2014 Music Recommendations? What ya got spinning?

[jonnyhambone]

I do need to pick up the new Steve Gunn, I've only heard good things of it.
My tastes have been a bit more loud and heavy lately but I'm really struck by the new Grouper album, Ruins. She (Grouper is just Liz Harris) has typically created very ambient atmospheres thru layers of reverbed guitar and her beautiful voice acting as an instrument more than vocalist. This new one is mostly piano with the lyrics much clearer but just as darkly atmospheric and emotive as anything she's done. It also makes great use of the spaces she recorded in - a small house in South America - with frogs and cicadas filling in the empty spaces and the occasional rumble of thunder and rain.
Still streaming at NPR First Listen --> First Listen: Grouper, 'Ruins' : NPR

Also, not music from 2014, but I just splurged on the new Sleater-Kinney boxset. All their albums remastered from analogue tapes, pressed at RTI, each on different color vinyl even. Gorgeous set and fun to revisit some really stellar music.

[Davey]

My tastes have been a bit more loud and heavy lately but I'm really struck by the new Grouper album, Ruins. She (Grouper is just Liz Harris) has typically created very ambient atmospheres thru layers of reverbed guitar and her beautiful voice acting as an instrument more than vocalist. This new one is mostly piano with the lyrics much clearer but just as darkly atmospheric and emotive as anything she's done. It also makes great use of the spaces she recorded in - a small house in South America - with frogs and cicadas filling in the empty spaces and the occasional rumble of thunder and rain.

That is a nice record, I do really like the sound, very lofi recording with the piano pretty closely miked, as you say it has a great ambience. I can't really understand anything she's singing, though from reading some about it, the words match the somber sound. Not sure how much I really like it, getting some great reviews but I'd be reluctant to recommend it to anyone. I've only listened a couple times, and not all at once, which it probably needs.

[Davey]

On a little different note since this is at heart a "what ya got spinning" thread ....

The one I'm listening to right now, and I think one of my most listened to albums this year, is from 1993 but I really only discovered it this year. I mean, I've had it for a few years, but never really listened to it. If I recall, it came out of a post I made on obner many, many years ago when a few of us wandered over to that site for a while during another of the many down times around here. Some good people there, but I didn't stay too long for one reason or another. There were some that had a great knowledge of modern obscure music though, and so when I made a post about my love for Laika, and especially Sounds of the Satellites, someone came back and said Insides Euphoria is better. Wow, and so it went on my wishlist, and I eventually grabbed a copy but never really got to know it ... until this year. And then I discovered it is a great record, even predating the first Laika record by a year or two, while Margaret Fiedler was still with Moonshake this British duo put out a very nice record, a little darker and more sexual than Laika, and not as twitchy, maybe a little more of the 80s, but a similar feel overall and really good. Not better than Laika, that part was silly, but still very nice and one of those albums that just seems to float by, and if time is there, floats by again. The late 80s to early 90s was quite a time for 4AD bands. Pretty nice sounding CD too, DR 12 and well recorded.



There's a nice review at AMG ... Euphoria - Insides | Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards | AllMusic.