Watch the video version of this list here.
Twenty Seventeen. Much like I expect my Christmas dinner to be, there was a lot to digest. Although, I’d prefer to spend less time making a grand, ambitious re-cap of every significant event throughout the year and skip straight to the music discussion.
Twenty Seventeen. Much like I expect my Christmas dinner to be, there was a lot to digest. Although, I’d prefer to spend less time making a grand, ambitious re-cap of every significant event throughout the year and skip straight to the music discussion.
Believe it or not, in a year
where Blackbear was popular, 2017 actually offered some incredible releases,
especially in album form. You simply just need to sift through everything and
find yourself enamoured with all the smaller independent artists taking their
big steps forward, climbing to the peak pedestals and making their voice louder
than ever.
Yes, while 2016 was a year for
big artists to step forward, this time we heard some of the lesser names make a
statement for themselves. If you’ll allow me to show you…
Rick the Lai’s Top 50 Favourite Albums of
2017
Let’s dig in.
#50: Grave Pleasures – “Motherblood”
Post-Punk, Deathrock
Post-Punk, Deathrock
A last-minute discovery that
rocked me hard enough to rocket straight up to the top fifty favourites. This
is brilliant – a dismal and dramatic mix of hard rock and post-punk, with even
a tinge of metal. Each track has a groove that makes me want to get up and
dance, and that’s an unusual response to music so apocalyptic and deathly.
Highlights: “Mind Intruder”, “Laughing Abyss”,
“Infaturation Overkill”
#49: Foxygen – “Hang”
Glam
Rock, Baroque Pop, Neo-Psychedelia
Warning: may contain traces of
corn.
This album gives me immense
joy in that Foxygen’s nostalgia-goggled love for soul and glam rock is taken to
even greater heights with full orchestras backing their shlock. People rag on
Sam France for trying too hard to be the next Mick Jagger, but I’ve always
admired how over-the-top and hammy he is with it. It’s not to be taken too
seriously, as if it were the soundtrack to a silly, fun and danceable musical
theatre performance.
Highlights: “America”, “On Lankershim”, “Follow the Leader”
I could not find a sweeter
record this year to listen to. Summery, dreamy and basking in the silly musings
of teenage romance. This is the indie pop record of the year, and I’m still
rocking out to a song with the name “Plimsoll
Punks”, for goodness’ sake.
Highlights: “Your Type”, “Dreams Tonite”, “Plimsoll Punks”
#47: Noga Erez – “Off the Radar”
Glitch Pop, Electro-Pop, Trip-Hop, Trap
Glitch Pop, Electro-Pop, Trip-Hop, Trap
Off the Radar is also off the wall. The painstaking detail in some of these songs is impressive but it’s also the songwriting chops that Israeli musician Noga Erez has that allows some of the strangest sounds to form some damn catchy tunes, from off-kilter trap bangers like “Dance While You Shoot” to wispy atmospheric cuts like “Global Fear”. By no means an album I see everyone finding appeal in straight away but one with a playfulness that leaves me coming away very impressed.
Highlights: “Global Fear”, “Worth None”, “Off the Radar”
#46: Aimee Mann – “Mental Illness”
Singer-Songwriter, Chamber Folk
Singer-Songwriter, Chamber Folk
Highlights: “Good For Me”, “Goose Snow Cone”, “Lies of
Summer”
Randy Newman’s music has been
characterised by both snark and sadness. This may be his grandest album yet,
backed by orchestral instrumentation and offering songs that sound more like
musical theatre performances than tracks on a record. These past few years or
so have been begging for political music, and Newman steps forward to do what
he’s always excelled at doing – poking fun. It is merely on a larger scale this
time.
Highlights: “Brothers”, “The Great Debate”, “Putin”
#44: Billy Woods – “Known Unknowns”
Abstract Hip-Hop
The mystery of Known Unknowns is what makes me so keen
to return to this one again and again. I wish I had given this one a full
review as there is so much to unpack in the cryptic lyrics of odd phenomena
that Woods shines a spotlight on.
