Top Albums of 2014 (so far)

Machine · 11-19-2014, 08:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mondo Bungle

1. Iceage - Plowing Into the Field Of Love
2. Shellac - Dude Incredible
3. Gridlink - Longhena
4. Spectral Lore - III
5. Aphex Twin - Syro
6. Darkspace - Darkspace III I
7. Andrew Jackson Jihad - Christmas Island
8. Planning For Burial - Desideratum
9. Against Me! - Transgender Dysphoria Blues
10. Howls of Ebb - Vigils of the 3rd Eye
11. Swarrrm - Flower
12. RTJ2
13. Morning Glory - War Psalms
14. The Hotelier - Home, Like NoPlace Is There
15. ACxDC - Antichrist Demoncore (I guess)

I can't remember right now.
That's pretty accurate for the most part I'd say, though

I can't tell you how glad I am to see Christmas Island on there I thought I was the only one.

I would add on my list

Shellac - Dude Incredible
Botanist - VI: Flora
Swans - To be kind
Cloud Nothings - Here and Nowhere Else
Sun Kil Moon - Benji
Julia Brown - An Abundance Of Strawberries
Xiu Xiu - Angel Guts: Red Classroom
Primus - Primus And The Chocolate Factory With The Fungi Ensamble

And not sure if this counts, but it does to me and I was thoroughly entertained all the way through
Pink Guy - S/T

Chrysalis · 11-23-2014, 06:17 PM

10. S. Carey - Range of Light
9. Weezer - Everything Will Be Alright in the End (!)
8. Bohren & der Club of Gore - Piano Nights
7. Casualties of Cool - S/T
6. Sun Kil Moon - Benji
5. Devin Townsend - Z² (this and CoC more than make up for Epicloud IMO)
4. Gridlink - Longhena
3. Flying Lotus - You're Dead!
2. Kayo Dot - Coffins on Io
1. Swans - To Be Kind

I plan on listening to a lot of recent albums next month, so I'm expecting everything except for my Top 3 to change drastically.

Machine · 12-02-2014, 01:49 PM

Bumping this thread

Stereogum just released their top 50 albums of the Year and it reminded me holy **** it's December so I propose we all get our absolute top 10 together soon including music that has more recently come out, or that you hadn't listened to earlier this year. Plus I didn't want to make a new thread.
I'm still trying to piece together mine, there was just so much that came out this year.

The 50 Best Albums Of 2014 Parquet Courts - Sunbathing Animal (What's Your Rupture?)

EPOCH6 · 12-02-2014, 02:23 PM

Made mine up the other day.
Top 5 get some words. The rest are vaguely ordered.

1. Conan - Blood Eagle
I don't think there's much I can say about this album that I haven't been incessantly saying since the day I first heard it earlier this year, so I'll just repeat myself. This is quite possibly the heaviest album ever fabricated, in any genre, and I challenge any mortal to find a realistic competitor. This album is like the musical equivalent of a gargantuan stone mountain slowly tumbling end over end down an even larger mountain. It's like a great pyramid covered in magma slowly meandering through space, severely distorting space-time with it's incalculable mass. It's like your ear drums are being mulched by ferocious acoustic waves into a syrupy pulp to be served atop a thick stack of pancakes, at the table of a bearded club wielding giant. It's like each massive drum has been fabricated from conglomerated bone matter and animal hides, swung upon expertly by a genuine Cro-Magnon tribe. It's like the sounds produced by plate tectonics and sea floor spreading, the sound of a glacial valley being carved over thousands of years, the sound of an abandoned forestry excavator slowly rusting in a humid wooded climate. When you play this album on a decently robust sound system you can feel the air pressure changing around you, the atmosphere feels thick and dense, you feel like you've been forcefully massaged by a prehistoric mammoth hoof for days on end.

The grooves are monstrously intoxicating, the production is crisp, unique, and unimaginably heavy, the theme is consistent and the atmosphere is dense, and the musicianship, while simple, is that of a group that knows exactly what they sound like and how to maximize the effect of their style. All fans of sludge as a genre owe it to themselves to bathe in this release, all fans of music as an art owe it to themselves to at least take a moment to marvel at the production here.

