I like Multiples... but some of Whitman's stuff is such serious electronic music, I have no standard, other than visceral response, to know why this is different or better than anything else he's done.

Yeah, I was happy about the switch too.

Another good kompakt album this year is 1981 by Markus Guentner. It is #3 on my Top-10 of 2005 and has a timeless quality to it. RIYL the mellower parts of Eno's Apollo album.

Ive heard a few Tiefschwarz remixes this year (ohh La La etc.), does this compare to them?

You guys are bastards. I'm going to be downloading this music well into April.

Seriously.

I thought i was pretty much done with this year - Ive listened to heaps of albums and decided on the cream of the crop from them. And then this thread comes along.

THREAD OF THE YEAR.

As I scan my albums, here's a few more...

Piana - Ephemeral
Opening with 'Something Is Lost', Naoko Sasaki (aka Piana) eases the listener in through a blossom fall of rustling clicks and diffused melodies that frame the vocals to perfection. Similarlily, 'Early In Summer' takes you by the hand and reveals a swelling thicket of Puccini strings that soar with such grace you'll be left breathless, whilst lazy beats build a crystalline foundation for Sasaki's honey-dipped voice; resultant in a sound reminiscent of Mum's 'Green Grass of Tunnel'. Elsewhere, 'Little Girl Poems' ups the glitch for a composition that drips with grace and unconstrained radiance, 'Mother's Love' strips it back to the basics (guitar and piano) for a heart-wrenching nugget of aural gold, whilst the album closes with 'Beginning', a brief but eminently powerful burst of muted rectitude. If that all sounds like we're gushing; it's because we are, and on the off chance you're still undecided we'll reiterate; THIS RECORD IS AMAZING. Never mind the hyperbole, it's Piana.

The Boats - We Made It For You
Last year's 'Songs By The Sea' from The Boats was undoubtedly one of the albums of 2004. This year's 'We Made It For You' by The Boats is undoubtedly one of the albums of 2005. Released on, and featuring members of The Remote Viewer (and Hood) curated Moteer label, 'We Made It For You' is an absolute delight from start to finish, possessing a gentle charm that quietly instils itself deep within your core. Made up of skeletal fragments (dusty piano through to scuttling electronica), The Boats then allow the various elements to grow incrementally until you're waist deep without having noticed you'd even got your feet wet. With each track a dedication, songs such as 'Sarah Alice' and 'Darren' could easily have taken on the guise of eves-dropping a private conversation and it is to The Boats formidable credit that instead you feel as though you're amongst friends. Lacking the vocal focus of 'Songs By The Sea' allows the gently ebbing loveliness of 'Sarah Alice' and 'Chris Elaine and Lucy' to become expansive well beyond their limited foundations. Flecked with Jen Jelinek, flirting with Satie, Michael Nyman and Ryuichi Sakamoto, 'We Made It For You' is an album you'll want to fully submerge in again and again. Amazing music.

Vladislav Delay - The Four Quarters
Vladislav Delay continues to mine his much loved seam of dub fragranced minimalism, with a sound that seems to have really hit pay-dirt on new album 'The Four Quarters'. Divided into four extended pieces, this full length has lightness of touch that genuinely defies belief; with Delay allowing the music to unfurl like an aural orchid in both the broadest of strokes and the finest of detail. Opening with (you guessed it brains!) 'The First Quarter', Delay initially shuffles into view through a gorgeously rousing blush of diffused atmospherics, onto which he slowly needles bubbling synths, star-bursts of fractured (but in no way imposing) vocals and a spectrum of beats that mine the tradition of his Basic Channel past perfectly. All that and we're only four minutes in. Continuing in a similarly jaw-dropping style, Delay seems to have returned to the pinnacle of his Chain Reaction excursions, encouraging the listener to submerge ever further by offering half glimpsed aural edifices (some distant crowd noise here, a clutch of Arabic indebted instrumentation there) whilst always littering the foreground with enough pronounced intent to guarantee even the most casual listener will remain enraptured. Somehow massaging the best elements of people like Jan Jelinek with the deep soundscaping of Mark Nelson’s fabulous Pan American, 'The Four Quarters' is a record whose beauty and absolute depth really cannot be overstated.

Grand Magus - Wolfs Return
Grand Magus from Sweden are signed to Rise Above, implying that they are somewhat related to the doom genre, but their third album Wolf's Return is still mostly good old-schooled heavy metal. Singer and vocalist JB is also the singer of Swedish psyche-doom rockers Spiritual Beggars, where JB even hit once the top ten of best vocalist in a poll done by a Japanese rock magazine. So you can justly expect good vocals. What we slightly miss is originality, with a very good natured band playing all the tricks of the Seventies doom stoner metal school, but if I didn't know any better, I would feel compelled to say that this is a long lost Candlemass album, with less pathos and more balls though, which isn't a bad thing either. Wolf's Return needs some runnings to get stuck in your head, but then you will discover some truly grand songs like the opener Kingslayer, the two-parted title track and especially the driving Blood Oath. With one outro and three short instrumentals (with Swedish titles), we are left with only seven regular songs, adding up to a good half hour of heavy doom metal, ranging from dramatic slowness to grooving heavy metal headbangers.