Abstract Hip-Hop
Each beat on this album
produced by Blockhead pops out with colour and flair, allowing for Billy Woods
to slide his odd flow between each gap in the groove. It sounds strange but
there is a quality to Woods’ flow I absolutely adore listening to – straddling
the line between sporadic bursts of spoken word and traditionally rhythmic
rapping.
Highlights: “Wonderful”, “Snake Oil”, “Police Came To My
Show”
SZA managed to break through with a soothing but brutally honest album about emotional conflict, insecurity and femininity. It is both assertive and elegant, and most likely the manifestation of SZA’s talent that was always hinted since her rather shaky debut EP. Thankfully, Ctrl didn’t make me want to hit Alt + Delete.
Highlights: “Drew Barrymore”, “20 Something”, “Normal Girl”
UK producer Clark slipped
under the radar for many this year – a huge shame considering ambient
electronic music actually garnered a bit of widespread attention thanks to
Kelly Lee Owens, Forest Swords, Bing & Ruth and the like. Gosh, even
Prurient’s three-hour opus garnered a lot of attention. I would’ve loved to see
this album pedestalled equally as eagerly.
Regardless, Death Peak flourishes in its icy,
glacial production, making sure to send a flurry of chills down your back with
every atonal melody and unsettling drone flushing over you like a waterfall.
Except half an hour with Clark won’t give you the bed-ridden sniffles.
Highlights: “Living Fantasy”, “Butterfly Prowler”,
“Catastrophe Anthem”
Honestly, I hadn’t been
interested in Paramore’s music for a good number of years – I figured it wasn’t
for me. I’m surprised I even bothered to check out the new single “Hard Times” when it dropped, but I’m
glad I did, because I found the song genuinely funky, ridiculously catchy, and
a sunny, bright synth pop banger. Turns out, it isn’t the first lean towards
synth pop for the band. I would say that After
Laughter is certainly their best go at the sound. Do note, however, that
while the songs are bright and danceable on the surface, the lyrics speaking of
inner sadness certainly aren’t.
Highlights: “Fake Happy”, “Hard Times”, “Rose-Coloured Boy”
This year, stoner metal outfit
Elder cooked up a surprisingly gorgeous album that could spark the interest of
non-metal fans. This entire thing trails on and on but at no point loses my
interest, twinkling like… err… little stars.
Highlights: ”The Falling Veil”, “Sanctuary”, “Staving Off
Truth”
I’m a little bewildered about
how slept-on this album was, as it is a classy, tasteful but assertive concept
album entailing the experiences of an African citizen living in New York, willing
to remain steadfast to their culture and identity. Somi’s jazz endeavours are
fantastic, sounding like they’ve been set at night, wandering in an empty
street. Meanwhile, lyrically, Somi is laying down brilliant gems, one of
them being:
“I don’t drink coffee,
I take tea, my dear,
Some extra rice on the side,
And you can have it in my accent when I talk…
…I’m an African in New York.”
“I don’t drink coffee,
I take tea, my dear,
Some extra rice on the side,
And you can have it in my accent when I talk…
…I’m an African in New York.”
Highlights: “Alien”, “The Gentry”, “They’re Like Ghosts”
Although the sounds that
Protomartyr offer on this album are tried and true, the moods they bring seem
genuinely daunting – a pensive piece of post-punk that hides a lot of cold,
haunting beauty behind all the racket you’ll hear on many of its moments.
Highlights: “The Chuckler”, “Windsor Hum”, “Caitriona”
#37: Julien Baker – “Turn Out the Lights”
Singer-Songwriter, Slowcore
Julien Baker’s music strikes
me for its simplicity. Every word she says is direct and every instrumental is
so stripped-down that it is easy to feel the waves of sadness head-on. This
album features powerful vocal performances from Baker too, notably towards the
end of tracks such as “Turn Out the
Lights” and “Appointments”. It’s
easy to label this as ‘sad’ but it’s important to recognise this not as a
gimmick but as a show of mere honesty as Baker reasons with the aftermath of
failed relationships and the struggle with faith in a higher power.
Singer-Songwriter, Slowcore
Highlights: “Everything That Helps You Sleep”,
“Appointments”, “Turn Out the Lights”
#36: Morning Teleportation – “Salivating For Symbiosis”
Indie Rock
Many bands try to be ‘crazy
and unpredictable’ but forget how to write a good song in the process.
