Yup. I liked their first album, but Days is a definite step forward. I can only see them getting better now that they have a couple under their belt.Quoting Raiders (view post)
Yup. I liked their first album, but Days is a definite step forward. I can only see them getting better now that they have a couple under their belt.
23
Roommate - Guilty Rainbow
Roommate's problem is that they don't have a hook. They don't really fit comfortably into any of the micro-genres that music critics love spouting off on and the darker synth pop sounds that creep in and out of their music aren't quite retro enough, their Tindersticks-esque baroqueness leaving them a bit too out of step with the scene to fully catch on. But this sense of being lost amidst the modern music landscape, outsiders left peering through the window of the cool kids party, suits Roommate just find. Their lyrics and music are heartfelt and completely sincere, tackling regret, depression and social anxieties with equal aplomb, never sulking yet leaving themselves open to ridicule. I don't mean to make Roommate out to be the victim here - they do have a small, but somewhat rabid fanbase after all - but merely want to comment on why their un-coolness and direct approach gets them ignored and why those very same qualities make them a band worth embracing. But sincere and uncool as they may be, their songs are not so straightforward, featuring beautiful arrangements and often offbeat structures that take songs in unexpected yet interesting directions. Even more than 2008's We Were Enchanted, Guilty Rainbow takes the form of a familiar sonic palette and twists it into something unsettling, emotionally raw and completely their own.
Favorite Tracks:
[youtube]aazkaQOLl8w[/youtube]
[youtube]mBYoQtOTQDk[/youtube]
[youtube]FGaDOaSx0dM[/youtube]
22
Andy Stott - We Stay Together
Andy Stott's drugged out brand of dub techno is smeared sound, with beats and ambience stretched or buried deep in the mix, creating a remarkable sense of depth and distance. His production creates a murky, muffled sound that creates the perception of music heard from underwater, walking by a club or when plugging your ears because it's just too damn loud. But Stott doesn't merely take crisp dub music (which personally, I'm rarely a fan of) and add filters. His techniques transform the familiar into something terrifying - a dance club on a bad trip, a nightmare where everything's in a half-speed, a few seconds of terror prolonged to a few dozen minutes. We Stay Together's 36 minutes are fluid yet incredibly viscous, thick with atmospheric ambience and layers of sound that create a sheer intensity that ultimately leaves you frozen. You won't be dancing to this album, but it can be the soundtrack to your dreams.
Favorite Tracks:
[youtube]zAVTnDpobms[/youtube]
[youtube]krEw04YvFcY[/youtube]
[youtube]72CHhEGpmhg[/youtube]
Had never heard of A Winged Victory for the Sullen or Real Estate, but those two are prime suspects for early purchases next year. Thanks for bringing them to my attention. The former is especially wonderfully relaxing.
Have you heard 40 Watt Sun? They're on the gentler side of doom, but they come across as a Jesu-style project... they apparently come from an earlier band, Warning, and they could be something you'd dig.
The Boat People - 9
The Power of the Dog - 7.5
The King of Pigs - 7
Cool, glad you like them! Winged Victory are great for relaxing or background music.
Thanks! I hadn't heard of them, but I really like this track, especially the guitars. Very Jesu, which is a shoegazy metal sound I often like. I'll be sure to check out the whole album.
So yeah - got to Fresno, CA, and realized that I had forgotten the power cord for my laptop, and the battery on the thing was totally dry. Then I got bronchitis, and have basically been in bed for the last 4 days.
Yay vacation!
Anyhow, sorry to keep the thread waiting.
****
#25 Vishnu - Space Folk
(Dec 2010 release, released after last year’s list was compiled)
(available via the Archive.org)
Although this is a 2010 release, it came out after I had compiled that year’s best-of list. Vishnu’s Space Folk is an epic, psychedelic trip into the heart of ambient-electronica. Imagine if The Orb was still making relevant, sample-based ambient-dub, mixed together with more modern production techniques. It is, in a word, adventurous, and, what’s more, utterly delightful. It is playful without being silly, experimental without being difficult; a dense sonic lanscape that delivers at every turn.
Heh I feel like that all of the timeritch:
I'll be reading through this entire thread since I'm eager for recs. I'm afraid I can't comment on much except that Moby's latest was really good, and that I loved King of Limbs. Sometimes I wonder if people think Radiohead is going to keep making Ok Computer or Kid A everytime. Its really hard to be consistently amazing-imo there only a handful of bands that ever truly achieved that, and even they have their misfires.
BLOG
And everybody wants to be special here
They call your name out loud and clear
Here comes a regular
Call out your name
Here comes a regular
Am I the only one here today?
#24 Saffron Slumber - Somnogen
(available via Resting Bell)
If dense, atmospheric drones with hints of melody created by manipulating a treated, acoustic piano are your thing, then it doesn't get any better than Saffron Slumber's Somnogen. Saffron Slumber is more than just a friend of mine, and more than just a fellow ambient artist - he is an inspiration. His album The White Tower is one of the very best ambient albums ever recorded, and while I don't like Somnogen quite as much as that album, it is still amazing.
