Best New Albums of 2017 *

I hate to be that guy, but I can't even find a point of the volume knob where I can listen, it goes from too loud to silence,
Maybe those big B&W help a lot, or is it better to use cheap earbuds?

 

I'll be honest. So far I've only listened to it in the car. I found their previous album, They Want My Soul, pretty hard to listen to on cd on the home stereo, even though I love the songs, but the vinyl was significantly better (though still not sonic marvel). I'm hoping that the same is true for this one.

 

No you're not alone....very loud! The last album suffered the same DR's. Great songs but they make your ears bleed!

 

Another vote for Chicano Batman Freedom. Complete ear candy.

Also love Freedom Highway from Rhiannon Giddens.

 

Enjoying the Chicano Batman quite a bit, liked the last Giddens quite a bit more. This one fell a little flat for me, but I had high hopes after how good the last one and all the Carolina Chocolate Drops stuff was

 

My favorite February-albums list is now complete! (EP's will be posted tomorrow)
Some changes in my previous Top 3.

If you want all of the cover art, watch here: Link


01 Blondino: Jamais sans la nuit
02 Peter Peter: Noir Éden
03 Ibibio Sound Machine: Uyai
04 The Mysterons: Meandering
05 Brutus: Burst
06 Fufanu: Sports
07 Superpoze: For We the Living
08 Ryan Adams: Prisoner
09 Hippo Campus: landmark
10 Novella: Change of State
11 Oddisee: The Iceberg
12 Albin de la Simone: L'un de nous
13 The Courtneys: The Courtneys II
14 King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: Flying Microtonal Banana
15 Matt Watts: How Different It Was When You Were There?
16 Molly Burch: Please Be Mine
17 Rhiannon Giddens: Freedom Highway

Some teasers:

 

Jean-Luc Guionnet - Distances Ouïes Dites (played by Dedalus) - Potlatch -- the recent Michael Pisaro CD is another favorite.
Linda Catlin Smith - Drifter - Drifter

 

I'm really loving the new Nikki Lane (if you are into outlaw country a la Loretta Lynn type music) and Waxahatchee releases.

 

I have too many copies of most non-contemporary works that I don't buy a lot. It has to be cheap and well reviewed. The cheap part kind of eliminates most new releases. So far this year I've bought 3 romantic new releases, 1 baroque and no classical period, all of which are good but not great. None of them will probably be on my classical top 1o list. They might if I make one on just those periods. Two are worth mentioning.

Ronald Brautigam - Beethoven: Complete Works for Solo Piano, Vol. 15: Diabelli Variations



Haochen Zhang - Schumann / Liszt / Janacek / Brahms

 

The 20th and 21st century releases are much more interesting

Alan Pettersson: Symphony No. 14



Spotify

Sorry, can't find a video

 

Weinberg: Chamber Symphonies / Piano Quintet



No streaming of this anywhere I can find unfortunately. It's an excellent album, equal to the one from two years ago.

 

Molly Joyce: Lean Back and Release / Shapeshifter

Really an EP with two short pieces but this can very easily make my 10 ten list at the end of the year, not just my top 10 classical.

 

The new Depeche Mode is quite good. The new Jesus and Mary Chain is growing on me...no surprises, it's a JAMC record, but the songs are killer. The singles are some of the weakest tracks TBH.

Carla Del Forno's debut album is one for the dark electronic fan in your soul. The title track is creepy.

 

Speaking of creepy, Shadow Band's album Wilderness of Love is fantastic in a Comus meets To Our Children's Children era Moody Blues way.

 

Ernst Reijseger: The Volcano Symphony

A very interesting modern piece written for a Spanish baroque orchestra, Forma Antiqva. Even though it's performed on baroque instruments, it's unmistakably modern.

This may have come out in Europe last November, but other sites have the release date of Feb 24, which is when I first noticed it.

 

I've also bought a few early music albums which are excellent.

Divine Theatre - Sacred Motets by Giaches de Wert

It's by Stile Antico and up to their usual standard. Also a new to me composer.


Spotify

 

Hey, that one is last year, but it is nice so always good to get some new exposure. Got turned on to it around here, there's a nice little thread too ... Carla Dal Forno - "You Know What It's Like" (2016)

 

Virgin and Child: Music from the Baldwin Partbooks II by Contrapunctus

New group for me and they are very good.

 

I listened to the Blondino when you posted it last week and liked it a lot.

The only one I own is Rhiannon Giddens Freedom Highway. It's good, but it's a bit too polished. I prefer the folk/blues tracks a little rawer.

 

I have this and agree it is excellent. Check the first part of their Baldwin Partbooks series too

 

Pretty crowded field in shoegaze now, far more bands than anyone can keep up with from all over the world. But I really like what this German band Seasurfer is doing right now, new record this week called Under the Milkyway... Who Cares, just ordered from the label (Saint Marie Records, I think they are in Texas per discogs), around $20 shipped, pink splatter vinyl.



Stream it here ... http://www.imposemagazine.com/bytes/new-music/seasurfer-under-the-milkyway-who-cares

Seasurfer / Under The Milkyway... Who Cares

 

Following a bit of a quiet start to 2017 for me, there's some magnificent stuff coming in thick and fast this month. As @Davey and others mentioned previously, keeping up with music (when it's hot) in this day and age is a challenge. I'm not complaining, mind you.

Laura's Marling's new one (Semper Femina) is ridiculously good and I feel it's going to be a hell of a grower.

This track - its delivery, arrangement and production:

 

Great thread. When I have some time I will check some of this music out. Love the range of styles here as well. New classical releases is a welcome.

 

A bump for the superb Runes by VENN. Excellent sounding contemporary post-punk and my favourite release of the year so far



Also Cinderland by High Plains: "the first collaboration between ambient producer Scott Morgan (Loscil) and classically trained cellist Mark Bridges under the name High Plains, although Bridges had previously contributed to Morgan's generative music app Adrift. The duo recorded the album in the small town of Saratoga, Wyoming at the beginning of 2016, where they brought a portable recording studio, took up residence in a revamped school house, and captured sounds from the surrounding environment. The music is appropriately sparse and wintry, and bears little resemblance to the shimmering, submerged dub-techno usually associated with Loscil. It also doesn't quite sound like the typical "field recordings plus droning synths" album one might expect. The pieces are generally short, and are often driven by Bridges' sorrowful cello playing, although Morgan's ominous synthesizers and piano play a huge part in shaping the mood of the album".

 

A big favorite right now is the new Jacaszek album KWIATY released last week. If not familiar, and I wasn't before this, he's a Polish composer that roughly fits in the experimental/electronic/ambient/classical fields. This is really some amazing music, very melancholy, but spiritual and uplifting. I made a post about it in the Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus thread because it kind of fits in with that sound, and there's a youtube of the whole album there, very recommended for like minds, I've a feeling this will be sound-tracking a few upcoming weekends for me ... The Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus - Beauty Will Save the World (2015)

From Amazon: Michał Jacaszek is an absolute master of melancholy: the Polish composer who's spun dramatic shades of darkness and light into gold for more than a decade now, from the trickle-down electronics of Treny and artful gloom of Glimmer to the vapor-trailed verses of their looming spiritual cousin KWIATY. KWIATY - which was inspired by An English anthology of metaphysical poetry from the 17th century - is the most vocal-driven material Jacaszek's ever written, melding his stormy melodies with a breakout performance by Hania Malarowska (of the Warsaw-based rock band Hanimal) and the robust supporting roles of Joasia Sobowiec-Jamioł and Natalia Grzebała, with lyrics adapted from poems from Virgil and Robert Herrick.