The thread where you talk about non-metal music you like.

[CiG]

 

[Mort Divine]

clearly the best song ever made

 

[CiG]

Because I doubt we will ever get around to doing a non-metal best of 2018 thread and because I have lists coming out of my eyeballs for 2018 alone, figured I'd go ahead and do my list here.

I linked a song for each listing for convenience. So much good pop came out last year, but none that really dominated the upper half of my list.

1. Colter Wall - Songs of the Plains
Traditional singer songwriter steeped in folk, americana and country.

2. Anders Manga - Perfectly Stranger
Really great darkwave.

3. Loreena McKennitt - Lost Souls
Legendary celtic new age artist, her finest in a while.

4. Adrianne Lenker - Abysskiss
Subtle emotional indie folk, the exact kind of contemporary folk music I love.

5. Haley Heynderickx - I Need to Start a Garden
Chamber folk that appeals to my inner hipster, except I don't believe in the idea of guilty pleasures. She's amazing.

6. Crimer - Leave Me Baby
Throwback artists can be tedious, especially in the pop genres because pop tends to already be quite shallow and plastic, but this is some of the more genuinely good new romantic throwback music I have ever heard. Nobody does new romantic anymore, which is a shame.

7. Anna & Elizabeth - The Invisible Comes to Us
Avant-Appalachian folk music duo that also throws some drone and Irish elements into the mix. Very interesting and beautiful record.

8. Fickle Friends - You Are Someone Else
Quite modern mainstream dance-pop that I don't always rate very highly but I liked this album a lot. Reminds me of maybe a less mainstream Ke$ha in her early days.

9. Moodoїd - Cité Champagne
Dreamy French synthpop.

10. Donny Benét - The Don
Sleazy vintage Italo-disco with synths, funk and the odd saxophone solo. Fun stuff.

 

[no country for old wainds]

you should listen to richard dawson's peasant already since you're into all this folk stuff (although it's from 2017). i mean i doubt you'd love it as much as i do given it's my favourite album of the decade by a mile, but you'd probably like some of it.

 

[CiG]

I did and I liked it! It ended up in my non-metal 2017 list actually.

 

[CiG]

"Beggar" and "Masseuse" are my favourites off Peasant, in case you were wondering.

 

[no country for old wainds]

oh awesome, i forgot about that! 'masseuse' is my favourite too, i tend to use 'scientist' to hook people in though. i love every song except 'shapeshifter', which is still cool.

highly recommend his previous album nothing important too, it's quite different but unique and great. a lot of people think it's his best work, but the medieval vibe of peasant speaks to me more.

 

[CiG]

"Soldier" was the tune that sorta hooked me, and helped me get into the album, which is one of the most disjointed folk albums I have ever heard. Not in a bad way, but Richard Dawson just didn't care about comfort levels with this album haha.

 

[no country for old wainds]

yeah, i love that about it. all the slipping into the cracks and torturing of the guitar strings and weird digressions haha. it just feels very alive and tactile to me, you can almost smell and feel and taste the things he's talking about (some of which are pretty gross). it actually reminds me a bit of that crazy ass russian movie hard to be a god in that respect.

 

[CiG]

I don't know the movie but that description definitely nails it, it strikes me as being intensely personal to the man himself. Nobody focusing outwards is so playful and unpretentious about their experimentation. Some songs feel like they were secretly recorded while he thought he was alone just molesting the strings!

 

[no country for old wainds]

a couple of choice quotes from him:

I really love the rigour of composition and getting things right, but then how do you then invest it with a life? How do you make it fresh every time? There are different ways to do that: you can maybe make your keys a bit sticky or your strings a bit dirty; it's like putting obstacles in your way. You just change the set-up ever so slightly so you have to really live it rather than just go through the motions. I'm really fascinated by the notion of contradiction in general. I'm more and more thinking about this word and thinking that it's at the heart of everything; it's like the governing energy is contradiction.

The original idea was to have two albums interweaving together, like two coiling albums. There was going to be one album of songs and one album of brass that was going to be narrated. I was thinking about all kinds of actors who could narrate it – I was thinking about Harry Dean Stanton and Michael Gambon and Samantha Morton. So I would have this pre-medieval, early middle ages story unfold with a narrator and a backdrop of brass and this futuristic set of songs coexisting

the other album i mentioned is even more personal and really fucking intense in places, like he's exorcising some pretty nasty baggage. he's quite a weird and interesting dude, his live shows are like a mixture of music and standup comedy. he's also a recovering alcoholic who loves iron maiden, so he'd fight right in on this forum

 

[CiG]

so he'd fight right in on this forum

Freudian slip?

 

[no country for old wainds]

i bet he’s adamant that deep purple aren’t heavy metal.

 

[CiG]

I think I heard a pillow rustle somewhere.

 

[isberg]

 

[Oblivious Maximus]

 

[CiG]

 

[EchoForever]

 

[Mort Divine]

@CiG think this might be up your alley

 

[CiG]

This is super fun, summertime pop. The faint hip-hop vibe kinda turns me off a bit though, I'm weird about how hip-hop is incorporated into other genres for some reason.