20&18 in review

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Poll: 2018 was...
totally lit, fellow kids
20%
 20%  [5]
it's a bird, it's a plane, it's... TARIFF MAN
0%
 0%  [0]
self-important word vomit that comes across like bad GCSE poetry
4%
 4%  [1]
Hayden rhymes with Canadian
8%
 8%  [2]
Saint Theresa, MAY I interject?
8%
 8%  [2]
"insuperior"
8%
 8%  [2]
20 minutes of heaven
0%
 0%  [0]
Just another Cis-Het white man reviewing 2018
8%
 8%  [2]
Do you think there will be more movies based on comic books next year?
4%
 4%  [1]
You think that's Improvised Music
4%
 4%  [1]
GODDDABBIT SKY WHERE IS MASOCHISM>>?!!!!
4%
 4%  [1]
Adpocalypse
4%
 4%  [1]
Best Track: the one with the trap snares
4%
 4%  [1]
Amazon Go Away
4%
 4%  [1]
BAWPs love 2018
4%
 4%  [1]
Rock those Low-Cut Jeans like it's 2005
0%
 0%  [0]
ChiefRockaNewsFeed
4%
 4%  [1]
I Was in the 212, and then Grimes and Elon came and pooe'd on you
4%
 4%  [1]
Are the Regrettes L... nvm
0%
 0%  [0]
Oh well, we can always just blame Benpaco
8%
 8%  [2]
Total Votes : 25

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Age: 38
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  • #11
  • Posted: 12/29/2018 13:32
  • Post subject: Re: 20&18 in review
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sethmadsen wrote:
I honestly feel this way about the 10's in general.


Yeah, but this is a chapter in a story. In the year 1960, people who were 60 years old had been born in the year 1900. Recorded music was a world that was in the process of being built, a frontier of virtual space was opened up for people to plant their flag in. People were still alive who could remember it not existing. It was literally a simpler time, if you wanted to make a tv show in the 80s with a character who was really into music there were types to pick from, they could be a punk or they could be a b-boy, etc. Now you have stuff like this Pitchfork asking how the first grader on Big Little Lies has such great music taste.

The reason this happened is because of timbre. A world of recorded music was built and starting around the 80s with the advent of the "classic rock" format, it stopped being a straightforward narrative of progressive time (which was always a lie), all previous time began to coexist with the present. Contemporary work was in legitimate competition with the past, and we've only accumulated more past. And in this orgy of choice, aided by the ability to be perfectly fixed in time, the sound of music took on a much greater role in establishing the character of what music was, taking it beyond what could be represented on paper composition. This development has led to hilariously stupid conservative reactions, like this PragerU graph, looking like something straight out of Brass Eye. Music used to be about follow the rules, but now style has become substantial and I can't follow the rules and be the very best!

This is a fantastic development. Music is bigger than what any one person can appreciate, we all get ours and connect with people and build understandings and disagreements together but in the end it's something that billions of people alive right now are building with their love and we're aware of that now and how unknowable it is and the death of our false consensus and abilities to dominate it with our expertise should be taken gratefully, replaced by an amazement that we get to take part in it.


Last edited by Tap on 12/29/2018 14:35; edited 2 times in total
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Skinny
birdman_handrub.gif




  • #12
  • Posted: 12/29/2018 14:03
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This year was litty like a fucking tiddie. More thoughts to follow.
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2021 in full effect. Come drop me some recs. Y'all know what I like.
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cestuneblague
Edgy to the Choir



Location: MA/FL

  • #13
  • Posted: 12/29/2018 15:40
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Tap wrote:
I've heard like 273 releases from this year and there's like at least 80 that I think are great and I spent a good amount of time with and they all really enriched my year. Aviary made my all time top 10 and Everyone Needs A Plan got into the 100. I have been having the best time, there's so much. Like listen to the Jake Tobin song on here, Your Tongue Was Caught http://trulybald.bandcamp.com/album/1-3-5 music is amazing



Well you either need to update your chart or PM a shit ton of recs, I want privvy to this valuable musical booty.

And yeah Im sure 2018 gets better as you dig deeper, even if you have to slog through more self-important word-vomit to get there.

