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Rarebit Nutter

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Posts posted by Rarebit Nutter

  1. Every other year I make a resolution to participate more in Watmm but never seem to follow it through. Anyway for what it’s worth here’s my picks of the year in no particular order. Lots more I could mention, but these are all stand-outs

    Electronic

    James Holden - Imagine this is a Higher Dimensional Space; probably my pick of the year if I had to choose, just a really excellent, experimental electronic album with one foot in rave culture
    Nathan Micay - To the God Named Dream; bright, symphonic, unabashedly retro breakbeat rave with a classical bent
    Craven Faults - Standers; longform analogue electro, better than the previous one
    Surgeon - Crash Recoil; techno that’s cerebral yet pounding as always
    Fennesz & Ozmotic; Senzatempo; lovely ambient noise
    μ-Ziq - 1977; one of his most surprising albums
    Gacha Bakradze - Pancakes; sprightly beats and expansive melodies, early 90s golden-age influences
    Doc Sleep - Birds (in my mind anyway); lovely dubby, post-clubby techno
    Ceephax Acid Crew - Baddow Moods; came out last year but I feel like it missed out on any AOTY lists. Just epic stuff from Andy
    The Black Dog - The Grey Album; cool live-sounding techno 
    Lee Gamble - Models; beautiful AI-driven acapella ambient
    Otik - Cosmosis; just really good dance music, kind of Daniel Avery-esque but with a bit of a psychedelic flavour
    The Chemical Brothers - For that Beautiful Feeling; feels like a return to 90s glory days
    Future Sound of London - Environment 7.003; I’ve nowhere near kept up with their post 90s stuff but this feels very recognisably the work of the same creative force that produced those classic releases
    Forest Swords - excellent third album, that stays true to the aesthetic of the project but develops new ideas too

    Non-Electronic

    Nation of Language - Strange Disciple; synth pop trio go from strength to strength
    Sparklehorse - Bird Machine; really lovely posthumous collection, up there with his best imho though a bit more polished production-wise
    Blur - Ballad of Darren; not my favourite Blur album (saying that as a lifelong fan), but feels like the Blur album we deserve in 2023
    Steve Mason - Brothers & Sisters; former Beta Band frontman sounding as confident and assured as ever
    Bar Italia - Tracey Denim; scuzzy influence-heavy slacker indie
    Nabihah Iqbal - Dreamer; shoegaze meets new-wave, spoken-word vox and some electronic tracks. Shouldn’t work as an album but does.

    Looking forward to spending the next few weeks digging into everything else in this thread. As a perennial lurker, thanks for all the recommendations!
     

    • Like 6
  2. I've taken a lot of recommendations from watmm over the years from these kinds of thread. And 2021 was the first year in a very long time where I've kept somewhere close to up to date on new releases, so for what it's worth here's my list...

    Top pick:
    Gazelle Twin & NYX Drone Choir - Deep England
    Just the most remarkable album I've heard all year: serene, terrifying, hilarious. Can't recommend enough.

    Instant classic of the year:
    Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg
    Might not be a popular choice on Watmm but I love it - love the lyrics, love her voice, love the music.

    Other electronic releases I've listened to a lot
    Skee Mask - Pool
    Andy Stott - Never the right time
    Mu-ziq & Mrs Jynx - Secret Garden
    Darkside - Spiral
    Space Afrika - Honest Labour
    Daniel Avery - Together in Static
    Lone - Always Inside your Head
    Leon Vynehall - Rare, Forever
    Gacha Bakradze - Obscure Languages
    Loraine James - Reflection
    Ulrich Schnauss & Jonas Munk - Eight Fragments of an Illusion
    Facta - Blush
    Nightmares on Wax - Shout out to Freedom
    Moritz von Oswald Trio - Dissent

    Bands
    Clinic - Fantasy Island
    Spirit of the Beehive - Entertainment, Death
    Nation of Language - A Way Forward
    Pond - 9
    Low - Hey What
    Vanishing Twin - Ooki Gekkou
    Damon Albarn - Nearer the Fountain...

    Now to go back and check out all the other amazing music I missed from this year...

    • Like 2
  3. 4 hours ago, markedone said:

    First listen impression: I find it hard to get excited for yet another 'slick produced ethereal female vocals album'. Four tets latest fell into the same trap for me. Moment by moment it's not bad per se, but it all starts to blend into lounge-cool-blandness.

    This was definitely my first impression too; the pair of tracks at both the beginning and end of the record fall into this trap a bit. I feel like maybe he set out using that new-agey ethereal ambience as inspiration, something to send up and give his 'twist' on it....but then just ended up sounding exactly like the thing he was trying to pastiche.

    I still think the more upbeat tracks across the middle are up there with his best though....not anything particularly original, just doing a certain sound very very well. 

    Overall, Galaxy Garden is easily his top album for me - it just sounds so much more distinctive and original than anything else I've heard by him. Always takes me to magical retro/futuristic rainforest rave...just like the cover art. 

     

  4. yep this is awesome, and beautifully reminiscent of Formless, which is an all-time favourite of mine too.

    Ideal listening as winter closes in; though I guess it's supposed to be about emerging from stasis rather than re-entering it, as we seem poised to do in the UK..

    • Like 1
  5. I'm finding AAI patchy to be honest. There's a couple of great tracks on there: Artificial Authentic, Latent Space, some of the others in the middle. But the noisy interludes don't really do that much for me, and in the whole last third of the album there's only really one proper track.

