Blog

01. Causa Sui - Summer Sessions Volume I
02. Wooden Shjips - Self Titled
03. Eternal Tapestry - Mystic Induction EP
04. U.S. Christmas - Eat The Low Dogs
05. Bardo Pond - Batholith
06. Colour Haze - All
07. The Young Gods - Knock On Wood
08. The Black Angels - Directions To Seek A Ghost
09. My Sleeping Karma - Satya
10. Magic Lantern - High Beams
11. Glissade - Further
12. Wooden Shjips - Volume I
13. El Paramo - Self Titled
14. Interkosmos - self titled
15. Magic Lantern - Self Titled
16. Tame Impala - Anatres, Mira, Sun
17. The Higher Craft - Magic Box
18. beehoover - Heavy Zoo
19. Farflung - A Woun In Eternity
20. Earthless - Live At Roadburn
21. Eternal Tapestry - Altar Of Grass
22. Grails - Take Refugee In Clean Living
23. Heavy Hands - Smoke Signals
24. Gomer Pyle - Idiots Savant
25. Brant Bjork - Punk Rock Guilt
26. Fossil - Insonia
27. Glowsun - Kallimadelik
28. Endless Boogie - Focus Level
29. The Kings Of Frog Island - II
30. Pothead - Rocket Boy
31. 5ive - Hesperus
32. Knall - Fleisch
33. Dragontears - Tambourine Freak Machine
34. Darker My Love - 2
35. Husky - The Sea King
36. Dead Meadow - Old Growth
37. Black Mountain - In The Future
38. Hotel Wrecking City Traders - Black Yolk
39. Madking Ludwig - Seven Stairways
40. Barn Owl - From Our Mouths A Perpetual Light
41. Anglo Jackson - Self Titled
42. LSD POND - self titled
43. Eternal Tapestry - Seas Of Silk
44. Gonga - II Transmigration
45. Bardo Pond - Circuit VIII
46. Vibravoid - The Politics Of Ecstasy
47. The Freeks - Self Titled
48. Zodiak - Sermons
49. Aqua Nebula Oscillator - Self Titled
50. Electric Orange - Fleischwerk

I am sure that I definitely omit to list many other wonderful albums because there are too many fascinating and surprising works in 2008!

Here is my top.50 chart 2008(But be honest,it's still a lousy rough ver....)

1.Jocelyn Pook- ost. "Caotica Ana" (2007)
2. Jack or Jive- Kakugo
3.Alio Die & Martina Galvagni-Eleusian Lullaby
4.Ilyas Ahmed-The Vertigo Of Dawn
Between Two Skies / Towards The Night
Arroyo
7.Sigur Ros-Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust
8.Grouper- Dragging a Dead Dear Up a Hill
9.Portishead -Third
10.Irfan- Seraphim (2007)

Rudi Arapahoe-Echoes From One To Another
Cisfinitum-Tactio
Ketil Bjornstad & Terje Rypdal -Life in Leipzig
Les Fragments de la Nuit - Musique Du Crépuscule
Melodyguild -Aitu
Jacaszek - Treny
Andrew Liles & Daniel Menche-the progeny of flies
Herbst9 & Z'ev-Through Bleak Landscapes (2007)
Anoice- Out of season
Stephan Micus-snow

Lustmord-other
V.A. Fairy world vol.4
Alio Die -aura seminalis
Current 93-Birth canal blues
Andrew Chalk - time of hayfield(2007)
sToa-Silmand
Ketil Bjornstad - the light
Hammock-Maybe They Will Sing for Us Tomorrow
Pacific UV-longplay vol.2
Rome-Masse Mensch Materials



Aethenor-bedtimes black bloudmasses
Pocahaunted & Robedoor-plays Berkeley
Olafur Arnalds-Variations of static
Vikki Jackman - Whispering Pages
Spangle call Lilli line-purple
Resplandor -Pleamar
Natural Snow Buildings-The Snowbringer Cult
Arcana-Raspail
Death in June-the rules of thirds
Meredith Monk -Impermanence

Daturah - Reverie
The Evpatoria Report - Maar
Mogwai- The Hawk is Howling
Jasper TX - this quiet season
Emiliana Torrini-Me And Armini
The Blithe Sons-The Genesis of the Great Orthochromatic Wheel
Autumn's Grey Solace - Ablaze
Aidan Baker & Jakob Thiesen - a bout de souffle
Barn Owl-smoke loom ceremony
Beyond Sensory Experience - no lights in our eyes

special mentioned-
Burning boat to Spica- untitled <--my own music project and I will make some new stuffs in next year(2009)... :P

podcast @ http://www.submersibledirigible.com/blog/2008/12/22/submersibles-best-of-2008-podcast-the-last-15-of-50/

mp3 / aac / playlist

50. Growing - All the Way [The Social Registry]
Growing has been drifting slowly away from their minimal electric guitar drones, these days sounding something like a marauding, metallic sawtooth specter. All the Way, one of the group’s two releases for the year, is the best example of the Growing’s urgent, effects laden drone-rock.

49. Carlos Giffoni - Adult Life [NO FUN]
Much of Giffoni’s back catalog can be a rough listen, even for calloused ears like my own. Adult Life has its own rough edges, but its inviting synth melodies recreate and re-imagine electronic music’s unique beginnings, when compositions were blossoming in academic research laboratories around the world. Giffoni’s latest is a sort of avant-Tomorrowland, an album of unashamed early-electronic futurism.

48. Suishou No Fune - Prayer For Chibi [Holy Mountain]
Prayer For Chibi is the sort of dependable space psych that occupies the endless, soul sucking monotony of the cubicle existence. The album sounds to owe as much to Doom/Sludge luminaries like Sunn 0))) as it does to Kraut/Psych godparents Cluster or Can. Left this album out of my podcast mix, because it just doesn’t fit well in the format.

47. Wooden Shjips - Volume 1 [Holy Mountain]
An album of reissues apparently, with these songs appearing previously on limited release 7, 10 or 12 inchers. Basically, it’s the sort of garage psyche that worked so perfectly on their full length with Holy Mountain. These songs are infinitely re-playable, and provide enough variety so they’re showing something new with every listen.

46. Pocahaunted - Peyote Road [Woodsist]
Pocahaunted is tribalism recomposed for the 21st century. These two must compose all their music around campfires in full warpaint to achieve such a jarring, spiritual sound. I probably spent too much time this year chasing down their many releases, but I kept coming back to Peyote Road.

45. Peter Broderick - Home [Bella Union/Type]
It’s hard to believe the same man behind Float’s pop-minded contemporary classical could write this jangly, comfort album. Bright, charming songs, sunshine guitar, and soaring vocals made perfect for snuggling. A little too sweet for my taste-buds, but ultimately impossible to resist.

44. Ilyas Ahmed - Arroyo (Arroyo Series) [Digitalis]
More of the same is still awesome. Psychedelic, distorted songwriting, with dabs of dissonance and noise. It’s a tragedy this album is more widely available (yet).

dregs3

43. Head of Wantastiquet - Mortagne [Ecstatic Peace]
Sunburned Hand of the Man’s Paul Labrecque puts together an album of surprisingly lovely banjo/guitar pieces, worthy of the Fahey and Basho American Primitive tradition. This musical niche should get old, but it never does.

42. Excepter - Debt Department [Paw Tracks]
Animal Collective’s Paw Tracks proves freak-folk’s dying corpse can still take plenty of flogging. These genre stalwarts produce another album of warped, senseless hipster jams.

41. Barn Owl - Raft of Serpents [Root Strata]
Mechanized grasshoppers mating tones, in a the peaceful guitar forest would sound something like Barn Owl’s Raft of Serpents. I’m running out of ways to describe ambient psychedelics.

40. M. Jarvis & A. Jarvis - Jun [Ruralfaune]
Ruralfaune’s best release, by my estimation. Yet another album of psychedelic songwriting that leaves a vivid, soothing impression. Instrumental pieces and folk songs mix perfectly, with some eastern influences and electronic bobbles for good measure. Apparently I’m a fan of the genre.

39. steve gunn - Sundowner [Digitalis Arts & Crafts]
Steven Gunn is best known as a member of GHQ, but has been recently producing his own acoustic folk songwriting, and stepping away from his group’s hazier blend. “For the Horse, Etc.” was a fixture in my playlist. Gunn’s Sundowner was released on the new Digitalis Arts & Crafts sublabel, setting a high standard for the new imprint.

38. Boduf Songs - How Shadows Chase the Balance [Kranky]
Nothing much has changed in the three years since Boduf Songs released his first album. How Shadows… again creates an epic sense of scale, his deep, hushed vocals sounding like some really incredible secret. If it aint broke…

37. Ignatz - III [KRAAK]
Crackling, whispered songwriting — III is an album of prematurely aged, over-treated, dusty recordings exposed to electromagnetic waves and solar radiation. Its interference completements the neurotic electric guitar and whispered vocal folk textures at this album’s heart.

36. Lau Nau - Nukkuu [Locust]
Plucky, atonal incantations from Helsinki’s Laura Naukkarinen. Like Islaja, Lau Nau’s acid folk is an easy listen, despite its dissonance. Nukuu’s frosty acoustic melodies, carefree vocals, and electric guitar whiteouts, put together, epitomizes the best of Finland’s bizarre, woolen folk community.

LPs, EPs, cassettes, some compilations and maybe some reissues in no particular order:


