It’s the end of another year, a great one in terms of music.
Lots of changes in our lives are coming. New paths that promise a lot, new roads that most likely take us far, new ideas, new friends, but as always, music remains.
Below I summarize what 2012 meant to me in terms of music. Albums that traveled with me through the year, new artists that we discovered together, new songs and the meaning they acquired the moment we heard them first. At the end of this wonderful year all that becomes part of who we are and prepare us for what’s coming next.
My list below, hope you like it.
Enjoy,
MM
(@MMLeiner)
MM – BEST ALBUMS- 2012
1 Efterklang – Piramida
“Piramida is perhaps the band’s greatest achievement: an album bringing the outside in, informed by frozen time and the relics humanity leaves in its expanding wake.
Its roots were laid in 2010, when the band first saw photographs of a forgotten settlement lying, slowly dying, on Spitsbergen, an island of the Svalbard archipelago midway between the Norwegian mainland and the North Pole.
This ghost town, which the trio eventually visited in Aug 2011 would give their 4th album its title, and comprise the conceptual catalyst for its contents.” Official Efterklang bio by Mike Diver
2 Grizzly Bear – Shields
“Shields, the band's fourth and most compositionally adventurous record… Though full of baroque, detail-rich production and latticework melodies, Shields also offers an emotionally resonant core. The album is an excavation of loneliness, melancholy, and self-reliance. It's also a demanding record, without an instantly gratifying single to hook restless ears. But the rewards that come from immersing yourself in it are odd and profound.“ Pitchfork
3 Divine Fits - A Thing Called Divine Fits
“Down to its tongue-in-cheek title, A Thing Called Divine Fits can seem at first blush like a one-off vanity project, two experienced mechanics building a hot rod in a garage over a few weekends, or two NBA players meeting up for summer pickup ball.… it's a match too good to be true…” Pitchfork
4 Swans - The Seer
“Swans has never traveled a straightforward, clean, or uninterrupted path. But with The Seer, one thing is certain: Even during its quietest lulls, Gira has never sounded louder.” The A.V. Club
5 Sharon Van Etten – Tramp
“It's a wonderful record, a colossal achievement, and features some of the most breathtaking, moving and downright beautiful music you'll hear all year.” Drowned In Sound
6 Alt-J -An Awesome Wave
“You can see every angle and every side of the shape they've made. And the unimpeachable logic of each song, added to their odd tunefulness of the songs, makes them exciting to listen to.” Prefix Magazine.
7 Alabama Shakes - Boys and Girls
“Boys & Girls is more than a debut album. It's an introduction to a band you thought you knew for years, but are just fortunate enough to meet now.” PopMatters
8 The Walkmen – Heaven
“After 10 years and seven albums, Heaven finds The Walkmen in a better place.” The A.V. Club
9 Beach House – Bloom
“This is an album that is simply, in the most awe-inspired sense of the term, absolutely golden from end to end – a real treasure and an utter delight to experience every time you play it.” PopMatters
10 Porcelain Raft - Strange Weekend
“All in all, it's a solid debut effort and one that never spares on electronic dramatics and an extensive array of far-ranging ideas.” Absolute Punk
11 Fanfarlo - Rooms Filled with Light
“For Fanfarlo, this is a follow-up that does all that it needs to do. It keeps us critics and fans happy with a healthy balance of familiarity and expansion.” No Ripcord
12 M. Ward - A Wasteland Companion
“A Wasteland Companion isn't a sonic tidal wave, per se - it's built on some of the folk troubadour's quietest, most intimate tunes in years. But where emotions are concerned, it pummels.” The Boston Phoenix
13 Poliça - Give You the Ghost
“It's the interpretation of a human voice that elevates this record beyond a curious obscurist record and makes the simmering (but never boiling over) electronica truly shimmer.” Drowned in Sound
14 The xx – Coexist
“The world adored the xx's Mercury Prize-winning debut album xx. Coexist is, if anything, an even finer piece of work.” The Independent on Sunday (UK)
15 Allo Darlin - Europe
“Allo Darlin' have achieved their aim of not producing a carefree record again, and then some--instead, they've created one of considerable, admirable depth and nous, though it retains the warm, personal nature of its predecessor.” musicOMH.com
BONUS LIST
16 The Antlers - Undersea
17 Lost in the Trees - A Church that Fits Our Needs
18 Liars - WIXIW
19 Glen Hansard - Rhythm and Repose
20 Yellow Ostrich - Strange Land
21 Japandroids - Celebration Rock
22 Bear in Heaven - I Love You, it's Cool
23 Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros-Here
24 Tennis - Young and Old
25 Perfume Genius - Put Your Back No. 2 It
26 Spiritualized - Sweet Heart Sweet Light
27 Delta Spirit - Delta Spirit
28 Hot Chip - In Our Heads
29 Dr. Dog - Be The Void
30 Regina Spektor- What We Saw From The Cheap Seats
