Best Ever Albums

Re: 2017 Championship Tournament: Play-In Game #6

baystateoftheart — Tue, 28 Aug 2018 15:19:46 GMT

Author: baystateoftheart

Posted: 08/28/2018 19:19

They're both good albums that feel relatively equal in quality. A tough choice. However, the Quelle Chris record was more fun to listen to, so I'm going with that one.

Re: 2017 Championship Tournament: Play-In Game #6

Repo — Sun, 26 Aug 2018 09:17:57 GMT

Author: Repo

Posted: 08/26/2018 13:17

baystateoftheart wrote:

Play-In 6B:

Reaching For Indigo by Circuit Des Yeux

Nominated By: meccalecca
Genres [RYM]: Avant-Folk, Art Pop

God. It took FOREVER for this album to click with me. Like longer than Captain Beefheart's Trout mask Replica. I'm not kidding! Anyways, it finally started paying off this morning & truly this album is a beaut. It's just glacial. But once the details start emerging from heretofore seemingly monotonous terrain. Once you see the mountains that you had missed. And the brooks and nettles.Theirreally is a hidden little world built into this disc. It just takes a while to be able to see it. Like one of those pictures you have to stare at. And stare at. And stare. and then... Whoah! You've flipped.

That said! That Quelle album is one of the more interesting and beguiling hip hop abums I've ever heard. At times I think it's brilliant. At others, i find it annoying. The one sure thing - it's different and begs repeated visits which I will do for the next week of this tourney.

Definitely two killer albums worthy of my 2017 charts.

Re: 2017 Championship Tournament: Play-In Game #6

Purplepash — Sun, 26 Aug 2018 04:25:50 GMT

Author: Purplepash

Posted: 08/26/2018 08:25

I don't know....somehow Quelle Chris I liked and disliked at the same time, if that's possible, and for Circuit Des Youx I was not in the best mood when I listened to it, and driving on a straight road for 40 minutes, and you know - music, set, setting - so I am giving the benefit of doubt to Circuit Des Yeux witn my vote and might try again sometime.

Re: 2017 Championship Tournament: Play-In Game #6

Jimmy Dread — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 02:18:40 GMT

Author: Jimmy Dread

Posted: 08/24/2018 06:18

Listened to both, still can’t choose. Which for me is something of a surprise as you’d have thought Circuit Des Yeux would have pressed all the right buttons (hell, she sounds like a cross between Beverly-Glenn Copeland and Robbie Basho). And it sure does, but for a genre I know next-to-nowt about (and the fact that on paper it sounds like Fantano fanboy fodder) I’m really enjoying the Quelle Chris LP.

Ask me again in a week. Both are going to need copious listens, preferably when not doing the ironing.

Re: 2017 Championship Tournament: Play-In Game #6

dihansse — Thu, 23 Aug 2018 14:42:33 GMT

Author: dihansse

Posted: 08/23/2018 18:42

I have a bit the opposite feeling than Luigii: when I first heard the Circuit Des Yeux album when it came out I was very enthusiastic about it. When I listened to it a second time later in 2017 my enthusiasm cooled a bit and now when I hear it for the third time I'm wondering why if thought it was so special. It's still in my top chart of 2017 and it's certainly better than its hiphop contender (which didn't really convert me to hiphop) though.

Re: 2017 Championship Tournament: Play-In Game #6

Skinny — Thu, 23 Aug 2018 09:59:49 GMT

Author: Skinny

Posted: 08/23/2018 13:59

Both are lovely, but Quelle Chris for me, who has been one of my favourite rappers since Shotgun & Sleek Rifle dropped (which you should really go check out if you liked this one).

Re: 2017 Championship Tournament: Play-In Game #6

mickilennial — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 23:52:18 GMT

Author: mickilennial

Posted: 08/23/2018 03:52

I feel like this whole era of art pop is knocking it out of the park. Maybe it's because I'm white and growing old[er]. Whatever it is, it feels awesome.

Re: 2017 Championship Tournament: Play-In Game #6

Luigii — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 21:32:50 GMT

Author: Luigii

Posted: 08/23/2018 01:32

The Quelle Chris album is great. But I'd probably go with Reaching For Indigo. That album is a trip.

Re: 2017 Championship Tournament: Play-In Game #6

craola — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 19:04:58 GMT

Author: craola

Posted: 08/22/2018 23:04

Puncture Repair wrote:

I don't expect 'Being You' to do too well, in all honesty I rated it a 6/10 when I first heard it, lol.

But hopefully some people hear in it what I started hearing on repeated listens. 'Being You' is a hazy and colourful dive into a culture of celebrated narcissism and perpetual self loathing. Where we are constantly told to take photos of ourselves looking our best and think we're the best looking person in the whole damn world. In reality we're just another deadbeat in one of millions of coffee shops looking for discounts online on more shit.