1 - Raccoo-oo-oon - Self-titled (Release The Bats, Not Not Fun)
2 - Taiga Remains - Ribbons Of Dust (Root Strata)
3 - Super Minerals - The Pelagics (Stunned)
4 - Burning Star Core - Challenger (Hospital Prod.)
5 - RST - Tomorrow's Void (Utech)
6 - A.M. - Rag Red Reverie (PseudoArcana)
7 - Sunken - Eye Electric Organ, Brain Electric Nerve (PseudoArcana)
8 - Paper Wings - Ash Field (PseudoArcana)
9 - Vikki Jackman - Whispering Pages (Faraway Press)
10 - Windy Weber - I Hate People (Blue Flea)
11 - Gown - For The Maples (Three Lobed)
12 - Emeralds - Solar Bridge (Hanson)
13 - Emeralds - Live (Gneiss Things)
14 - Treetops - In The Everglades (Students Of Decay)
15 - Tom Carter - Shots At Infinity 1 & 2 (Important)
16 - Elm - Bxogonoas (Digitalis Limited)
17 - Yximalloo - Unpop (ESP Disk)
18 - Blank Realm - The Returner c51 (Not Not Fun)
19 - Head of Wantastiquet - Mortagne (Ecstatic Yod)
20 - The Fun Years - Baby, It's Cold Inside (Barge)
21 - Various - The Jewelled Antler Library 4xCD (Porter)
22 - (VxPxC) - Noche De Rabanos (Self-released)
23 - Barn Owl - From Our Mouths A Perpetual Light (Not Not Fun)
24 - Barn Owl / Tom Carter - Split LP (Blackest Rainbow)
25 - Kevin Drumm - Imperial Distortion (Hospital Prod.)
26 - Grouper - Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill
27 - Grouper / Inca Ore - Split (Self-released) -This actually was a cassette release from 2007, but LP came out this year and deserves to be here, again.
28 - James Ferraro - Multitopia CDR, Clear CDR (New Age Tapes) (He released lots of tapes this year and all of them are amazing, just picked up the most special to me)
29 - The Skaters - Physicalities Of The Sensibilites Of Ingrediential Strairways (Eclipse)
30 - Expo '70 - Black Ohms (Beta-lactam Ring)
31 - Aidan Baker - Book Of Nods (Beta-lactam Ring)
32 - Aidan Baker & Tim Hecker - Fantasma Parastasie (Alien8)
33 - Eliane Radigue - Naldjorlak (Shiin)
34 - Country Teasers / Ezee Tiger - W.O.A.R/W.O.A split LP (Holy Mountain)
35 - Brainbombs - Fucking Mess (Lystring)
36 - GHQ - Seven & Eight (Heavy Blossom)
37 - Scorces - I Turn Into You (Not Not Fun)
38 - The Hospitals - Hairdryer Peace (Self-released)
39 - Ilyas Ahmed - Arroyo (Digitalis Arroyo Series)
40 - Jon Mueller - Metals (Table of the Elements)
41 - Belong - Same Places (Slow Version) (Table of the Elements)
42 - Pumice - Quo (Soft Abuse)
43 - Spectre Folk - Golden Gooj (Arbitrary Signs)
44 - Merzbow & Richard Pinhas - Keio Line (Cuneiform)
45 - Skullflower - Circulus Vitiosus Deus 3xCD (Turgid Animal), Desire For A Holy War (Utech)
46 - Mountainhood - Year Of The Mountain (Reverb Worship)
47 - Dead Western - Soften Your Screams Into Sings (KDVS)
48 - O.W.L. - Of Wondrous Legends (Locust)
49 - Nadja - The Bungled & The Botched (ConSouling Sounds)
50 - Astromero - Astromero 2 3xCD (Troniks)
51 - Andrew Coltrane - Symphony Of Black Holes (Cut Hands), Hidden Underworld (Hermitage Tapes)
52 - Magic Lantern - High Beams (Not Not Fun)
53 - Sun Araw - Beach Head (Not Not Fun)
54 - John Davis - The Gold Hooped Nature (Root Strata)
55 - Joe Grimm - Brain Cloud (Spekk)
56 - The Nether Dawn - Long Shadow Of A Dream (Students Of Decay)
57 - Burning Star Core / Prurient - Ghosts Of Niagara 10xCS (Hospital Prod.)
58 - Richard Skelton - Marking Time (Preservation)
59 - Ajilvsga - Asleep Amongst The Thick Weeds (Students Of Decay)
60 - Claudio Rocchetti - Another Piece Of Teenage Wildlife (Die Schachtel)
61 - Xela & The North Sea - Electronic Music Vol. 1 (RITE)
62 - Pelt - Dauphin Elegies (VHF)
63 - Sam Goldberg - Dark Corners c20 (Tusco Embassy)
64 - Mark McGuire - Amethyst Waves (Wagon), Dream Team (Wagon)
65 - Bernard Parmegiani - L'Œuvre Musicale 12xCD (INA-GRM)
66 - Wolfgang Voigt - Gas (Raster-Noton)
67 - Koen Holtkamp - Field Rituals (Type)
68 - Maryanne Amacher - Sound Characters 2 (Tzadik)
69 - Jacob Kirkegaard - Labyrinthitis (Touch)
70 - Various - Spire Live-Fundemantalis (Touch)
71 - Various - Well Hung: 20 Funk Rock Eruptions From Beneath Communist Hungary Vol. 1 (Finders Keepers)
72 - Ulaan Khol - I (Soft Abuse)
73 - Tricorn & Queue - Hidden Entrances (Digitalis Limited)
74 - Natural Snow Buildings - Slayer Of The King Of Hell (Digitalis Limited), Sunlit Stone (Moon & Sun CDRs) (Digitalis)
75 - Machinefabriek - Dauw (Dekorder), Drawn (with Soccer Committee) (Digitalis)
76 - Vajra - Live (PSF)
77 - Indian Jewelry - Free Gold! (We Are Free)
78 - Hototogisu - Pale Fatal Sister (Important)
79 - Goliath Bird Eater - Black Pentagon (Ruralfaune)
80 - przewalski's horses - Mendota Hotel (Ruralfaune)
81 - throuRoof - It's Raining Over Memory at 7.00 PM (Ruralfaune)
82 - The Dead C - Secret Earth (Ba Da Bing)
83 - The Blithe Sons - The Great Orthochromatic Wheel (Family Vineyard)
84 - Svarte Greiner - Penpals Forever c31 (Digitalis Limited)
85 - Ryoji Ikeda - Test Pattern (Raster-Noton)
86 - Ashtray Navigations - A Monument To British Rock (Smokers Gift)
87 - Maja Ratkje - River Mouth Echoes (Tzadik)
88 - M. Jarvis & A. Jarvis - Jun (Ruralfaune)
89 - Stefan Kushima - Don't Touch The Walls cdr (Blackest Rainbow)
90 - Gary War - New Raytheonport (shdwply)
91 - John Maus - Love Is Real LP (Upset the Rhythm) -CD version released in 2007
92 - Teenage Panzerkorps - Games For Slaves (Siltbreeze)
93 - David Lynch & Marek Zebrowski - Polish Night Music (Absurda)
94 - David Kirby - The Scythe (Students Of Decay)
95 - Boduf Songs - How Shadows Chase The Balance (Kranky)
96 - Blood Stereo - The Magnetic Headache (Bottrop-boy)
97 - Charlemagne Palestine, Terry Jennings, Tony Conrad, Robert Feldman, Rhys Chatham - Golden 4: Sharing A Sonority (Alga Marghen)
98 - Mythical Beast - Scales (Language Of Stone)
99 - Woods Family Creeps - Woods Family Creeps (Time-Lag)
100 - good stuff house - Endless Bummer (Root Strata)

This year was probably the year when people’s listening habits became more fragmented than ever – which left the music industry struggling to smother any individual with marketing. More of these kinds of thoughts later, but I say that because it leads me to this (then I will get on with the matter in hand):

Everyone seems to be saying that this year was genuinely pretty dull for music, and there were no Big Events like Arctic Monkeys. Whenever anyone says anything remotely close to that sentiment to me I always reply “you don’t listen to enough music” – which is almost always true. I had loads of seismic revelations about music, brought on by newly discovered artists breaking into my field of vision. Those people who say there was no equivalent Arctic Monkeys this year, who then glide past MGMT have simply not been paying attention. Word of mouth hasn’t moved so virulently as it did when carrying the name Bon Iver around the country this year. I am totally claiming that, I told you so on that one. How can someone who is making peoples number ones, yet was unheard of 4 months earlier not be counted as a Big Thing.

Either way, more on those thoughts later. You know I don’t care about Big Things, or Little Things, and if you don’t I will explain why in the coming weeks. But for now, I start my Top 50 albums of 2008. For bands and artists that have released more than one thing this year, instead of splitting them up and placing them individually I put them together with a kind of aggregate placing, or just placed them wherever the hell I felt like.

This was an awesome year – making this list was nigh on impossible.


50. Mogwai – The Hawk is Howling
(Pias/Wall Of Sound)
For a couple of albums there, Mogwai weren't really making Albums as involving or with as visionary a narrative as Young Team or CODY, so when 'The Hawk…' came out I wasn't expecting much. Well, Album Mogwai are back and sounding as much like Mogwai as they always do…except here on The Sun Smells Too Loud, which has a totally euphoric hook, is the closest they have ever come to a pop song and the most different they have sounded….ever?

49. Rose Kemp - Unholy Majesty
(One Little Indian)
A couple of years ago I came across Rose on MySpace and loved her delicate folk songs and the group of acoustic artists she was associated with around Bristol. I turn my back for a year then come back to discover she's been dabbling with metal riffs, noise textures and is fast becoming the new Diamanda Galas or Jarboe. Woah.

48. Natural Snow Buildings – Laurie Bird / Slayer of the King of Hell
(Students Of Decay) / (Digitalis)
The beautifully named Natural Snow Buildings are the French duo of Mehdi Ameziane and Solange Gularte . They have jammed out too many albums, in too limited quantities, to have kept up with - 10 this year – so they could have better ones than these, but these are the ones I've held on to and continue to get the most out of. Huge, heady landscapes of heavily effected guitars, ringing feedback, layered chanting, percussion and the occasional distant sightings of drums on the horizon – the beats in Song For Laurie Bird come after twenty minutes and take another ten to develop into a suffocating climax.

47. Pocahaunted – Chains / Island Diamonds
(Teardrops) / (Not Not Fun)
The Eagle Rock, CA based duo of Amanda and Bethany brought in the drum and production talents of Bob Bruno (of Goliath Bird Eater) to both these records and took their hypnotic, smoky psychedelia two different ways – 'Chains' lifted their sound up to the poppiest end of their rainbow while the heavier 'Island Diamonds' sunk it down to a murky, clanking dub.

46. Barn Owl - From Our Mouths A Perpetual Light
(Not Not Fun)
Another two-piece, Barn Owl are Evan Caminiti and Jon Porras. In 'From Our Mouths…' they presented a shamanic ritual; all shuffling percussion, barefooted dust storms and majestic headshaking, carried along on the winds of organ drone and electric currents of guitar. It also comes on white vinyl, which looks way cool.

45. Hotel Wrecking City Traders – Black Yolk
(Bro Fidelity)
The Melbourne based duo of brothers Toby (guitars) and Ben (drums) Matthews smashed out this album of mostly improvised heavy, noisy post-rock/metal album that drew inspiration, but never limited them to, the sounds of the likes of Karma to Burn, Om, Torche, Capricorns, Mogwai, Goliath Bird Eater, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. The long songs gave the listener time to breathe, but it was in the shorter ones that really held focus and I have yet to find a more rocking track this year than The Lakeshore Strangler - five minutes of joyously intimidating riffs; of surging rhythm patterns set on top of a sawing distorted backdrop with drums that switch between psychedelic dexterity and cantering locked-groove.

44. Wild Beasts – Limbo, Panto
(Domino)
This year's Voice belonged to Hayden Thorpe of Wild Beasts. If you heard it, you had an opinion on it. In the same way that the rich soul of I Am A Bird Now surprised people by coming from the body of Antony Hegarty, the epic falsetto sweeping, tearing and plunging across 'Limbo, Panto' equally shocked by coming from a skinny white indie kid from Kendal. It helped that the album's guitar and piano based arrangements supported the grandeur of it, while lyrically it was all juxtaposed with football fan angst, peace offerings of cheesy chips and joyriding.

43. Brael & Tokyo Bloodworm – Living Language
(Moteer)
An album of such quietly brushed electronic-folk, that it was barely there in volume, bit in presence it consumed the room. Acoustic guitars were submerged into a humming exhalation of a record with a centerpiece, Golden Mean Triangle that sighed as mournfully as a Godspeed interlude.

42. Sparkling Wide Pressure – Touching Pasture
(Students of Decay)
Named after a Jupiter Moon special move from Sailor Moon, one man Tennesse'en band Sparkling Wide Pressure is Frank Baugh's musical foil to his paintings. This album is immediate. From the very first track; Tearing Rippling – built from a woozy, thick, bassy drone-riff, haunting tone pealing off from it, soft beat patting underneath - the record progresses through a heaving, throbbing, buzzing wilderness of whited out scenery, with enough detail hidden amongst it to keep coming back to.

41.Der Blutharsch - The Philosopher's Stone
(Tesco- WKN)
Elvis style sideburns and shades adorn Albin Julius as he greases up his industrial outfit Der Blutharsch with a newfound sense of Rock and Roll. Mixing it with a heavy loping style of kraut-rock, a free-wheeling sense of sixties psychedelica and a core of rhythmic neo-folk, 'The Philosopher's Stone' comes off like Grails forced into leathers and jack boots – against their will.

