favorites of 2004: the ENTIRE YEAR

[oddtito76]

I haven't finished pondering this matter, but for now (in alphabetical order):

Converge - You Fail Me
Deerhoof - Milk Man
Devendra Banhart - Rejoicing in the Hands
Dungen - Ta Det Lugnt
Ghost - Hypnotic Underworld
Ghostface - Pretty Toney
The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike
Madvillain - Madvillainy
Joanna Newsom - The Milk-Eyed Mender
Theodore Unit - 718

I also thorougly enjoyed the mixtapes (really, CD's) that Green Lantern did for Beanie Sigel, the Beastie Boys, and Jadakiss. The Murs album had some great songs, Mission of Burma made a very respectable comeback, and I'm sure there were wonderful jazz albums I missed (I heard Tim Berne and Susie Ibarra, and they just missed the cut). I need to get Leviathan and maybe this Pig Destroyer record people here keep talking about.

[ComputerJudas]

8) lickgoldensky - s/t

god this album is terrible

I'd raise that to a "god this band is terrible", but honestly I've never heard a full album of theirs, though I've heard plenty. Live they were really uninteresting and honestly not very good. Probably the first band to drive me to actually take a shit at the fireside to get away from the noise.

[below the lights]

Bogus Blimp: Rdtr


Experimental ambient carnival-noir electronica. Cinematic in scope, mixing long drawn out pieces with strange samples. Based on an original screenplay 'RDTR' by Trista Namo. Pefect for your walk downtown in a crumbling city.


Beyond Dawn: Frysh


IDM, goth rock, and dark alternative pop  blended together and played in a smoky jazz club. Eccentric, playful, and extremely catchy.


Die Warzau: Convenience


A late but worthy addition this year, not as edgy as their past work, but still maintains their trademark dancey industrial sound and strong dynamic songwriting.
 

Squarepusher: Ultravisitor


Certainly one of the less accessible albums of the year due to its schitzophrenic nature, Squarepusher continues to reward the patient listener with a real depth of sound. Skittery, percussive, and moody.


M83: Dead Cities, Red Seas, Lost Ghosts


Once described as "absurdly lush", this French duo uses vintage synths and drum machines to paint a warm and gorgeously rich sound, full of emotion and introspection. Defintely considered a crossover success into the shoegazer indie rock crowd.


Satyricon: Volcano


Black metal for the new age, warm organic production combines with catchy rock songwriting while maintaining an evil and grim visage.


Ministry: Houses of the Mole


Al Jourgensen described this record as his "blowjob" after his long term partnership with Paul Barker ended. Psalm 69 mk. 2 - thrashy hardcore punk industrial with a minimum of computers and keyboards and a maximum of loud guitars and drums.


Peccatum: Lost in Reverie


Metal, goth rock, industrial structures, grand strings, and ambient electronica combine in this project of black metal innovater Ihsahn and his wife Ihriel (of urban decay soundtrack artist Star of Ash). On some tracks, mixing both of their haunting clean voices with lush electronic ballads and real jazz percussion and then on others turning the tables and combining Ihsahn's rasp with blackened industrial metal backed by drum machines, the contrast is what helps make this release so special.


Von Bondies: Pawn Shoppe Heart


A mix of early Danzig and neo-garage indie rock. Catchy and rockin.


Enslaved: Isa


Psychadelic black metal masterpiece. Everything that made Enslaved good in the past is done to perfection on this release.

[oddtito76]

come on, people, more lists, more lists!

[elpollodiablo]

Looking at P-fork's top 50, I'd like to say I feel validated. In actuality, I just feel dirty.

[davy]

10) TIE: INTERPOL antics


CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN new roman times


9) GREEN DAY american idiot


8) JAPANCAKES waking hours


7) DAVID KILGOUR frozen orange


6) THE WALKMEN bows + arrows


5) DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS the dirty south


4) MASTODON leviathan


3) WILLIAM SHATNER has been


2) MODEST MOUSE good news for people who love bad news


1) OF MONTREAL satanic panic in the attic

[largeheartedboy]

It's nice to see Japancakes get some love, their record was in my top 25 this year, easily.

[davy]

they're better with every record!

[old kentucky shark]

#1 Destroyer - Your Blues
#2 Animal Collective - Sung Tongs
#3 Joanna Newsom - Milk-Eyed Mender
#4 Minus Story - The Captain is Dead, Let the Drum Corpse Dance
#5 the rest

[nati1107]

#1 Destroyer - Your Blues

YES!!

[j-tron]

Seconded. I love Your Blues so so so much. I know it shouldn't dissapoint me how little love it's getting on all of these year end lists, but it does.  I'm sure most people have heard Dan Bejar's set with Frog Eyes on the CBC Radio 3 site by now, but if not just go to www.cbcradio3.com/issues/2004_08_13/index.cfm , click on Relaunch and go to Bejar's Blues. This version of "An Actor's Revenge" is even more life altering than the one on the album, if that's possible. Anyway, here's my top 15, in no particular order.

Sonic Youth "Sonic Nurse"
Arcade Fire "Funeral"
The Mountain Goats "We Shall All be Healed" (Not trying to suck up John, but I really really love this record, especially "Home Again Garden Grove" and "Palmcorder Yajna")
Destroyer "Your Blues"
The Mae Shi "Terrorbird"
The Futureheads s/t
Sondre Lerche "Two Way Monologue"
Falconhawk "Hotmouth" (Local Calgary synth-pop band, check out www.falconhawk.ca/sounds.html )
Stars "Set Yourself On Fire"
TV On The Radio "Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes"
A.C. Newman "The Slow Wonder"
Franz Ferdinand s/t
Devendra Banhart "Rejoicing in the Hands"
Pedro the Lion "Achilles Heel"
The Fiery Furnaces "Blueberry Boat"

[derrick]

Ok, fine, a real top 10 list, but it's not ordered:

A Girl Called Eddy - s/t
Air - Talkie Walkie
American Music Club - Love Songs for Patriots
Badly Drawn Boy - One Plus One is One
Cowboy Junkies - One Soul Now
Destroyer - Your Blues
Mountain Goats - We Shall All Be Healed
Stina Nordenstam - The World Is Saved
Phoenix - Alphabetical
Stars - Set Yourself On Fire

Hon. mention to Saint Etienne present Songs for Mario's Cafe, because nothing's actually NEW on it, but it's definitely what I played the most this year.