2. Pallbearer - Foundations of Burden
Foundations Of Burden is just incredible, this is an album I'm sure I'll be holding closely for years to come.. The production is massive, unique, and encompassing, the songwriting is confident, precise, and elegant, and the emotion and atmosphere are thick and looming. The sound is so densely layered and intricately detailed, every note is hit with focused intent, everyone is listening to each other and each instrument so confidently compliments the other. The vocals are especially interesting here, pairing soaring clarity and emotion with peculiar melodies. Each track confidently eases forward in mood and atmosphere but there's something intellectually foggy about all of it, something personal to the artists that you can't know. And for a doom album it really manages to hold its head up, that familiar feeling of hopelessness and isolation isn't present here like it is in most of the genre. It's dark for sure but the sound itself seems to cut through like beams of sunlight, it's always humid and warm, never cold.

I can't recommend this enough to anyone that takes music seriously, regardless of your taste, this album is a ****ing novel. It performs very well on both large sound systems and in headphones, so go with whatever you prefer, but if I had to recommend one over the other I'd go with headphones, the sound is so elegantly layered here that closer proximity to the speakers will likely reveal more to your ears. Let it grow on you, this is an album that you need to give your full attention to, an album that grows in complexity the longer you listen to it.

3. Memnon Sa - Citadel
Memnon Sa effortlessly fits in among my favorite modern solo musicians, a musician like Secede, or even carrying the torch for the legends like Brian Eno or Robert Fripp. Citadel is a monolith of style and composition, monstrously thick in theme and atmosphere. Comprised primarily of crunchy droning guitar riffs, dense synthetic ambience, and distant booming percussion, the formula seems simple but is carried forward with such focus and intent that the final product is a richly layered and complex experience. The imagery is cold and vivid, behind the beautiful subtle guitar melodies you can always hear the environment, the sounds feel like they're echoing among glacial valleys, with the help of a beautiful album cover Memnon Sa paints ancient landscapes with his carefully crafted reverb. If Conan's Blood Eagle was like being trapped in the crucible of a fuming volcano, Memnon Sa's Citadel is a breath of crisp mountain air, standing at the center of a valley watching that volcano spew from a distant vantage point. This is an album for lonely listening, by yourself, headphones in, no eye contact, nothing on your mind but the desire to be taken somewhere else by an expertly produced vivid audio experience.

4. Dead Sea Apes - High Evolutionary

High Evolutionary unfolds like a 45 minute barrage of spiralling tendrils of sound layered atop a thick foundation of humid desert rock. The album follows a familiar story arc, gradually rising and falling in intensity toward a massive climax, Regolith, and then gliding downward into a comfortable bed of psychedelic, droning, wobbly textures, carrying the album into a passionately euphoric finale with Wolf II, easily one of the most beautiful tracks I've heard this year, easily my favourite from this release. This is another album that ought to be listened to alone, with headphones in, on a walk, or laying in bed with the lights off, allowing your mind to roam free among the album's vivid imagery. Each track demonstrates trained talent from each individual member of the trio and as a cohesive unit. Dead Sea Apes know their skill set well and seem to feed off of each other's movement, sonic walls produced by one member ricocheting off of the others, the music is always breathing, always mutating, each instrument dancing in sync with the others. A remarkable release, beautiful from start to finish, if you give this album your full attention, a dedicated listen, you'll find yourself completely immersed in an intricate and passionate soundscape.

5. Pharmakon - Bestial Burden

The musical culmination of Margaret Chardiet's surgical exile, a soundtrack for the grotesque war between the body and the self. Bestial Burden is an overwhelmingly powerful musical exploration of our faulty immune system, a reminder that even when our psychological state seems stable, our bodies are decaying, our minds mature, our organs fail. Pharmakon's approach to power electronics and experimental electronic music is staggeringly dark, passionate, and unsettling. Thick distorted bass boils aggressively in the background as cascading loops of feedback and industrial percussion rain down upon our ears, Margaret's fanatic screams, grunts, and coughs clawing their way into your psyche. Bestial Burden takes Pharmakon's typical formula and builds upon it, maturing in style and direction. More vocal styles, improved production, more focus, more substance, more passion. Let this album get under your skin, let it sicken you, let it ruin your day.

