Album of the year 2020

[Braintree]

Jodey Kendrick's fake Prince album.

There was a ton of good stuff this year.

Mr. Bungle - Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo

Autechre - SIGN/PLUS

Squarepusher - Be Up A Hello

Richard Devine - SYSTIK

Drop Dead - Drop Dead 2020

DMX Krew - The Collapse Of The Wave Function Volume 3 OOPS IT'S FUCKING OLD

Red Pyramid - Vital Force

Middle Aged Queers - Too Fag For Love

Indy Nyles - Look at Me EP

RX-101 - Serenity/Hearts UTD EP

Nick Forté - Enter The Jargon

Rotting Out - Ronin

Napalm Death - Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism

Aleksi Perala's Spectrum series.

Edited November 26, 2020 by Braintree

[brian trageskin]

33 minutes ago, Braintree said:

DMX Krew - The Collapse Of The Wave Function Volume 3

was released on rephlex 16 years ago but ok

[Braintree]

I was going by the date on Bandcamp. I'm sorry I offended your delicate sensibilities.

[may be rude]

actress - karma & desire

aphex twin - manchester '19 fb audio

autechre - sign & plus

autechre - ae_live 06-08

cylob - 54 minute mirage

cylob - live 060708

cylob - one less pitch

dgohn - undesignated proximate

ignatius - bundle drift ep

jodey kendrick - ftp & wtflol

rtr - planetx

squarepusher - be up a hello

 

heh, true. boiled it down a bit

\/

Edited November 30, 2020 by very honest

[Richie Sombrero]

People who list like 100 albums in this thread. Jesus. Triage that shit!

[danshoebridge]

There's been some really good late additions recently...

Luke Abbott - Translate
The Black Dog - Fragments
Pole - Fading

Also:

Autechre - SIGN and the first 3/4 of PLUS
K-Lone - Cape Cira
Dallas Acid - the spiral ambience
Echasketch - Andromeda
Magic Oneohtrix
Rrine - Eaciv+ (reissue but I missed it 1st time)
Scanner - An Ascent
Craven Faults - Erratics and unconformities

[playbynumbers]

1. pausal, melatonia
2. basinski, lamentations
3. autechre, SIGN/PLUS
4. alessandro cortini, memorie i / ii
5. desert squid - shanghai / hong kong
6. cults, host
7. daniel avery, love + light
8. the 1975, noacf
9. rafael irisarri, peripeteia
10. eric skodvin, anbessa
11. dumont, people on sunday
12. multicast dynamics, ancient circuits
13. ricardo villalobos, mandela move
14. richard devine, systik
15. salem, fires in heaven
16. fleet foxes, shore
17. no joy, motherhood
18. shinichi atobe, yes
19. ana roxanne, because of a flower
20. alva noto, xerrox vol. 4
21. juliana barwick, healing is a miracle
22. grimes, miss anthropocene
23. soft pink truth, swgosstgmi
24. nin, ghosts v
25. real estate, the main thing
 

[xyrofen]

Hey WATMM! Good thread.

I'm going to try to list only things I haven't seen in this thread, sorry if any have been mentioned already. I don't feel a need to talk about how much I enjoyed "SIGN/PLUS" or "Be Up A Hello", as great as they were. I do want to note I didn't yet listen to John Frusciante's "Maya" nor have I listened to Richard Devine A+ Student's "SYSTIK" yet.

Format of Artist - Album name -- personal notes

• Yaeji - What We Drew -- I'm really enjoying all of her output. There's something really down-to-Earth about it all, feels personal and human.
• Sunken Foal - Hexose -- Generative sounds, all in the very pretty Dunk Murphy way that the Friday Syndrome albums were. Overall very relaxing.
• Sewerslvt - Draining Love Story -- Basically everything I loved about Porter Robinson's "Virtual Self" EP, but then mashed in with my undying teenage love of breakcore. It's nostalgic for me, very dissociative whimsical styling for my inner angst.
• Purity Ring - WOMB -- I have loved all of their output; I have a friend that also really likes them and didn't like this album at first, but I insisted it's a grower. This is true, it's only grown on me and it's worth a listen.
• Pantha du Prince - Conference of Trees -- Not as strong as other output in my opinion, but that's because Black Noise and The Triad are some of my top favorite albums. All the practical percussive sounds are great.
• Dan Deacon - Mystic Familiar -- This is my favorite album he's released thus far. "Fell Into the Ocean" is beautiful, as is the entire "ARP" sequence on the album.
• Cut Copy - Freeze, Melt -- Probably my favorite of theirs since "In Ghost Colours". My favorite will remain "Bright Like Neon Love" but this album has definitely shown a maturing in their sound a lot.