I didn't love the AC Newman as I expected and hoped too, and that's after years of loving the Zumpano and New Porn albums. I just wasn't feeling it. the Destroyer is wonderful! A good friend said he always tried to hear that faux-trumpet blast on the first track every time he stepped off a bus.

[nati1107]

the Destroyer is wonderful! A good friend said he always tried to hear that faux-trumpet blast on the first track every time he stepped off a bus.

when your blues came out i was furious at my boyfriend at the time in a -dont even talk to me - way.  but he had just gotten the record:
"you have to listen to this"
"go away"
"you have to listen to this, you have to"
"no"
(this went on for a while)
-- finally, he plays "notorious lightning" and as soon as that keyboard intro kicked in i couldnt help but smile, i was trying to hold it since i was supposed to be mad, but i couldnt.  i love the record especially "what road" -- there is a light and it goes out!

[old kentucky shark]

I know your style you've got drastic desires and should warm yourself by the fiery stage, fiery 'cause I lit it

That Destroyer/Frog Eyes stuff is totally some sweet beans. I've been looking for the mp3s of it for a while to no avail, though. They should make a bona fide album of that stuff

Oh and in my list I forgot the Go! Team which is basically undislikable.

[WAxl]

I just have to say that Vinterriket's two-track vinyl release "Im ambivalenten Zwielicht der Dunkelheit" is, with the possible exception of the new M83 and maybe Tom Waits's new disc, the most exciting thing I've heard all year.  most of Vinterriket's catalog is atmospheric electronic darkwave/coldwave/whatever, but he goes all the way into black metal on this one.  and while the result is, admittedly, a bit derivative of Burzum's Filosofem, it's enormously refreshing for aging metalheads like me who were in danger of allowing our love of blackened thrash to become ironic.  no blastbeats.  no growling.  no saccharine orchestral sections.  no attempts to hybridize black metal with industrial or with death metal or with pop or with hip-hop or with post-urban electronica.  just the coldest, rawest synths gliding over the most primal riffs.

it's the most evil twelve and a half minutes you will experience in 2004.  I promise.

[K. Thor Jensen]

Things I liked:

Masta Killa - No Said Date
Ghostface - Pretty Toney Album
The Fall - Real New Fall LP
William Basinski - Disintegration loops
Arsis - A Celebration of Guilt
Mastodon - Leviathan
Motorhead - No Remorse reissue
Brian Wilson - Smile
The Hold Steady - Almost Killed Me
Madvillian - Madvillainy
Anaal Nakrath - Domine Non Es Dignus
Dragonforce - Sonic Firestorm
Acid Mothers Temple - Mantra Of Love
The Homosexuals - Astral Glamour reissue

[william]

was 'cellar door' by john vanderslice 2004? cos i really liked that and WSABH and MAdvillainy

[william]

oh, sorry, and the soft pink truth album, and, a relative latecomer to my collection, showtime by dizzee rascal. and ten by clouddead and 'a new white' by subtle, and 'rejoicing in the hands' by devendra. and i think i'm done now. oh, wait, and 'collecting the kid' by el-p, purely for the 'bomb the system' tracks on it.

[william]

and beauty pill. sorry, they just keep occuring to me.

[Matos_W.K.]

So, if y'all care: this is my top 100 albums (I may, previous claims on my blog to the contrary, modify this soon); this here is the list of ten singles I voted for in the Village Voice critics' poll; my top 10 reissues are here; and if you click here you will see the contents of the 15 mix-CDs of 2004 songs and seven mix-CDs of songs reissued in 2004 that I made to commemorate the year. (I may modify this, too, because I'm already discovering plenty of stuff I missed--c'est la vie!)

Late tonight/early tomorrow I shall post links to the end-of-year package I edited for Seattle Weekly, the paper where I am music editor. It'll be twofold: a two-CD mix of the music staff's favorite local tracks of the year, and a dozen writers' individual mixes (including a truncated--hah!--version of the 15-CD monster linked above).

And of course if it's lists you crave, the handiest guide belongs still to Rex Sorgatz's fine Fimoculous--this page has nearly 500 lists of various things. Go nuts!

[Ah_Pook]

matos is the most into lists

[Matos_W.K.]

I just keep track throughout the year--I started the list sub-blog in summer. I'm going to fire up an '05 one right now, I think.

[Matos_W.K.]

all right, as promised:
http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0452/041229_music_2004bestlocal.php (SW staff's 2CD Seattle tracks mix)
http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0452/041229_music_2004mixes.php (one dozen critics, one dozen year-end mix-CDs)
http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0452/041229_music_2004reissues.php (one MP3 CDR of songs that were reissued in 2004)
http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0452/041229_music_2004triple.php (my full three MP3 CDR year-end mix)

[Scott CE]

Saw that local 2 CD set in the Weekly this morning, Matos.  It's awesome.  Great issue.

[John]

Your "born-again metal dude" (as he himself put it) is pretty cool, although! he should un-make his rules, or rewrite them to read "no metal unless it's good, no restrictions based on whether I dig the people who listen to it" i.e.: what if there's good mall-metal? (There is: Lacuna Coil) and so forth

great pieces all, of course