Other albums I really enjoyed:
White Lung - Deep Fantasy
Ulterior Motive - The Fourth Wall
Eyehategod - Eyehategod
Hybris - Emergence LP
Dirge - Hyperion
Flying Lotus - You're Dead!
Badbadnotgood - III
Serpent Venom - Of Things Seen & Unseen
Slomatics - Estron
Cult of Youth - Final Days
Arca - Xen
Skyphone - Hildur LP
Noisia - Purpose EP
Koloto - Mechanica EP
Optiv & BTK - Blackjack LP
Lorn - Maze to Nowhere EP
Mondkopf - Hades
Lazer/Wulf - The Beast of Left & Right
USA Out of Vietnam - Crashing Diseases & Incurable Airplanes
Squarepusher - Music For Robots EP

**Frownland** · 12-02-2014, 08:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Machine

Bumping this thread

Stereogum just released their top 50 albums of the Year and it reminded me holy **** it's December so I propose we all get our absolute top 10 together soon including music that has more recently come out, or that you hadn't listened to earlier this year. Plus I didn't want to make a new thread.
I'm still trying to piece together mine, there was just so much that came out this year.

The 50 Best Albums Of 2014 Parquet Courts - Sunbathing Animal (What's Your Rupture?)

I wrote an article about this that's coming out on next Wednesday. I wanted it to be a lot longer but I went over the word limit. Some editing to be done but this is the jist. Here tis:

Creating a “best of” albums list is always difficult, since the sheer amount of releases in any given year means that it’s nearly impossible to listen to all of them. Inherently, the list is always changing. While this list may be premature since the year is not up yet and there are still plenty of potential albums of the year to be released, I feel that 2014 is such a great year for music that I could make five of these lists and still have more albums to choose from to make five more. So without further ado, the best albums of 2014 (so far).

5. Run the Jewels – “Run the Jewels 2”

“Run the Jewels 2” is the follow up to hip hop duo Killer Mike and El-P's self-titled debut. The album starts off with a ranting Killer Mike before the music, replete with trumpets, distorted synths, and guitars comes in on the track “Jeopardy.” After setting the tone for the album with the gritty and almost cartoonish levels of grandiose, “RTJ 2” shows us that lyrically, this album is top notch, rife with witty trash talking throughout the album but also lending itself to social, religious and political themes. For example, on the track “Close Your Eyes (And Count to ****)” Killer Mike discusses de facto segregation and the prison industry by saying “Conditions create a villain/the villain is given vision/The vision becomes a vow to seek vengeance on all the vicious/Liars and politicians, profiteers of the prisons/The forehead engravers and slavers of men and women.” However, El-P's rhymes far exceeds that of Killer Mike, with his lyrics containing serious depth without sacrificing fun and flow (see: Aesop Rock) or sounding contrived (see: Jonwayne), not to mention that it still sounds like he's having a lot of fun with Mike on the album. The album also has an eclectic array of features, including singer Zach de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine, drummer Travis Barker of Blink-182 and Gangsta Boo of Three 6 Mafia. There's a lot of variety on the album, with slower tracks, more uppity faster tracks, stoned and grimy beats, lyrics that dwell on political corruption and others that point their focus in a more lewd direction. With the track "Love Again," RTJ also answers the question we've been asking for years: Can there be a socially conscious song with the hook "dick in her mouth all day"? The answer: a resounding yes and a pistol in your face. Each and every track on this album is an absolute banger and has molded a place for RTJ in the underground hip hop scene as being the cream of the crop both musically and lyrically.

4. Marc Ribot Trio – “Live at the Village Vanguard”

Guitarist Marc Ribot is best known for his work with artists such as Tom Waits and Elvis Costello, but his ideal atmosphere is in the avant-garde jazz sphere. On this album he teams up with bassist Henry Grimes—who had been absent from the jazz scene for several years, making this performance one of his firsts in many years—and drummer Chad Taylor in this live performance at the infamous jazz club. The album consists of new takes on jazz standards such as “Dearly Beloved” and “Sun Ship” by John Coltrane as well as “Bells” by Albert Ayler, among others. Ribot is a very precise player with a style that rings as his own, even in the various side projects that he's been involved in, and this album is of no exception. Often times when great artists such as Grimes or Taylor work with phenomenal guitarists such as Ribot, it can be hard to bring anything exciting to the table without being swept under it or making it seem like they are simply being competitive. Grimes and Taylor swipe away at both of those obstacles and contribute wonderfully to the record, from Grimes' Charlie Haden-esque intro on “Dearly Beloved” and Taylor's outstanding solo partway through the same track. The group takes well-known standards like “Old Man River” and runs with them, crafting their own singular song through free improvisation and overwhelming musicianship.