Thankfully, through my occasional Bandcamp digging I discovered a band exempt
from this. Morning Teleportation always surprise you while keeping their songs
sweet and hooky – a fresh take on pop-flavoured rock music, for sure.
Indie Rock
Highlights: “The Code”, “Escalate”, “The Calm Is Intention
Devouring Its Fraility”
The candy-coated trio Tricot
knocked it out the park with some of the most fun and sweetly melodic math rock
I heard this year, with time signatures skippier than a bag of cornflakes. I
had an absolute blast listening to this thing; not only is it impressive from a
technical aspect (and one would need to be to flourish in this sort of math
rock game), but it also contains some of Tricot’s catchiest songs yet, and for
something as typically ‘un-catchy’ as math rock, that’s quite the
accomplishment.
Highlights: “Tokyo Vampire Hotel”, “Pork Ginger”, “Yosoiki”
For Fleet Foxes, Crack-Up simultaneously does nothing too
new yet something brand new. To be specific, the style makes no large departure
from the acoustic folk instrumentation that defined their previous releases,
which is no issue considering how much I adored the sounds of Helplessness Blues. We even continue to
hear Robin Pecknold’s signature vocal harmonies.
At the same time, Fleet Foxes
add to their instrumental repertoire with more orchestral sounds, post-rock
influence, and even a dash of electronics, which all fit snugly. Otherwise,
their linear, progressive songwriting is what makes each track an adventurous
trek through gorgeous landscapes and astonishing views. Every ounce of ambition
pays off for an hour of music that sounds as vast and colossal as the natural
world is.
Highlights: “Fool’s Errand”, “Third of May”, “I Should See Memphis”
#33: Converge – “The Dusk In Us”
Metalcore
At this point, it is fair to
say that Converge are one of the most consistently fantastic metalcore bands
out there right now. Ever since their freakish and genre-shaking Jane Doe was released, they haven’t
fallen into a slump – if anything, they’ve continued to stun with pummelling,
dizzying mathcore and metalcore. The Dusk
In Us is a testament to their brilliance, but also stands as the band’s
moodiest album yet, even featuring tracks that could sneak into the ‘doom’
label.
Metalcore
Highlights: “The Dusk In Us”, “Broken By Light”, “Arkhipov
Calm”
#32: Fen – “Winter”
Atmospheric Black Metal, Post-Rock
A six-part black metal crusade, seemingly intimidating for its run-time which extends over an hour, but worth the time spent for the many directions it wishes to take you. The sound of this record is once again tried and true, containing most of what one expects from black metal at this point, but it makes up for that with how adventurous and gigantic the music actually is. This must’ve been a particularly brutal winter season.
Atmospheric Black Metal, Post-Rock
A six-part black metal crusade, seemingly intimidating for its run-time which extends over an hour, but worth the time spent for the many directions it wishes to take you. The sound of this record is once again tried and true, containing most of what one expects from black metal at this point, but it makes up for that with how adventurous and gigantic the music actually is. This must’ve been a particularly brutal winter season.
Highlights: “Winter I (Pathway)”, “Winter II (Penance)”, “Winter V (Death)”
#31: Ghostpoet – “Dark Days + Canapés”
Art Pop, Trip-Hop, Definitely NOT Hip-Hop wtf are y’all talking about lol
Ghostpoet had already sounded like he was performing his low-key poetic ramblings in a shady shelter, but his newest release takes this to a new level by plunging into the darkness and getting his hands dirty with the sounds of hopelessness. The live orchestral instrumentation he brings on adds colour to an otherwise bleak landscape but despite that bareness there is a gob-smacking beauty I feel destined to return to again and again.
Highlights: “(We’re) Dominoes”, “Dopamine If I Do”, “Many
Moods At Midnight”
Still, this album has tear
potential. I still feel like I want to weep, because all rushes of grief and
personal turmoil feel tangible and real when
Sampha sits at a piano for “No One Knows
Me Like The Piano”, or lets his voice soar over the devastating “Incomplete Kisses”, or is running for
his life, panting out of breath on the tense and dismal “Blood On Me”. Not everyone may be captivated by the general sound
of R&B but I assure you that Sampha has gone and perfected the sound with
electrifying results.
