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Ok, I've gone through my Spotify playlists and this is what I really dug from 2014:

Revocation - Deathless
Nero Di Marte - Derivae
Vallenfyre - Splinters
Dark Fortress - Venereal Dawn
Iron Reagan - The Tyranny of Will
Sólstafir - Ótta
Morbus Chron - Sweven
Sivyj Yar - From the Dead Villages’ Darkness
Tengger Cavalry - Ancient Call
Artificial Brain - Labyrinth Constellation
Triptykon - Melana Chasmata
Exodus - Blood in Blood Out

Of those albums two stick out -
Sivyj Yar - From the Dead Villages’ Darkness. I like black metal, but I'm incredibly fussy about it. I dislike most everything, but then something comes along. Like this album. It is just gut wrenching in how emotive it is. Awesome.
Iron Reagan - The Tyranny of Will. So much fun has not been packed into a record since I don't know when. I don't care how derivative it is when it's this good.

Martyrdöd - Eldpop could have made the list but I haven't listened to it enough. And I wanted to like Giant Squid's new album - I've listened to it heaps and tried to understand the fuss but I just don't care for the album at all. Not that I loved their other stuff but anyway.

baring teeth - ghost chorus...
steve lehman octet - mise en abime
thumbscrew - s/t
hex horizontal - act natural
shellac - dude incredible
matt mitchell - fiction (i think this was actually 2013, but i got it in 14)
fripp & eno - live in paris (often bootlegged concert finally issued with impressively clean sound)
people - 3x a woman
beyond the black rainbow OST
Unwound No Energy box set

Best listening of 2014.

SWANS - To Be Kind. Why? Because, that’s why. Because they aren’t just firing on all cylinders, they’re building whole new fucking engines. Because as brilliant as TBK and all of the new/recent/modern LPs have been, and they are phenomenal outright essential listening, they are still only documents of moments in time, trailers for the live show. Because at this point I can’t imagine a year where SWANS put out an LP and there being anything else better, more exciting, more engaging, anything at all that I’d want to listen to more. New radiohead, possibly, but nothing they’ve done since KidA can stand up to SWANS. New Sonic Youth, maybe, but a) sadly isn’t gonna happen anytime soon and b) <SWANS. New Fugazi - we can all dream, but even at their best (in the basement or on the stage), <SWANS - although they were one of the few live acts that could give them a run for their money, albeit with an entirely different energy. TBK is a monumental document of this moment, one of the all time great bands has and is risen, and gone forth to conquer the earth. We are lucky to stand in their shadow.

Constellation Records, anything and everything they put out, especially discs from Ought, Hisstracts, and Carla Bozulich. The first spin of the Ought LP was a no-brainer - I love me some Constellation, love me some MTL, and was down to hear what was coming/advertise from the student protest scene in my favorite city - and was floored. Haven’t heard anything this toe-tappin’ for awhile, certainly not from some white boys up north. Even more surprising, some/most/all of the band members are/were Americans… Why the fuck is it that considering the state of our disunion right now, the best protest record of the year if not years came from and about Canada? We need some of that heat down here on the southside of Lake Champlain, ya dig. The Ought Lp is funky rocking angular and smart as all fucking hell, possibly the record I spun the most times this year - at the gym, on the subway, in the car, jumping up and down in the kitchen.

And Constellation kept rolling out the hits this year. Carla B’s new LP might not be my favorite of her canon (that probably still goes to her brief project with Nels Cline), but is still a worth listen. Singular vision from a singular artist. If she dropped the “a” from her name and or had a cock, she’d be talked about in the same alternating hushed and exuberant tones as Nick Cave, Scott Walker, and Michael Gira.

The Hisstracts debut seemed to fly under everyone’s radar. If you’re reading this and your into GYBE, anything drone/ambient, guitar futurism kinda stuff, hopify to spotify and spin it.

Constellation remains the only label that matters to me any more. The only crew where I know no matter what it says on the spine it’s worth a listen, and then another, and then another. Also something new and inspiring. Always a good time. Props to some of the other unheralded acts on the label - Land of Kush, Last Ex, Set Fire to Flames, Saltland, Hrsta.