3. Swans – “To Be Kind”

After first establishing themselves as one of the most hard-hitting second generation no wave groups in the early 80s, Swans reformed in 2010 to establish themselves as gods of another, more ambiguous genre: post-rock. The group's 13th album, “To Be Kind,” is a two-hour monolith made up of hypnotic grooves, drones, and passages of out-there ideas. Opening up with track “Screen Shot”'s repetitive bassline akin to Tool, Swans forms a passage into a whirlwind of mind-bending songs that demand your attention for the length of the lengthy album. “A Little God In My Hands” shows us Swans' funkier side while still keeping us entrapped in the psychedelic rhythms and disturbing lyrics. The highlight of the album is “Bring the Sun/Toussaint L'Ouverture,” a 30 minute journey through the sound of Swans that centres around a droney riff without losing edge and becoming dull. This is one of the best albums in Swans' impressive discography, and it is a glimmer of hope for what the band may release in upcoming years.

2. John Zorn – “The Alchemist”

John Zorn is possibly the most prolific artist of our time, having added thirteen albums to his 500 plus album discography in this year alone. Needless to say, it was difficult to pick one album from Zorn’s 2014 releases with albums like “Valentine’s Day” and “Fragmentations, Prayers, and Interjections” being potential contenders. Zorn attempts several genres, from classical to hardcore jazz to klezmer to noise rock and beyond. This album is one of Zorn’s classical excursions and quite frankly, one of his best. The title track and opener is a 20 minute string quartet followed by a twelve minute choral piece called “Earthspirit.” “The Alchemist” is a brilliant classical piece that sounds something like Schoenberg straight out of a mental institution, with complicated structure and approach to tonality. There are several haunting passages that break up the chaotic nature of the piece. It’s extraordinarily difficult for a track to live up to a song like “The Alchemist,” and while “Earthspirit” certainly does not match “The Alchemist” on all levels, it is anything but disappointing. This album is another testament to the genius of John Zorn as he is now widely regarded in both classical and jazz circles.

1. White Suns – “Totem”

Lastly, we have “Totem” from noise rock group White Suns. Visceral, gritty and at times terrifying, the album shows us an often unexplored side of noise rock. Most noise rock groups hold a heavy dedication to structure, whereas White Suns introduces improvisations to disconcerting frameworks to add even more to the chaos.
“Improvisation gets me away from the muscle memory that can leech a song of any excitement in the present,” guitarist and vocalist Kevin Barry said.
“Totem” confronts the listener with walls of noise created with discordant guitar, powerhouse drumming and harsh electronics. In between the claustrophobic and breathtakingly in-your-face tracks like “Priest in the Laboratory” or “Clairvoyant”, there are also more meditative yet still unsettling tracks such as “Prostrate” that add another dimension to “Totem.” The highlight of this album is its distinctiveness, as it explores new territories in the true avant-garde fashion. With its confrontational explosions of noise and more dark ambient undersides, “Totem” is a noise rock gem as it meshes both genres in a way that few bands have been able to accomplish.

Machine · 12-02-2014, 08:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frownland

I wrote an article about this that's coming out on next Wednesday. I wanted it to be a lot longer but I went over the word limit. Some editing to be done but this is the jist. Here tis:

Creating a “best of” albums list is always difficult, since the sheer amount of releases in any given year means that it’s nearly impossible to listen to all of them. Inherently, the list is always changing. While this list may be premature since the year is not up yet and there are still plenty of potential albums of the year to be released, I feel that 2014 is such a great year for music that I could make five of these lists and still have more albums to choose from to make five more. So without further ado, the best albums of 2014 (so far).