40. of Montreal – Skeletal Lamping
(Polyvinyl)
Skeletal Lamping, the 'never going to be as good as 'Hissing Fauna…',follow up to my Number 1 album from last year in which Kevin Barnes revealed his transgender, bisexual black alter-ego, is a bloody-minded, deliberately awkward listen – and not just because it's mostly about him doing it. Each funk-soul-pop-noise-hybrid is jarred against the next, each a rapid fire rush of too many ideas to keep up with, each one a potential technicolour fucking headache or a life changing mini pop-opera. Sexual deviance has never been so…well yes actually, it has always been this entertaining, but this is something else.

39. Wavves – Wavves
(Fuck It Tapes)
Sing-a-long choruses, insanely catchy harmonies and invigoratingly short songs all totally overdriven to oblivion, pushed right up into the red and in your face, interspersed with feedback and pedal carnage. Wavves is Nathan Williams from San Diego, California and his creation is a motherfucking surf-rock noise punk record that is as obnoxious as it is instantly gratifying. Quite how Fuck It have reflected two of this years niche trends I have no idea - More surf-rock and overdriven beauty to come.

38. Varghkoghargasmal – Drowned In Lakes
(tUMULt)
Varghkoghargasmal is Avenger; A one man ambient/acoustic Black Metal band from Germany who describes his sound as 'Wooden Metal' and that is as apt a description as any, despite how ridiculous it sounds. Wonky didn't just hit dubstep this year, it hit BM too – This album is a compelling drunken dance with beats that barely stay in time, surf-rock riffs that dip in and out of time, keyboards pumping along to their own merry minor-key march, with it all haunted by a weird, reverbed otherworldly atmosphere and structure.

37. The Donkeys – Living On The Other Side
(Dead Oceans)
I think Dolphin Center is about swimming with dolphins, I dunno, but the rest of the songs are definitely about girls and getting high. This band could not get more sundazed and stoned if they sat out in the Californian sun for days getting stoned more. Sorry. But they couldn't. You can hear the lead heavy arms of the bassist straining to get that last note, heat slackening the strings; lazy elliptical organ riffs pulse through the centre of the songs, the singer's dry hazy voice drifting across the calmest of sea breezes. You can almost see the heat shimmer rising from the pavement.

36. MGMT – Oracular Spectacular
(Columbia)
Until DLZ came along, Kids was probably my favourite song of the year….just like everyone else then. No surf-rock here though so, moving on…

35. Crystal Antlers – Crystal Antlers
(Touch & Go)
First time I heard this Long Beach, CA sextet I did actually think it was just formless noise with all the different members pulling in different directions and falling over each other in their efforts to get there. Maybe I needed that first listen like a warning shot across the bows, so I could retreat a bit, figure out what the hell it was that I was facing then shift my feet and change posture accordingly. After it squeals into action and Jonny Bell's first delayed/reverbed vocal screech dies down, the totally organic single minded entity reveals itself and explodes into an infinitely repeating fractal pattern of cosmic psych, surf-rock (yes, again, I told you it was everywhere), sludgy punk, and roaring blues until the final 7 minutes of Parting Song for the Torn Sky which pins the chaos down with the lowest slung bassline groove and the most euphoric key change of the year. All of that in a record that is under 25 minutes long.

34. Woven Hand - Ten Stones
(Sounds Familyre)
David Eugene Edwards's Woven Hand band release an even more muscled and deep wrinkled, dust-blown record than 2006's Mosaic. A steely gravitas imbues these songs, a grimness that recalls Tomahawk's 'Anonymous', an album that is only a couple of metal heavy sidesteps away from this with it's Native American influences. It feels like a constant presence shadows this record, some dread spirit watching over the Wild West, a doomy boiling tension building as thunderclouds on the horizon, breaking out into stomping beats war dance style in Kicking Bird – either to fend off the evil, or bring it upon an enemy. Either way, it's a pretty scary prospect.

33. Religious Knives – It's After Dark / The Door
(Troubleman Unlimited) / (Ecstatic Peace)
A double whammy of albums that disappointed the feral purists, but excited those who felt that the clouds of the storm parting heralded a freshness and a future. The three headed noise generator found some limbs and cast off their distorted shroud to reveal sleek lines of nocturnal rhythms with a progression of increasingly kraut-rock and post-punk albums reflecting New York at night, the hulking silhouettes of the skyline, the white noise and clamour of the city floor, the claustrophobia of its subterranea, the hearbeats that propel it, encapsulating it all in heady cyclical drone and sweaty momentum.

32. Kowloon Walled City – Turk Street
(Wordclock)
The tone of this record is absolutely perfect; A rocking, heaving, juggernaut of thick warm fuzzy fuck-off Metal with softly rounded edges – an all consuming velvet buzz, fat, solid drums and vocals that remind me of Jens Kidman's from Meshuggah - at times the music does too, but this Californian four-piece' are much less complex, much more direct and all the better for it.

31. Deerhunter – Microcastle
(Kranky)
Bradford Cox's meticulous attention to detail resulted in this fascinating album of mini epics. The signing to Kranky is a clue to where the sound is at on this album – a heavier emphasis on the soundscaping that backs the pop – but pop it still is nonetheless, moving ever closer to a harmonic fusion of Echo and the Bunnymen and Brian Eno.

30. The Last Shadow Puppets – The Age of the Understatement
(Domino)
The main draw of this album – recorded in two weeks, no less! – is undoubtedly it’s unashamedly brash Scott Walker arrangements (courtesy of Arcade Fire’s Owen Pallett), complete with all the lyrical subversion of grandeur that goes with it, accents intact. The other draw, may be the portrayal of glamour within the album, not just on the cover. Along with the musical style of the late 60’s, it is all about smoky femme fatale figures; some with the potential to deliver and reward - ’Kiss me properly and pull me apart’ – but that is the first track, acting as a lure to draw you closer. Thereafter she is unobtainable. Dangerous hot sex appeal smoulders inside the high-street sirens that stalk the songs, like in Only The Truth where weak male minds are snipered by ‘The girl with many different strategies’. Noir then, but elevated by galloping Spaghetti Western rhythms, uplifting orchestral flourishes and camp twists and turns of phrase, resulting in a musical eloquence perhaps unexpected, and entirely absorbing.

29. Leviathan - Massive Conspiracy Against All Life
(Moribund)
With his last ever album as Leviathan, Wrest has left an indelible mark and an insurmountable legacy for one man black metal bands to assail. That anyone playing in a band can sound this spontaneous is an impressive feat, let alone against themselves and machines. All the Leviathan elements are here in force; the suffocating atmosphere, the grim dirgy ambience, massive riffs twisting and cutting from highly kinetic thrash to grinding funeral march at just the right moment to leave you a little breathless in awe, hypnotic rhythms ratcheting up the tension with a poise, elegance and intensity pervading it all like no one else can. A flawless execution in every way.

28. to the boy elis - Love Is Like The Cost Of Living
(Pocket Change)
A free download from a San-Francisco based post-rock/ambient oriented net-label, this was the starkest contrasting release on their schedule this year, and one of the most contrasting albums released by anyone. To The Boy… is Henry Derek from Atlanta, Georgia. He plays the rawest form of blues imaginable, singing them in a gnarled sneering croak of a voice that twists its vowels and drags its consonants viciously across the gravelly instrumentation. Mixing the more traditionally destitute delta-blues sound of battered strings and footstomp beats with a more modern, yet primitive preternatural howl of tape loop noise and ambience, this album comes across like a lost in the woods slasher film, and a blood chillingly tense one at that.

27. Foals – Antidotes
(Transgressive)
Shame after all that cool 7” artwork that the album cover looked so shit. It’s kind of a shame that all those singles weren’t on this album too, but then it wouldn’t have sounded so much like an album. Sounds were one of they key tabloid hooks for this too; the big question was who did a better production job on the Foals album - Foals or Dave Sitek? There’s only one way to find out – FIGHT!! Or leak those tapes please. It was a bold move to ditch the original mix, but this version sounds great; For a dance band, Foals created a very cohesive record that, as well as sounding dead fucking cool (debatable for sure, but I say Cool), lived up to repeated listens by incorporating not just polyrhythmic guitar lines and locked down grooves for the disco, but detailed textures and narratives to the tracks. The Afro-Beat rhythms that everyone thought were going to take over 2008 were pretty much dealt with single handedly – no one could do them better than Foals, and it would have been embarrassing to try (stand up and get out Vampire Weekend). They could work a crescendo like no one else and flip it on the head of a pin, plus the lyrics to Cassius do say “Laurence is an accident”, right? Don’t disappoint me.

26. M83 – Saturdays=Youth
(Mute)
They arrived around a similar time, aren’t exactly the same, but for some reason I had M83 and MGMT stuck together as two composite parts of a whole. That both take their main influences from the 80’s probably had a lot to do with it, and both wore them on their sleeves pretty proudly. Both had massive dancefloor filling trance tracks at the centres too. But where MGMT were the singles band,, M83 was the album band and the one that delivered a richer environment; a whole John Hughes/Joel Schumacher stage, set for an overwrought teenage drama to unfold; right the way from the dramatic piano lead opener You Appearing, the (doomed?) twilight couple Kim & Jessie; the distraught gothic girl lamenting “I'm fifteen years old and I feel it's already too late to live” in Graveyard Girl, through that huge heart-stopping, pulse-quickening neon-shoegaze rush of Couleurs down to the ghostly Twin Peaks like haunted coda of Midnight Souls Still Remain.

25. TV on the Radio – Dear Science
(Interscope)
I’m pretty certain that DLZ is my favourite song of the year (although last.fm tells me Late Of The Pier’s Heartbeat pips it at 19 to 14, but it doesn’t know everything). It’s definitely the Wolf Like Me of ‘Dear Science’ – the silence before ”Never you mind / Death Professor"” is the most devastatingly weighted and well poised in any song you could mention – it’s the song that delivers the greatest musical release after all the pent up funk, twitching post punk and motorik running on nervous energy, with the clipped rapped vocal lines an especially arresting departure. ‘Dear Science’ captures a Brooklyn, and by extension America and possibly the world, in a fitful state of paranoia and alientation – its surface may be slick and clinically presented, but underneath factions rage in turbulent aggression with each other. It is a lyrically angry album, balanced by potentially chart-friendly instrumentation with so many ideas jostling for space that it is almost uncomfortable – but most definitely bearable, and more so.

24. Pete & The Pirates – Little Death
(Stolen Recordings)
A beautifully rich voice and elegantly penned songs about life on the mean streets of teenage indie-kid-hood characterized the second album from Reading’s Pete & The Pirates. There were some ballads (Moving, Humming), but mostly this was a set of rocking grubby disco numbers. Even when they were melancholy (The vocal harmonies on Dry Wings are almost heartbreaking), this album surprised with it’s instant, persistent charms; the spiky aggression punching in both frustration and elation – Lost In The Woods and Bright Lights tearing it up with euphoric rushes of soulful fury, the comedic moments like “Get out of bed, it’s the wrong one” from Knots and the bit in Bears after singer Thomas Sanders says “Oh mummy bear and daddy bear as angry as can be” where the guitar solo goes apeshit. As true an Indie album and as rewarding a listen as you could ask for.

