Thread by @laurent_fintoni

Been thinking about the approaching end of decade and what albums I have actually, really, deeply engaged with over the last ten years. Albums that i've sat with for various periods of time, that I still reach for when I feel a certain mood. 1/many

Albums feel particularly interesting this decade because they have become commercially irrelevant yet remain aesthetically powerful. The only other long format that really does it for me is mixes and their place has also changed this decade. 2/many

There's probably more mixes than ever but I've found that flood intimidating, very much like a more is less thing. Everyone and their mom has a radio show or mix round up. But the mixes I've always stuck with are more like albums in a way, with a narrative arc. 3/many

Anyways here goes some albums, and mixes, from the 2010s that have truly stayed with me. I'll keep adding to it maybe, or I'll just forget this thread and listen to them instead. 4/many

Young Echo - Self Titled youngechorecords.bandcamp.com/album/young-ec… If there's a contender for Dummy of the 2010s this is it. That whole crew has been consistently dope the entire decade, so many different ideas that all feel connected without being forced. 5/many

Also the lyricists / poets / whatever you wanna call them they work with are to me some of the most brilliant around, channeling the same spirit as the late Spaceape and the legacy of British MC culture (which is deep and fascinating). 6/many

Busdriver - Thumbs
busdriver-thumbs.bandcamp.com/album/thumbs-2
The best mixtape as album I heard this decade. Coming up to 20 years in the game and Driver continues to find ways to reinvent himself and push fwd. This is LA in so many ways. 7/many

The lyrics, the beats, the collage of styles with slight ADHD, the perspective on the world that comes from being on the edge watching it all burn. 8/many

Shigeto - The New Monday shigeto.bandcamp.com/album/the-new-…
This is Detroit. Jazz, beats, rap, techno, house. Rhythm. Soul. Grit. Resilience. Not giving a fuck-ness. It ain't easy to make it all make sense but i've always felt that for Detroiters it's the opposite approach, 9/many

where people compartmentalize styles and genres, that doesn't make sense. In Detroit it's always all been together. It's always made sense. 10/many

Moodymann - DJ-Kicks
moodymann.bandcamp.com/album/dj-kicks…
Detroit again. And this is the art of the mix as album: the selection, the blends, the switches in pace. It knocks so fucking hard and it's full of not obvious joints by not obvious people aka the hallmark of a dope DJ imo 11/many

Anderson Paak - Malibu (out in all the obvious places, just google / stream it)
Fuck I love this album. It's a perfect piece of pop, or at least the kind of pop I imagine. I haven't got into the new ones as much, I think in part because this is so perfect 12/many

I can't bring myself to break the spell by engaging with new works. And again I think some of what makes this perfect is LA, the spirit of a place where anything might just be possible. 13/many

Kendrick Lamar - TPAB and/or DAMN. (same again, google / stream it)
The music on both is incredibly strong, and crucially cohesive in a way big rap albums aren't always, strong enough to stand to what is arguably some of the best lyrics and storytelling around. 14/many

And I mean dude won a Pulitzer for it so you know. 15/many

Vince Staples - Summertime 06 (same again, google / stream it)
This album is energy to me. So much energy. Again, the combination of beats and rhymes is on a level. And the mind pictures are fuckin bright. 16/many

Jay-Z - 4:44 (google / stream it)
This album sounds wrong. Like sonically wrong. And it's so in the wrong that it's perfectly right. Even though there's a few joints I don't really, truly love I never really skip any of it. 17/many

A lot of these artists, esp those who aren't on majors, have put out work consistently throughout the decade so for context I recommend going to find it all and soak in it. I'm gonna go think about dance music albums for a bit now. 18/many

El Mahdy Jr - The Spirit of Fucked Up Places (used to be on Bandcamp but it's gone *sadface*)
Hallucinations of deterritorialization. A weird and wonderful album that twists styles through sampling and an example of how some of the most interesting 19/many

electronic music this decade has come from places far away, both figuratively and imaginatively. 20/many

