon.
08.18.23 | no problem wines brother, it'll cost you a big smooch though | Havey
08.19.23 | list idea: ranking every francisco lopez untitled | someone
09.08.23 | yeah, i hated Lambkin | Winesburgohio
09.08.23 | I'm sorry you didn't like it, but I really think it's worth putting in the freezer to return to someday - it's well-cured and won't go off. I will say that if you're assessing that vein of 'Experimental' by imposing conditions of deconstruction / structural upheaval / Sui Generis shit then it's not surprising you're missing all that emotional resonance! Relinquish the road map to the artist y'know. But of course I'm going to defend it '''lol''' | someone
09.08.23 | yeah, whatever falls in the ballpark of "experimental" or adjacent adjectives i usually try not to approach with a lens. listen in to the first impressions blind of any knowledge, then read up on the piece from the artist, the label (if there are any texts), reviews (if need be), interviews etc. there was very little on this, obviously, but i did manage to date back some of his notes, writing, and interviews and whatnot from the past to piece together the possible approach. given there is little to no public annotation of this piece, i had to assess it at face value, complete with the context of his other work and his public statements. the conclusion i came to is that of, well, formless mess. an exploration into something Lambkin himself does not confidently communicate. his work, especially here, reads to me like a loosely cyclical tail chase. whatever curious ideas and twists of phrasing, recording, etc (seemingly his oft employed trick is to play with the recording apparatus live as it records) are sporadic and rather disjointed, as opposed to deliberate or communicating value.
But of course I'm going to denegrate it. | someone
09.08.23 | tl;dr i don't see it, maybe it is not for me to see | Veldin
09.08.23 | I’m with you - I think Swans’ Beggar is absolutely incredible | Havey
09.08.23 | aphorisms t/t is kinda SOTY |
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