23. Grouper – Dragging a Dead Deer Up A Hill
(Type)
Liz Harris’s shimmering solo outfit hits a murky peak with her third album, veiling half singing/chanting under spectral guitar tones. The title may be land-based, and somewhat grim, but the noisier gristle of previous albums has been cast off in favour of a more watery sound, a lot of this echoing the movement and sounds of the sea; a constantly rolling wash reverberating across its 12 immersive tracks. Yet it is still a brittle creature, delicate and fragile, each layer of sound hanging across the next with intricate details hidden deep between them. Yielding much now, and hopefully more after further listening, this isn’t an album that gives up its secrets easily and may never be likely to.

22. The Mausoleums - Blackened Fawns Cleanse The Earth With Fire
(Chinese Workers Labor Union)
The second album from Chicago based one man Black Metal band The Mausoleums plays mostly with overdrive, feedback and volume - and this was almost certainly the loudest thing I heard all year, pretty much the only thing I need to turn down before pressing play. Underneath those three key elements, submerged beneath the ferocious blackened buzz and boiling distortion is a record that understands Pop. It is coming at it from a whole load of angles; swirling shoegaze guitar lines, cantering super rhythmic, super fast beats, rattling Link Wray riffs, thick and fast BM drone, shrieking vocals that layer on more distortion. This is where the surf-rock turns nasty. It’s a risky formula; waaaay too noisy for radio, too rocking for pure black metal, too black for pure rocking, too dreamy in places to be scary and too intimidating overall to really ever be Pop but that’s what makes it all the more engaging. Absolutely not background music, this is right up there in your face, demanding attention.

21. Portishead – Third
(Island)
If they had changed their name and released ‘Third’, except for Beth Gibbon’s distinctive voice giving it away, no one would have known it was Portishead. Maybe that’s why they didn’t want to call it anything other than ‘Third’. They are still as subterranean, dense and claustrophobic sounding as ever, but with a renewed faith in music delivered by bands such as Om and Sunn O))) the resulting album is more brooding and bleak than ever before. Opener Silence sets the eerily gothic tone, its funeral aura carried on the rippling kraut-rock pulse, setting the sound of the rest of the record; the grim tearing noise in Hunter adds to the crushing darkness, while the very real threat of night terrors abound in We Carry On. It is a chilling album and one which will probably exorcise those coffee-table demons that haunt the previous two.

20. Iron Pirate – Iron Pirate
(Neigh Music)
“Welcome to your doom!” So begins the home recorded, hand-made, self-released journey of the Iron Pirate as he takes his first steps into his 8-bit, digital thrash metal odyssey. It isn’t just the concept of this that is compelling, but that the songs themselves are such gargantuan entities in their own right. If this was an album played out with full thrash/death metal instruments it would be hailed as one of the greatest collections of Metal anthems committed to tape. Despite its lack of vocals, there is a fully realised imagery conveyed through the music and the battle lore invoked through the song titles is tangible – Cathedral Of Doom, In The Realm of The White Spider, and this, probably the best thrash title ever: Abominable Iron Steamship Of Death. The artwork is exceptional, each track illustrated by iconic 80’s cartoon imagery and embellished by the hands of the Pirate himself. As with any high octane metal record, there are so many moments when one riff yields to another, synthesized or not the section in Iron Steamship where the steely pumping section grits its teeth before baring down, all sword-slashing gun-blazing synth-guitar soloing. Pretty much the Crystal Castles of metal, and yeah, 1 better than Portishead……..and in a mystery I have just discovered, he seems to have disappeared off the face of the internet. The links up there used to have him, but no more.

19. Woodpigeon - Treasury Library Canada
(Awesome Calgary Awesome)
Originally named Woodpigeon Divided By Antelope Equals Squirrel (or W/A=S in equation form), this Canadian chamber-folk troupe revolves around the songwriting and lyrical direction (and verbose song-titling) of Mark Hamilton. There is a lightness and daydreamy quality to the music, a heartwarming prettiness and joyful twinkle that belie the darker subject matter of the lyrics. Sometimes the songs are stripped back to the bone and the dry, black humour lounges so comfortably across them, sometimes it only takes a brief flicker of embellishment to makes it, like the opening Knock Knock where a tremolo hammered guitar line peals away from the body of the chorus, but on others, serious issues arise; the dour tales of bedridden depression in Battle of Sun Vs. Curtains Sun Wins and We Sleep Until Noon that are backed by the full quietly rocking folk orchestra, ornamented with brass, organs, and percussion played by the ever changing collective line-up. A work of contrasting, beguiling, disturbing beauty.

18. Los Campesinos! - Hold On Now Youngster
(Wichita)
It took me a long time to get in to Los Campesinos!, and now I have I am not sure what put me off. I think it sounded so horrendously twee at first, the clique mentality of all the references to ATP and the accompanying journalistic gush were all equally nauseating. But then in a somewhat more lucid moment of calm and reflection, when those aggravating factors had diminished, this album just totally floored me with its whip smart sense of humour, genuine youthful zeal, enthusiasm and excitement. Each Arcade Fire style epic rush of song was like a sweet hit of reminiscence and nostalgia for an attitude that has deserted me, but they are laced with a cynicism and knowing self-effacing demeanour that I can totally appreciate. It’s still twee as fuck mind, but that was never the bad thing in itself.

17. Pyha - The Haunted House
(tUMULt)
Black metal thrives on rumours and incredible stories just as much as the music itself, and things don’t get much more incredible than those surrounding Pyha. I will hand this over to the horses mouth, Aquarius Records and tUMULt label head Andee to explain the story:::

“Recorded over the course of a year or two and released when he was 14 years old, it took almost two years to track Pyha down, and then almost four more to sort out the eventual release of this grim depressive black masterpiece. Here's how it started: Longtime aQ pal Steven Schultz (he of Puny Humans and Stalin Claus Superstar infamy) was studying in Korea and bought a bunch of records. None of them really impressed him that much, except for one mysterious disc, by a 'group' called Pyha, which in Korean means 'ruins'. He later discovered that Pyha was the work of one man, err, kid actually, a 14 year old eighth grade black metaller! Needless to say, WOW. Anyway, on returning, Steven passed the CD on to Andee who was BLOWN AWAY. Completely floored, so much so that he knew he had to release it. More people HAD to hear this. So the hunt was on. How to track down a 14 year old kid in Korea? Pre-internet it would have been impossible. But another aQ pal, Jason, was actually living part time in Korea, weirdly enough he's a minor television star there, and offered to try and track down Pyha. Which miraculously he did, and we then discovered that there were in fact 4 albums, all recorded when Pyha was between the ages of 14 and 17! All of which are amazing, and all of which should eventually be released on tUMULt. But this is THE ONE.”

I took that from the Aquarius website - www.aquariusrecords.org. There is more detail on it and the story gets more incredible when you learn that this album is full of anti-military messages, yet Pyha himself, now some 20-odd years old, has been conscripted into the Korean army. But enough story – what does this sound like? It is a fiercely blown out, filthy black pall of a record that exerts a considerable emotional pull, either through a beautiful chord progression and weighted ambience, or through sonic terror intimidation. The beats come from distorted drum machines, the guitars move from lightly plucked acoustic passages to ferocious walls of buzzing noise, while the vocals vary similarly, from crooning whisper to choked rasp, to guttural bellow. It is a combination of the original frosty pulse of Burzum, the modern cavernous atmospheres of Leviathan, the wild feral scree of WOLD, and the fuzz-washes of Wrath of the Weak. All the while listening to this, remember: 14. Years. Old.

16. Krallice – Krallice
(Profound Lore)
Clean, clinical, precise, meticulous production values. Rare features amongst traditional characteristics of black metal, yet all those things and more make this one of the most progressive and important releases of any genre this year, not just across the metal spectrum. Behold...the Arctopus’ Colin Marston and Orthrelm’s Mick Barr (along with Astomatous’ Nick McMaster – and Lev Weinstein on bass and drums) brought their avant-garde, hyper-shred-technical abilities to bear on an album that focused them, dispensed with a lot of the showy, superfluous fretboard abuse and streamlined it into six sleek and elegant tracks of repetitious, hypnotic black trance. A thick, clear drum sound complemented the shiny tones of the guitars, with a bass sound that punched low and hard with a real physical presence – the final 15 minute long Forgiveness in Rot, bringing the album to a climax with a huge set of essentially only three riffs that slide into one another creating an unbearably steely tension that never quite breaks, each new loop of the cycle ratcheting it up another nerve fraying level. Thoroughly absorbing and rewarding, Krallice set a milestone for black metal, marking 2008 as the year that something genuinely shifted.

15. Prussia – Dear Emily, Best Wishes, Molly
(Common Cloud)
I heard of this Detroit based indie soul outfit through Ongaku Baka. An utterly un-self-conscious smash and grab soundclash of happy musics that, in 30 minutes of the most tastefully (but not cynically) measured fashion, takes in elements of Scratch Perry dub, Tamla shimmy, strutting Calypso, Mexican mushroom psyche, sun-dazed surf-rock…..the Sesame Street theme...Great Lakes really does sound like that, but even that isn’t off-putting in the context of the song – it’s a little ray of innocence in an album greatly concerned with the woes of the planet. I haven’t heard of them anywhere else, probably because this was limited to 300 copies of hand-screened and numbered artwork, but if is, and it l surely deserves and will be, awarded a re-release, I expect to see their name around big time next year.

14. Wold – Stratification
(Profound Lore)
Another wintery fusion of black metal, industrial strength noise and the cold fury of Mother nature at her most aggrieved, WOLD bring album number three to bear on to a world that is barely recovered from the almost unbearably bleak ‘Screech Owl’. Well, even bleaker is the landscape formed by ‘Stratification’, and even less forgiving are the minds of Obey and Fortress Crookedjaw. The album is built on a lot of trance inducing repetition; Sleigh Ride features an almost rhythmic wobbling bassline underneath a fizzing blizzard of white distortion, the numerical duo of Nine Paths and Nine Creeks are an almost dry and wet mirror image of each other, both featuring a similarly scratchy guitar riff with the former focusing a crackle, splintered top layer, and the latter a rushing undercurrent of psychotic babble. Brief, relative, mercy comes in the form of The Frozen Field, where all the layers of guitars drop away leaving the crackling buzz of a drum beat smashing an irregular rhythm, punctuated occasionally by the violently feral, blown-out screech of the vocals. WOLD dwell in a harsh place, absolutely, but if you can take the pain there is a lot to get out of the experience and it will stay with you too. Life’s most harrowing episodes always do.

13. Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight
(FATCAT)
With lyrics like “Midnight organ fight / Yours drips into mine / it’s alright”, the second album from Frightened Rabbit is as visceral, sexual, and very possibly anti-sexy, as anything penned by Aidan Moffat and looks set to stand the band in as cultishly admired a position as Arab Strap themselves. Detailing the events and aftermath of a relationship breakup, ‘The Midnight Organ Fight’ is very much like getting in the middle of a fight you should never have been stood near in the first place; Listen to Scott Hutchinson nonchalantly threatening “I might not want you back but I want to kill him” in Good Arms Vs. Bad Arms, and in Keep Yourself Warm spitting a sour “You won’t find love in a hole / it takes more than fucking someone to keep yourself warm." By the end, the details get pretty gory and I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise of the ending for you. Lyrically, this is not an album to take lightly, but the music almost works counter to this, making them all the more durable; mostly short songs of throaty folk-rock that hit their peaks quickly and move on in the most refreshing fashion. One of this year’s most potently accessible releases.