And I've never met a boring gay cowboy, but not a bad guess. It's something I'm working on.
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RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad



Location: Ground Control
United States

  • #14
  • Posted: 12/29/2018 18:27
  • Post subject: Re: 20&18 in review
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Tap wrote:
Yeah, but this is a chapter in a story. In the year 1960, people who were 60 years old had been born in the year 1900. Recorded music was a world that was in the process of being built, a frontier of virtual space was opened up for people to plant their flag in. People were still alive who could remember it not existing. It was literally a simpler time, if you wanted to make a tv show in the 80s with a character who was really into music there were types to pick from, they could be a punk or they could be a b-boy, etc. Now you have stuff like this Pitchfork asking how the first grader on Big Little Lies has such great music taste.

The reason this happened is because of timbre. A world of recorded music was built and starting around the 80s with the advent of the "classic rock" format, it stopped being a straightforward narrative of progressive time (which was always a lie), all previous time began to coexist with the present. Contemporary work was in legitimate competition with the past, and we've only accumulated more past. And in this orgy of choice, aided by the ability to be perfectly fixed in time, the sound of music took on a much greater role in establishing the character of what music was, taking it beyond what could be represented on paper composition. This development has led to hilariously stupid conservative reactions, like this PragerU graph, looking like something straight out of Brass Eye. Music used to be about follow the rules, but now style has become substantial and I can't follow the rules and be the very best!

This is a fantastic development. Music is bigger than what any one person can appreciate, we all get ours and connect with people and build understandings and disagreements together but in the end it's something that billions of people alive right now are building with their love and we're aware of that now and how unknowable it is and the death of our false consensus and abilities to dominate it with our expertise should be taken gratefully, replaced by an amazement that we get to take part in it.


Yeah - maybe I should start thinking the way you mention it in bold.

And I mentioned this was the case for nearly every decade. If you dig deep enough, you can get lost in times past and find "limitless" genres, etc. History nicely wraps a lot of it up for us in 5th grader lunch boxes to go though. You find it a fantastic development and I find it somehow daunting. Somehow frustrating that I won't be able to find the great albums of 2010 because they will be lost in the chaff because now "anyone" can make an album. But alas, I suppose I just got to blow through a lot of music to find good music. Maybe I need to refine my process or lower my bar?

I've only done this deep dive into a year once and it was quite rewarding and there was a lot of great music. I'm in no way saying the 2010s suck. I am only saying for the only year I did a deep dive on I couldn't identify just 6 types of music or whatever and put them in it. It felt like nothing fit in a box. You'd have to work really hard to not put something in a box from the 1950s or 1990s, and you could do it, but for the 2010s it's just I feel like very little could be definitively in a box... like we invited this useless word indie as the box, which really means nothing anymore. And not that everything needs to fit in a box... I'm just saying the water is murky in the 2010s and maybe that's what makes it adventurous and maybe that's what makes it B+ releases at best... I really don't know. And maybe some of these B+ releases will blossom into A+ in a few years and maybe they'll sink.

Anyway, I liked Your Tongue Was Caught (that falsetto was like a new dimension... creepy cool)... the rest of the album was painful upon first listen. Different strokes and all.

Go 2018. Let's get this back on track. I guess I'm lame if my favorite find so far was Khruangbin? or if my chart looks like it does... haha

Laughing Laughing Laughing ----- "art reduced to personal standards" ----- Laughing Laughing Laughing
May PragerU die in a fire.
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Kool Keith Sweat





  • #15
  • Posted: 12/29/2018 20:08
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I'll just say that for pop/rock, NTS Sessions 1-4 is one of my favorite things of the year (period) and I revisited Eric Chenaux, Papa M, Roy Montgomery, and Laura Cannell/Andre Bosman frequently (interesting that three of these are solo guitar). I'm becoming less and less interested in nearly everything on pop/rock year-end charts (still giving most everything a shot though), and I'm not sure if this is me or the climate of music in general (rarely find stuff "bad," just not good enough to revisit). I'd say "pure" pop, female-led indie, and hip hop dominated critical and popular consensus for those looking for threads, not tons of variety in these lists.

In jazz, most everyone latched on to Kamasi Washington, Sons of Kemet, and one of either Makaya McCraven or Ben LaMar Gay, International Anthem label-mates (the label that released last year's popular and actually very good (not thanks to Jaimie Branch imo) Fly Or Die and Irreversible Entanglements, so keep an eye on it next year); Gay is worth a listen but I wouldn't recommend the others (though I would recommend seeing them all live). Both Directions at Once happened, which is the classic quartet so it gets an automatic five stars from all reviewers, but everyone seems to have forgotten it in end-of-year lists; it's become my favorite Coltrane recordings before A Love Supreme, but that recording and everything that came after is just so much more realized. Wayne Shorter released a couple hours of material not worth listening to.

