Musical gems & favourites of 2018

Morgen · 2018-12-20 17:57:32 UTC

In Rememberance J.Johannsson - www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnOMjw3jHZc

Album

Track / EP / Remix

Swamp Dogg feat. Bon Iver & Guitar Shorty - I pretend - www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMFTucgj8K4
DJ Trax - Brainiac / As Sonny sleeps - www.transmuterecordings.bandcamp.com/album/when-darkness-turns-to-light
Tim Tama - Hidden Depths EP - www.twblabel.bandcamp.com/album/hidden-depths-ep
Björk - Arisen my Senses (Lanark Artefax Remix) - www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9TpwojyW5Q
Black Motion - Little Blue Girl - www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OqvSTYfFOM
Vessel - Paplu (Love That Moves the Sun) - www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy2rp5B7C5E
Blocks & Escher - Vigil - www.metalheadz.bandcamp.com/track/vigil
Funckarma - Spawkings - www.soundcloud.com/roelfuncken/roel-funcken-spawkings
Cie - Auf los - www.soundcloud.com/cietechno/auf-los-formnterra001-vinyl-only
Gold Fields - Glow EP - www.goldfieldsmusic.bandcamp.com/album/glow-ep
Harnes Kretzer - L05 - www.soundcloud.com/harneskretzer/l05
Dave Holland - Tenor, Piano, Percussion T1 - www.daveholland.bandcamp.com/track/tenor-piano-percussion-t1
Rihanna - Diamonds (Pyrococcus feat. Tetsuroh Konishi Remix) - www.soundcloud.com/coccus/riha_na-pyrococcus-diamonds

nose · 2018-12-20 18:03:18 UTC

holy shit, respect for an epic thread… I need to go through your posts and check all of these out.

Also, a great thread idea in and of itself… I will post mine shortly. Props

Auto-meh-geddon · 2018-12-21 14:10:04 UTC

That was quite the list @Morgen!
I f I had to pick one it would be this absolute banger:

In no particular order:

nose · 2018-12-21 14:58:16 UTC

One of my favorite releases this year

TaleTwist · 2018-12-22 02:03:55 UTC

I mean this is not really new but I have found it this year and blown my ears out.

Morgen · 2019-01-03 01:45:40 UTC

Thanks for your contributions, dudes!

@Auto-meh-geddon
The last track on this EP (by Ethan Fawkes) is a nice EBM banger also

@nose
Very diverse album indeed

@TaleTwist
This Venetian Snares & Daniel Lanois album is from 2018, so it fits the bill.
When I listened to it earlier last year, it felt somewhat too improvised / unstructured for my taste in some parts, but I will revisit it. It’s really a special collaboration.
Funny fact (in case somebody doesn’t know): Daniel Lanois was producer for U2 and Bob Dylan…

aSSerbik · 2019-01-03 15:25:29 UTC

I feel the same way. It was kind of a bummer, as I was really looking forward to it. Maybe it’ll grow on me eventually.

I just realized I haven’t really listened to a lot of 2018 releases. But some favorites:

Lorn - Remnant: some of his earlier stuff was kind of hit and miss for me, but once he started getting more and more moody and heading into atmospheric direction, everything he’s released has been pretty amazing. This one doesn’t disappoint.

Jon Hopkins - Singularity: I was kind of let down on the first couple of spins, but it REALLY grew on me the more I listened. I like it more than Immunity at this point.

Rivers of Nihil - Where Owls Know My Name: these guys are just getting better and better with each release and continue to experiment and expand their sound, while still being firmly a death metal band. Killer.

Verlorener - S/T: finally, a virtuoso guitarist’s solo album that doesn’t focus on pure shredding and wankery, but is full of hooks, interesting songs, sound design and textures…and plenty of jaw dropping shredding too.

Rezn - Calm Black Water: I’m typically not a huge fan of stoner metal/rock, but this shit is awesome. Just great songs, atmosphere, vocals…and is that a modular skiff I see? Dope.

relic · 2019-01-04 00:54:54 UTC

Just really enjoyed the shit out of this one:

Morgen · 2019-01-04 02:02:29 UTC

Big thanks, @Auto-meh-geddon !
The guitar related stuff are great discoveries for me.

Lorn - Remnant

Yes… However I’m at odds with the short playing times. For me, the tracks come to an end before the hoped-for main part. I’d wish he would have expanded on these “introductions”.

Jon Hopkins - Singularity

I really dig a lot of his past stuff, this time for me he doesn’t go beyond the scope of somewhat shallow unimpressive arpeggio and loop stuffing most of the time.

Rivers of Nihil - Where Owls Know My Name

Amazing! As for metal, I’m more into instrumental doom style usually, but this is inescapable. Complex “prog rock” arrangements, sweeping saxophone on “Subtle Change”, dystopian soundscapes on “Terrestria III”…

Verlorner

Wicked wild trips, super interesting also. Will sink myself into that!

REZN - Calm Black Water

Closer to my doom affection… Psychedelic grinder. Will let it sink!

aSSerbik · 2019-01-04 03:50:03 UTC

Yes, he was particularly “guilty” of that on his previous release (A/D). But it seems like that’s by design. He popped up on reddit on one of his threads and commented that he views a lot of these pieces as the feeling you get when you just woke up from an intense dream. You remember fragments, no beginning or end, but this specific lingering feeling is still sort of within your grasp, but it’s slipping away with each passing second. I’m paraphrasing, but it was something along those lines. So if you look at them this way, then he totally nails that familiar feeling.

But, still, in a way, it does feel like a lazy cop out. Coming up with all these cool little fragments is easy. We all do it. All those 100s of 4 bar loops sitting on hard drives everywhere. It’s actually developing and combining them into something that creates a greater whole than the sum of the parts is where the bulk of the real art (and struggle) actually lies.

But the dude does what he does and there’s really nobody who sounds like him, so love him anyway.

I had a similar initial reaction. It just felt so safe and kind of… commercial. But I really started getting into it with repeated listens. In a way, it was probably an exercise in restraint. Getting something very memorable and groovy happening and then just letting it ride. It’s pretty hypnotic. The production is AMAZING and it’s such a joy to listen to. But he still managed to do plenty of cool and interesting things within that safe-ish context, they are just happening in the background and I only started picking up on them after a while. He talks about some of those things in this Song Exploder podcast:

Morgen · 2019-03-06 16:37:03 UTC

For adventurous treasure divers… I assembled a mix with some of my 2018 favourites, featuring the final works of Johann Johannson for the horror film “Mandy”, plus Tim Hecker, Ben Chatwin, Hannes Kretzer, and a finest selection of expressive, deep music from last year. Tracklist on Soundcloud. Thanks to the fabulous Le Kabaret mix blog for requesting the mix (follow them for cool mixes!).

@aSSerbik
Thanks for the background info and making good points!