12. Women – WOMEN
(Flemish Eye)
Canada seems to be producing no end of incredible bands at the moment. I am not sure if that has always been the case and I’ve only just started noticing, but Women are another band of essential Canucks to add to the list, and like Prussia, expect to see everyone going nuts for this band in the New Year when this album gets an official US and UK release. This album is built of so much that it is hard to nail it to any overarching genre; rhythms cast from post-punk angular rock, noisy backgrounds and interludes, brief rafts of ambience, gritty driving proto-skronk - It’s this blatant disregard for any one listener’s taste and flagrant disrespect for any potential marketing that makes it so great. The overall effect of ‘Women’ is like every Velvet Underground album condensed down into ten tracks of jaw-dropping rock. Truly, this year has been one of casting indie bands into fiery pits of noise, galvanizing them with a gnarlier exterior and leaving them scattered across the blogosphere for unsuspecting net-fiends to find and claim as their own. I claim this one: Women. Have them. You will love them.

11. Fuck Buttons – Street Horrsing
(Atp Recordings)
More noise covered skeletal frames for you, but this one – the two-piece of Benjamin John Power and Andrew Hung from Reading – start from a basic chassis of throbbing electronics, pulsing drum machines and Pandora’s effects boxes, build them up with layers and loops of distortion and inaudibly mangled lyrics then stretch them out to six individually twisted narratives of around ten minutes a piece. The result is the most hypnotic psychedelic drone rock record of the year.

10. Times New Viking – Rip It Off
(Matador)
Ohio, Columbus based three piece TNV write acoustic based beautiful doo-wop harmony pop, reminiscent of Pavement, Guided By Voices, and even a bit of Yo La Tengo at their most succinct – then fuck it over with as much overdrive and distortion as any speakers could handle. Dubbed ‘Shitgaze’ this terribly named genre only really belongs to this band – but to it I add Wavves, The Mausoleums, and even Crystal Antlers in the round up of all the bands I have loved this year that would all be hailed as Pop geniuses if it weren’t for their concerted efforts to undermine any remote Pop potential by destroying all traces of it from their songs. For anyone that ever said demos sound crap, I can always refer them to Times New Viking – a band resolutely proud to put out cheap and deliberately ‘bad’ sounding records, then be highly praised for it. Released right at the start of the year, this album has had a lot of time to sit with me and reveal its songwriting skills and charms and there are a lot of them. The harmonic glow of Drop-Out, the over-excitable exploding mess of Faces On Fire, then after all the noise, they go and give you a sneak peek of what you could have won at the end of Times New Viking Vs. Yo La Tengo, where they cut back on their safety blanket and sit there, naked and acoustic as nature intended. The very best of this year of violently noisy pop.

09. Urfaust - Drei Rituale Jenseits des Kosmos
(Debemur Morti Productions)
Dutch ambient avant-garde black metal two piece Urfaust released this 20-minute 3-untitled-track mini-album in the summer and not once has another record been released that comes close to conveying the same sense of restless unease or disturbing imagery. This is a disorienting listen, immediately plunging the listener into a grinding squall, sawing layers of guitar tones shifting uneasily across each other, harrowing unearthly vocals and ghostly effects rising and falling through the mix. This record oozes atmosphere and mystery, not least because the origin of the sounds is almost impossible to distinguish – any physical playing of guitar riffs is blended into the heaving mass of noise, a smoothly churning noisescape more than actual riffing; the drums, a heavily distorted mechanic pulse add a woozy spaced-out ambience, a slow and hypnotically rhythmic element almost like they are gently steering the flow of the torrents of guitar and vocals. In an all too brief running time, Urfaust manage to conjure a deep labyrinthian environment and build upon all their previous releases with their finest work to date.

08. Action Beat – 1977 – 2007: 30 Years Of Hurt Then Us Cunts Exploded
(Self-Released)
I’m not sure if this was released in 2007 or 2008. It was recorded and finished around the end of 2007, but what date stamp it has I don’t know. All I know is that I got it this year and was blown away. I went to see them and was blown apart some more. I describe them as 3 Sonic Youth’s playing at the same time. Maximum Bletchley sounds like that plus Holy Fuck - White hot sheet noise multi-drummer dance music. With each track containing varying numbers and combinations of guitars, bass and drums, occasionally augmented with saxophones and violins; you haven’t heard polyrhythms until you’ve heard Action Beat in full flow and you haven’t seen ANYTHING until you’ve seen this band live. Recently signed to Southern with an album due and about to hit the road for another year long stint of touring, Action Beat are going to eat 2009 alive.

07. U.S. Christmas – Eat The Low Dogs
(Neurot Recordings)
Coming from North Carolina, from a town in the Appalachians, US Christmas have a lot of space to star gaze, a lot of space to gaze into and a lot of space to make their band sound massive. Against that backdrop they play out like Crippled Black Phoenix, Neurosis and Hawkwind, the cosmic reference encapsulated in another band covering similar terrain – Comets On Fire. This is a kind of stoner rock, with none of the monged out drugginess. It is clear headed shades of light and dark, better able to cope with the paranoia creeping through the cracks and it’s played out on an enormous scale, shadowed by the mountains under which it was created. The album deals in a blues-rock based cosmic sludge, a coalescence of galactic effluence, space dust and solar gas. Against the hulking riffs and slowly lumbering notes progressing across the skyline, the constant whirr, fluttering, phasing and twittering of theremin builds the songs into a full on modern age psychedelic assault, neon tails of burning dust lighting the night with phosphorescent vapour. When the beat drops in on second track The Scalphunters, little pinpoints of light accelerate into streaks screaming past your periphery like hyperspeed just kicked in. Space rock in extremis. "WE ARE ONE AND ONE WITH GOD" – Euphoric disco beamed in from extremely fucking far away; an alien revenant fronting a musical combination of Spiritualised and Stooges; a majestic harshness. “PRAY TO THE SKY!” – drone soldiers in relentless skyward vigil. This is one of those long sought life-affirming albums you never even knew you’d been waiting for.

06. Horna - Sanojesi Äärelle
(Debemur Morti Productions)
Finland’s Horna are now 15 years into their career, with main-man Shatraug being the only surviving member. Chopping and changing line-ups seems to matter far less to metal bands than it does to many others – the departure of Graham Coxon from Blur, say, was the death knell for them. Any metal band in that position would have simply got another axe-man in and ploughed onwards. Another metal trait is the ability for bands to release superior work in the later stages of their careers. This is undoubtedly true of Horna, who on their seventh full album (and thirty sixth release in total, including 7”’s, splits, EP’s and a couple of live albums) have struck upon such a rich seam of instinctive, exploratory, black metal trance that it’s mesmerizing moebius strip of sensual assault holds focus across the full 85 minute double album. The production is impeccable – the keyboards wrap around the edges of the guitar tones like the banks of a river channeling the rushing, boiling torrents of riffs; the drums acting as both brittle and brutal punctuation when the tempo suits. For all its sophisticated song structures and considered, nuanced production this record is still defiantly primitive in sound and scope; as concerned with Satanism and the occult as ever. All the more reason to hail it as pure, unadulterated, dangerous, life affirming rock and roll - as it should be.

05. Rudi Arapahoe - Echoes From One to Another
(symbolic interaction)
Since this album was released in May, I have managed to discover absolutely nothing else about the sole composer responsible for it; but then, that enigmatic lack of detail has added a deeper layer of mystery to the music and moved what was already faintly tangible, otherworldly and unreachable that little bit further out there. Musically this is a mix of synthetic tones, samples and found sounds, musique concrete, a few stirring moments of haunting singing and occasional very minimal drum machine beats. The constant swell of soothing dreamscape suspends a story based around Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy. ‘Echoes From One To Another’ starts with a death, possibly of the artist/narrator who then leads the listener, or perhaps it is the listener who should assume the role of the deceased. From that opening, the album moves through the afterlife, at which point, album highlight Conversation Piece starts throbbing it’s distant drum machine pulse, operatic vocals drift across the speakers, the eerie siren song bringing on the final theme of the album, a purgatorial debate over sin and specifically, lust. A beautiful, thought provoking and involving voyage quite unlike anything else this year.

04. Caïna – Temporary Antennae
(Profound Lore)
'Temporary Antennae' is Sussex based Andrew Curtis-Brignell’s third, finest and final album as Caïna (a 10”, 7” and 3”CDr will finish things up in the coming months). 2007’s ‘Mourner’ was one of the most groundbreaking metal releases of that year, but with 'Temporary Antennae' he has bettered both his previous record and the efforts of almost every metal artist in the last 12 months. Steeped in an essence of Englishness the profoundly involving nature of the album grew from it’s focus on elements, flora and fauna, the Gentian Osman watercolour stag beetle cover art and insert, through song titles like Willows and Whippoorwills or ...and Ivy Wound Round Him, and of course, the range of sounds it incorporates - 80’ s darkwave, post-punk and shoegazing drone. As an example of the fearless genre warping inventiveness, Ten Went Up River features churning roars of distortion that gently descend into brooding ambient passages, build through a shuffling acoustic section then gracefully morph into chiming effervescence. The centre-piece Larval Door is a shimmering Cure-esque instrumental, while the title track takes a long, meandering ramble through some dark, shadowy post-folk before exploding into a euphoric disco-trance finale. 'Temporary Antennae' is a remarkable album, from a powerful artist, one which has Caïna move black metal further into a stage where it could and should be taken as a far more meaningful genre deserving of wider acclaim. It is possibly a shame then that his new project The Red Cathedral (with members of Wraiths and Krieg), is to be a spite fuelled noise bastard black metal outfit; having promised so much for metal’s future, it seems he is already taking it away and replacing it with something far more primitive. But then, maybe underground is how he wants it kept.


.......So, my number three album of 2008 or the first of my joint-three number ones? I’ve kept swapping these three around so much, in this list, on my stereo, on the I-Plod, at work, at NFR – they are all so utterly different that comparing them against each other along any quantifiable measures is futile. So, you can consider these all number one, or in this almost arbitrary order, whichever suits. Here goes:.........


03. Brown Jenkins – Angel Eyes
(Moribund)
Whenever I have read anyone this year saying that they haven’t discovered any bands to get obsessed with Brown Jenkins is the name that always smashes straight into my frontal lobe. In fact, it was already there before the question was raised; this year everything has revolved around the shadowy figure of this Texan one-man black metal band. No metal album could touch Umesh Amtey’s vision in it’ vastness, originality or execution. The music comes from an incredibly dark, primal place, minimal in vision but maximal in scale and space. Bleakly down-tuned, minor key arpeggiated notes cascade across the foreground, layered over distorted blurs of seething masses of shifting riffs. Songs are almost dragged along on inexorable paths of driving monolithic doom, sharply detoured by dynamic shifts in tempo hurling them in a new direction, maintaining momentum and intensity. The drums are machine generated but the whole record carries a spontaneity that belies them, yet at the same time, the drunken, stumbling style that characterises Angel Eyes could almost come from Umesh constantly chasing the beat with his riffs were the overall effect not so conspicuously deliberate. Occasionally the pace quickens from polyrhythmic sludge to buzzing hypnotic trance-like states of proto-thrash, splinters of guitar tones shearing off the massive body of music. The vocals are invigoratingly brief. Themes of the occult and Lovecraftian cosmic horror and mysticism are dealt with in sparsely distributed lyrics, each song may have only five or six lines of deeply bellowed mammoth roars through it’s length. Like Caïna, this is Brown Jenkin’s prelude to the end. In November Umesh called Brown Jenkins to an end, with the project to be concluded at the end of 2009 with an already recorded album titled 'Death Obsession.' Despite that, it’s still not too late for this man to change you.

