Best Music of 2012

In no particular order, here's my favourite music of 2012. Yes, it is rather a long list but 2012 has been seriously good for new music.

PALLBEARER - SORROW AND EXTINCTION
My review - Bandcamp
Definitely the best album of 2012. Total doom rock. If you like any guitar music spawned by Black Sabbath then you need this in your life.

FORWARD STRATEGY GROUP - LABOUR DIVISION
My review - Bandcamp
Bleak techno stuff with a dash of UK industrial/post-punk (Throbbing Gristle/Cabaret Voltaire/Coil etc)

KRALLICE - YEARS PAST MATTER
My review - Bandcamp
Best Krallice album yet. Bizarre, complex 'black metal' shredding.

GODSTOPPER - WHAT MATTERS
My review - Bandcamp - Milgram Records bandcamp
So fucking good I decided to bung a significant amount of my own money into putting this out on vinyl. Up for order soon at Milgram Records.
A friend described them as a cross between Today Is The Day and Weezer. It's in that weird world of Harvey Milk and Mare and Torche where doom meets pop. However, Godstopper are slightly more on the sick and twisted side of the riffage and also quite super tuneful. Oh yeah, chuck in some Melvins as well.

BOSSE DE NAGE - III
My review - Bandcamp
Profound Lore must be the best metal label out there at the moment. This sounds like Slint gone black metal. Consistently had this one on repeat.

BEACH HOUSE - BLOOM
Boomkat - Youtube
Really nice dream pop stuff on Sub Pop.

TWIN SHADOW - CONFESS
Boomkat - Youtube
Prince and other 80s hyper-polished synth pop stuff is what's going on here. Youtube link above is definitely one of my favourite songs of the year.

DIRTY PROJECTORS - SWING LO MAGELLAN
Boomkat - Youtube
Totally pretentious art-pop stuff. Bjork/Talking Heads etc.

PUSRAD - AKTA DIG & SMARTTRAMS 7"S
My review - Bandcamp
Condense Nomeansno/Pissed Happy Children/Minutemen into 15 second bizarre thrashing blasts.

SLUG GUTS - PLAYING IN TIME WITH THE DEADBEATS
Boomkat - Youtube
Reverb-drenched surf-y post punk stuff from Australia. This lot really need to come to the UK.

MERCHANDISE - CHILDREN OF DESIRE
Boomkat - youtube
Shoegaze indie type stuff. One of those things that sounds alright on first listen but slowly gets right into your head.

UNSANE - WRECK
Not available on FLAC :-( youtube
Unsane sounding like Unsane. What the hell else do you want?

ACTRESS - RIP
Boomkat - youtube
Fantastic electronic album. Kind of techno but also quite synthy/ambient. I don't know, it's good.

DEATHSPELL OMEGA - DROUGHT
Bandcamp
continue taking their weird black metal riffage into a Botch/Hydrahead direction. great stuff.

PYE CORNER AUDIO - SLEEP GAMES
My review - youtube
A synth soundtrack to a memory of 60s & 70s concrete Britain.Somewhere between the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and John Carpenter. John Carpenter at his most restrained though. Not in a bad way, just it's not bombastic soundtrack stuff. More like if John Carpenter wore tweed and did a soundtrack for Kes.

BELBURY POLY - BELBURY TALES
Boomkat - youtube
hauntological synth action abotu the creation of the ploughman's lunch.

JULIA HOLTER - EKSTASIS
bandcamp
avant garde electronics but with strange pop hooks.

ART OF BURNING WATER - LOVE YOU DEAD
bandcamp
Riff-tastic noise rock stuff with an occasional cheeky mosh riff thrown in.

TORCHE - HARMONICRAFT
not available as FLAC :-( youtube
Sludge-pop. This is even poppier than their other stuff and I reckon it's better for it.

XADDAX - S/T
not available on FLAC - youtube
It's the guitarist from Dazzling Killmen & Sicbay. All you need to know.

DEAD IN THE WOODS - THE SIGN OF THE SON OF MAN
My review - bandcamp
His Hero Is Gone vs Hawkwind

UZALA - S/T
My review - Bandcamp
Great doom metal stuff with little bits of black metal and punk

MORITZ VON OSWALD TRIO - FETCH
Boomkat - youtube
Fusion of improv jazz and techno. Super well produced and played. Genuinely new music.

THE DAUNTLESS ELITE - MORE BLOODY BAD NEWS
Bandcamp
Punk rock. Leatherface/Brocolli etc UK punk rock.

HOLLY HERNDON - MOVEMENT
Bandcamp
Out-there avant garde electronics. Weird stuff.

MARK FELL - SENTIELLE OBJECTIF ACTUALIT
Boomkat - youtube
Half of SND doing house.

