Aural Pleasure, Time to Shelve 2012

Yeah I know, but seriously, you try to rhyme something with "twelve." That's what I thought. So, we're about a whole month into 2013 and I haven't even told you about my favorite music from the past year. It's obligatory right? A blog must have an end of year top ten list of sorts right? If you remember last year I did a whole drawn out series about my favorites from 2011, unfortunately 2012 didn't quite resonate with me in the same way, this could be due to how busy I was, or maybe nothing can compare to the ridiculousness of 2011's releases, it did include a Radiohead joint afterall. In any case, I still have a collection of brilliant little albums for you to check out. The usual rules apply: I try my best to ignore mainstream, let's stick to things you might not have heard of eh? Second there's no order here, except for the last one which I consider Albomb of the Year! So this isn't a top ten at all is what I'm saying (Can't you count?). Let's get to it shall we (Btw all links are spotify openers)?

Aural Pleasure Presents: The Twelve Days of Xmas Music Extravaganza 2011

Hey everyone, here it is, all of the Aural Pleasure Twelve Days of Xmas collected in one convenient place so you don't have to search through everything. That's my final present to you. And remember, these are in no particular order at all, they're all what I consider to be albomb of the year, don't make me make that distinction okay? Alrighty, now that that's out of the way, enjoy.

Aural Pleasure, The Thirteenth Day of Xmas

On the thirteenth day of Xmas my AP gave to me ... thirteen songs a-play- wait a minute, there isn't a thirteenth day of Xmas is there? There's not? Really? Well damn, I had so much more music to talk to you all about. Even though I was joyous at the completion of the list yesterday. Okay, so here's the deal, today I'm going to list all the stuff that was vying for a spot on my list. Many of these didn't make it simply because I just hadn't listened to them as much as the others. Some of these were actually hard not to include, and the twelve spot was only chosen at the very last minute with basically what amounted to a coin toss (It was actually a dwarf toss). Anyway, here's a list of things that almost made it, and very well may have kicked certain albums off if I had only listened to them a few times more.

Aural Pleasure, The Twelfth Day of Xmas

On the twelfth day of Xmas my AP gave to me ... twelve drummers drumming. Hey, I got that one right, wow, I can't believe how that worked out. And okay, it only sounds like twelve drummers in this group ... I guess. 'Cause you know ... there's the one drummer who's really dynamic and I uh ... man can you tell that I'm burned out on all these intro jokes (I use the word "joke" generously here)? Thank goodness this is the last one, hooray. What is this last album of the year.

Aural Pleasure, The Eleventh Day of Xmas

On the eleventh day of Xmas my AP gave to me ... eleven things the water gave me. Also eleven heartlines ... and eleven devils. Or was that seven devils? Eh who cares, they rhyme, and multiple devils are involved. Let's see who we have today, if anything they have the best damn opening picture on the list, wouldn't you say? Read on to see who it is, yay.

Aural Pleasure, The Tenth Day of Xmas

On the tenth day of Xmas my AP gave to me ... ten wolves a-waiting. Eek, that's scary, lemme try again, how about ten orchestras a- ... um orchestrating? I don't think that works. How about ten drum loops a- ... looping? Man, this just gets harder and harder as I go along. Let's just get to album numero ten.

Aural Pleasure, The Ninth Day of Xmas

On the ninth day of Xmas my AP gave to me ... nine impressed steampunk girls. No? How bout nine things made in China? Or how about nine guys who used to be a pimp but are now hoinfodaman? Have you guessed it yet? We have quite the unexpected surprise today.

Aural Pleasure, The Eighth Day of Xmas

On the eighth day of Xmas my AP gave to me ... eight kids born a-screaming. Born a-screaming they had fire in their eyes. Like wild demons, Lord it came as no surprise. Okay I know the frontman of this band doesn't actually have eight kids, at least I hope for his sake that he doesn't, but that's a hell of a homage to his children wouldn't you say? Yep, today's album is the one and only:

Aural Pleasure, The Seventh Day of Xmas

On the seventh day of Xmas my AP gave to me ... seven sirens singing. Well no, it's actually two sirens singing, but we did "Two" earlier. Maybe today's collection should have been two and two should have been three, but then where would three go? Seven? You see the problem? Anyway, I'm so happy today that I get to talk about this dynamic duo.

Aural Pleasure, The Sixth Day of Xmas

On the sixth day of Xmas my AP gave to me ... One Hundred Blog Posts! That's right everyone, this is my hundredth ever post, and it's quite fitting that I get to spend it talking about one of my all time favorite bands ever. By all rights it's probably one of your all time favorite bands too, and that's because Radiohead is a group of stunning and experimental musicians that have never ceased to amaze this humble listener. Yep, gave it away before the jump (As if the title picture doesn't do that already), who cares it's Radiohead, Wooo 100!

Aural Pleasure, The Fifth Day of Xmas

On the fifth day of Xmas my AP gave to me ... five octothorpes ... no that's not right, there's only one octothorpe that I know of. What's an octothorpe you ask? That's a great question, I have no idea, all's I know is there's a big one stamped on the front of today's album, take a look and see.