02. Late of the Pier – Fantasy Black Channel
(Zarcorp)
This is an album whose genius snuck up on me entirely. From their demos of 2006 and singles of 2007 there were occasional flashes of inspired songwriting, but that full Zarcorp demo was all over the place and only the Erol Alkan produced Bathroom Gurgle really did them justice. 'Fantasy Black Channel' totally overhauls everything that went before and like some wondrous feat of metamorphosis converts all that caterpillar potential into a fully actualised entity with an almost butterfly effect in the songwriting – one snare hit here triggering a voodoo hip-hop stomp there and a glitch breakdown further down the line. Singer Samuel Dust (Their stage names are great too) said something that helped tune me in to 'Fantasy Black Channel'. He said they don’t like all of the parts of the album but everything in it was necessary to finish each song. Those are the words of someone creating art. We also had Friendly Fires release an album along similar lines, to show what happens when this kind of dance-oriented mashup doesn’t work. This album unassailably does. This smashes a hole straight through the dead-end of new rave, taking all the excitement that it was built from and bolting on some seriously high-powered multi-genre upgrades. In the one song that encapsulates the band in as much as is possible, the vampiric protagonist of Space And The Woods makes no apologies for its behaviour “Not after what I’ve done” before standing it’s ground with “I’m shit hot so say what you think about me”, then divulging another personal secret about their musical aesthetic “chopping chopping me down so I fit in your laptop.” Either that, or it’s seriously how they disposed of the body. All that, plus they live and practice in a house together – I don’t know how long since they started in 2001, but that’s a good long time, and a good situation to get to know each other. All those things – names, ethics, house - make me want to reference Beefheart’s 'Trout Mask Replica'. Yeah, I did just compare LOTP to The Don.

01. Paavoharju – Laulu Laakson Kukista
(Fonal)
It would be too easy to say this that album is too hard to describe, but that’s nigh on the truth. Making reference to other artists is futile – there are too many flitting around, interwoven into this complex tapestry to name, but this is everything that makes this, very probably, the greatest album of the year. Paavoharju are a Finnish free-folk collective of ascetic Christians who, in a year of really, really weird free-folk from Finland (Udon, Islaja, Kemialliset Ystävät, Lau Nauk, Shogun Kunitoki, Kiila to name a few), have created an album that pushes everything just about as far out as it can get. The 6 main members, centered around two brothers, Lauri and Olli Ainala, along with 13 additional musicians follow up 2006’s ‘Yha Hamaraa’ debut with ‘Laakson Kukista’ (“A Song about Flowers of the Valley”). It is an album that defies expectations even moreso than Late Of The Pier. This small orchestra of musicians weave an enchanted dreamworld of a record with a Brothers Grimm fairytale darkness lurking in the forest shadows; the effect is an almost pastel coloured Ingmar Bergman or Guy Maddin film - in turns ethereal, playful, innocent and creepy, sinister, menacing. This band and record utterly trumps the frail and tentatively genrefied folktronica of bands like Tuung and Four Tet - This is a seamless and natural marriage of the mechanic and organic, acoustic and electronic, a spiritual channeling of the modern and historic; formed from guitars, pianos, all manner of string, wind and brass instruments, curious pieces percussion, with the weirdness set by interludes of animal and baby noises, songs interspersed with field recordings, choruses dissolving into musique concrète. If all that sounds like a twee campfire concert, then take songs like Uskallan and Kevatrumpu, that suddenly shift into grand swells of bombastic, operatic pop with thumping drum machines, glitchy techno and churning guitars. As definite as it is abstract, this is a hauntingly evocative album that fuses a human soul with Reason and lets nature take its course.

01. Alan & Richard Bishop - The Brothers Unconnected. A Tribute to Charles Gocher & Sun City Girls (Abduction)


02. Yellow Swans - Deterioration Yellow Swans (Modern Radio Record Label)


03. The Blithe Sons - The Great Orthochromatic Wheel (Family Vineyard)


04. Koen Holtkamp - Field Rituals (Type Records)


05. Raccoo-oo-oon - Mythos Folkways Vol. 5, Future Fusion (Night People)


06. Way of the Cross - Mind of the Dolphin (Phoenix)


07. Tom Carter & Christian Kiefer - From The Great American Songbook (Preservation)


08. David Grubbs - An Optimist Notes the Dusk (Drag City)


09. Valerio Cosi - Heavy Electronic Pacific Rock (Digitalis)


10. Isengrind / TwinSisterMoon / Natural Snow Buildings - The Snowbringer Cult (Students of Decay)


11. Attar Cups - Untitled (Blackest Rainbow)


12. Enos Slaughter - Béisbol (Three Lobed)


13. (VxPxC) - VXPXCXBXFXF (Self Released)


14. Paul Metzger - Gedanken Splitter (Roaratorio)


15. Maninkari - Art Des Poussières (Conspiracy)


16. No Neck Blues Band - Clomeim (Locust)


17. Æthenor - Betimes Black Cloudmasses (VHF)


18. Datashock - Untitled Symbol (qbico)


19. Lau Nau - Nukkuu (Locust)


20. Ben Reynolds - Two Wings (Strange Attractors)


21. Head of Wantastiquet - Mortagne (Ecstatic Yod)


22. Richard Youngs - Three Headed Star (No Fans)


23. Barn Owl - From Our Mouths a Perpetual Light (Not Not Fun)


24. Black to Comm - Fractal Hair Geometry (Dekorder)


25. Kemialliset Ystävät - Harmaa laguuni (Secret Eye)


26. Religious Knives - It's After Dark (Troubleman Unlimited)


27. Cursillistas - Wasp Stings the Last Bitter Flavor (Digitalis)


28. Pentemple - O))) Presents (Southern Lord)


29. Ignatz - III (K-RAA-K)


30. Ilyas Ahmed - The Vertigo of Dawn (Time-Lag)


31. Terracid - Skies (Music Your Mind Will Love You)


32. Grails - Take Refuge in Clean Living (Important)


33. Ben Nash - The Seventh Goodbye (Blackest Rainbow)


34. Sun Araw - Beach Head (Not Not Fun)


35. Daniel Padden - Pause for the Jet (Dekorder)


36. James Blackshaw - Litany of Echoes (Tompkins Square)


37. Alexander Tucker - Portal (ATP)


38. Slurp Dogs - Postal Licks (Sloow Tapes)


39. Matt Elliott - Howling Songs (Ici d'ailleurs)


40. steve gunn - Sundowner (Digitalis)

thanks to this lovely fellow i discovered favtape. and it's miles & miles easier to use. it's not as pretty...but that's ok with me.

noisy.
noisy.
noisy.
love.
CLICK ME CLICK ME CLICK ME!!

1. Grouper-heavy water/i'd rather be sleeping
2. Inca Ore-lady days
3. Burning Star Core-beauty hunter
4. Sunburned Hand of the Man-what color is the sky in the world you live in?
5. Jana Hunter-dreamland
6. White Magic-song of solomon
7. Voice of the Seven Woods-silver morning branches
8. Badgerlore-goodnight, sweet rabbits
9. Barn Owl-she swims in clouds
10.Espers-hearts & daggers
11.TwinSisterMoon-demonized nature
12.U.S. Girls-come see lightly
13.Hala Strana-the loss of what we keep
14.Sun City Girls-tarmac
15.Hush Arbors-light
16.Islaja-haaveilija
17.Boduf Songs-light
18.Pocahaunted-roman noise
19.Six Organs of Admittance-awaken
20.Fursaxa-tuvalu
21.Charalambides-rehearsal



xox.
marie

This is the answer to a journal. As the author stated:

imzyklothym said:
Well... as I don't agree to the group's issue I didn't join and I don't want to annoy you, as well.
But there was enough matter for me to write a journal about it. As I concerns '(not) enjoying everything' you might be interested in reading (and commenting) it, so here goes the link: I don't like every kind of music!
I really appreciate some feedback!
If there was matter for you to start the journal, you must understand that also for me there was matter to write about it since I'm not only a member of the group you talk about but also who started it. So here is my first journal :)

(Intro, skip this if you want to start with the journal. And must also note that this journal takes some hours to read listening the examples etc. So if you are in a hurry, better come back later!)

First must apologize for the big delay answering but though I play more than 60 tracks per day through Last.fm, this happens while I work with the computer. So time I'm in the computer is far from free time for stuff as write here at Last.fm. And honestly, prefer to invest that free time with other stuff as my music research. Furthermore these things about “how do you feel about music?” “why do you feel in that way? etc” are hard to know harder to explain, and I'm really slow writing in English. Want to express well in this issue but is difficult and my English level is not that good, so had the journal in one half of the screen and wordreference in the other one :)
I mean that this discussion required a deep and long answer but couldn't take so much time each day so as the answer is longer the delay is bigger. First had some exams, then lot of work etc. Was taking too long and is not the way to write about it (few each day between all stress). So decided to print the discussion and leave it for later when I would find the time it deserves. Now I'm back :)
Hope all this is enough to apologize about delay :D

Also must note that the following is my opinion about the issue and in some parts will talk since the way I personally feel so text will look pretty egocentric (I...I...I). That's not because I think that my way to feel is “superior” (as people like Imzyklothym says) but because is the one I know better and can explain better from :P And this doesn't mean that members of “People who can enjoy ANY kind of music” share all my thoughts and feels. Each one is free to think whatever, to join the group or not to do. Quoted from description of group:

Here, NOT members have the same privileges as members. Yes, not members can also post in the forum. So please, join as a member only if you agree with the group (read the description).
So if they joined that's due they feel to fit in this group by some reason (and users kept joining after Imzyklothym's journal and Tsatthoggua's thread), but this doesn't mean that me and the rest of members share the same brain! :P

About the examples, yeah, don't worry kids, in this book there are pics! :D But don't look the pics, listen them ;) I give as example the music, not the videos. The Youtube videos are due most tracks don't have a full preview here at last.fm. They are just examples to explain better certain points in this music discussion.

Ok, here I go:

Hi, I'm the leader of the group you talk about ...and I'm not afraid to admit it! :D

Will start posting here the reply to the original post so all is answered in the same place. It will also be useful as basis for an answer to the journal. And after the reply will quote and answer the journal parts that weren't yet.

Imzyklothym's original post:

imzyklothym said:
Indeed!
I listen to very many different kinds of music but I'd never say I listen to ANY kind of music, because I don't. And I don't believe that anyone does as well.
How can you?
I think a lot of people just pretend to like any music genre because they think they are better than others then...
Good question!

hehe, of course there is music that sounds like ASS in every genre, but you can't judge a whole genre just because listening few tracks or artists.

Anyway let's guess that you listened most of what a subgenre can offer to your ears...