"Mobius Thought" kickstarts the album with a wall of sound so dense it'd take a dozen bulldozers and wrecking balls hacking away full-bore just to penetrate the barrier. And then things quiet down a bit with "Oak Horn" and "Torsion," my favorite track on the album; "Torsion" is some kind of ambient masterpiece.
And what's more, the album is available for free - so you have no excuse to not partake. Somnogen is challenging and rewarding, and totally worthy of your time.
Mobius Thought
Torsion
i guess i should listen to that danny brown record.
#23 Jason Sloan - (s)END
Jason Sloan's (s)END is a throwback of sorts to the ambient-techno sounds of the mid 1990s, which in turn were largely inspired by the sounds and visual aesthetics of Blade Runner and other examples of dystopian science fiction. (s)END sounds thoroughly cyberpunk, an element made all the more apparent by the use of underscores and other odd punctuation in the song titles.
Unfortunately, the album doesn't make the best first impression. The opening track "Warm AND Fading_Light" is probably the weakest on the album, and it clocks in at over 13-minutes. However, the rest of the album (especially the title track and "As Fragile.As") is excellent, especially if you love that mid-90s stuff on the FAX label and Ambient Excursion compilations.
Jason Sloan is one of the few ambient artists still carrying the torch that was once carried by the likes of Peter Namlook and Spacetime Continuum, and I greatly appreciate him for it.
#22 Scale the Summit - The Collective
Hey, another instrumental metal band! And if you listen to just the first few seconds of the opening track, you might think that Scale the Summit is just another Isis/Mono/Envy wannabe. "Colossal" kicks the album off with a big wall-of-sound created by a super distorted, atmospheric guitar playing HUGE chords. Ho hum, really.
But then at 1:15, something magical happens. The lead bass part takes over. And then the rest of the song continues to open up into something much more complex and challenging than Isis or Mono or Envy create with their instrumental gaze-metal. And then the rest of the album continues to melt your face off with some of the most complex arrangements and expertly played instrumental-metal parts I've ever heard.
"The Levitated" moves into a more jazz-orientated zone, complete with King Crimson-like syncopated rhythms and melodies, and "Black Hills" presents a shredding, head-banging, melodic symphony of metal perfection.
Scale the Summit is a band to watch for. These dudes are super young, and if they continue to improve they will be absolutely unstoppable. If you want to hear a group of musicians being the absolute best at what they do, check these guys out.
[youtube]aLKuCDKL9TU[/youtube]
[youtube]9sDrCXtioHE[/youtube]
21
Robag Wruhme - Thora Vukk
Unlike Andy Stott's sonic whirlwind, Robag Wruhme's minimal techno is almost completely serene, patiently building complex beats from found sounds and percussive instruments alike and carefully wrapping delicate piano and violin melodies through them. Wruhme's style is remarkably loose, never unstructured, but beats enter and disappear from songs or change entirely so that, unlike a lot of other ambient techno, his music feels more open to surprises. While Thora Vukk is full of loops and central beats, the success of the songs never rests on them, but rather within the intricate details that surround them. The sheer variety of sounds, minute or otherwise, make it a joy to behold.
Favorite Tracks:
[youtube]mkIQjeTWOW0&feature=related[/youtube]
[youtube]xxSnjebOlh0[/youtube]
[youtube]ZRR36c1Duuo[/youtube]
#21 Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd - Bordeaux
If you've heard either of these two maestros before, then you know exactly what to expect. Some might fault Guthrie and Budd for making what is essentially the same album every few years, but I happen to believe that they are simply consistently adding to one of the most singular and beautiful ambient songbooks there is. Since their collaboration on the Cocteau Twins' The Moon and the Melodies and through their work on the soundtrack for Greg Araki's The Mysterious Skin, Budd and Guthrie have honed their signature style to perfection. So while it's not adventurous or groundbreaking, it is nonetheless comforting and beautiful, and sometimes there is nothing wrong with a sure thing.
[youtube]rOCuHgojWnc[/youtube]
Great track right here.
you know, robin guthrie & harold budd's mysterious skin soundtrack is one of the best things i've ever heard, but i've never listened to any of their other work (besides robin guthrie's work with the cocteau twins)
It is a great soundtrack. Budd is probably my favorite musician/composer. There will be one more album on this list from him, ranked very high. While he has a signature sound, he also mixes things up a bit.
I also suggest:
Pavilion of Dreams
Ambient 2 and The Pearl (both with Brian Eno)
Avalon Sutra
Robin Guthrie's solo stuff is all very similar. Basically, you can buy one album and then you've pretty much heard them all. They aren't bad, but you don't need them all. I'd basically just suggest the 4 albums he's done with Harold Budd.
