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Joined: Wed February 06, 2013 2:47 am Posts: 17516 Location: Scooby Doo
1. Bad Things To Such Good People - Manchester Orchestra and Julien Baker 2. American Sports - Arctic Monkeys 3. The Rail - Marie/Lepanto 4. Need A Little Time - Courtney Barnett 5. L-Over - US Girls
1. Bad Things To Such Good People - Manchester Orchestra and Julien Baker 2. American Sports - Arctic Monkeys 3. The Rail - Marie/Lepanto 4. Need A Little Time - Courtney Barnett 5. L-Over - US Girls
1-When Bad Does Good - Chris Cornell 2-We Appreciate Power - Grimes w/Hana 3-Reborn - KIDS SEE GHOSTS 4-Me Voy - Cat Power 5-Safe In The Car - Jeff Ament
Joined: Tue September 24, 2013 5:56 pm Posts: 47020 Location: In the oatmeal aisle wearing a Shellac shirt
Best songs I heard for the first time in 2018. I'm picking seven songs because fuck you, that's why.
The Breeders Nervous Mary 2018 Funny that my favorite song in a year marked by an increased focus on ambient music should be this little garage-pop gem. But it's a perfect little song by a band finally hitting their creative peak nearly 30 years into their career. I'm pretty sure it's about a goat.
Peter Gabriel Indigo (1978) / Peter Gabriel Intruder (1980) I went down the Peter Gabriel rabbit hole this year, making my way through his entire solo discography. These two cuts exhibit the best of both ends of the Gabriel spectrum: The haunting, thru-composed Indigo meanders through a wistful, bordering-on-sappy melody, complete with standard-issue orchestral bells-and-whistles, before settling into a simple, crushing groove and plaintive lyric that is earned by the compositional prowess of the preceding three minutes. Intruder takes its cues from art-rock, studio experimentation, and a feeling of paranoia to paint a character study of a habitual criminal. Both are stunning in their own right.
Daniel Lanois & Rocco DeLuca Satie (2016) / Venetian Snares x Daniel Lanois Mag11 P82 (2018) Lanois himself stated that he sees these two records as being of the same creative mindset, and something apart from everything he'd done before.
The former track, and the entire album to which it belongs, is at first blush a more traditional ambient record. What's fascinating to me is how they get these sounds: Lanois plays a pedal steel guitar, while DeLuca plays lap steel, with both instruments being run through an array of live FX which Lanois manipulates in real time. There was something inherent to this album that I couldn't put my finger on, until I read an interview with Lanois in which he cited his upbringing in gospel music as being the predominant inspiration, and now I can't unhear it. Yes, it's ambient music, and no, it doesn't follow any sort of conventional gospel structure, but the chords that are hinted at have that same sort of uplifting "Godly" quality found in gospel music.
His followup collaboration with break-core pioneer Venetian Snares flips the formula on its head, with Lanois doing the same pedal steel / FX work as with DeLuca, but here it serves as a gentle bed for Venetian Snares to destroy with his off-the-cuff rhythmic creations. Mag11 P82 opens the album to which it belongs with a confident look to the future of music, while still being somehow rooted in the past. Absolutely brilliant.
Low Dancing and Blood (2018) Forget everything you may have heard before from Low. On Double Negative, they abandon the guitar/bass/drums instrumentation they've relied on for the last 25 years in favor of heavily-manipulated loops, synths, and found sounds. Apparently this record is their reaction to the Trump presidency? The lyrics are variously too distorted, too buried, or just too vague for me to really get that from repeated listens, but the overall effect is certainly one of crushing paranoia. This whole album has given me minor anxiety attacks, in the best possible way. Still trying to digest it all, but I'm fairly certain this is my favorite highlight from an album that offers many.
Yo La Tengo Shortwave (2018) Unlike Low, Yo La Tengo more or less continue on down the same path they've blazed since the beginning. But the instrumental Shortwave still manages to chart new territory for the Hoboken trio. Don't be fooled by a cursory listen, it will likely underwhelm. But if you can sit with the entire song, you may feel the same sort of heart-wrenching tension that I do. This wordless, formless soundscape conjures up more feeling for me than most conventional songs I heard this year.
I should include Dawn:Making An Effort from The Breeders's All Nerve in my list. Its such a wonderful, touching song. Everything kinda stops when i listen to it.
No order, just five songs that I played the hell out of this year. A few will show up on my end of year mixtape, which if Brad likes, I can start the thread for.
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