The fact is that every music genre and subgenre have their fans/followers. Why? There is always a part of music that they enjoy and maybe you don't:
Virtuoso light-speed solos that makes you say 'wow' (not only guitar, but violin, drums, saxo, turntables, piano,... whatever you can think), rhythm of beats that makes you move parts of you or even your whole body (aka dance :P), sublime choirs, the calm after the storm (for example music breaks between fast noisy parts), emotional melodies, brutal and apocalyptic music, trapping easy to follow refrains, beautiful mellow slow-coustic songs that makes you forget about the mad busy life to live a peaceful slow-motion moment or just close your eyes and dream without falling sleep, moving heart and ground shaking loud low sounds, melancholy pieces, the progression of sound during the duration of track, angelic clear voices, deep low ones, powerful strong “soul-full” or a wide range of them, new ways to feel with the experimentation of new sounds and effects, music bursts, an atmosphere that makes you travel to different places and ages (very noticeable at music as trip-hop and chillout), the combination of some of these aspects or the contrast between them (such as sublime choirs meeting devasting apocalyptic music to result in Symphonic Gothic Doom Metal or the contrast between different parts of Post-Rock pieces, etc)

For example I think Extrawelt - Soopertrack is a good example of both progression and heart moving lows. Won't put an example for each because I will never end, but if you want for some of these, let me know.

All these elements makes you enjoy the music and feel in different ways: makes you shudder, dream, cry, love, dance, shout, or well... maybe often feel in a more “moderate” way.

And people listening one genre to feel in one way maybe don't know they can feel in a similar way listening a completely different genre.

So for example these tracks in different genres may produce a similar feel when hearing it:

- Amon Tobin - Esther's
- A Fire Inside - Total Immortal
- Nightwish - End of All Hope
- Joe Satriani - Big Bad Moon
- Demons and Wizards - Terror Train
- The Flashbulb - The Big Orange Love ... :/ can't find a place where to listen it...
- The Raveonettes - Beat City
- Dying Fetus - Homicidal Retribution
- viznut/pwp - Robotic Warrior ... With the sounds of a Commodore Vic-20! :D
- :Wumpscut: - Rush

An important element is the context they are into. Violence context, night-life, Road Rush, Repulsion / Desesperation, Freak Commodore Vic-20 scene, ... Although they are pretty different tracks, they share some elements in common -speed, volume, complexity,...- that for most people will result in adrenaline rushes. And remember that we left the prejudices appart (check group's description) so the adrenaline rush I feel is not against ethic principles/religion, against the system, etc Of course they will still sound different with different atmospheres, but in some way they get closer.

Esther's, The Big Orange Love, Beat City,... of course I have taste and enjoy some of them more than the others. But yes, I like all that stuff so feel free to ignore that people even enjoys things you don't... erm sorry, I mean feel free to criticize my taste ;) There is not 2 persons in the whole world with exactly the same taste, that's a fact. So feel free to leave your feedback, I don't care if you like them or not. Should I care? That's just my taste. Is yours better? :P Ok will stop, I think you got the point.

Yes, maybe you enjoy something just because it is "pleasing to hear". But why is it? Why the sounds or music 'pleasing to hear' is different for everyone? Even some people won't call music to the "pleasing to hear" music of others. So why there is people that enjoys some aspects of music and other people that love others? Why do some people can enjoy more of them and others less? Or why there is people that doesn't care about music at all while there is people that feels it with the deepest of soul?

Can't give a full reply. Not sure about the answer, but at least will try to explain the stuff I imagine affects in taste...


The first reason I can think about are the prejudices, which already makes you to take a negative or positive attitude. Again, as mentioned in the group's description, but not limited to:

And you may avoid other prejudices such as underground or commercial band/artist, if other people likes or not what you are listening, the things you approve or not in the live behind an artist, or even the lyrics message of the song itself.
For example other prejudice that comes now to my mind is a more traditional classification of music as for 'high class' or 'for the people' (Classic and Symphonic music played at music buildings, churches, some official events, etc and folk, rock, pop etc played at street, pubs, concerts etc). Hopefully this prejudice nowadays isn't that common.

Avoiding these prejudices may avoid to dislike lots of songs, artists, genres, or to close yourself into a genre against others. So you already get a more extensive taste.

But besides these 'surface prejudices'. What elements attached directly to the sound (to the music itself) there is in your ears or your brain that consider something as 'pleasing to hear'?


I think mainly due emotions. Yes, a piece of music is good for you. But why do you consider it? You listen it and your reaction is to feel good with it, so IMO the first reason is the way someone feels.

About “feel good”, I don't mean just to feel happy, in peace, or similar emotions. People may feel good with less”beautiful” emotions as sadness, fear, repulsion, etc. It may sound weird for some people, so here comes a fresh example:

Films. Yes, there is horror films, dramas, romantic ones, comedies, etc. Why? Just because there is people that prefer to feel fear, sadness, love, just get fun, or because people prefer to feel some way in a moment or with some people, other way in other, etc.

For example, me often enjoy sadness over other emotions, sometimes more melancholy or more mixed with love or energy of powerlessness etc. It is a so deep feel that makes me shudder a lot. Some tracks that express sadness really well:

- Itzhak Perlman - Schindler's List Theme
- Avien - Noumenon (Maridia2 Theme)
- Vanessa Mae - Solace
- Max Richter - Sarajevo ... The 3rd track on his Myspace, not the one playing when you enter.
- Arvo Pärt - Für Alina
- Muse - Endlessly
- Portishead - Roads

Then, am I an emo? No, in fact I don't consider myself being from a specific social group (maybe just a freak for most people :D )

If you try to understand the point of view of different people that consider themselves from some social group, will notice that most of them have some good arguments (well, remembered about a friend who is anti-ecological, so can say that maybe not all :P ). But likely will never understand them if you already take a negative attitude and have some prejudices against someone / some group, or just think your way to think is better so they are wrong. However don't consider myself from some social group just because I understand and respect their main arguments. Everyone have their own ideas and personality (or should) so I'm a bit skeptic about people who claims other people not being “true” from a group and them being so they follow more strict ideas, habits, wear exactly x clothes and listen only x music. Maybe they just do it to feel integrated.

So maybe I'm not so open minded because don't understand this. Returning to the example of emo: Why must they listen hardcore punk, emo, screamo, or similar music? Yes, this kind of music may be good to express some emotions but there is much more music that may also be good for this purpose, so why to close only to these? And about other aspects, for example, why must them cut the hair in that way? They stop feeling the same way if they shave the head?

And yes, I love to feel sad but I'm not depressed with it. I'm happy about how am I and love to smile, make other people laugh, rush moments, live in slow motion and much other emotions in each moment. Just try to enjoy each of them and often find something good. Do I appreciate so many things of life because I pretend to be better? Maybe, but not better than others. Just better person. Do someone pretend to be more healthy than other people when making exercise or just want to be a more healthy person? So, I'm just someone that loves all and so can enjoy any music? No, maybe this attitude helps, but there is lot of bad music as in life there is bad moments. Do all jokes makes fun just because they try to make fun? Of course not, some of them are so bad that will make you cry or feel sorry for who is telling :P In music I think that there is more failures than good pieces, but IMO, always something good can be done in any genre. Even with aspects that most people and experts would consider as defects. Check this example of disparity between different parts.


All this is about emotions, however it may also depend (again including, but not limited to) on so diverse stuff as: not just the way someone feels but the way someone wants to feel, the culture, society and people around you used to some styles of music and ways to think (you will listen a wider range for some genre so more easy to get into, or will listen some genres other people around the globe will never do, or for example folk is different in each region), nostalgia with some previous experience, knowledge and less or more appreciation for creativity and effort of a work, the age, etc

About age, lot of stuff to talk about. Age affects not only because for example when you are younger often need to shout and be against "oppressors" (parents, adults, society) so these emotions are common and more people listen music as Punk while when you are older don't have that energy and just want to relax in peace (more quiet and mellow music)... or maybe when you are kid just want to show to other kids that you listen harder music than them to feel special so start with some commercial Metal that falls in your hands and with time end listenning Ultra-Super-Upper-Suicidal-Technical-Brutal-Black-Death-Doom-Metal... ...erm... -Core! ... I'm not saying that all people listening this kind of music are just old kids who yet want to show that they listen harder music than you. But some of them are :P
Age also affects in physical aspects as the ear which at about 20 years tolerates louder sounds. Other curious physical aspect is that with age, ears are unable to listen high pitched tones -I know this thanks to a weapon used by police in some towns here in Spain. In some places, when there is massive 'botellones' (alcohol parties in the street), neighbours are tired of all the night noise so they call the police but there is not enough cops to take control. Solution? Almost Ultrasonic sounds! Very high pitched and annoying for young people but not noticeable for adults. There is some controversy about this method because not all young people is at the alcohol parties, some of them are even sleeping in their homes and the sound is still annoying for them :P
Returning to topic! A proof about how age affects in taste is that hardly ever taste remains exactly the same for a whole life. Yes, this is also due other reasons. One of them is the fact that you have more experience listening music so there is more music to choose from.

Well, besides these “age changes”, physical differences may be innate too between different people. And other reasons that also maybe are innate (exaggerated way to explain it):

Why some people when falling with parachute from an airplane dies of a heart attack while other people feels almost nothing (heart beats ratio remains almost the same)? And why some people love to do it (jumping with parachute) while others won't do it because they don't like that emotion? This happens even if people in the second group is much more strong nerves than other in the first one.

To sum up, a sensation when falling is more or less present in different people. And some people hates it while others loves it. Why? This is more abstract :P


As a conclusion of the answer to your question “How can some people enjoy any kind of music?”

I would say that it is due a mix of avoiding prejudices against other music genres etc, a wider appreciation of different aspects in music, emotions more attached to music by nature, not being afraid to feel in different ways and enjoying it, special love for the music by the sum of these reasons. And maybe more knowledge of the music genres you would consider as not enjoyable because while most people would move to other music genres, people considering themselves as being able to anjoy any kind of music maybe need to prove it, so keep listening until finding something, so not just the previous reasons but also a wider collection to choose from at these genres.

imzyklothym said: I’d say I like a lot of different kinds of music (even if my OMI is only 105). I like some progressive metal/rock, (melodic)death metal, black metal, sludge, doom metal, indie rock/pop, post-rock, drone, avant-garde and ambient. But I’d never say I like anything because I don’t. For instance I have never heard any ska song I liked.
And I am definitely not that kind of person who just says ‘I don’t like that’ without having listened to it. When you look at older journal I wrote you’ll see that I couldn't get into any post-rock, sludge and black metal once but then I found out that there are some really great bands…
In the same way the fact that there is people that can enjoy any kind of music, doesn't stand that everyone can enjoy them.

You found something good in your favorite genres and decided to know more about them. This is something good. If you enjoy that special thing so much, why listen other music genres? Is not better to know more about the ones you are enjoying so much?
But even taking into account this you got into some genres that couldn't at first:

Some people are content with that special thing at the genres they are used

Others enjoy music but are not content, maybe due couldn't find that special music so keep seeking (which at first doesn't seem reasonable, since if they didn't find it maybe believe not to like the music much), or maybe they found it but think that can find something so good as what they already found. A way to think so well summarized by user bjunior71:

bjunior71 said:
Experiment all extract the good.
Something like a bee flying from flower to flower taking the appreciated pollen of each.

And other people really don't care about music so they say to like one kind of music or other to be part of a friends group or a social group. Or maybe they like it but these interests are more important for them than music.

There is also people that will prefer some elements of music beyond the sound such as the way to dance or the lyrics of a song (ideology, poetry, etc)

This is not an accurate classification so there is always people who are in several of these groups or are difficult to put in a group following this classification.

For example, someone who only listens Black Metal to integrate in a group but really don't like that kind of music may also be someone that really enjoys music and hides to listen Maria Carey :P

Another example is someone who is closed in a genre and similar genres but some day by chance listens a completly different kind of music so closes now to these 2 different kinds of music or opens to listen new genres.

