My favorite albums of 2017

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by scompton, Jan 28, 2018.

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  1. bluemooze

    bluemooze Senior Member

    Location:
    Frenchtown NJ USA
    :edthumbs:
     
  2. Nice Marmot

    Nice Marmot Nothin’ feels right but doin’ wrong anymore

    Location:
    Tryon NC
    I'd suggest the two I mentioned :laugh: .
     
  3. AcidPunk15

    AcidPunk15 Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Brunswick, NJ
    Queens of The Stone Age Villians
    Bully Losing !!!!
    King Krule
    The Magpie Salute (The Black Crowes Without Chris Robinson)
    Gary Newman Savage (Songs From a Broken World
    Metz Strange Peace
    The Idles Brutalism
     
  4. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    60% were classical and very few war horses.
     
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  5. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    Rock
    1. Melanie De Biasio - Lilies
    2. Saltland - A Common Truth
    3. Juana - Molina Halo
    4. Schnellertollermeier - Rights
    5. Markus Reuter featuring SONAR and Tobias Reber - Falling for Ascension
    6. Delicate Steve - This Is Steve
    7. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Luciferian Towers
    8. Six Organs of Admittance - Burning the Threshold
    9. The Kraken Quartet - Separate | Migrate
    10. Here Lies Man - Here Lies Man
    For my taste, it was the best year for rock in a long time. Most years, I struggle to have a top 5 rock albums. This year, this is only half of the rock new releases I bought. I also bought a few archival releases. Some of these albums are really on the edge of what I would even call rock. They're hard to classify and because some web sites list them as rock/pop, I included them here.
     
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  6. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    Melanie De Biasio - Lilies

    My number 1 is one of those that are sort of unclassifiable IMO. Some sites call it jazz. Some of the tracks are jazzy but a lot aren't.

    I like her last, Blackened Cities a little more but I like this more than No Deal. Unlike her other albums, on Lillies, De Biasio plays all of the instruments. As far as I can tell, it's all self recorded and mixed. It's essentially the ultimate bedroom album. Like Blackend Cities, this album is way too short.

    This album was talked up quite a bit on the Best of 2017 thread. De Biasio is pretty popular here for those who are open to new music. I think people who say all new music sucks might even like this.

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    Bandcamp: Lilies, by Melanie De Biasio
     
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  7. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    Saltland - A Common Truth

    Another one that pushes the boundaries of what is rock. It probably fits in post-rock. The lead instrument is cello with loops. Some tracks have violin and organ and others have guitar and analog synth. A lot if it is drony but not very heavy. Even the vocals are drony to me. The opening track is my favorite track on any album I've heard this year, but isn't much like the rest of the album. This is one of my most played albums this year. It's probably the album I'd most like to turn people on to.

    Bandcamp: A Common Truth, by Saltland

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    Here's the whole album on YouTube To Allow Us All to Breathe
     
  8. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    Juana Molina - Halo

    This is one quirky album, probably too quirky to be mainstream. It doesn't help that is sung in Spanish. Both the quirkiness and the language are pluses in my book. My guess is that I wouldn't like this album nearly as much if I understood the language. I played this album a lot this year as well. I almost skipped over it because I was ambivalent about her last album from four years ago. There were so many posts about it on the Best Albums of 2017 thread that I eventually gave it a listen. I was planning on just sampling it but ended up listening to the whole album. I bought it immediately after that first listen.

    Bandcamp: Halo, by Juana Molina

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    Whole album on YouTube Paraguaya (official music video)
     
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  9. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    Schnellertollermeier - Rights

    Off the top of my head, I would have said this was my favorite rock release of the year. I was amazed that when ordering the rock releases that this came in fourth. It is the first one that is undeniably rock though. Schnellertollermeier is a band that's an instant buy for me.