There's a follow up album by Mahdy still on Bandcamp that's also solid but his debut has the greatness of not knowing what you're doing elmahdyjr-boomarmnation.bandcamp.com/album/time-to-…

Kuedo - Severant kuedo.bandcamp.com/album/severant As the decade began this album captured the excitement at the nexus of southern rap, footwork and the ghosts of dubstep (aka bass music) and wrapped it all up in a cloak of melancholy and escapism 22/many

It was a real jolt when it came out and looking back on it some 8 years on now (wtf) it really still feels fresh in the same way footwork did around that time, just a constant blast of newness that I haven't really found anywhere else since (h/t @SonRaw for the remind) 23/many

Gantz - Witch Blues gantz.bandcamp.com/album/witch-bl… Talking of newness, I think Gantz is probably my producer of the decade in terms of beats. Everything i've heard from him, from early shit to sketches to releases, has such a distinct quality 24/many

and it feels like a feverish dreams of the beats and bass continuums that animated the previous decades. Him and El Mahdy Jr really brought something unique to the electronic dance / bass / whatever world. 25/many

Also worth it on that tip is the joint album with Kahn and Commodo deepmedimusik.bandcamp.com/album/volume-o… 26/many

Phillip D. Kick - Jungle Footwork EPs robotbodypop.com/2011/11/22/phi… On the subject of nexus productions this series was another special moment, this time btw Chicago and England. I'm 100% biased cos I witnessed their creation and was involved in releasing them 27/many

but they remain important esp as to how the whole d&b aesthetic evolved for the rest of the decade (see Machinedrum, Fracture, Binga et al for that). In a way it is a prime example of the retromania thing - there was nothing new about the music per se 28/many

but in combining two existing things (one 20+ years old, the other less than 10) a new whole emerged. If anything this decade in dance music has been about the whole blend vs synthesis idea - there hasn't really been anything new but there's been 29/many

a lot of music that has trod the line between blending / synthesizing old ideas, tropes and sounds into something else. Where you stand on that divide is up to you and frankly who gives a fuck as long as it got you sweaty and excited in the dance. 30/many

One of my fav memories of the decade remains getting drunk with @kodenine before Sonar Tokyo in 2011 and then watching him drop the Phillip D. Kick joints in the main hall to an unsuspecting audience. 31/many

@kodenine King Midas Sound - Waiting For You ... b/w Without You discogs.com/King-Midas-Sou… The original LP is 09 but I'd argue its influence is really best understood within the past decade, esp considering the rest of the @thebugzoo's output in the 10s. 32/many

The remix LP is a fun remnant of the late 00s / early 10s era when it felt almost like an inevitability in certain circles, something that needed to get done in order to juice up sales but also as a way for artists to hat tip to ppl they loved/respected. 33/many

It seems odd to think about remix LPs today, even though it's not even really been a decade since they were a thing. Anyways, this is a gem in that regard both in terms of selection of remixers and in what they did to the source material. 34/many

It's like an opiate high, in dub. 35/many

dbridge & instra:mental - Fabriclive 50 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FabricLiv…
I've already broken the album premise of this list with the Footwork Jungle releases but for me personally this past decade hasn't offered the sort of engrossing LP moments in dance music 36/many

that previous decades did. So (again thanks @SonRaw for the reminder) this goes in cos it's ground zero for d&b in 2010s. Tabula rasa. Reset. Take everything from the previous 15 odd years (20 if you go back to acid/rave) of the genre 37/many

and start again, with influences from hardware and the dub/bass approach that dubstep inflated in the previous 4/5 years. Actually if there's a clear dstep influence it's in the eyes down aesthetic. This is the album that never was. 38/many

Earl Sweatshirt - Doris discogs.com/Earl-Sweatshir… Stepping back to rap for a minute as I remembered this came out 2013. i bumped this hard non stop for a few years and still put it on when i wanna have a little rage walk. 39/many

I'm very partial to the beat selection on here, one of the few 'major' rap albums that seemed to embrace the whole beat thing that was happening then. Lyrically it's a punch to the gut. 40/many