Highlights: “Plastic 100oC”, “Kora Sings”, “Blood On Me”
Highlights: “Plastic 100oC”, “Kora Sings”, “Blood On Me”
Admittedly needing to
familiarise myself with grime much more than this, even I can appreciate the
‘history lessons’ from a veteran of the culture like Wiley. Not only does he
provide a detailed reflection on how far the grime scene has come and grown, he
also wheelbarrows in some of the essential bangers of the year.
Highlights: “Bring Them All / Holy Grime”, “Can’t Go Wrong”, “Laptop”
Chelsea Wolfe has carried a
dark aura with her many musical releases, and over time began to lean towards
the metal world. Maybe she slipped and fell in, because Hiss Spun is straight-up doom metal – and a damn great shot at the
sound, which managed to become a big metal highlight for the year. It may,
for the most part, sound shrouded in a dark, pummelling cloud of black smoke,
but it mainstains the same masked beauty as her previous albums like Abyss; an ethereal magic that lies
behind the opaque air.
Highlights: “Twin Fawn”, “Static Hum”, “Vex”
After thirteen years, the
enigmatic and spicily named Flotation Toy Warning returned with an album even
dreamier than their debut.
When I was much younger, I had
a dream about floating peacefully in deep sapce. I doubt, anyhow, that this
rather obscure English band is aware of my existence, let alone an adolescent
mental vision about space I had one night, but I’m happy that the sound of
their new album kinda takes after the feel of it anyways.
Highlights: “Controlling the Sea”, “Everything That Is
Difficult Will Come To An End”, “The Moongoose Analogue”
Functioning as a series of strange
minimal electronic vignettes, Liars may have underwhelmed many on this release
but there was a mysticism behind it all that kept me coming back again and
again until I absolutely loved what I was hearing, from dread-filled
throne-room marches to panicky bursts of piano.
Highlights: “No Tree No Branch”, “No Help Pamphlet”,
“Staring At Zero”
While many modern crossover
thrash albums tend to ‘have fun with it’, Power Trip embraced the grit. With
chugging riffs and hellish screams, Nightmare
Logic lives up to its purgatorial title by providing some of the best
thrash I heard all year.
Highlights: “Executioner’s Tax (Swing of the Axe)”,
“Nightmare Logic”, “Ruination”
Wisconsin rapper Milo has
always been nerdy and obtuse – I have enjoyed many of his projects, but the
meaning of his verses has always been tricky to grasp considering how
fragmented they are, as if they were a series of non-sequiturs stitched
together with an instrumental thread. For what Milo offers in obtuseness he
certainly shines with his ability to play with language, evoking in the
listener very strong emotions with the use of the specific key-words he
chooses.
The questions on Who Told You To Think??!!?!?!?! never
quite get answered, but Milo’s concerns lie with the fact that we even
considered thinking about them in the first place. This is his smokiest, most
introspective, and even urgent release to date, and is recommended for any fans
of verbose, rhythmic spoken word.
Highlights: “Call + Form (Picture)”, “Landscaping”,
“Magician (Suture)”
Is the world on fire?
Certainly feels like it. Making observations on the landscape of today over
anomalous, shifting, tense beats, elusive rappers Billy Woods and Elucid step forward
to spit some flames of their own.
Highlights: “Dead Money”, “Dry Ice”, “Fanon’s Ghost”
Earlier in the year,
Jonwayne’s hushed delivery and subtle sense of humour resulted in a rap album
that felt desheveled but in a great kind of way. For instance, tracks like “The Single” and “Live From The Fuck You” act as skits to reveal the vulnerability
of the writer, about making mistakes and feeling disrespected as a performer respectively.
On the fuller hip-hop cuts, Jonwayne delivers introspective lines over
nocturnal beats, giving us a window into the way that venting personal struggle
in art can be a means of making discoveries or finding solutions to our deepest
worries.
