2016-2017 Midseason Albums List

So 2016-2017, while a year that has had a fair number of albums come out, and many more of course anticipated, I guess at this point, being midseason, has only seemed like a luke warm year thus far.

I mean there have been some good albums certainly, if you look at the rankings below. Anakdota, Pain of Salvation and 22 all are albums I have listened to and plan to keep listening to as the rest of the year goes on and further.

Mew as well as those The Reign of Kindo songs, which I'm including just purely on numbers and quality. I suspect the band will put them into some actual, proper release of some kind, and it may ultimately get released after Halloween 2017, per within this years best releases, it won't likely remain. But for now, it seems like it should be included, just purely on how much I've been listening to all 5 of those songs.

As far as the list below it, it's as I point out, a list of records I either have not gotten to checking out, or meant to, but have shyed away per reviews, priorities and expectations. But I would likely have included the albums from Esperanza Spalding and Bent Knee last year into that as well, so I'm not ruling out and/or may still end up spending some time and be surprised.

Then there's the scheduled releases, which to be frank, stuff like Bubblemath and now even Anathema I have heard and do enjoy quite a bit; per they would likely find their way into this rankings mix if they already were released, and quite likely will place pretty high come early November.

And of course the ones I've bolded are currently the biggest hopes for that I'm certain will be released. The Ours album obviously is a big deal to me given my love and appreciation for them.

And of course the anticipation list which has some very likely titles, and then a lot of thinking/hoping will come, but no guarantee even in 2017, let alone by Halloween.

All in all though a decent, but not incredible 1st half of the year, but like pretty much every year, there's both a lot of potential albums that will raise that bar for the entire year. And of course many records I have not spent time with, or enough time, or heard yet as well. It could be from a band I've never even heard of yet of course.

Also to note, like it has been in many recent years, my full attention and ability/interest to listen to a lot of new albums at work has not been what it was at 1 time. It does go through phases, and this current year has been very busy with life things like health, moving, taxes, plus of course listening to older music or of course podcasts, talk radio and youtube audio rips. I guess things may settle down both outside of and at work come July/August/September, devoting a little more time to the new releases may happen for me and some of even the albums on my list below may be seen differently and higher/better, etc.

edit: Also time permitting, I'll try and make a video or 2 about this of course.


1. Anakdota - Overloading


2. Pain of Salvation - In the Passing Light of Day


3. 22 - You Are Creating: Limb 1


4. Mew - Visuals


5. The Reign of Kindo: Patreon Songs

City of Gods 6:13
Human Convention 3:34
One in a Million 4:09
Smell of a Rose 3:50
About Love 4:49


6. Persefone - Aathma


7. Big Wreck - Grace Street


8. Ulver - The Assassination of Julius Caesar


9. The Family Crest, - Prelude to War [EP]


10. Tuxedo - Tuxedo II


11. Blackfield - V


12. Moonloop - Devocean


13. Rachel Flowers - Listen


14. The Barnum Meserve - When All is Lost

 
15. Waaktaar and Zoe - World of Trouble


16. Umphrey's McGee - Zonkey


17. Black Map - In Droves


18. Radical Face - SunMoonnEclippse [EP]


19. Thundercat - Drunk


20. Klimt 1918 - Sentimentale Jugend

Singles:
1. Fjokra - Sick Kids
2. 1000Faces - Sleeping for Dreamers (ft. Jimmy Gnecco)
3. Bend Sinister - Get Along
4. Kimbra and Young Dreams - Oban (Rework/Remix)
5. Hotel of the Laughing Tree - Electric City Rivalry
6. For the Imperium - We Cannot Face It


Listened to Once and was not all that into/Haven't Listened to Yet but mean to/Am shying away from per reviews and general interest in the band's recent music/But may get around to before the end of the year

Cloud Caverns - Collective Memory
Cynic - Uroboric Forms: The Complete Demo Recordings
KXM - Scatterbrain
Mastodon - Empire of Sand
Meridian Incident - Istology
Metallica - Hardwired...to Self-Destruct
Minus the Bear - VOIDS
Mute Gods, The - …tardigrades will inherit the earth
New Pornographgers, The - Whiteout Conditions
Nova Collective - The Further Side
Peter Silberman - Impermanence
Temples - Volcano

Scheduled Releases:

May
5: At the Drive-In - in·ter a·li·a
19: Bullet Height - No Atonement
19: Do Make Say Think - Stubborn Persistent Illusions
19: The Night Flight Orchestra - Amber Galactic
19: Scale The Summit - In A World Of Fear
19: Roger Waters - Is This the Life We Really Want?
26: Bubblemath - Edit Peptide
26: Solstafir - Berdreyminn


June
2: SikTh - The Future in Whose Eyes?
9: Anathema - The Optimist
9: Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly and James McAlister - Planetarium
23: Bent Knee - Land Animal
27: Ours - Spectacular Sight



Confirmed Titles:
Antemasque - Saddle on the Atom Bomb
Broken Social Scene - Halfway Home
Chic - It's About Time
Diablo Swing Orchestra - Pacifisticuffs
Joey Eppard - Word to the Wise
Dave Kerzner - Static
Fish - Weltschmerz
Sculptured - The Liminal Phase
Textures - Genotype
U2 - Songs of Experience