Thanks for reading.

[Uros]

Jodey Kendrick: WTFLOL + AD + FTP (aka jodey dump, hands down the highlight of the recent years for me)

Hellboii - The Crisis Of Proliferation

Ye Gods - DUMAH

Tom - Be Up A Hello

JK Flesh - Depersonalization

[KovalainenFanBoy]

CHATMM house comp

[hello spiral]

1 hour ago, KovalainenFanBoy said:

CHATMM house comp

Aye!

Also

Melted Self - Spectral Disorder

Shadow Copy - Early Racordings

Still House Plants - Fast Edit

Duma - Duma

SDEM - ZNS

Marc Hasselbalch - Soft Enrichment

Orphan Donor - Old Patterns

Synalegg - Beating the Odds

DJ Chengz - St. Lucian Kuduro Mixtape

Bill Callahan - Gold Record

KMRU - Peel

eryngi - map of my town

Secluded Bronte - Queen's

Bill Orcutt - Warszawa

Mark Fell & Will Guthrie - Infoldings

1995 epilepsy - 1995 epilepsy

Worthy reissues:

Horace Tapscott with the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra - Ancestral Echoes, The Covina Sessions, 1976

&

Tony Oxley - February Papers (this is a resissue of a legendary improv album recorded in 1977 in Vangelis' London studio and it's the best recorded improv album I've ever heard)

Edited December 1, 2020 by hello spiral

[sidewinder]

18 hours ago, xyrofen said:

• Sunken Foal - Hexose -- Generative sounds, all in the very pretty Dunk Murphy way that the Friday Syndrome albums were. Overall very relaxing.

Nice to see this included, even if I haven't enjoyed it as much as the Friday Syndrome albums – which I loved. I really need to spin Hexose a few more times.

[auxien]

On 11/22/2020 at 5:14 PM, manmower said:

Hum - Inlet

On 11/23/2020 at 6:02 AM, beerwolf said:

Hum - Inlet

probably gonna be mine too tbh. nothing quite hits in the feels like this album. not surprised really but, there’s been a lot of great stuff this year.

[IDEM]

On 11/17/2020 at 10:37 AM, thumbass said:

Archaeoptryx (monolake)

+1

[fumi]

Short list this year. Listened to probably close to two hundred albums in the past twelve months but I've only included those that truly fucked with me.

These are in no order. Often, they are difficult listening but also sometimes haunting and yet life-affirming too.

• Oneohtrix Point Never - Magic Oneohtrix Point Never
• Votel, Canty & Shipton - Popular Mechanics 4
• Japan - Gentlemen Take Polaroids
• Blod - Livets Ord
• Yellow Swans - Going Places

[xyrofen]

4 hours ago, sidewinder said:

Nice to see this included, even if I haven't enjoyed it as much as the Friday Syndrome albums – which I loved. I really need to spin Hexose a few more times.

I would say it's not nearly as good as the Friday Syndrome albums overall, but that it's really pretty background music. It all swells and washes so nicely.

[eczem]

First pass, maybe last:

• AE - SIGN
• AE - PLUS
• Rime Trails - The Light of Setting Suns
• Akeyamasou - LONG DAY
• Melted_Self - Pattern Shift
• Synalegg - Beating the Odds
• Eryngi - Phonegg1
• Aclds - Anam Dubh Marbhtach
• Encym - Music for Meditation
• Oval - Scis
• Ignatius - Bundle Drift EP
• Rian Treanor - File Under UK Metaplasm
• Marc Hasselbalch - Lockdown (March 13–April 14)
• Nebulo - Parallaxes
• Sunken Foal - Le Doux Nord (Part I)
• Hello Spiral - There's a Shadow on You Lad

edit: more:

• tsrono - enprism
• Monolake - Arc-teryx
• AE - onesix
• Grischa L - kamilhan__il_y_a_p_ril_en_la_demeure

Some extras:

• Ben Frost - Dark Cycle 3
• Streets of Rage 3 (Remastered) by Yuzo Koshiro & Motohiro Kawashima

Prediction:

• AE - 2008 Live Reconstruction ; IOS/Digit

Edited December 2, 2020 by eczem

[thumbass]

New addition: Krust - The Edge Of Everything

[jaderpansen]

10 hours ago, eczem said:

Prediction:

• AE - 2008 Live Reconstruction ; IOS/Digit

oh yeah!