    Schnellertollermeier is an all instrumental power trio. The members of the band all play jazz in the other projects. The best way to describe what they play here is Steven Reich type minimalism transported to a rock trio. With Cuneiform Records going on hiatus, I wonder what label their next ablum

    Bandcamp: Rights, by Schnellertollermeier

    [​IMG]

     
  10. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    Markus Reuter featuring SONAR and Tobias Reber - Falling for Ascension

    Another interesting instrumental album. Reuter is the guitarist in Stick Men and some of the Crimson ProjeKcts. He also does some solo ambient music. SONAR is a quartet who plays music similar to Schnellertollermeier. Tobias Reber is an electronics artist who I've never heard before. Altogether, the music is not as rhythmic and propulsive as Schnellertollermeier's album. The rhythms SONAR play here are a little more disjointed, although still very repetative. According to the write up on Bandcamp, the music on this album was some of the earliest music Reuter wrote, in the 80s when he was a teenager. You wouldn't know from listening to it.

    Bandcamp: Falling for Ascension, by Markus Reuter featuring SONAR and Tobias Reber
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  11. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
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  12. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Luciferian Towers

    Any Godspeed You! Black Emperor album is an auto buy for me. 45 minutes of drony post-rock goodness. Another instrumental album (there's a pattern here)

    Bandcamp: "Luciferian Towers", by Godspeed You! Black Emperor


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  13. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    Six Organs of Admittance - Burning the Threshold

    This album surprised me. Six Organs of Admittance's albums for the most part, don't do too much for me. There's just something off to my taste in the few I've heard. This one I love though. Pitchfork calls it their most accessible album, which usually will be my least favorite. I'd call the music psychedelic folk rock. For the most part it's pretty mellow.

    Bandcamp: Burning the Threshold, by Six Organs of Admittance

    [​IMG]

     
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  14. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    The Kraken Quartet - Separate | Migrate

    This is a bit different, a percussion quartet with synths playing rockish music. No guitar here. I'm pretty sure this is the first rock album I've heard played by a percussion ensemble. I buy a lot of percussion music, 12 releases this year, but it's usually classical or avant garde, or unclassifiable.

    Bandcamp: Separate | Migrate, by The Kraken Quartet



    40 minute live in the studio set on YouTube: The Kraken Quartet on Audiotree Live (Full Session)
     
  15. Davey

    Davey NP: Hania Rani/Dobrawa Czocher ~ Inner Symphonies

    Location:
    SF Bay Area, USA
    I'm pretty sure it's the same set of musicians as on her previous records, just a more stripped down setting. It was actually recorded at the home of her long time music companion and producer Pascal Paulus, and as usual he plays a lot of the instruments, though there are a couple other musicians on some of the songs too. Melanie of course plays the flute, and some piano and guitar bits, and all the vocals.

    In any case, doesn't matter, it is a really nice album. I'm a huge fan of No Deal, that's my favorite, but also love Blackened Cities and this one, they are all great.
     
  16. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    Here Lies Man - Here Lies Man

    This is a great album. I've never heard anything like it before. The band's PR states that their goal is to answer the question, "What if Black Sabbath played Afrobeat?" Brooklynvegan calls it "afrobeat stoner metal with a member of Antibalas". The band's leader is a member of the Afrobeat band Antibalas although it's heavier on the psychedelia than afrobeat IMO. It's a fun listen with a lot of energy.

    Bandcamp: Here Lies Man, by Here Lies Man

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  17. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    The problem with doing downloads, which I do, is you don't get liner notes for a lot of albums. The bandcamp page for the album as well as a few of review sites I consulted suggest it's just her. They never state it outright though so you're probably correct.
     