Highlights: The combination of “Blue Green” + “Hills”, “Out
of Sight”, “These Words Are Everything”
At this point I am convinced
that Feist can dominate whichever style she shoots for. I’ve enjoyed her pop
songs on The Reminder, but she may
have just emerged with her best album yet with Pleasure. This set of tracks takes Feist back to the raw,
rough-edged folk that she started off with, except this time Feist reaches
levels of intensity I don’t quite remember her reaching before. At times she
sounds like she is genuinely about to ‘snap’, and one of said moments is within
the very first track.
Highlights: “Century”, “The Wind”, “I Wish I Didn’t Miss
You”
Leprous take their furthest
step from metal on Malina. This does
not hinder their ability to reel me in with dramatic, vast-sounding rock that
makes me want to punch windows. Unfortunately, with no windows to punch without
dire medical and financial consequences, all I can do is punch air, which is a
fine compromise.
Highlights: “From the Flame”, “The Weight of Disaster”, “Leashes”
There’s such a strong
emotional power to every guitar line and screamed lyric from Sorority Noise –
not that they didn’t have any emotional power before, I mean, the genre they’re
in is literally ‘emo’. What raises the stakes here is that this album is
genuinely based on the loss of a dear friend to frontman Cam Boucher, and
through reflecting on their friendship he makes self-discoveries in ways that
honestly left me mouth wide, gaping in awe.
Highlights: “Disappeared”, “No Halo”, “Second Letter From
St. Julien”
In 2015, Algiers stunned the
crowd with a fusion of post-punk/industrial and blues/gospel/soul, which went down
even better than it probably deserved to. In 2017, they returned with an album
even more intense, sounding like the stakes had truly been raised since their
last record and they sensed a necessity to match them.
Well, they did it. They really
did. Not only does this have more urgent and raging protest tunes that aren’t
afraid to hammer your eardrums with unrelenting howls and screeches, but it
shows an equally impressive versatility, taking the time to create cold, dismal
soundscapes that’ll chill you to the bone.
Highlights: “The Underside of Power”, “Walk Like a
Panther”, “Cry of the Martyrs”
Brockhampton took the Internet
by storm this year with their eclectic brand of pop rap, detailing wild, fun
performances and some of the most colourful production I heard all year.
The first Saturation toyed around with styles the most, so was the most
diverse. It did have its misfires, but none distracted from a great debut that
set the ground-work for their later releases.
On Saturation 2 their fantastic comraderie was the most evident for
me, as it seemed that the boy-band had honed in on a more consistent sound that
flowed so well my legs felt tired from bouncing and kicking around helplessly
for 48 minutes like a glitchy G-Mod
character.
Finally, Saturation 3 showed the boys focusing on melodic songs and thus
provided some of their most gorgeously produced instrumentals. Sometimes, even their nuttiest. I'm still screaming along with Joba during "BOOGIE".
Regardless of whichever Saturation album I went for, I enjoyed
Brockhampton’s consistently well-oiled contributions to what this year offered
in hip-hop. Each member has a distinct personality but all share the quality of
having the charisma to be a total superstar. Three releases in one year? It’s
surreal.
Highlights from I: “MILK”, “CASH”, “HEAT”
Highlights from II: “QUEER”, “SWAMP”, “SWEET”
Highlights from III: “BLEACH”, “BOOGIE”, “HOTTIE”
#16: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – “Murder of the Universe”
Garage Rock, Experimental Rock, Heavy Psych
Garage Rock, Experimental Rock, Heavy Psych
Australian rockers King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard took their prolific output to the next level by aiming to release five albums in 2017. They succeeded, with the fifth hilariously being released a day or so before the year closed out. The clutch!
My favourite was one that may
not have been the favourite of many, but one that blew my mind a
disproportionate amount more than Flying
Microtonal Banana or Polygondwanaland.
Yes, I accept that this is not how it was meant to be.
Whether we have psych rock
freak-outs or interludes with a narrator taking the spotlight, everything in
this album flows brilliantly and functions more like a chaotic audio-film from
start to finish. I like this.
Yet at no point does a spoken
word narration feel out of place, or like it shatters the flow. I find each
piece of the puzzle adds up for a brilliant, cinematic, action movie. And not
one of those well-produced action movies, one of those cheesy, shlocky,
over-the-top 90’s action movies you’d find lying around in a bargain bin. That
sounds like an insult, but I’m merely trying to put across how stupidly fun
this entire thing is while offering some of the most brutal performances the
group have put together so far.