There were several compositional masterworks from players that already have great track records this past decade (and before) and that I ~highly~ recommend:
Marker's (Ken Vandermark's) Roadwork 1/Roadwork 2/Homework 1 (modular electro-acoustic)
Henry Threadgill's 14 or 15 Kestra: Agg's Dirt... And More Dirt (angular big band)
Tyshawn Sorey's Pillars
Ingrid Laubrock's Contemporary Chaos Practice
Okkyung Lee's Cheol-Kkot-Sae (Korean folk-music fusion)
Peter Jaquemyn's Fundament (low-end explorations)
Tim Daisy's Fulcrum Ensemble's Animation
Christopher Fox' Topophony (contemporary classical with space for established improvisers)
Anthony Braxton's Sextet (Parker) 1993 (Parker's compositions, mostly trad rhythm, crazy improv)
Miles Okazaki's Work (Monk's compositions on guitar)

And several truly great, looser outings:
Phillips/Yoshizawa's Oh My, Those Boys! (bass duo)
Maroney/Jenkins/O'Donnell's Unknown Unknowns (piano/violin/drums)
Voutchkova/Thieke's Blurred Music (violin/clarinet)
Brandon Lopez' quoniam facta sum vilis (solo bass)
Brotzmann/Leigh's Sparrow Nights (reeds/pedal steel)
Leandre/Harnik's Tender Music (bass/piano)
Holland/Parker/Taborn/Smith's Uncharted Territories (bass/sax/piano/drums)
Rodrigo/McPhee/Kessler/Corsano's A History of Nothing (sax/brass/bass/drums)
Carter/Shipp/Parker's Seraphic Light (sax/piano/bass)
Tsahar/Parker/Drake's In Between A Tumbling Stillness (reeds/bass/drums)

The bolded will be remembered as classics on par with those '60s and '70s albums y'all are so hung up on. Many others that I enjoyed, but are a bit less unanimous or "essential;" this year had literal days worth of great solos and duos, but I just might really keep an eye out for smaller formats. One thread I don't often enjoy but is very popular is the noisy side of jazz, in which Kuzu, Orcutt/Corsano, The End, and Chaos Echoes/Gustafsson released some good stuff. The scene to watch is Berlin; the label to watch is Astral Spirits; the venue to watch is Cafe Oto (which records and releases many shows).
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  • #16
  • Posted: 12/30/2018 04:15
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CryingGameDahlin wrote:
Well you either need to update your chart or PM a shit ton of recs, I want privvy to this valuable musical booty.


Oh yeah I've been lazy and not wanting to do all the data entry here, I've got an updated chart at another site but that's still missing some stuff too. Co La - Sensory Dub Example is something that can't be added here because it's one track that's just shy of 20 minutes, but it's some really excellent contemporary rhythm focused electronics. And Kelly Moran - Ultraviolet is a really great post-minimalism prepared piano + lush electronics album that isn't afraid to go overtly emotional, really gorgeous stuff there. And then I still need to add this https://friendshiptapes.bandcamp.com/al...ial-events it's like a rock band with guitar bass drums and vocals, but it also has sax, flute and violin. I was kind of like "wtf is this" when I started it but it won me over, some really irregular structures and even some stuff that references Ornette Coleman's harmolodic stuff, which I was super on board with since that material has really connected with me this year. It came out late and only found out about it from something a friend wrote about in an end of year roundup, so I've only been listening to it fairly recently, but I think it is the best rock with guitars album of the year.

sethmadsen wrote:
And I mentioned this was the case for nearly every decade. If you dig deep enough, you can get lost in times past and find "limitless" genres, etc. History nicely wraps a lot of it up for us in 5th grader lunch boxes to go though. You find it a fantastic development and I find it somehow daunting. Somehow frustrating that I won't be able to find the great albums of 2010 because they will be lost in the chaff because now "anyone" can make an album. But alas, I suppose I just got to blow through a lot of music to find good music. Maybe I need to refine my process or lower my bar?


I think it is different though with this decade, like there's always been coexisting narratives for sure, but now I think it's almost impossible to create a satisfying narrative through the wheat/chaff separation technique. Like the music needs the context of being in the field. I don't think you need to lower your bar, but you sort of have to build your own story. Because now you have a bunch of different narratives with totally disconnected things rising to the top, and they're not going to make any sort of satisfying sense together.