Or there may be also people in the “like a bee” group that as hard as they try to find something enjoyable in certain genres, they can't (not me :D )

Each one who does a music research at so diverse music genres, have his/her own reasons. Mines are:

1- Why not, to prove myself that can enjoy any kind of music.
2- Enjoy the music in all its shapes. If you love the music, why to close in few genres knowing that there is great music here and there?
3- Power up the senses at certain moments without use of drugs. Music is more healthy :D
4- And because personally often get tired when listenning same kind of music all time (track after track). Maybe that's the reason because artists such as Zap Mama and The Flashbulb are in top of my charts (a part of their great music and extent discography). Tracks of a same album are so diverse! In this way (for me) is much more pleasant to listen a whole album of the same band/artist. This doesn't mean that I'm listening different music all the time. Sometimes I start the slow-coustic tag radiostation and sit just to do nothing else than rest quiet and listen. Love those moments, and listening a completly different track as a Brutal Death Metal or a Hardcore Techno one would kill the beautiful moment.
The way I am! Yeah, I love diversity. But I'm so diverse that not always love diversity :D
And also need to listen new stuff, not just because I don't like the found stuff to date, but because I don't want to get tired about the one I like. If you listen the same track lots and lots of times, may not happen that you end tired about it?

I agree that some people not interested in music says that they like “a bit of everything” because don't know what to say when are asked, or to give a good impression with others (will look as a freak if says that don't like music at all), or even because if says that enjoys Hip-Hop, other people would glare and point with the finger while making fun of her/him :P But I see equal probable that people not interested in music say they like certain music style to keep integrated in a group or to get closer to the people they want (chicks! ... j/k :P )

And what makes no much sense is to say that people not interested in music saying “I like a bit of everything” are the same ones who are part of People who can enjoy ANY kind of music. A group in a music community. With active members of last.fm listening an average of 49.26 tracks each day (more than your 41 track average), several members being suscribers and even some musicians with music uploaded here to Last.fm. If music is something that we don't really care about, why are we here?

So...

imzyklothym said:
At the end just some information you may wonder about: Why did I write about this topic.
There were two inducements.

- The first one is, that I read the magazine my age-group at school printed because we graduated from school. There is one article about each graduate that starts with a form containing amongst others the question for one’s favourite music. I guess it was two third who wrote down ‘everything’, ‘a bit of everything’, ‘varies so actually everything’ and so on.
As I know these people I am sure that none of them has ever heard the term ‘sludge’ and ‘drone’ maybe ‘post-rock’ as well, not to mention that they haven’t listened to…
They probably listen to radio and think it gives them a survey of ‘everything’...

You can't generalize in that way. Just because there is people around you that say “I like a bit of everything” because (you think) they only listen different genres in common radio, doesn't mean that all people in my group or all who feels in the same way only listen common radio.

About your term examples, I know all them. As you can see, drone was one of the “recommendations for x genre” topics before your journal. And, do you give them as examples of rare terms or as “unenjoyable” music? IMO they seem good examples neither in one case or the other. In case of post-rock, for me it is a really interesting genre and there is some tracks in my favorites playlist long before your journal.

I also don't think members in the group have no taste. The forum is open to give recommendations for any genre, and some members as Drone_bitch, H0NKYM4G00, and TowerU are active giving them. Thanks guys! This implies liking the artists/bands they recommend, at least more than others which would not recommend, so there is taste here. And if you measure the 'I care about music factor' depending in the journals written, take a look to the time consuming music research of members like Babs_05 and Joffi222.

imzyklothym said: Another reason is that I simply don’t know every genre so how to say I like it?
Do these people saying they like any kind of music actually want to tell me they know every genre? I can’t believe that this is true…

There is something else I want to mention:
Imo there was way too few time to actually discover as much music of one genre if I liked everything.
I’ll take progressive rock/metal as an example: I have known these genres for about two years and I still feel I haven’t got to know enough of this kind of music. How could I have gotten to know what I know now if I tried to discover more about another 100 genres?
Even though I do not listen to anything I don’t get through my ‘to listen to’-list of new bands, because I often just want to listen to a band I’ve known for quite a long time and like a lot.
And don’t tell me that I may be one who just doesn't take enough time for listening to music… it just needs a lot of time savouring one band/genre!
How do you (people who tell about themselves that they listen to everything) do this?
When you make the favorite generes list, obviously you make it from the ones you already listened. Sure you like more but don't know because didn't discover them yet. In the same way, when we say that “can enjoy any kind of music” we base this in the genres heard previously. Of course, we are not saying that listened all music in this universe. Nobody will ever do.

But on the other hand can assume to like any genres even if not have heard all sub-sub genres in the world. As Babs_05 already posted in your journal:

Babs_05 said:
Bear in mind, there really aren't that many genres. There are a hundreds of sub-genres, sub-sub genres, etc, but if you know your music history and know the main ones, you can form an opinion on the hybrids.

imzyklothym said:
I feel like there were some or may be even many people who think something could be wrong about not being able to like everything and so they pretend/try to like everything.
But I don’t think there is any need to like every genre or that people who do are better than the others.

Many people? If you talk about the group members, we are under 100 :D So nothing to be worried about ;)

No, seriously. There is nothing wrong about not being able to like everything. As I mentioned above, if you found something special in some genres, then is ok to stay with it. IMO, what is wrong is for example to say “I don't like x music genre” after listen only a track or a few tracks of it. Why can't you give an opinion about a whole music genre in that case? Because in any music genre there is always bad artists, failed tracks,... erm crap to sum up. So what about if you only listened the crappy stuff? Furthermore, the stuff you always find first about a genre you are not into is the more mainstream one (the one showing first at search engines, the one playing more at different radio-stations about that genre, etc). And mainstream stuff is not always the best one...

*Note: I'm not saying that all the mainstream stuff is bad, which is other common prejudice. But often, mainstream stuff isn't the best one to represent a kind of music. For example most people into Volksmusik don't like the mainstream one (the one playing at German TVs channels about it) which "became too commercial and far from traditional Volksmusik". Other reason is that mainstream is the stuff you quick get tired about because is playing here and there all the time. Although of course there is amazing mainstream stuff which I love as Spice Girls - Viva Forever :D
I give this example because was the only track at both my favorite playlist and the hate playlist of tsatthoggua (he no longer have this playlist, and I lost more than half of my playlist due 200 tracks cut :/ ). So this is also a good proof that shows each one is in a different way, maybe you listened stuff that consider “shit” but someone else loves that shit. Tastes. So what sense makes people being anti-x genre? That's just people with different taste.

Well, returning to the “giving opinion about a genre when listening few tracks” issue, why I'm talking about it? Because you say at an older journal that couldn't get into post-rock, sludge, and black metal once but later yes. At first didn't like these genres but later found some really great bands... Couldn't happen the same with the ska genre? I mean that maybe you don't like the ska you listened up to date but in a future do it (discover some enjoyable ska song). And don't tell me that you listened all the ska in the world because that's not possible! Even if we imagine that you listened all ska songs in the world sure you can dislike all them. This is not a group saying “hey, everyone can enjoy any kind of music if listen all what a genre can offer and do it without prejudices”. Again everyone is different and of course there is nothing wrong about it. What a bored world if everybody would be equal and think in the same way... Everyone wearing the same clothes, watching the same rubbish on TV, reading the same books,... and listening the same music!

In my case, when I was kid, I first though that didn't like Country music after listening some bored country music in the radio. But of course changed my mind after listening some beautiful and mellow Country songs or more catchy ones. Later I though that never could get into "Música Máquina" - in spanish it is a way to talk about repetitive and hard electronic music as Hardcore Techno, Trance and similar played at discos as Masia or at the "Tuning cars of Maquinetos" :P - But as it was common music here (very common at late 90s), a day listened a mix session and hey, that was not so bad! Wanted to know more about it and discovered great stuff. This happened with several music genres more (Reggaeton, Black metal, etc) and always found loved stuff after a deep research or a not so deep one :)

imzyklothym said:
I feel like there were some or may be even many people who think something could be wrong about not being able to like everything and so they pretend/try to like everything.
But I don’t think there is any need to like every genre or that people who do are better than the others.
Hehe, yes quoted again to say that on the other hand and after read your journal and the comments, maybe some people feels that there were some or may be even many people who think something could be wrong about not being able to like everything and so they pretend/try not to like everything. :P

Remember that was not me who came to a group and said something as:

imzyklothym said:
I think a lot of people just pretend to like any music genre because they think they are better than others then...
Don't blame us of “feel superior” just because we enjoy any kind of music but you don't...
Anything you do, there is always someone who will do it better. Even if you are the best one in the world, with time there will be someone better than you. So, to me, makes no sense to do something just to “feel better than the others”. Makes no more sense other reasons? Such as doing something just because you like it?

And as you can see, the description of my group starts with:

Please, take a moment and type 'Anti' in the groups search tool here at LastFM. Yes, you will find over 700 Anti groups :( Too much hate on internet...

...

Well, this group may be considered as an Anti-anti by people in those groups, but that's not the point. We don't show the hate to anything. It is more like a 'Love for music in general' group.
Sure there is people who is against some music genres for whatever reason. But people who don't feel ok with people who can appreciate all them? :/ :P

There is a saying in spanish “La música nos une” that means “music unites us”. Unfortunatelly often music seems to separate more than unite. Of course there is tastes and each one will love one thing or other. Whatever you listen there is always someone that hates it. Or even if you respect any kind of music there is people that will feel uncomfortable and will say that you have no taste or that you feel superior :(

For all folks that think in the same way, check this thread. They are some of the answers I collected from a discussion here at the OMI group.

And there is a beautiful forum in the group where you can post your “not enjoyable genre” (or genres you want to know better etc). Anyone (members and not members) can post tracks they enjoyed in that genre so maybe between all recommendations you find something enjoyable ;)

After writting the journal I hope that at least now you can trust that there is people who REALLY can enjoy ANY kind of music :)




Visits:

(some links to this journal)

ExtraweltAmonTobinAFINightwishJoe SatrianiDemons and WizardsThe FlashbulbThe RaveonettesDying Fetusviznut/pwp
Soopertrack Esther'sTotal ImmortalEnd Of All HopeBig Bad MoonTerror TrainThe Big Orange LoveBeat CityHomicidal RetributionRobotic WarriorRushSchindler's list themeNoumenon (Maridia2 Theme)SolaceSarajevoFür AlinaEndlesslyRoads:wumpscut:Itzhak PerlmanAvienVanessa MaeMax RichterArvo PärtMusePortisheadDj SladeGoo Goo DollsFall Out BoyTaking Back SundayPanic! At the DiscoThe UsedJimmy Eat WorldValenciaParis HiltonCannibal CorpseNileSuffocationAbortedCryptopsyexcrementoryCaninusSunn O)))BorisEarthJesuNadjaStars of the LidKhanateBarn OwlAndrew LilesTaj Mahal TravellersaMuteToshiya TsunodaBuried at SeaPlanet AIDSKTLBloody PandaShape of DespairNorttSkepticismEvokenEsotericAhabDoom:vsKatatoniaNirvanaThe BeatlesElvis PresleyLa Oreja de Van GoghExtremoduroMareaLa FugaEminemThe OffspringFour TetMonoFunkadelicMaria CareyShakiraBritney SpearsZap MamaDoniuLiberAria UrbanaLuminita AnghelStaticAttwengerViva ForeverDJ RadiumOrishasEraGoodspeed You! Black EmperorSpice Girls