Besides, it isn’t really an
insult if the album is this high on the list. Vomit coffin.
Highlights: “The Lord of Lightning”, “Digital Black”,
“Altered Beast”
UK group Idles bring the old
spirit of punk rock to the table. Then, within seconds, they shatter the table into
pieces.
Backed by driving bass grooves
and roaring guitars, Joe Talbot’s yelled, fragmented rants seem to fire out
one-liners that target topics all over the map. Whether it be the class system,
political discourse, drinking, modern art, assault or Tories, Idles have a lot
to say, but in remarkably clever ways. The way in which the chorus of “Mother” is re-contextualised after its
bridge that speaks up about sexual violence makes the song even more harrowing
to listen to again. The way that the awkward date scenario on “Date Night” becomes a metaphor for
the is also harrowing. I mean, a lot of
the messages Idles put forward are harrowing, but make no mistake. This thing
has high, kick-ass energy and a hilarious sense of humour.
Highlights: “Mother”, “1049 Gotho”, “Date Night”
Ulver’s stylistic changes have
been nothing new, and it’s strange to see them churn out a Depeche Mode album
better than Depeche Mode did. Their take on synth pop is not only gloomy, but
adventurous too, carrying nasty grooves and sexy croons alike.
Highlights: “Rolling Stone”, “Nemoralia”, “Angelus Novus”
There’s something so
fascinating about nostalgia. It can pull you into a bit of a nostalgic state.
Here, Bazan’s toying with synths on his new album reminds me a lot of the 8-bit
soundtracks of old NES games, but with a nocturnal, dusky mood as if Bazan were
penning and performing these songs late at night. Such enhances the somber tone
this record has going for it, and it was easily one of the prettiest albums I’d
heard all year, even if also one of the saddest, too.
Highlights: “Care”, “Keep Trying”, “The Balad of Pedro y
Blanco”
Once in a long, long while,
you hear something that chills you down to the tailbone. Low Roar provided what
I now think is their best album yet, a practice in beautiful, sorrowful but
densely layered folktronica. Every sweeping string part pulls me in further,
and each track’s separate journey keeps me wanting to venture deeper into the
album’s very poetic connections between love and time. Such is a frosty album
perfect for the winter season.
Highlights: “Waiting (10 Years)”, “St. Eriksplan”,
“Miserably”
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Every track on this album
flows smoothly like cold water, it’s liquid-like and each drop is like a new
wave fleeting towards you. Many of the drops here don’t ‘burst’ or ‘explode’
though, perhaps not even ‘drop’. The duo take to a very minimal, off-kilter
sound on many of these tracks and manage to inject danceable grooves with a
deliciously bizarre approach to rhythm. Spanning an hour in length, sure, but
it flows so well with a serene glaze that I can barely feel its run-time.
Speaking of which…
Highlights: “Ember”, “If I Could”, “Honesty”
Most people who have heard of
this album know it for its three-hour run-time. Unfortunately, this intimidates
many from listening to the full thing, which is fair, but it does mean that one
misses out on some of the most genuinely well-created, darkest, terrifying,
coldest, even hypnotic ambient music of the year. “Blue Kimono Over Corpse” sounded like I was trapped in a dwindling
plane, while “Buddhist State” sounded
like it had crashed and was dragging itself along the ground for many miles.
Elsewhere, “Chaos-Sex” featured a
startling ‘twang’ noise that gave me a genuine fright, while the “Buddha Strangled In Vines” suite
reminded me so closely of the Metroid
Prime soundtrack, like I had been wandering in an icy, frigid landscape for
weeks.
Aside from several cuts which
overstay their welcome (and even then they still sound brilliant), this thing
flows so well the album barely feels its length. I was surprised when I
finished the record, checked the clock and it had gone from 9pm to 12 at
midnight. Thank goodness it wasn’t further than that, else the music would’ve spooked me even more.
