Year in vinyl part I

This is the closest thing to an AOTY list I’ll be doing. This year I limited myself to two records a month, with a bonus when I reached three months of doing this shit. This right here is the first of five write ups I’m doing on the physical records I’ve bought this year, with the remaining four coming every other day over the next week(ish) or whenever I feel like it I’m an adult I got things to do fucking whatever. Listen along on Spootify

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Radiohead – OK Computer

I feel like at least quarter of the internet is already about Radiohead, yet here I am, contributing more pixels to the band. Why did I buy this? I was at the Sylvia Park Warehouse and was surprised they had records. This was the first Radiohead album I fell in love with (at least 10 years late to the party tho) and I needed it. Its weird how it can capture so completely the feeling of the end of the 1990s and still sound modern all these years later. Desert Island Tracks: Exit Music (For A Film) / No Surprises

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Radiohead – Kid A

I feel like at least a fifth of this post is already about Radiohead, yet here I am, contributing even more pixels to the band. Why did I buy this? Because on any given day ending in y this could be my favourite Radiohead album. What OK Computer captures about the end of the 90s, Kid A captures about the beginning of the 2000s. The way they took the comparatively straightforward rock music they had been making and broke it, then patched it together with instruments and techniques borrowed from electronic music was brilliant. I don’t know where modern music would be without this album but I don’t doubt it would be somewhere worse. Desert Island Tracks: How to Disappear Completely / Optimistic

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Foxing – The Albatross

I feel like if I start one more of these things with “I feel like” it’s gonna be a pattern and I’ll be stuck doing it for the remaining 20 something. Why did I buy this? I b’lieve I found this in Real Groovy and was surprised they had it. Not sure why, but I kinda didn’t think Foxing were big enough to have made it over here. Looking back that’s all on me and dumb assumptions. I go back and forth on whether I love this or Dealer more depending on whether I’m in the mood for something more open and raw (this one) or contemplative and thoughtfully complex (that one). This album is a work of beauty, from the vivid lyrical imagery to the post-rock-ISH instrumentals. Desert Island Tracks: The Medic / Rory

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Doprah – Wasting

Hey look I didn’t start one of these things with “I feel like”. Why did I buy this? Because I’ve probably seen Doprah more times live than any other band. These guys have never been anything less than stunning and this album is no exception. With beautifully composed trip-hop-esque jams for days, this is one of the few albums where I had heard most of the songs on it before it was released as a completed work and as a whole it didn’t disappoint. They’re on hiatus now, but best believe when (if) they return I’ll be there for whatever they do next. Desert Island Tracks: Will I Be A Figure Eight / San Pedro

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Explosions in the Sky – The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place

I feel like (fuck) this might be one of the most beautiful collections of music ever put together. Why did I buy this? Because Your Hand in Mine still moves me on a deep emotional level every single time I hear it and because the rest of the album is full of moments that ring with that same kind of beauty. This album sounds hopeful, despondent, triumphant, violent and above all just goddamn beautiful. People give this band shit for inspiring a wave of soundalikes but can you really blame any of those other bands for attempting to recreate this magic? Probably, but that would miss the point. There’s nobody doing this brand of post-rock as magnificently as Explosions in the Sky do it. It’s not even close. Desert Island Tracks: Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean / Your Hand in Mine

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