Confirmed/Likely to be Released (but no Title or Release Date Yet)
Barren Earth
Bend Sinister (2 albums coming, 1 may be an EP, the other full-length)
Flying Colors
For the Imperium
Galactic Cowboys (Fall)
In Vain
Live
Major Parkinson: (I just backed their already successful Kickstarter)
George Michael
Native Construct
Pillorian (John Haughm, ex-Agalloch)
Reign of Kindo, The
Small Leaks Sink Ships
Soundscape
Spock's Beard
Subterranean Masquerade
Tiny Giant
Typhoon

------------------------------

*speculation/hope*


Bruce Peninsula
Capital Cities
Chromeo
Disillusion
dredg
East of the Wall
Extreme
The Faceless
Fjokra
Godspeed You Black Emperor
Hotel of the Laughing Tree
Jazzkamikaze
Journal
Karnivool
Kimbra
Spencer Ludwig
Mutemath
Ne Obliviscaris
Neverending White Lights
Pepe Deluxe
Ramona Falls
Red Paintings, The
Sigur Rós
System of a Down
Tears for Fears
Steven Wilson

Video: Vinyl Update 4/5/17 (22, Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, King's X)

vinyl update.

I need to elaborate on some of these, in a new video soon hopefully.


22 - You Are Creating: Limb 1
Pain of Salvation - In the Passing Light of Day
Pink Floyd - The Division Bell
Peter Gabriel - Up
Eddie Money - Nothing to Lose
Linda Rondstadt - Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind
Painted in Exile - The Ordeal (Vinyl)
Painted in Exile - The Ordeal - (CD)
King's X - Dogman
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young - DejaVu
o'Brother - Garden Window

22 - You Are Creating [1B] [Official Video]

Fan fucking tastic!..the 7 year wait very well me well worth it. Kind of wish I could have participated in this video.

Amazing song,very cool video.

March 24th cannot come soon enough for that preorder. 

22 - Short Acoustic Rehearsal Video/New Studio Video

7/11/13 6:06AM

some pretty sweet ideas for this upcoming record seem to be coming out. Lots of oscillator tweak-ing and whatnot.

6/3/13 11:36AM
I haven't heard it yet, but supposedly the new stuff is really bringing it. They should have a new album out soon, although whether it comes out this year or not is still unclear (from what I've read at this point).

K Sera - Collisions and Near Misses (2013)

http://www.facebook.com/kseratheband
https://twitter.com/KSeraCA
https://ksera.bandpage.com/
http://ksera.bandcamp.com/




1.Collisions 02:44
2.Near Misses 03:15
3.Meditations in an Emergency 03:38
4.Dream, Like I Do 04:01
5.St. Peter 03:44
6.Carry 02:59
7.Hollow Ground of London 05:16
8.True Enough To Be Interesting 03:30
9.Ambien 04:14
10.The Economist 03:30



This is the debut album from the San Francisco-based college-prog band, an album that Casey Crescenzo of The Dear Hunter produced. More to add in due time, but I saw their name last year in Alternative Press and they mentioned working with Casey on this debut record. The EP I checked out was not amazing, but had enough to have me curious.

I've checked this record out once and while it's not the most original thing I've ever heard, the styles, influences (The Dear Hunter? 22? Panic at the Disco? As Tall As Lions?) seem to have enough appeal, along with the all-important songwriting which sounds like it's good enough and varied enough to impress me enough to plan to go back to this more.

I'll hopefully add more here or in another entry soon/later in the year. But on the surface, 1 of the 1st new bands of 2013 that has my attention.

22 - Plastik EP (2011) (1.0)

I just noticed this over the weekend thanks to the twitter feed from the altprogcore blog

pre-order link (ep is released on July 4th)

news story

Here's the track list:



1. Plastik
2. Oxygen
3. Gotodo
4. Mind Vs. Mind
5. Power Is So Yesterday

And you can stream 1 of the 2 new tracks "Oxygen" here below (the 2nd song I believe).



They also according to that news story, are going to get distribution for 2010's excellent debut record Flux. The US? I didn't see it mentioned though. And they have a new video for the song "Plastik" below as some other links have also shared it.

22 - Flux (2010) (1.0)

22newenergymusic dot com
facebook
myspace
last.fm






1 Plastik
2 Gotodo
3 Flux
4 I Am That I Am
5 Disconnecting From the Grid
6 Kneel Estate
7 Loopwhole
8 Power Is So Yesterday
9 Perspective Pleiadian
10 Susurrus
11 Abdomental

Who is this band? a group who hail from Norway. Their style of music? well the riyl/ffo etc: The Fall of Troy, dredg, The Mars Volta, The Dear Hunter, Coheed and Cambria

Those pics/artwork are kind of fucked up maybe in a good way, ultimately, I dunno, lol.

But I was just introduced to them a few hours ago and they immediately have my attention as potentially a band I may get attached to. They're doing college-prog certainly, but some rather unusual twists and combining styles. They sound a bit mathy at times, rather catchy as well ("I Am That I Am" especially).

The only concern I have just from hearing Flux off pc speakers is I of course noticed a bit of 4C, but only on one or two songs I recall. But I'm going to have to give them the headphone-treatment to know how much if there is any issue at all about that. But if there isn't much, I probably will be giving this album a fair amount of time over the next week or two, at least. Who knows, this could be one of those unknowns/sleepers that comes in the 11th hour. An aoty contender? probably not, but it could find it's way in the mix towards the top certainly.