5. Run the Jewels – “Run the Jewels 2”

“Run the Jewels 2” is the follow up to hip hop duo Killer Mike and El-P's self-titled debut. The album starts off with a ranting Killer Mike before the music, replete with trumpets, distorted synths, and guitars comes in on the track “Jeopardy.” After setting the tone for the album with the gritty and almost cartoonish levels of grandiose, “RTJ 2” shows us that lyrically, this album is top notch, rife with witty trash talking throughout the album but also lending itself to social, religious and political themes. For example, on the track “Close Your Eyes (And Count to ****)” Killer Mike discusses de facto segregation and the prison industry by saying “Conditions create a villain/the villain is given vision/The vision becomes a vow to seek vengeance on all the vicious/Liars and politicians, profiteers of the prisons/The forehead engravers and slavers of men and women.” However, El-P's rhymes far exceeds that of Killer Mike, with his lyrics containing serious depth without sacrificing fun and flow (see: Aesop Rock) or sounding contrived (see: Jonwayne), not to mention that it still sounds like he's having a lot of fun with Mike on the album. The album also has an eclectic array of features, including singer Zach de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine, drummer Travis Barker of Blink-182 and Gangsta Boo of Three 6 Mafia. There's a lot of variety on the album, with slower tracks, more uppity faster tracks, stoned and grimy beats, lyrics that dwell on political corruption and others that point their focus in a more lewd direction. With the track "Love Again," RTJ also answers the question we've been asking for years: Can there be a socially conscious song with the hook "dick in her mouth all day"? The answer: a resounding yes and a pistol in your face. Each and every track on this album is an absolute banger and has molded a place for RTJ in the underground hip hop scene as being the cream of the crop both musically and lyrically.

4. Marc Ribot Trio – “Live at the Village Vanguard”

Guitarist Marc Ribot is best known for his work with artists such as Tom Waits and Elvis Costello, but his ideal atmosphere is in the avant-garde jazz sphere. On this album he teams up with bassist Henry Grimes—who had been absent from the jazz scene for several years, making this performance one of his firsts in many years—and drummer Chad Taylor in this live performance at the infamous jazz club. The album consists of new takes on jazz standards such as “Dearly Beloved” and “Sun Ship” by John Coltrane as well as “Bells” by Albert Ayler, among others. Ribot is a very precise player with a style that rings as his own, even in the various side projects that he's been involved in, and this album is of no exception. Often times when great artists such as Grimes or Taylor work with phenomenal guitarists such as Ribot, it can be hard to bring anything exciting to the table without being swept under it or making it seem like they are simply being competitive. Grimes and Taylor swipe away at both of those obstacles and contribute wonderfully to the record, from Grimes' Charlie Haden-esque intro on “Dearly Beloved” and Taylor's outstanding solo partway through the same track. The group takes well-known standards like “Old Man River” and runs with them, crafting their own singular song through free improvisation and overwhelming musicianship.

3. Swans – “To Be Kind”

After first establishing themselves as one of the most hard-hitting second generation no wave groups in the early 80s, Swans reformed in 2010 to establish themselves as gods of another, more ambiguous genre: post-rock. The group's 13th album, “To Be Kind,” is a two-hour monolith made up of hypnotic grooves, drones, and passages of out-there ideas. Opening up with track “Screen Shot”'s repetitive bassline akin to Tool, Swans forms a passage into a whirlwind of mind-bending songs that demand your attention for the length of the lengthy album. “A Little God In My Hands” shows us Swans' funkier side while still keeping us entrapped in the psychedelic rhythms and disturbing lyrics. The highlight of the album is “Bring the Sun/Toussaint L'Ouverture,” a 30 minute journey through the sound of Swans that centres around a droney riff without losing edge and becoming dull. This is one of the best albums in Swans' impressive discography, and it is a glimmer of hope for what the band may release in upcoming years.

2. John Zorn – “The Alchemist”

John Zorn is possibly the most prolific artist of our time, having added thirteen albums to his 500 plus album discography in this year alone. Needless to say, it was difficult to pick one album from Zorn’s 2014 releases with albums like “Valentine’s Day” and “Fragmentations, Prayers, and Interjections” being potential contenders. Zorn attempts several genres, from classical to hardcore jazz to klezmer to noise rock and beyond. This album is one of Zorn’s classical excursions and quite frankly, one of his best. The title track and opener is a 20 minute string quartet followed by a twelve minute choral piece called “Earthspirit.” “The Alchemist” is a brilliant classical piece that sounds something like Schoenberg straight out of a mental institution, with complicated structure and approach to tonality. There are several haunting passages that break up the chaotic nature of the piece. It’s extraordinarily difficult for a track to live up to a song like “The Alchemist,” and while “Earthspirit” certainly does not match “The Alchemist” on all levels, it is anything but disappointing. This album is another testament to the genius of John Zorn as he is now widely regarded in both classical and jazz circles.

