Music from 2007 so far

There has been some good music this year, but of course most of it fell way short of my nonsensical elitist standards. However, a few releases have really amazed me. If you, like me, don't have the time or patience to wade through Internet Person X's top 75 favorite albums from 2007 (in very particular order), then this is for you. Three albums that are awesome and that you probably won't like (except for the Panda Bear album).

Cylob -- Trojan Fader Style


Cylob was one of the first artists to get signed to Rephlex (RDJ's braindance label) and has been making great electronic music for 15 years. "Trojan Fader Style" is an hour-long album, consisting of one herculean track of squelchy electronic music. It's also surprisingly listenable -- I've gone through the whole album probably seven or eight times so far and it just keeps getting better. Cylob's released a bunch of stuff the past couple of months (including a couple of much more downbeat albums, Formant Potaton and Bounds Green), but if only from a technical standpoint this is my favorite.

Panda Bear -- Person Pitch


There's no reason you should want to listen to this if you've heard either Panda Bear's borderline unlistenable previous album or anything he's ever done with his other band (Animal Collective). That being said, this album is amazing. Along with Quinoline Yellow, my favorite new music of the past few years. Gorgeous 3- or 4- or 5- part overdubbed harmonies and a really joyous, tribal sense of warmth (yes, I know how bad that sounds). It's all a little strange, but thankfully he tapped into something special in each song and let it breathe. Apparently Noah Lennox listened to a lot of minimal electronic music while making "Person Pitch," which sort of proves my point about how guitar-based music is becoming irrelevant nowadays.

Von Südenfed -- Tromatic Reflexxions


It shouldn't be a surprise that I included this album, since I'm the literal embodiment of its target audience. If Mouse on Mars making loud music while Mark E Smith singspeaks semi-intelligibly over it sounds like your idea of a good time, I can't imagine you won't like this. It's not pretty, but it's definitely exactly what you'd expect (in a good way).