Highlights: “Midnight Kabar”, “Naturecum”, “Path Is Short”
This year, my mind was blown
with this visceral and violent, creatively textured electronic album that would
perfectly soundtrack the world melting into a giant space puddle. While Blanck
Mass’ dense composition packs a multitude of sounds into a single minute, it
doesn’t sound convoluted. Each layer is so crisp and clear and is essential to
the full picture. It’s astounding to me, as “Rhesus
Negative” still leaves me stunned for nine minutes straight while even the
low-key tracks like "Please" have grown on me, carrying the same apocalyptic spirit but
with a different mood. Damn, Blanck Mass got freaky.
Highlights: “Rhesus Negative”, “Silent Treatment”, “The
Rat”
#8: Susanne Sundfør – “Music For People In Trouble”
Singer-Songwriter, Chamber Folk, Contemporary Folk
Singer-Songwriter, Chamber Folk, Contemporary Folk
As I have said many times
before when bringing up this album (and that is no complaint, I love talking
about this one), Susanne Sundfør nailed the songwriting game by stripping down
her sound to its bare-bones essentials, focusing more on minimal composition
with piano, strings, etc. She will take you into a magical soundscape when the
time comes, but for the most part this will be an album directing your focus to
her soul-crushing, saddening lyrics, and the immense vocal power she has when a
song like “Undercover” towers above
the rest.
Highlights: “Undercover”, “Bedtime Story”, “The Sound of
War”
2014’s Too Bright saw singer-songwriter Mike Hadreas taking a bold step
out of skeletal piano ballad territory and sounding grander than ever;
blossoming. No Shape takes this to
the next stage by genuinely having Hadreas’ most bombastic moments, one of them
right out of the gate on “Otherside”,
where we are pulled right into a gleaming, lush heaven. “Slip Away” was my song of the year but this should not distract
from the elegance of “Just Like Love”,
or the violin solo which kicks off “Choir”
– songs where Hadreas encourages us to drop our fears and raise a fist to love
and passion.
Highlights: “Slip Away”, “Just Like Love”, “Choir”
Many know Open Mike Eagle for
his nerdy, absurd sense of humour, hence the name, but he uses this to disguise
the plethora of topics he raps about that are actually quite serious. The
latter side manifests itself the most on Brick
Body Kids Still Daydream, a concept album detailing his memories growing up
in the Robert Taylor housing projects, which have since been demolished.
Through beautiful yet harrowing hip-hop pieces, he abridges the impact on
families and their children, racial injustice and emotional trauma, even
imagining himself as the building itself – making the album’s finale even more
devastating. Mike Eagle has usually had a timid delivery to his verses, so when
he raises his voice, you know something is bugging him.
I highly recommend this album,
it is one of the finest hip-hop albums that came out during the year, and would
be my favourite had it not been for one more that has yet to appear…
Highlights: “(How Could Anybody) Feel At Home”,
“Daydreaming In the Projects”, “Brick Body Complex”
My new year's night was spent drunkenly squaring up to those in the house that were disrespectfully unhappy with "Green Light" playing during the television ceremony. Needless to say, I think my fanaticism has surpassed the limits of rationality.
Four years ago, Lorde made a dark and critical splash in the world of electro-pop. Now, she’s stringing together what might just be the best electro-pop album of the decade. The screechy instrumental interlude on “Hard Feelings” continues to give me chills, “Green Light” is bittersweet but blissful pop perfection, and the heartbreaking piano ballads like “Liability” and “Writer In the Dark” stand as some of the best songs Ella has written thus far.
Four years ago, Lorde made a dark and critical splash in the world of electro-pop. Now, she’s stringing together what might just be the best electro-pop album of the decade. The screechy instrumental interlude on “Hard Feelings” continues to give me chills, “Green Light” is bittersweet but blissful pop perfection, and the heartbreaking piano ballads like “Liability” and “Writer In the Dark” stand as some of the best songs Ella has written thus far.
Highlights: “Hard Feelings / Loveless”, “Writer In the
Dark”, “Green Light”
This is my hip-hop album of
the year, and part of it may be due to how much I listened to it over the months, on bus rides and lazy afternoons alike. It's honest, beautiful, summery, charismatic, chilling and ultimately, addicting to return to.