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  18. Davey

    Davey NP: Hania Rani/Dobrawa Czocher ~ Inner Symphonies

    Location:
    SF Bay Area, USA
    Yea, I know, like I said, no big, many of the sites just use that blurb where she said that she wanted to go away by herself with just her pro-tools, etc, she probably just likes to cultivate a little mystique around her work (or the label does). And it does have some of that feel, but the discogs page and my record have the musician credits, and I got the part about recording at her producers home at the review below ... WPGM Recommends: Melanie De Biasio - Lilies (Album Review) - WE PLUG GOOD MUSIC
     
  19. jiffypopinski

    jiffypopinski Forum Resident

    Location:
    West Virginia
    Yeah, this was definitely one of my favorites from last year. I can also include these in the rock/metal field:

    BIG|BRAVE - Ardor
    Monarch! - Never Forever
    Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper
    Dodecahedron - Kwintessens
    Voidosphere - To Call To Speak
    Gravetemple - Impassable Fears
    Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso UFO - Those Who Came Never Before


    I will have to check out the others on your rock best of. Now, post that jazz and avant list scompton! :D
     
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  20. jiffypopinski

    jiffypopinski Forum Resident

    Location:
    West Virginia
    Well, that just went in the "must-have" pile. Killer! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
     
  21. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    I haven't heard a single one in your list. More to check out.
     
  22. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    Avant Garde/Experimental

    Here you go Jiffy.

    Not all of these are all that out there, just different enough to be hard to fit anywhere else. Some in the Jazz list, but I've only narrowed down that list to 32 so I moved what I could here. Same for Electronic. That's been narrowed down to 22. I haven't included any classical here this year. The only classical that would fit here are some of the percussion ensemble albums and I left them in classical. Percussion ensemble could be a list in itself since I bought 15 percussion albums this year.

    1. Félicia Atkinson - Hand In Hand
    2. John McCowen - Solo Contra
    3. Various Artists - John Zorn: The Interpretation of Dreams
    4. Nathan Hubbard ER Quartet - Lattice Trust
    5. Hear in Now (Mazz Swift/Tomeka Reid/Silvia Bolognesi) - Not Living in Fear
    6. Craig Taborn and Ikue Mori - Highsmith
    7. Tony Conrad - Ten Years Alive On The Infinite Plain
    8. The Necks - Unfold
    9. Simulacrum - John Zorn: The Garden Of Earthly Delights
    10. Garth Knox/The Saltarello Trio - Leonard: John Zorn's Book Of Angels Volume 30

    Two great archival releases. All of the above are new music. Since these aren't, I didn't include them in the list but they'd both be near the top if I did.
    Charlemagne Palestine - The Lower Depths
    Franz Zwartjes - Zwartjes. Tapes 1​
     
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  23. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    Félicia Atkinson - Hand In Hand

    This could be in the Electronics list but really fits here better. Fender Rhodes is one of the featured instruments, but it's played unlike I've heard it played before, or possibly it's just recorded differently, maybe with electronic effects. It also includes synths, percussion, field recordings, recited lyrics, whispered lyrics. While most of the lyrics sound like they're in English, they're hard to follow, because of her accent and multi tracking vocals over each other. The music moves around a lot so it's a great headphone album. The whispered lyrics in particular are great with headphones.

    The album is both subtle and intense. A 7 hour version of the album was broadcast at a contemporary art museum in France for a couple of months.

    The reviews and Jiffypopinski mention that this is a followup for her 2015 album A Readymade Ceremony. I haven't had time to check that out yet but I will in the near future. This is a great album.

    Bandcamp: Hand In Hand, by Félicia Atkinson

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  24. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    John McCowen - Solo Contra

    This one belongs nowhere else. Solo contrabass clarinet with a lot of the playing in the upper registers. He uses some circular breathing too. It's heavy on the drone.

    Bandcamp: Solo Contra, by John McCowen

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  25. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    Various Artists - John Zorn: The Interpretation of Dreams

    John Zorn's music with vibes. IMO, you can't go wrong. Two of the three tracks are for vibes, bass and drums. The other is a piano quintet. In the write up on Tzadik, Zorn says the music is "inspired by the surrealism of Luis Buñuel and the psychotropic dream world of William Burroughs"

    Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz: Bass
    Sae Hashimoto: Vibes
    Tyshawn Sorey: Drums

    JACK Quartet
    Stephen Gosling: Piano

    [​IMG]

     
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