Top Four Albums of 2012 Thus Far and a Side Note

I'm in a good mood, I never do anything like this, and I'm on my eighth hour of music for today, so let's get started. As far as my opinion goes, here are the contenders for the best albums of 2012 thus far: Chromatics' Kill For Love, Grimes' Visions, Rhye's Open ep, and Vacationer's Gone. All four of these albums, first of all, are completely different than each other, and second of all they're all incredible albums in their own ways. Kill For Love is an epic, cinematic beauty of an album. Listening to Ruth Radelet's ethereal voice placed in its natural aural element makes me feel like I'm on the verge of tears. Visions is sort of post-internet synthy, witchy, dream pop. It doesn't hurt that Claire (Grimes) is one of the coolest chicks on the scene. Seriously, go watch her perform and in interviews, you'll want to be her best friend; she's awesome. Rhye's Open ep sort of came out of nowhere. I saw the video for titular track Open and I had to find out what this came from. I still have no idea who exactly composes the music for Rhye, but this ep - half original tracks, half instrumentals of those tracks - deserves far more recognition than it has received. Gone's awesomeness fell serendipitously into my lap via going to see The Asteroids Galaxy Tour at the 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis a few months ago. Vacationer opened for them and I couldn't have asked for a better opener than Vacationer. They had the crowd grooving and at one point they covered DOM's Jesus and I just about lost it because it was so incredibly smooth.

Side note. I've been listening to Chromatics so much recently that I feel like they're a part of me. Whenever I put on one of their songs that I've been listening to I genuinely feel like I'm about to cry and it seems like I don't know why. I first listened to Night Drive a few months ago and I was startled by how much I enjoyed it. I then realized two things: That they were going to be playing the Pitchfork Music Festival, of which they were a late addition to, and that they had apparently just released an album in April called Kill For Love after not releasing a full length in five years. I promptly downloaded and listened to the 17-track album five or six times before I started doing research on the band. Apparently the current leading producer of the band, Johnny Jewel, enjoys mastering several versions of albums so as to manipulate them in the future. Well, a few weeks later in April, the band released a free album called DRUMLESS, with eleven tracks off of Kill For Love, stripped of the drums. I of course downloaded it immediately and couldn't help but sink into the perfectly different atmosphere it created. Now to today. Just under an hour ago I downloaded their In The City ep from 2010, I've listened to it once, and I already feel driven to play it over and over again. This band is so damn good that I strongly recommend listening to as much of their music as you can. That's what I'm doing. Also, I've come to the conclusion that i'm in love with Ruth Radelet. Have a nice day; enjoy.