Like take Keith's really great recommendations here. I've been a bit intimidated to tackle the Henry Threadgill, Anthony Braxton, and John Coltrane releases, because I really need to beef up on those artists other work to establish a better context for it. But the Tyshawn Sorey, Leandre/Harnik and Brandon Lopez albums? I was so ready and I'm way into it (ESPECIALLY THAT SOREY ALBUM, WOW). Because I've been nursing this love for far out bass explorations, like some years back I had my mind blown by Fernando Grillo - Fluvine, like check out this incredible video where you can see him do all sorts of insane things with his instrument. and that connects in to my love for a release last year featuring Zach Rowden, who is totally connected to that history, he has a solo album out from this year that sounds really incredible and I need to spend more time with, but he's also one of the 4 bassists on the Tyshawn Sorey album. and then my interest in minimal evolving pattern stuff in rock/jazz got me into Joshua Abrams and he does great low end stuff with his guimbri (which leads me into a side exploration of Moroccan music using the instrument covered here), and my explorations of the quieter side of jazz led me to Jim Hall and Ron Carter - Alone Together, which is just guitar and bass and so relaxed and gorgeous. And then of course there's Devin Hoff's bass for Julia Holter's music and all of my history with Squarepusher and other things, like there's this whole spectrum of a specific interest in a family of instruments and that connects to all of these other narratives I'm building, and they all strengthen each other, I get better at listening to all of them because I am listening to all of them.

None of the specific things I mentioned are things that anyone necessarily should be doing, but I think generally you do have to be proactive about engaging with what interests you. And it doesn't have to be like specific instruments or anything. Maybe the time you've spent with early music this year has you in a good position to appreciate the slow beauty of this piece from Cassandra Miller, a composer who has seemingly never had a recording released, until she had two albums this year as a part of Another Timbre's Canadian Composer Series. That link is only to an excerpt, but still, it gives you an idea of what the music is.

edit: omg this Ingrid Laubrock album, thank you Keith!
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travelful
BEA's Official Florida Man



Age: 27
Location: Davenport, Florida
United States

  • #17
  • Posted: 12/30/2018 05:08
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Overall I was pleased with how 2018's music scene turned out. Lots of artist's ived up to my expectations (Beach House, Kamasi Washington, parquet courts, Anderson paak, etc), lots of artists exceeded my expectations (Denzel Curry, sons of kemet, kids see ghosts, pusha T, Kacey Musgraves, etc), and best of all there were lots of great surprise albums I loved this year from artists that I either wasn't anticipating a release from, or just from some new artists/personas altogether (Trevor Powers, Against All Logic, Whitney Ballen, George Clanton, The Fernweh, Andre 3k, etc).

Looking at my 2018 chart I have 29 albums currently I scored a 8/10 or higher, which is a good year in my books, with over 60+ albums I still have interest in and will return to in the future. Plus I still have a couple dozen or so albums I want to listen to this year. I've actually been struggling to best utilize my 100 slots this year, I need much more to really present 2018 the way I would like to.
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RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad



Location: Ground Control
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  • #18
  • Posted: 12/30/2018 05:49
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Wow, thanks Tap. As always, spot on.

It does seem it's a time of deconstruction... and therefore perhaps reconstruction (as lame as that sounds). A "reality distortion field" you get to choose from, doesn't it? Don't lower my bar... redefine my bar.

And that Cassandra Miller "Duet for Cello and Orchestra" was intriguing for sure.
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Kool Keith Sweat





  • #19
  • Posted: 12/31/2018 14:00
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@Tap

Concerning jumping into Threadgill et al., my mentality is just go for it and figure out the context later. These musicians release so much music that establishing a context before enjoying just listening to something can be daunting enough that you never begin with someone in the first place. Context will come naturally if you enjoy the music and float around a few releases across a few decades at your leisure.

And if you're exploring bass, I highly recommend Jaquemyn's Fundament, Phillips/Yoshizawa' Oh My those boys, Guy/Evans' Syllogistic Moments, Crispell/Fonda/Sorgen's Dreamstruck, Barre Phillips' End to End, Tom Wheatley's Double Bass, and Luke Stewart's Works for Upright Bass and Amplifier, all from this year.


Last edited by Kool Keith Sweat on 12/31/2018 23:33; edited 1 time in total
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CA Dreamin



Gender: Male
Location: LA
United States

  • #20
  • Posted: 12/31/2018 21:41
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There was only one major post in this thread in all of 2018:

https://www.besteveralbums.com/phpBB2/v...hp?t=10464

That needs to change. Somebody please give us all songs from recent years, or baseball players, or something.
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