My 40 Favourite Albums of the Year: 2012
As another year begins to sag in on itself, listing season hits fifth gear. Listageddon this year has already seen more discrepancies and discordance than any year I can remember. The fracturing of worlds in our time of pixels is one thing, but perhaps moreso than any year in recent memory, there just hasn’t been much of a groundswell of consensus. Is it because because the single-song-stream vanguard seem to run the agenda a little more these days? And if so, are artists perhaps playing into their hands, penning instasurprises, rather than working on bodies of work which require time and investment to make your mind up? I hope not, but then, who runs the world…
Blurt-worthy music isn’t what I’m about. Without crassly dredging up obvious metaphors and similies, I love to be dragged under by music; to luxuriate and get so lost that I end up in a place without the need to worry about a GPS signal or gravity.
Perhaps my desire to be absorbed is reflected in my list below. Then again, sometimes it feels like some of these immersive - often cinematic - voyages were written with me in mind because offen times, when the textures and walls of sound that dripped with tears surrounded me, it didn’t feel like it was meant for anyone else. That ability to collapse in on yourself and to become so self-consumed that you feel like the music was purpose built for you is both a hideous way to think and the exact way that I want music to make me feel
With Chromatics the pulsing ruby lights and ice-chilled floors may have been dreamily out of focus, but the experience was simply all or nothing. Succumb or feel a bit dumb, them’s the rules of The Floor. When it’s a dancefloor in your mind, and you’re dancing on your own and picturing those who might join you, then yeah, you start to feel a bit mental telling others about the people in your head. So instead I wrote this review, which, given a little more time with the record, I would have probably gone for a 10/10.^
I’ll probably write more about the rest of these in the coming days and weeks as the DiS albums of the year countdown kicks in.
For a Spotify playlist featuring tracks from pretty much all of these, bash your mouse here. Or RDIO users can go here.
1. Chromatics - Kill for Love
2. Sharon Van Etten - Tramp (my interview + session at Latitude)
3. Blondes - Blondes (my 10/10 review)
4. School of Seven Bells - Ghostory (my 9/10 review)
5. FOE - Bad Dream Hotline (my interview with Foe)
6. Chairlift - Something
7. Twin Shadow - Confess
8. The Twilight Sad - No One Can Ever Know
9. Liars - WIXWI
10. Polica - Give You the Ghost (my 9/10 review)
11. Metric - Synthetica (jimmy and emily chatting synth symphonies with me)
12. Cat Power - Sun
13. Yppah - Eighty One
14. Blood Red Shoes - In Time to Voices
15. Muse - The 2nd Law (my 8/10 review)
16. Crystal Castles - III (my 8/10 review)
17. Hey Sholay - ((o))
18. Bear in Heaven - I Love You, It’s Cool
19. Grizzly Bear - Shields
20. Exitmusic - Passage
21. CFCF - Exercises
22. Motion Sickness for Time Travel - s/t
23. Efterklang - Pirimidia
24. Errors - Have some Faith in Magic
25. Melody’s Echo Chamber - Melody’s Echo Chamber
26. dEUS - Following Sea
27. Eight and a Half - Eight and a Half
28. Ghosting Season - The Very Last of the Saints
29. Perfume Genius - Put Yr Back In 2 It
30. The Shins - Port of Morrow
31. Halls - Ark
32. The Sea & Cake - Runner
33. Shearwater - Animal Joy
34. Yeasayer - Fragrant World
35. Keaton Henson - Dear…
36. Sigur Ros - Valtari
37. The Maccabees - Given to the Wild
38. Jessie Ware - Devotion
39. Gemma Hayes - Let it Break
40. Julia Holter - Ekstasis