WOLFBAIT - S/T
My review - Bandcamp
Swans. MITB. "Kraut-violence". Pulverising dirge.

LA SERA - SEES THE LIGHT
Boomkat - youtube
Indie pop stuff.

SITHU AYE - INVENT THE UNIVERSE
Bandcamp
Instrumental technical metal widdly stuff made by a physics student. Bonkers.

COLUMN OF HEAVEN - MISSION FROM GOD
My review - Bandcamp
Genuine power violence.

MOON WIRING CLUB - TODAY BREAD, TOMORROW SECRETS
no FLAC available yet. youtube
more idiosyncratic hauntological synth stuff. truly off in their own little invented world.

JEFF MILLS - THE MESSENGER
No FLAC available. youtube
Jeff Mills being Jeff Mills. Techno, obviously.

SCOTT WALKER - BISH BOSCH
Boomkat - youtube
Haven't got my head round this album yet. Doubt I ever will. Sheer insanity.

FLYING LOTUS - UNTIL THE QUIET COMES
Boomkat - Youtube
Is electronica allowed to be fun? Because this just sounds like fun.

LAUREL HALO - QUARANTINE
Boomkat - Youtube
More out there electronics. Not sure if I even like it. Awesome she served up something this weird as her first album though.

GOLDEN VOID - S/T
Boomkat - youtube
70s rock with a dash of psych. So, so good.

EMERALDS - JUST TO FEEL ANYTHING
Boomkat - Youtube
New age synth jams. I prefer them now they've got a really polished studio sound.

ANDY STOTT - LUXURY PROBLEMS
Boomkat - Youtube
Weird but slightly poppy electronic stuff

RAIME - QUARTER TURNS OVER A LIVING LINE
Boomkat - Youtube
Bleak, savage, almost empty techno

TORD GUSTAVSEN QUARTET - THE WELL
no FLAC. Youtube
modern jazz stuff. Scandanavian and on ECM. perfect.

SERPENTINE PATH - S/T
My review - Bandcamp
Ex-Unearthly Trance and Electric Wizard. Fucking heavy.

VILIPEND - INAMORATA
My review - Bandcamp
You like Botch/Coalesce/Deadguy/Kiss It Goodbye?

OLD APPARATUS - ALL 3 EPS
Boomkat - Youtube
More weird electronics.

PILE - DRIPPING
Bandcamp
If you like any kind of 90s 'alt' music then you'll love this. Silkworm/Harvey Milk/Pavement/Polvo/Arcwelder etc.

KOWLOON WALLED CITY - CONTAINER SHIPS
Bandcamp
Total sludgey noise rock band that now have a bit of melody chucked in as well.

STRATUS - AS THE CROW FLIES
My review - Bandcamp
Belbury Poly gone Stereolab?

ASPHYX - DEATHHAMMER
no FLAC. Youtube
"This is real death metal you bastards" is the first line on the album. True. Classic 90s Dutch band on top form

Pye Corner Audio - Sleep Games (Ghost Box)

FLAC available from Boomkat for £6.99

A synth soundtrack to a memory of 60s & 70s concrete Britain.Somewhere between the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and John Carpenter. John Carpenter at his most restrained though. Not in a bad way, just it's not bombastic soundtrack stuff. More like if John Carpenter wore tweed and did a soundtrack for Kes.

It's on Ghost Box so you know full well it's going to be high quality. It fits quite nicely into the whole hauntological Ghost Box thing besides Belbury Poly and The Advisory Circle. The artwork is typically top notch. Maintains that 60s/70s Open University look. Also has some great liner notes. I always like an album with liner notes. Feels like there's a bit more thought gone into it.

The liner notes are all about "parapsychological disturbances" are public buildings made of concrete. There's JG Ballard quotes and something about "inorganic demons" infiltrating people by Reza Negarestani from something called Cyclonopedia: Complicity With Anonymous Materials. All very odd but all a very perfect fit the music and the artwork.

It's a step up from the Black Mill Tapes double LP we reviewed earlier this year - http://spoonfuloftar.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/pye-corner-audio.html. The music on those was fantastic but this feels more complete as a conceptual whole. Music is still fantastic though.

Definitely on my "best albums of the year" list.