Lush and floral in its production (yes, "floral" is an accurate descriptive term for this record and I am sure that if you listened you could agree), Flower Boy reeks of the spring time. Whether we're taken into moments of lonesome melancholy on the laid-back "Boredom" or the spaced-out, self-reasoning on "Garden Shed" , or met with fits of aggression on "Who Dat Boy" or "I Ain't Got Time!" we are met with a Tyler, the Creator that can express his personal angst in a way where we feel more inclined to sympathise. Tyler seems now to have matured enough to discuss loneliness and personal musings in a way which could engage even the harshest critics of his controversial past work… unless you wrote for Consequence of Sound.
Lush and floral in its production (yes, "floral" is an accurate descriptive term for this record and I am sure that if you listened you could agree), Flower Boy reeks of the spring time. Whether we're taken into moments of lonesome melancholy on the laid-back "Boredom" or the spaced-out, self-reasoning on "Garden Shed" , or met with fits of aggression on "Who Dat Boy" or "I Ain't Got Time!" we are met with a Tyler, the Creator that can express his personal angst in a way where we feel more inclined to sympathise. Tyler seems now to have matured enough to discuss loneliness and personal musings in a way which could engage even the harshest critics of his controversial past work… unless you wrote for Consequence of Sound.
Highlights: “Foreword”, “See You Again”, “Where This Flower Blooms”
With dismal tales of medieval
folklore, Richard Dawson sets out to disturb and enchant with a luscious set of
songs that twist folk music tradition until it snaps. Every sour pluck on the
guitar, every pained screech from his lungs, every group vocal, all would sound
bizarre, even ugly on their own, but the composition is such that (heh, used
“such that” in a paragraph, I’m clever) the results are absolutely beautiful,
in a disgusting kind of way. I doubt that living in these distant times would
be very pleasant at all, so I’m quite content with returning to them in musical
form.
Highlights: ”Ogre”, “Prostitute”, “Masseuse”
“Death is real.”
Could there be any other line
from the album that rings stronger than its very first one?
Being as close to more a
personal journal for Phil Elverum than a piece of entertainment, A Crow Looked At Me is one of the most
elaborate and uncompromising albums about death I have listened to, if not the
most. Describing the life of Elverum after the passing of his wife, and
recorded using her instruments and recording space, this album rings painful in
concept and also in its crushing lyrics that set everything out straight. What
astounds me the most about A Crow Looked
At Me is its ability to use the art form of music as an expression of
personal grief and experiences, but as close to the raw thing as possible.
There’s no glamour or fantasy in this. There doesn’t need to be. There
shouldn’t be.
"I brought a chair from home,
I'm leaving it on the hill,
Facing west and north,
And I poured out your ashes on it,
I guess so you can watch the sunset,
But that truth is I don't think of that dust as you.
You are the sunset."
"I brought a chair from home,
I'm leaving it on the hill,
Facing west and north,
And I poured out your ashes on it,
I guess so you can watch the sunset,
But that truth is I don't think of that dust as you.
You are the sunset."
Highlights: “Soria Moria”, “Seaweed”, “Emptiness Pt. 2”
Despite taking many months for
this to fully click with me, it eventually did and the heavy rock eccentrics
Oxbow may have just emerged with their strongest set of tracks since 2007’s The Narcotic Story, or their more
cacophonous and disorienting debut album Fuckfest.
But whether you are familiar with Oxbow’s disorderly experimental rock music or
not, there is an undeniable lusciousness and beauty to what they offer on Thin Black Duke, in spite of its moments
that will turn your stomach for their unashamed brutality.
The snarled, anguished musings
of a madman lost in a world, swept off his feet by the failings in masculinity
and ego, unable to tell whether what’s spiralling out of control is themselves or
their habitat. It’s the orchestra-backed theatre piece of a life crisis, but
there is a beauty behind the dwindling chaos. Never miss a detail of the
pummelling rock riffs, the soaring strings or especially Eugene S. Robinson’s freakish vocal performances, which
are capable of either showing fear or instilling it in the listener.
Without flinching I could tell
you that this was my top album of the year. Even if it goes out of its way to
break you out of your comfort zone, there’s a catharsis and mystery that leaves
me wanting, desperately, to return to this thing again and again, each time
discovering something about the music, or its story, that I appreciate.
Highlights: “Cold & Well-Lit Place”, “Host”, “Ecce
Homo”
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