Best of 2016

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
We're engaging with emotions that are synthesised replications of the real world. Just as video games synthesise real-world goals.

And the 'real' emotion underlying all this is a profound sadness at how meaningless our half-simulated lives are

WARMER OR COLDER?
 

luka

Well-known member
Bit crass but yeah we're getting somewhere. Virtual environments virtual rewards
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
*edit*

I know you'll absolutely love being compared to K Punk - what you're talking about reminds me of KP's review of Drake's album from a few years ago

http://www.electronicbeats.net/started-from-the-bottom-mark-fisher-on-drakes-nothing-was-the-same/

A glacial fatalism runs beneath everything here, and Drake matters because he makes contact—maybe better than anyone else—with the sense of hopelessness that quietly subsists beneath all the twerking and tweeting, all the twitter and the chatter of 21st century culture. Hear this in the gorgeous electro-downer haze that saturates the album and establishes its tone much more than any of the beats. Yet there’s something beyond the fatalism, too. You can hear it in Drake’s signature move—the transition from rap to singing, the slipping down from ego-assertion into a sensual purring, the relaxing into a lasciviousness that has nothing to do with the localized libido and dumb automatisms of phallic sexuality. Down here, there is a glorious release from the pressures of identity. Rave-like, pitched-up vocals are suspended on placid currents of synth. Voices stop being human, become avatars from a space where subjectivity has been left behind like a bad dream.

etc.

BTW sort of on subject, I've lately been seized by the suspicion that you and sadmanbarty are one and the same person. Confirm/deny?
 
Last edited:

droid

Well-known member
Any simulation sufficiently advanced to be functionally indistinguishable from reality is reality.

Sci-fi 101.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
At the vanguard of this, perhaps a progenitor of it: Burial? The frustrated longing, the pastiche of genre, the dehumanised voices, the introversion and artificiality of it all. The birth of the #sadboy? Perhaps not synthetic enough for luka's definition, perhaps also not close enough to the original.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
Rap's been ok, but the problem is rap also has this playpenning. Certain guys are making regular rap as they've always done historically, certain guys just are obvious fantasists and overly referential. Not even talking about the realms of authenticity (which occasionally is a real issue) but like... Quavo and 21 Savage are obviously overtly dedicated to specific strands of trying to sound like Gucci and you could make this argument for #67 and a lot of the Brixton road rap crews who are constantly weighted with #hashtags, not even so much as the old 'hashtag/punchline rap' style but like... Their whole lingo is very obvious oversaturated references to things Chief Keef, Drake or other people say. Every song references another song they've done before, or a catchphrase they've dropped. And the problem is people need the terminology, the hashtags to comprehend... #trap, #key, whatever.

There's something there, but I don't have the comprehension to parse out how to sift through the phenomena. I think we're in a weird period with rap where now they're overburdened with becoming projections. Not that Grime's Rap, but... the Skepta "That's Not Me" vid, and that whole aesthetic for him and other people was a very deliberate saddling with history/legacy and a need to sound like expectations/demands rather than make the music, fulfil the roles and insistence of 'no THIS is who you are' even if that audience might not truly know who these people are or what they're talking about, they just have this myopic internet picture, this screenshot view. They're not actually there yet.

That's the problem with a lot of music in general that everyone's been toying with right? The 'burden of history' and having access to it thanks to the internet. Its a lot harder to live in the moment when the library of Alexandria is always around the corner to undermine your feeling of possibility.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
Anyway, I have a EOTY list in mind, but today my favorite rap song is still that Cadet "Letter To Krept" record. It's certainly in the post-Drake confessional heart-on-sleeve style, but its so specific to these two people, to perception and relationship. Its got a sense of drama to it in storytelling, the fear, the envy, the mistrust, fully realized emotion you rarely get in a lot of these other rappers who are supposedly so deep but still exude the untouchable air of having to constantly maintain superiority. Its rare you hear records that deal with feeling lesser, or moods of abandonment. "I'm just happy to be in the same race as you/I just wanna share first place with you" is pretty touching.
 

hucks

Your Message Here
Now. I think I joined dissensus in 2006 to post on the Best of 2006 thread which I cannot now find and that's just as well. In the last few years I've listened to less and less new music and that is a genuine sadness to me. This year I got Spotify premium which made it worse as I hadn't paid for anything so there was no real need to listen to anything more than once, to really get to know stuff. Also I can just listen to old stuff instead - Crowley's Burden of History, but for the listener, rather than the artist. So a thing I did to remedy the situation actually made things worse.

The album I've really liked this year is the A Tribe Called Quest one. I also liked One Take Freestyle by Stormzy. I didn't like the Jessy Lanza album as much as I wanted to or thought I would.

Luka's posts on this thread are beautiful, really.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Do Autechre still sound like a box of cutlery being vigorously shaken or have they started writing tunes again?
 

firefinga

Well-known member
I am gonna list only albums here, going chronologically. I enjoyed the following:

*)B12 - Orbiting Souls
*)Wreckless Eric - America
*)David Bowie - Blackstar
*)John Carpenter - Lost Themes II
*)Iggy Pop - Post Pop Depression
*)Moderat - III
*)Lone - Levitate
*)Brian Eno - The Ship
*)Baby Metal - Metal Resistance

I'll be adding more
 

sufi

lala
Album - yoyoyoyoyoyo by spank rock. if you can get beyond the ludicrous sexism it's pretty solid quality, plus the singles and remixes were all awesome. saw them live and they were pretty good fun, too.

burial as well, and actually more so over time. plus i liked the remix of blackdown, and that track on the mary anne hobbs thing might be my track of the year.

biggest disappointment - the dr octagon album. i feel cheated.

So I think this was my first post on this forum. And I don't think I've listened to Spank Rock since 2006. So ignore whatever I write on the Best of 2010 thread, would be my advice.
Now. I think I joined dissensus in 2006 to post on the Best of 2006 thread which I cannot now find and that's just as well. In the last few years I've listened to less and less new music and that is a genuine sadness to me. This year I got Spotify premium which made it worse as I hadn't paid for anything so there was no real need to listen to anything more than once, to really get to know stuff. Also I can just listen to old stuff instead - Crowley's Burden of History, but for the listener, rather than the artist. So a thing I did to remedy the situation actually made things worse.

The album I've really liked this year is the A Tribe Called Quest one. I also liked One Take Freestyle by Stormzy. I didn't like the Jessy Lanza album as much as I wanted to or thought I would.
site search could use improving, found this via a convoluted route involving g**gle

Luka's posts on this thread are beautiful, really.
hear hear
 
Top