FLAC available from Boomkat for £6.99

And here's their blurb which should entice you even more (oh, and it also made The Wire's Top 50 of the year as well):-

Pye Corner Audio's darkling synthetic transmissions had been hovering under the radar for a couple of years before 2012's Black Mill Tapes collection on Type brought them to a wider and grateful audience. Now, Martin Jenkins finds himself equally lauded by the likes of Sandwell District's Juan Mendez and Minimal Wave's Veronica Vasicka as by the UK hauntological set - a testament to the scope and adaptability of his stygian productions. Nonetheless, this album release feels right at home on Ghost Box, and it follows Jenkins' contribution to the label's 7" Study Series last year. If The Black Mill Tapes focussed on the unheimlich but decidedly driving meta-techno side of the Pye sound, Sleep Games gives as much time to exploring its more abstract and oneiric peripheries. Nonetheless, rhythm is foregrounded throughout: from the woozy, tape-warped Boards of Canada-ism of 'Sleep Games', via the Xander Harris/Umberto-esque giallo-disco chug of 'The Black Mill Video Tape' through to the distant, dubby pulse of 'Palais Spectres' and the rolling toms of 'Underneath The Dancefloor'. Eschewing the tweeness which has arguably softened the impact of recent Ghost Box releases, Sleep Games is refreshingly drug-hazed and zonked-out yet shark-eyed, minimalist and full of post-apocalyptic, cold-wave menace: you can more easily imagine this stuff soundtracking a car ride through the deserted industrial zones of coastal America than a ramble round the Belbury parish and its bucolic environs. At the same time, this feels like a Ghost Box release through and through: 'Print Through' is a radiophonic seance right from the grimoire of Eric Zann, 'Deep End' has the school textbook sci-fi sigh of classic Belbury Poly and 'Yesterday's Enemy' the occult public service broadcasting vibe of early Advisory Circle.

Botanist - III: Doom in Bloom / Allies

I bought this on the strength of listening to the first two tracks, it really is that good! Very creepy, eerie yet warm and organic Black Metal/Doom. Drums and Dulcimer is all the instrumentation you're getting and it works brilliantly! Some guy who likes botany and lives in San Fransisco, apparently. Track two sounds as beautifully sorrowful as Hvis era Burzum, but, with a Dulcimer!

Another victory for the new bandcamp user profile pages too as I discovered this while browsing music bought by other folk who've bought some of the records I've been buying. I fucking love Bandcamp!!

Headless Kross - Demises

Dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom.

Fuzzed out psychedelic sludgey doom from Glasgow. You been to Glasgow? They're not faking the grimness.

It's on the mid-paced end of the doom spectrum - Electric Wizard, Goatsnake. In other words, it'll have your head banging. Ex-The Process and Atomgevitter.

Great stuff.

Ocrilim - Rememinent Observance

Yesterday, Ocrilim released this album dedicated to 12/12/12.

It sounds like Ocrilim. Yet more idiosyncratic solo guitar stuff. Maybe a bit rougher round the edges as it sounds more like a home studio recording but that's no bad thing.

Personally I can't get enough Mick Barr stuff so was happy to shell out some cash on it.

Update: forgot to mention Yucuod. As Kevin pointed out in the comments, it sounds like some kind of weird Japanese acoustic folk guitar music. Something a bit different.

Career Suicide - Attempted Suicide (Deranged)

Quite possibly the best hardcore punk album of the noughties. Actual songwriting with tons of hooks. Fast but not into thrashing or bleurgh territory. Slight 'rocking' edge to the guitar but keeping it simple.

They shared members with Fucked Up but, to my mind, Career Suicide are the vastly superior band. Love the 'concept' ideas Fucked Up come up with but, quite honestly, they're just not good enough musicians to back it all up. Career Suicide are far more straight forward, almost dull, lyrically. However, they've got the musical chops and frankly that's all that really matters.

It's all very much early 80s hardcore worship but the slightly more tuneful end. Probably sacrilege to say it but I reckon Career Suicide stand up perfectly well with 'the classics'. Not just a decent modern copycat band.

Basically, if you like hardcore punk stuff and don't check this album out then you're a fool.

P.S. The FLAC sounds vastly superior to the mp3 rip that's sat on my hard drive for years. Worth every penny to buy it.

xSAXONx - In The Night

Roddy from Atomgevitter returns with a straight edge band. It veers between Uniform Choice/Minor Threat type stuff and more What Happens Next style thrashing. There's occasional flashes of Turbonegro as well.

Plenty of gang choruses, mosh parts, bass breakdowns, pick slides and all the rest of it.

Keep Sheila On Acid - You Will Be The Same Tomorrow As You Were Yesterday

The lovely little experimental tape label Rano has produced their second release. Here's what we said about the previous one - http://spoonfuloftar.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/synek-paradiba-ep.html

Worth repeating their manifesto as well:-

RANO

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇
Producing limited edition recordings of unique music from around the world. Our goal is to be sought after, not saturated. The items we create will never be mass produced.
◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

Good things come in small quantities!

And they're definitely dedicated to quality control because it's taken them quite a while to get this new release out.

Soundwise it's well produced experimental electronic stuff. Dabbles next to ambient, noise and drone. Lots of broken machine type sounds and what might have once been cut up tape loops.