Aural Pleasure, The Fourth Day of Xmas

On the fourth day of Xmas my AP gave to me ... four pedal steels a-sliding ... sliding? Is that the right verb? Twanging? Yes twanging, that's what pedal steels do, and there's a lot of twanging in today's pick:

Aural Pleasure, The Third Day of Xmas

On the third day of Xmas my AP gave to me ... three girls a-mourning ... Woah, that doesn't sound good does it? Hmm, three girls a-belting? A-singing? A-being sad because their naive preconceptions of life and love have shattered around them and are now forced to deal with the pain of toughening up against a cruel and harsh world? Yes, that's it! That's what this next wonderful album is all about.

Aural Pleasure, The Second Day of Xmas

On the second day of Xmas my AP gave to me ... two rappers rapping ... well okay, mostly two rappers, their DJ drops in for quite a few tracks. And you can't have a rap album without guest appearances and cameos, you seriously can't. Anyone know why that is? Anyway, the point is there's more than two rappers rapping, but this is typically a duet, since today's best album is:

Aural Pleasure, The First Day of Xmas

On the first day of Xmas my AP gave to me ... A Decemberist in a Folk Tree. Oh man, did I just give it away, if I've learned (stolen) anything from other blogs doing this sort of thing is that you don't give away the actual item until after the jump. Oh well, this is my first go, there's bound to be kinks. So here we go, my first favorite of the year.

A Very AP Xmas

Merry xmas everyone, now that this year is almost over I feel this is a perfect time to take a moment reflect on 2011 ... Wow yeah that's depressing huh? I imagine most people had a shit year, so let's reflect on something else ... like, say, MUSIC! Indeed music had one hell of a year this year huh? Seriously, this is one of the best years for music I can remember in a long time, this year for music was what 2007 was for movies, as in there's just too much good, too many surprises, and this year I would actually have trouble narrowing my favorite music down to a top ten list. This might not sound like that big of a deal, but usually my favorite music of a particular year only includes a few current selections, and it's not because good music didn't come out that year. It's usually because I'm usually really jamming on things that came out previously, and despite that, I was still obsessed with tons of things that actually came out this year, things that actually surprised me. So, in honor of this wonderful year of music, taking a page from the RPS chaps, I am going to do an Aural Pleasure Presents: The Twelve Days of Xmas Music Extravaganza, where each day of Xmas I gush about an album that came out this year that I fucking loved.

Aural Pleasure, Never Die!

Hey everyone, as we wait for the next Halloween Classics to rise from my lab table, jolted to life by a lightning strike (Is that a clue? Yes), I thought this would also be the perfect time to tell you about one of my all time favorite bands. A band that hosts a three day super concert extravaganza every Halloween. A band that has songs about ghosts, werecats, and of all things Anabel Lee. That's right, the band that will never die, proudly sporting the tiger bat as their emblem, Tiger Army.

Aural Pleasure, The Man Who Couldn't Cry

Hey everyone, whatsup? I'm trying something new tonight, see Bible entries take a lot of time and work and sweat and lazing about getting all soul searchy ... it's pretty scary actually. The point here is that the only series I have running are all 15 paragraph epic discussions about a weighty religious text ... meaning I don't get many entries out the door in a timely fashion. So I propose to change that here and now, there's a series I've been meaning to start for a long time, and you know what? I'm just going to jump in and fucking do it already. Here it is, it's called Aural Pleasure, which you may have noticed was the title of my end of year lists, it's about music, and it's awesome. Okay cool, see you next time...

Aural Pleasure, Looking Forward 11

Hey there party people, so it'll probably be a good while before I can get back to the Bible entries. I know, I know, I've been applying for jobs, and writing my dissertation, and typing up a paper for publication that'll be the last chapter of my dissertation, and I'm trying to do all of this without going completely nuts. So, until at least one of following is done I probably won't have time to devote to an entire Bible entry. But in the mean time I can share a few entries that require less resources from me. Like this one I'm writing now, here's a list of some music to look forward to in 2011, and in a year we'll see which one's actually end up on my best-of list.

Aural Pleasure, 2010 For The Win

Hi there, happy new year. As you can see I didn't have that final 2 Samuel entry before the end of December. What can I say? Oh right, I was home for the holidays and didn't feel like taking time away from friends and family to sit down and write a monstrously sized entry about a part of the Bible I haven't even finished reading yet (whoops, cat's out of the bag now I guess). Anyway, what should I do to hold you over? I know, end of year lists ... 'cause yknow those are awesome. What follows is my top five albums of the year, they're in no particular order except for what I arbitrarily name "Albomb of the Year!" Now there are some rules here, firstly I'm taking the same oath I did last year: basically I'm sticking with things that you might not have heard of before, so Kanye West's new album might be the shit on holy toast but I'm not fucking listing it here understand. So let's get to it shall we.