#20 Leprous - Bilateral
Progressive metal from Norway. I haven't heard a band sound like they were having this much fun since Oingo Boingo and Faith No More. A lot of progressive music tends to take itself very seriously, but Leprous injects a sense of fun and joy into their extreme, head-banging sounds. Above and beyond the incredible music and creative arrangements is Einar Solberg's vocals - now this dude can sing. Just check out the range of styles in the following track:
[youtube]GxAIsZldltA[/youtube]
Leprous mixes a ton of genres together as well, including extreme metal, funk, industrial and even some jazz-like parts complete with horns. Every part is played to absolute perfection. One of my favorite things about music is listening to musicians who can play the fuck out of their instruments. I don't have time for slop; I want to hear quality, talent, and skill stemming from the heart and head, and Leprous covers all of these bases.
[youtube]ieyi3NNKonA[/youtube]
20
Deaf Center - Owl Splinters
Deaf Center specialize in the type of dark ambient that lulls you into submission before taking you somewhere increasingly disturbing and fearful. Their droney violins and cello and antique piano sounds often take on a spectral quality, the slow progressions allowing for disparate sounds to ultimately congeal, only briefly, as if smoke and dust intermingle to form a whole phantom shape before breaking apart. The strength of Owl Splinters isn't just the depth of feeling and emotion it inspires or the unique sense of space and atmosphere it creates, but also the delicate simplicity it uses to do those things. As dense as this album is, there is not so much a layering of multiple sounds as there is a lingering of singular ones and it is through this addition-by-subtraction method of song-writing that Deaf Center made one of the most unsettling yet indelible albums of the year.
Favorite Tracks:
[youtube]ZLoiI0PSv6k[/youtube]
[youtube]nb807hpn854[/youtube]
[youtube]2BXascBCATA[/youtube]
#19 adamned.age - Fragile
(available via Camomille Music)
In general, ambient music seems to be a male's game; there just aren't a lot of females creating ambient music, and for the most part it seems to be enjoyed more by males for some reason. Go to an ambient/electronica show, and you will see a ton of dudes. And so in this regard, adamned.age is unique; ambient music created by a solo female artist.
Fragile also happens to be one of the most consistently unique and interesting ambient releases of the year. It was release last January, and it has stayed on my iPod ever since. Hanne Adam does an amazing job of utilizing techniques from neo-classical to modern electronica, creating a signature sound that stands above many ambient releases.
[youtube]HB3ZoPMy0fE[/youtube]
Never thought of as Lynchian before, but it definitely has a dark, surreal vibe to it.
I really liked this album (listened to b/c of your rec of course), but didn't realize it was by a female artist. It is strange how male-driven ambient is...
My friend Travis always jokes around saying that unless it has a beat and lyrics, chick probably won't dig it. While he is making a joking generalization, there is some truth to it. And also, ambient and electronica tend to be more tech-orientated, so I'm sure that's another reason why the genres attract more males than females. Dudes love looking at and fiddling with knobs, know what I'm sayin?
19
Panda Bear - Tomboy
Given the massive influence that Person Pitch has had on music in the past 4 1/2 years, it's hard to remember just how fresh the it originally sounded. It was released a few months before Animal Collective's also-great Strawberry Jam so the electronic edge and sample and loop-based melodies were a far cry from the Sung Tongs/Feels-era AC tunes, making it even more unexpected. Love it or hate it, it was certainly a landmark album in the 00s for indie music, so Tomboy, more than almost any other album this year, was under the microscope. At first, it's languorous pacing and lack of cohesion made it a bit of a disappointment. There's no "Bros" or "Good Girls/Carrots" to really get the blood rushing, but that's because Tomboy is a headphones record almost diametrically opposed to Person Pitch's sunny, summery sonic palette. Produced by Spacemen 3's Peter Kember (aka Sonic Boom), Tomboy unsurprisingly bears his drugged-out, fluid imprint - less rocking than most of his songs, but the elongation of time and otherworldy sound of the record are as much his as Lennox's. It's an album dripping with atmosphere, laden with reverb and sonic textures that create a remarkable ebb and flow. And while it doesn't quite take you into the skies like Person Pitch, it's still a deceptively complex, emotionally layered album full of conflict wavering from dark undertones to joyous melodies, yet more often landing in between. This makes it tough to peg and, for many, fully embrace, but its almost scattershot nature is not the mark of an artist not sure where to go, as I originally thought, but rather one of an artist pushing through towards new ground. And if we have to sit through a "Scheherazade" or "Friendship Bracelet" to get an "Afterburner" or "Alsatian Darn", then that's a pretty small price to pay.
Favorite Tracks:
[youtube]reOjWhEhbmA[/youtube]
[youtube]opNf23OE-Bs[/youtube]
[youtube]5yvOYoNrzWM&ob=av2e[/youtube]
Ha, yeah. It does seem to be an all-or-nothing deal with them. Oh well, I'm positive you'll like my next pick a lot more.
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