    And then the machine monologues are kind of interesting in their own right but they don't massively add to the music. I feel they might've been better kept separate.

    Anyway...I don't like to knock something too much that's only just come out. Maybe some of it is just going over my head little

  6. On 3/10/2020 at 7:43 PM, jules said:

    Im just discovering 1991 and Im blown away. All of his stuff is so different and nice. Digging on it hard right now.

    same here. Totally passed me by before but can't stop listening to No More Dreams now. Such a lovely melancholic 80s degraded synth feel, which I can't seem to get enough of.

    I love how between a couple of tracks there's the very faint sounded of muffled beats, like he's recorded over the same tape multiple times. You can hear it right at the end of No More Dreams IV and V..

    • Like 1
  7. On 2/14/2021 at 6:07 PM, Extralife said:

    See this is my issue (and i think many of yours) with listening to modern MoM. Literally every album (and almost every ep and one off track) they put out in the 90s was bouncy, fun, cerebral...and most of all very human sounding.  Their output during this period was just about peerless imo - especially Iahora, Autoditacker, and Instrumentals - which I feel are timeless classics.

    until recently I was only really familar with their 90s discography, up to around Idiology. And I'd happily include Autoditaker as one of the best electronic albums of the 90s. But then seeing the annoucement for this new release, I thought it was high time I caught up with their later output and tbh everything I've heard is just as good. Dimensional People is awesome; has the classic MoM sound and the vocal collaborations fit perfectly. From a couple of listens, WOW sounded great as well - and clearly influenced by contemporary electronic music from that time.

    Not so sure about AAI so far...it feels a bit less free-flowing and organic than a their normal style. But that could be the whole point of the concept of the album. Need more time to digest though...

    Whatever you think about their later output, they've never stood still and always stayed true to their own approach

    • Like 2
  8. Some more albums recently listened:

     

    Pram - Dark Island

    Macabre; lounge/jazzy; noir soundtrack sort of stuff. A very English type of sinister. A mixture of instrumentals employing all sorts of music box type of sounds. The vocal tracks are dark tales of lost love and possession sung in almost leaden style, which suits the atmosphere of the album perfectly. 6/10

     

    Green Velvet - Walk in Love

    Stripped down banging house music. Love this guy. I love the way his albums are a mixture of very personal tracks as well as comedy ones; or cynical comments on clubland and the media. He manages to get a lot of meaning across in a style not normally known for it. Some really banging beats on here as well. 7/10

     

    Casino vs Japan - Go Hawaii

    I should have listened to this more, for the length of time I've had the album. Boards of Canada-style distorted beats and lush synthy melodies. But altogether a lot more jolly and summery.  And as the name suggests, reminiscent of Hawaii...or reminiscent of how Hawaii seems in films and tv adverts anyway. Very pleasant without ever getting twee or cloying. 7/10

     

    Fanu - Daylightless (1st half only)

    Dark complex intricate drum'n'bass. Yeah some sick dark beats basically, lots of Asian-sounding vocal samples. A bit like some of Enduser's stuff. Doesn't quite veer into full on breakcore but getting there at points. I think the second disk is half-tempo tracks. 6/10 for now

     

    Baby Ford - Basking in the brake lights

    Minimal techno/micro house. A mixed bag; some decent tracks and some that don't leave much of an impression. Would probably be better suited to wobbling round a seedy dancefloor at 5am. 5/10 for now, needs more listens

  9.  

    Autechre - Confield 

    Obviously something of a sacred cow. I've had it kicking around for years but never listened to it in its entirety. And I just can't get into it; I enjoy some of the tracks (Bine, Uvoil, Eidetic Casein) but at least half of it just leaves me cold. Seems silly to give it a rating as it is such a classic for some people, but mine would have to be 5/10

     

     

    welcom aboard matey! watch yr steps though, this type of thingy could cause u a bit of trouble..   

     

    ha yes I didn't think that would be a popular view. Just feel like I'm still waiting for that 'click' moment with some of their stuff.

  10. I'm new to watmm so I hope it's OK to just jump straight in. Some albums recently listened:

     

    Autechre - Confield 

    Obviously something of a sacred cow. I've had it kicking around for years but never listened to it in its entirety. And I just can't get into it; I enjoy some of the tracks (Bine, Uvoil, Eidetic Casein) but at least half of it just leaves me cold. Seems silly to give it a rating as it is such a classic for some people, but mine would have to be 5/10

     

    Cocteau Twins - Treasure

    An oldie but a fairly recent addition to my collection. Ethereal, dreamy chamber pop. This is definitely a slow grower. Not sure if it'll ever attain classic status but I can see it really fitting certain contexts. I haven't really differentiated all the tracks but lots of them are worming their way into my mind which has to be a good sign. 6/10 for now

     

    Lukid - Onandon

    Pleasant but unremarkable, lolling breakbeaty/trip-hoppy/electronica. Still getting to know this one, 6/10 for now

     

    Higher Intelligence Agency - Colourform

    Classic early 90's electronica, bit of an acid/psychedelic tinge. This would be perfect soundtrack to some a post-clubbing session (and I'm sure has been many times). It's not quite up there with some of the other classics from time for me; it's just not quite as varied or idiosyncratic as FSOL/Aphex/Black Dog. Decent though. 6/10

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