Most importantly it's the total irony of the whole situation. It makes no sense, so might as well just ride that wave. In an industry where we frequently celebrate melodrama, it's a total breath of fresh air that Quelle is able to drop something as genuinely funny and genuinely genuine. It's about everything and nothing at the same time. Quelle Chris is one of the few MC's that's actually a poet and a rapper. He proves that what you say is more important than how you say it. The beats are lo-fi and apathetic, sometimes barely coherent, and Quelle Chris and the featuring artists all totally play off it. A real 'complete' piece. I've listened to it more times than I'm proud to admit. Probably in my top 5 of the decade.

Quote:

Quelle Chris fucks with himself. Most of the time. Honestly, it might depend on when and where you catch him. That’s to say that the Detroit representative is like the rest of us—surfing on waves of self-confidence, enduring periods of self-doubt, and searching for a sustainable balance.

The primary difference between Quelle and us is that he’s supremely gifted at rapping and producing. He’s funnier too—in the way that the best comedians are deceptively complex and prone to bouts of melancholy. His new album, Being You is Great, I Wish I Could Be You More Often, is one of the most poignant, self-aware, and hilarious rap albums in recent memory. We should probably offer him some flowers, a case of expensive liquor, and cover the bill for the group therapy session.

...

Despite the preponderance of talent sharing the stage, the guests bend to the world that Quelle created. A darker shade of psychedelia, as if Madvillain gobbled anti-anxiety pills instead of psilocybin. Or maybe a fraternal drunken twin to Open Mike Eagle’s “Dark Comedy.”

The title comes from a real-life discussion about the difficulties of consistency. How each of us are subject to both our own bad spirits and bursts of inspiration, those unavoidable Serotonin and dopamine peaks and valleys. Being You is Great is an attempt to catalog those moods. It’s about learning to love, or at least recognize, the best and worst of one’s self. It’s about loneliness and comfort. Learning to hate love and learning to love hate.

Sequenced so that extreme confidence follows casual despair, the pendulum swings back and forth, mirroring our own emotions and validating something that Nietszche and Ray Bradbury once claimed: “we have art so we won’t die of truth.”

If hip-hop is filled with everymen and superheroes, Quelle Chris has done something quietly radical. This record is almost too human—full of the sublte revelations that only come to you later in life, when you realize that heroes make plenty of errors, and anti-heroes often have merit.

It’s not an exuberant celebration of human life, nor is it a politicized condemnation of what got us here. It’s a record with beats that will make you bob your head and tap your feet, and clever lyrics that will make you laugh and scrunch your face. But most of all, it’s a record with a tremendous reserve of empathy. Something that captures the wonder and madness of being human. Something relentlessly honest. Something great.

i wish i'd read this before voting. i liked both albums and went with the folkier one, but i can't help feeling like i need to listen to both of these a few more times to truly click with'm.

Re: 2017 Championship Tournament: Play-In Game #6

musicoed — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 16:04:52 GMT

Author: musicoed

Posted: 08/22/2018 20:04

Circuit des Yeux – Black Fly (Top-50 best of tracks – 2017)

Link

Re: 2017 Championship Tournament: Play-In Game #6

Anonymous — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 13:26:09 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 08/22/2018 17:26

I don't expect 'Being You' to do too well, in all honesty I rated it a 6/10 when I first heard it, lol.

But hopefully some people hear in it what I started hearing on repeated listens. 'Being You' is a hazy and colourful dive into a culture of celebrated narcissism and perpetual self loathing. Where we are constantly told to take photos of ourselves looking our best and think we're the best looking person in the whole damn world. In reality we're just another deadbeat in one of millions of coffee shops looking for discounts online on more shit.

Most importantly it's the total irony of the whole situation. It makes no sense, so might as well just ride that wave. In an industry where we frequently celebrate melodrama, it's a total breath of fresh air that Quelle is able to drop something as genuinely funny and genuinely genuine. It's about everything and nothing at the same time. Quelle Chris is one of the few MC's that's actually a poet and a rapper. He proves that what you say is more important than how you say it. The beats are lo-fi and apathetic, sometimes barely coherent, and Quelle Chris and the featuring artists all totally play off it. A real 'complete' piece. I've listened to it more times than I'm proud to admit. Probably in my top 5 of the decade.

From his Bandcamp:

Quote:

Re: 2017 Championship Tournament: Play-In Game #6

Luigii — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 21:46:04 GMT

Author: Luigii

Posted: 08/22/2018 01:46

Half way in Reaching for Indigo and why did no one mention about this album in 2017 to me. Because this is gorgeous.

2017 Championship Tournament: Play-In Game #6

baystateoftheart — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 17:34:58 GMT

Author: baystateoftheart

Posted: 08/21/2018 21:34

Play-In 6A:

Being You Is Great, I Wish I Could Be You More Often by Quelle Chris

Nominated By: Puncture Repair
Genre [RYM]: Abstract Hip Hop

Play-In 6B:

Reaching For Indigo by Circuit Des Yeux

Nominated By: meccalecca
Genres [RYM]: Avant-Folk, Art Pop

Instructions:

Please listen to both albums in full before voting. Share your thoughts and/or your vote in this thread. This poll will be tallied in no less than twelve days. See Tournament Spreadsheet for the full bracket.