The New (and Old) Music Thread for 2016

You guys are slacking with the music conversation.

Anyhow, the Best of 2016 lists have started showing up. Glad to see Mitski so high on Time’s list at #3. Surprised to see LVL Up make it into Rolling Stone’s top 20.




PItchforker Rob Mitchum has helpfully compiled the top whatever lists of Rough Trade, Mojo, Uncut, NME, Consequence of Sound and Rolling Stone into a handy dandy spreadsheet that scores the records on average and kicks them up in order by aggregate score.

This site does something similar and tracks all the lists.

Has anyone picked up the new Green Day Album? Wondering about impressions…

Just saw Ride has a new album due out next year!

I can’t believe the new Weyes Blood album isn’t showing up on that google doc. That’s an instant disqualification for every magazine and artist on there.

This is BEAUTIFUL ambient mood music:

This is quite good: (Esp. Monday Morning, Somewhere Central)

And so is this!

Teenage kid from Florida makes a very promising Madlib disciple:

I know a few of you love her, but I got to be honest, that album does nothing for me.

That’s probably because Natalie is singing to me and not you. She needs my love.

I don’t really get it either.

New Bats!

That’s a great session. Was wondering how they’d pull it off live. Two keyboards helps fill some sound.

Great song. Tremendous guitar riff.

Three years earlier and it would’ve been in the TV series Hannibal…;)

She sounds like the Carpenters.

Her voice definitely has a Karen Carpenter thing going on in the lower registers. And that’s a really good thing.

But to me her sound is still most reminiscent of Vashti Bunyan.

New album from The Jesus and Mary Chain?! Yep.

(I just hope it’s better than that cover art.)

Man, Youth is just attached to everything these days.

“Amputation” sounds like a demo. Hope the album is better than the single.

An old band coming back that I’m enjoying is the recent reactivation of Jason Lytle/Grandaddy. His new song is really nice:

/em long sigh So nice to have you back.

At the Drive In released their first song in fifteen years. Based on what I’ve sampled in this thread, I’m not sure if this will be anybody’s cup of tea, but I really like it.

I’d be saving this for the monthly mixtape, but they don’t put their stuff on the streaming services so I’ll point it out here: one of my favorite ambient/dub/library-music outfits, Demdike Stare, just snuck out a new album called “Wonderland” a couple of weeks ago, and it’s really quite something. A bit less creepy and bleak than their previous work, this one is focused more on the beats…still fairly dark, but less heavily influenced by old Italian horror soundtracks and occult drone music and more by old-school jungle/techno than their early albums. Fans of Burial, Autechre and/or Nurse With Wound should appreciate them.

So I picked up GOAT Requiem with my Vinyl Me Please monthly order back in October and I’m down in the basement right now wrapping presents with the secret Santa paper we hide in the boiler room and sipping pear cider and I’ve already played trig’s Winterlude mix twice today and, sorry Vince, I’m getting a little tired of A Charlie Brown Christmas so I decided to finally unwrap GOAT Requiem and give it a listen and HOT DAMN what the hell was I waiting for??? They’re SO GOOD. Out of this world yet totally accessible. They’re also one of those bands that feel incredibly so much more satisfying for whatever ineffable reason to own and play on vinyl and totally validate my nostalgia-nerd obsession with actually buying music on physical media this past year. Check out this sweet sweetasssss package.

Now I’m gonna have to pick the best track off Requiem for my apparently-now-annual Vintage Sounds of 20__ playlist which I’ve been working on feverishly for the last several weeks and has become monstrously bloated at 8 hours+ but who cares cuz I’m having a ball digging back through the year in music hunting for neglected releases and unheard-of gems.

I’m done bemoaning this past year. I’m over the tiresome Fuck 2016 meme. Another year being alive and healthy and happy, surrounded by family and friends, doing work I love. And all of it soundtracked by an absolute TON of outstanding new music. Hell, most of the public outpouring of grief this past year is a testament to the power of music above all else.

Cheers to all you mofos for helping me find the good stuff!