music of the month - October edition

here are my fav music purchases of the month. they weren't necessarily released in October just purchased.

5: Five Years of Hyperdub

Usually I wouldn’t consider making a compilation my album of the year, but it has to be said that this collection is easily one of the top releases of the year. There’s a million reviews, so I won’t go into too much detail except to say this:

• The selection of previously released songs on Disc 2 sound to me like a dance music label that is forward looking and continually pushing boundaries.
• The selection of new music on Disc 1 though is a different matter. To me these are the sound of a group of musicians who have gone beyond genres. This isn’t dubstep, hip-hop, blip-hop, whatever. This is straight future music. Absolutely brilliant

J. Tillman - Year in the Kingdom

his second release of the year after the excellent Vacilando Territory Blues. Best known nowadays for being the drummer in Fleet Foxes, J. Tilman has been releasing solo albums since late 2004. his style has always been stark and melancholy, but not necessarily introspective until now.
The sound is akin to Minor Works with a mix of solo and fuller arrangements, however this album is definitely his most polished/produced sounding yet which may or may not be related to his day job. The first half of the album has a 60s folk-psychedelia feel but as you reach the end of the album the arrangements become more stripped down and reminiscent of his earlier work.
Though not as strong as his previous albums, I would still take a J Tilman album over most anything our there.

Kid Cudi - Man on the Moon: The End of Day
I didn't even give this album a second glance until I heard a few songs on Sound Opinions a few weeks ago. Even then I wasn't sure that this was an album for me, but I previewed the entire thing and decided to take a chance and I am glad that I did. Though I have a few quibbles, this album is one of my favorites this year.

This album takes the retro-future r'n'b sound of 808s and Heartbreaks by Kanye and develops it into something really interesting and with a lot of promise.

as I mentioned, I do have a couple issues with the album though:

1. it's too long - needs to have at least three songs cut (ratatat productions, I'm looking at you)
2. the completely misogynistic track 12 "make her say" - out of character with rest of album. worthless
3. so I get that it is a concept album, but let people figure out the story. you don't need the narration song titles to tell you the story. Bat For Lashes was able to tell a similar story without all that. trust the storytelling in the songs to pull people along