Charles Bradley - Victim Of Love. Was this 2014 or 2013? Fuck it, it’s the jam. Got to see him play twice this summer, barn burner sets at Lincoln Center and in Mt Tremblant. Best soul record in far too damn long. Put it on, and watch your lady take it off, dig?

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. This was the year I finally dug through the back catalog. Holy hell, I was missing out.

FKA Twigs. Post-sexenium tension. Surprised this didn’t blow up bigger.

St. Vincent. I walk around with something that I can only call guilt when it comes to St. Vincent. While this was certainly her best release since Marry Me, I have trouble accepting the fact that part of the reason why I listen to her records is simply the fact that she’s so damn gorgeous. Even with all of the Bowie mutations of the past year or so, she’s a stunning woman. The fact that she’s reinventing the Tom Morello school of digital shred for a new generation and make some monster pop in the process should be enough, but I’m still a guy.

The Body. And fuck, how did I not know about these guys before now?!

Miles @ Fillmore and ‘Trane @ Temple U. Sometimes it seems like no one is making music anymore.

Kermit Ruffins - We Partying’ Traditional Style. Really just a souvenir - the gig is the thing. Best party you haven’t been to. Yet.

Honorable mentions - Pharmakon, Bohren & Der Club of Gore, Klara Lewis, Innercity Ensemble, Scott0))), YLT Extra-painful RI, Public Enemy RI’s, Ex Hex (still think Timony’s Ex Hex LP is better than the Ex Hex band. )

Off the top of my head, these are my three favourites of 2014

We Were Promised Jetpacks - Unraveling


Mogwai - Rave Tapes


Mimicking Birds - Eons

One of the things that frustrates me about end-of-year lists is that at least 50% of the music that would top my list from any given year was discovered by me in that year, but put out before then. I am eternally at least one year behind the times. Le sigh.

^ agreed.

Uhm off the top: Mogwai's newest, Blood Farmer's Headless Eyes, Ogre's The Last Neanderthall, Today Is The Day's Animal Mother, Yob's newest, Swans' newest.

Shit, I forgot Yob. That's the first record of theirs of really gone head over heels for.

jrmy wrote:One of the things that frustrates me about end-of-year lists is that at least 50% of the music that would top my list from any given year was discovered by me in that year, but put out before then. I am eternally at least one year behind the times. Le sigh.

Meh. Name your faves anyway! Pretend they were from the last year.

Trap Them - Blissfucker
Old Man Gloom - The Ape of God
Young and in the Way - When Life Comes to Death
Whitechapel - Our Endless War
Iron Reagan - The Tyranny of Will
Lana Del Rey - Ultraviolence

Mac DeMarco- Salad Days
Cloud Nothings- Here and Nowhere Else

The xSeanx Stamp of Approval Top Albums and EP's of 2014 turned out this way:

1. Abby Gundersen - Time Moves Quickly
2. Svffer - Lies We Live
3. Circa Survive - Descensus
4. In The Hearts Of Emperors - White Cities Are Breeding In Your Wound
5. SLOTHS - Twenty Years
6. Wild Throne - Blood Maker
7. Blues Pills - Blues Pills
8. Pink Floyd - The Endless River
9. Couch Slut - My Life As A Woman
10. Brontide - Artery

PanicProne wrote:10. Brontide - Artery

Shit, I knew there was something I forgot. That album is excellent.

monkeydancer wrote:

PanicProne wrote:10. Brontide - Artery

Shit, I knew there was something I forgot. That album is excellent.

Nowhere near as good as their first, "Sans Souci" if you ask me. Mostly I think "Artery" isn't as consistent. But still some pretty insande musicianship going on. Opening track is def my fave of the album.

I prefer it to Sans Souci actually, the songs seem to flow better for me. Knives is my favourite song off it, so good.

I gotta say. I haven't heard anything new this year that has excited me.