Subarachnoid Space - The Red Veil

I'm in the same boat. This is my first exposure to Whitman and I like what I'm hearing. It's different, I'll tell you that... but I'll also say you have to be in the right mood to hear this, which is why it won't be at the top of my list.

D - It's definitely worth the download!

splates, that album sounds very interesting. is the majority of it on the heavier, distorted end, or is it more prog influenced?

another album on the heavy side is...

Sheavy - Republic?

While it's their trademark Sabbath-worship, it's full of memorable riffs. Here's a track from it...

Sheavy - The Rook
http://s53.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2EPM ... JRI2GS4GAM

it's in my list of searches for this evening.

Yes, I would like to hear this.

I have created a YSI link to Goa! Crystal Damage. Those interested need only PM me. This is in thanks to those who have given love by way of this thread, and to incite more.

Can someone hook me up with a couple of tracks off the Holy Fuck album?

Grand Magus 'Wolfs Return' rules!

C-Wood is yr friend.

indeed!

i think you'll dig that Sheavy album as well my fellow brother in Metal.

dit-to. 2006 will come in july.

It isnt really that prog. In some spots it sounds like instrumental metal bands like Red Sparrowes, Pelican etc, but it isnt as in the same vein exactly. Space Rock is a better description, although it does veer close to Metal sometimes. Ill prob put up a YSI later since Ish wanted it anyway.

i'd love to hear it.

just got the new Capricorns album "Ruder Forms Survive" and it's fucking lethal. instru-metal for the most part. dead heavy. i think you'll dig. if you want it lemme know. here's some info on it...

The London, England based behemoth known as Capricorns was formed by four men in the latter half of 2003 currently or previously involved in projects as disparate as Iron Monkey, Orange Goblin, Bridge and Tunnel, The Dukes of Nothing…the list goes on. A heap of successful shows with the likes of Melvins, Pelican, Jesu, Unsane and Oxbow to name a few quickly led to last years self titled debut ep, released on Rise Above Records, which immediately received abundant praise from the record buying public and critics across the globe. Recorded in a former GDR radio broadcast centre in Berlin, ‘Ruder Forms Survive’ sees Capricorns up the sonic ante whilst still maintaining a deep love for the purity and tradition of The Riff. A refreshing departure from the po-faced, go nowhere excesses of their instru-metal contemporary’s Capricorns have somehow succeeded in combining the Armageddon punk attitude of Amebix with a doomed out, Ummagumma era Pink Floyd propelled by deepest swing this side of John Bonham. The icing on this blackened cake is The “First Broken Promise”, a unique collaboration with Oxbow singer and raconteur Eugene Robinson - first attempted onstage earlier this year at the Sounds Of Excess festival in Birmingham and now committed to infernal wax and guaranteed to scare the shit out of you. ‘Ruder Forms Survive’ is High Brow for the Low Brow, sophisticated yet never shying away from ham-fisted bombast because, after all, that is what drew us all to Metal in the first place

this is on emusic!

Not really obscure (or even indie for that matter) like most of the things mentioned so far, but picked up the new debut by Living Things about a week ago called "Ahead of the Lions" and it's some kick out the jams rock n roll. Recorded by Steve Albini so it coulda should woulda been pretty dynamic, but unfortunately it's on Sony and was mastered with lots of compression to make it sound really loud like most other new CDs. Still sounds good for hard rock, but coulda been something really special. There's a sticker on the cover by one of the idiot writers at Spin that says, "One of the most ferocious straight ahead rock albums since Nevermind." Yeah, right. I bought it mainly because of the Albini involvement, and it's kind of disappointing from that angle, but I still like it a lot. There's one song that sounds kind of like Blue Oyster Cult on "Don't Fear the Reaper", but overall it's pretty dirty and nasty, and a little dangerous, all good things for rock. Definitely snaking up toward and maybe into my top 10 the more I listen. Some of that Black Mountain dirty rock goodness, but not that same Sabbath-Zep-VU connection here. Maybe more ZZ Top mixed with the more layered sound of Nine Inch Nails. Very cool, and comes with that same socio-politico consciousness running through the music like with Black Mountain, something that apparently made Sony apprehensive to release it in the initial form, but I like it a lot. These guys could be big. Hell, for all I know they already are, although there aren't a ton of reviews at amazon yet to judge. The super dark "God Made Hate" is one of quite a few standouts for me so far. Love it. Tres Hombres meet the Downward Spiral. Maybe that Spin writer isn't such an idiot afterall

I really like Football Rabbit - had no idea there was a connection between them and Purient...

Therefore, purient goes on my "list of bands to check out soon"...

Letting you know...

yeah its a great album. not weird instru-metal either. its straight forward and pretty excellent. came in at like #56 on my list, had i actually done it.

I don't know. Haven't heard that Ooh La La remix...