1. White Suns – “Totem”

Lastly, we have “Totem” from noise rock group White Suns. Visceral, gritty and at times terrifying, the album shows us an often unexplored side of noise rock. Most noise rock groups hold a heavy dedication to structure, whereas White Suns introduces improvisations to disconcerting frameworks to add even more to the chaos.
“Improvisation gets me away from the muscle memory that can leech a song of any excitement in the present,” guitarist and vocalist Kevin Barry said.
“Totem” confronts the listener with walls of noise created with discordant guitar, powerhouse drumming and harsh electronics. In between the claustrophobic and breathtakingly in-your-face tracks like “Priest in the Laboratory” or “Clairvoyant”, there are also more meditative yet still unsettling tracks such as “Prostrate” that add another dimension to “Totem.” The highlight of this album is its distinctiveness, as it explores new territories in the true avant-garde fashion. With its confrontational explosions of noise and more dark ambient undersides, “Totem” is a noise rock gem as it meshes both genres in a way that few bands have been able to accomplish.

Two of these are for sure on my top 5, just got Totem today so it may not be in my top 5, but still a kickass record.

Zhanteimi · 12-02-2014, 08:58 PM

I don't know where to start, since there've been so many great albums this year.

Off the top of my head, Kishi Bashi's Lighght.

Jade_City · 12-03-2014, 03:13 PM

Who else is feeling FKA Twigs's LP1? I like a couple songs, bit samey however, wish i could like it more but i cant.

**Goofle** · 12-03-2014, 03:15 PM

Decent album. Feel the same as you.

Jade_City · 12-03-2014, 03:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goofle

Decent album. Feel the same as you.

Yeah, a lot of it just feels lacking, almost shapeless and mushy, video girls is good tho. I'm actually really liking 'Old' By danny brown i havent seen anyone mention that yet actually

11-23-2014, 06:17 PM	#82 (permalink)
Chrysalis ~de geso Join Date: Jan 2011 Posts: 495	10. S. Carey - Range of Light 9. Weezer - Everything Will Be Alright in the End (!) 8. Bohren & der Club of Gore - Piano Nights 7. Casualties of Cool - S/T 6. Sun Kil Moon - Benji 5. Devin Townsend - Z² (this and CoC more than make up for Epicloud IMO) 4. Gridlink - Longhena 3. Flying Lotus - You're Dead! 2. Kayo Dot - Coffins on Io 1. Swans - To Be Kind I plan on listening to a lot of recent albums next month, so I'm expecting everything except for my Top 3 to change drastically. __________________ RateYourMusic A dead Last.fm account

12-02-2014, 01:49 PM	#83 (permalink)
Machine moon lake inc. Join Date: Oct 2014 Location: Detroit Posts: 2,125	Bumping this thread Stereogum just released their top 50 albums of the Year and it reminded me holy **** it's December so I propose we all get our absolute top 10 together soon including music that has more recently come out, or that you hadn't listened to earlier this year. Plus I didn't want to make a new thread. I'm still trying to piece together mine, there was just so much that came out this year. The 50 Best Albums Of 2014 Parquet Courts - Sunbathing Animal (What's Your Rupture?) __________________ boost my ego listen to me stroke my delay pedal ever wanted to hear death grips songs... but they're acoustic? me neither.

12-03-2014, 03:13 PM	#88 (permalink)
Jade_City Hello! Join Date: May 2014 Location: corner by Jamal's house Posts: 203	Who else is feeling FKA Twigs's LP1? I like a couple songs, bit samey however, wish i could like it more but i cant. __________________ WHERE DID YOU GET THAT THING? FROM THE MOTHERSHIP!

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12-02-2014, 08:58 PM	#87 (permalink)
Zhanteimi Mord Join Date: Oct 2014 Location: Tokyo Posts: 4,874	I don't know where to start, since there've been so many great albums this year. Off the top of my head, Kishi Bashi's Lighght.