[Nil]

Adding to my previous post, EP/LP/artists alike :

- all the Melted Self tracks I've heard this year
- Core Alter - Voice Array
- [~]
- Atom™ - <3
- Client_03 - Testbed_Output_01 / Thought Disposal
- Peter Van Hoesen -  Chapter for the Agnostic / Illusions of Contribution / Debord's Children
- Seltene Erden - Scorched Erden
- Calum Gunn - Addenda
- Conditional Records
- Superpang

[Extralife]

Extralife AOTYs for 2020

LPs

Already mentioned: 

Autechre - SIGN/PLUS

Morphology - Horta Proxima (best electro album of the past several years, actually)

Darren Nye - A Vision Organically Modified (space age escapist music)

dgoHn - Undesignated Proximate (he has taken drum funk to another dimension)

Zenker Brothers - Cosmic Transmission (not near enough love here)

Melted Self - Spectral Disorder (also my fav Bandcamp write-up of the year)

Monolake - Archaeopteryx (it's Monolake)

Krust - The Edge of Everything (huge surprise that this guy came out of nowhere to release this)

Yet to be mentioned:

KMRU - Opaquer (actually preferred this one to Peel, which was also excellent)

Dasdreieck - IMMI (kaleidoscopic fun fest of breaks, video game samples, etc - maybe my actual AOTY) 

Sam McQueen - Dreams in Sepia (soulful deep techno)

Dominique Dumont - People on Sunday (keeps me sane - peaceful vibes during turbulent times)

Luke Abbott - Translate (this guy has really learned how to control his machines)

Badun - Future Twenty-Four (one of my best new discoveries this year - love everything I've heard by this band)

Kiln - Astral Welder (so nice to have them back)

Grand River - Blink a Few Times To Clear Your Eyes (this album will take you somewhere else)

Wagon Christ - Recepticon (maybe someone has mentioned this? So much of his recent stuff has been hit or miss, but this one is a big hit for me)

Tangents - Timeslips (you could call it jazz)

Bjarki - Pandemixes (probably not LPs proper, but damn these were fun)

Golden Donna - Hush (blissful)

Colors of Infinity - Ekeu (been waiting for a follow up to his first album, which I loved.  This does not disappoint.)

Plant43 - The Countless Stones (His beatless works are peerless)

Future Beat Alliance - Beginner's Mind (Best album by FBA imo)

EPs: 

 

Already mentioned: 

Richard Devine - Systik (best thing he has ever put out)

Yet to be mentioned:

Gacha Bakrazde - Western Arrogance (each track is perfect - Die Orakel is fast becoming one of my favorite labels)

JASSS - Whities 027 (desperately wish I could Turbo Ole at a warehouse rave one day.  I can dream.)

Wee DJs - Crisps series (how I like my electro)

dbacon - I-V (driving house music)

Fax/OSSA - Modder (really want to hear more from this collab)

Higher Intelligence Agency - Discatron (the return of one of the greats)

CRC - Decay Remixes (Michael from Morphology. Worth it for the track "Utopia" alone.)

Rolando Simmons - Summer Diary Two (It's Rolando.)

Norwell - Altered States

Future Sound of London - Cascade 2020 (album or ep? It's great whatever it is.)

 

Comps: 

2020 Schematic Music Company (best comp of the year bar none - banger after banger on here, old and new)

[Rubin Farr]

https://thirdkindrecords.bandcamp.com/album/when-comfort-is-stranger
 

https://infinitefog.bandcamp.com/album/sara-dales-sensual-massage

[Alcofribas]

@Extralife nice list, thanks for including links! i'm listening to the colours of infinity record and it's really good, big fan of that lofi warmth.

[Extralife]

1 hour ago, Alcofribas said:

@Extralife nice list, thanks for including links! i'm listening to the colours of infinity record and it's really good, big fan of that lofi warmth.

It’s excellent. You have to listen to his first album if you haven’t yet.

https://hiddenwaves.bandcamp.com/album/colours-of-infinity

That was my soundtrack to living through Hurricane Harvey.

[jules]

On 12/2/2020 at 11:16 AM, Extralife said:

Extralife AOTYs for 2020

Morphology - Horta Proxima (best electro album of the past several years, actually)

Melted Self - Spectral Disorder (also my fav Bandcamp write-up of the year)

That Morphology album is really good, forgot about that one too.

Thanks for posting the Melted Self link. Missed this one and it's sick. Love the art as well HS. And yes, that write-up is worth the price of admission lol

Edited December 3, 2020 by jules