Coming in quick, just in time for the start of the last quarter of 2012, here’s what my Autumn has sounded like! Making an effort to keep it short and sweet so, courtesy of Mixcloud, hope you enjoy…
First, a thank you for stopping by at but one of the exceedingly minor Top 50 Albums Of 2011 lists; but enough pleasantries, let’s get down to business…
And then there’s my favourite album of 2011, the second release this year from a peerless icon who has always forged ahead on her own path of sonic enlightenment. Though that first LP proved controversial, sparking its fair share of debates with regards to its qualities and merit, the promise of a second album in time for the Christmas did well to assuage any misgivings from those left unimpressed. And with its wintry fables of heartbreak and chilling beauty, featuring a snowman lothario and wayward yeti amongst its cast of characters, it helped to prove just why we fell in love with this enigmatic girl in the first place. So, at the premier point of my chart, I present…
And just to put a geeky pin in this horrid bouquet of chart madness…
My Top 50 Album’s Average Metacritic Score:76
And that’s all from me this year, peeps!! I’ve attached my Best Of 2011 Spotify playlist below for anyone who wishes to listen a little bit more to some of my choices, but until then, have a Happy New Year!!
And here I am, ready and willing to divulge my opinions on some of the best music to have seen release over the last twelve months. It’s a time of reflection for many, and though I’d like to think there is some unintentional emotional continuity with regards to my specific choices here (be they personal, topical or fanciful), all I can honestly say is that the music featured in this article (bar one horrid exemption) is rather brilliant. But enough lollygagging, here are my annual virtual bestowments for 2011:
Alternative Album Of The Year
Cat’s Eyes by Cat’s Eyes
Classically-trained Canadian-Italian soprano hooks up (musically and literally) with frontman of The UK’s Next Genuinely Great Rock Band, only to deliver a beauteous collection of alt-surfer-rock, sad-eyed orchestral pop and ominous psychedelic bombast. Endorsed by the Vatican and snubbed of a Mercury Prize nomination (now how many times can you write that about an album?), its charms are as plaintively soothing as they are deliciously disturbing.
Dance Album Of The Year
Knee Deep by WhoMadeWho
Their first release under the über-cool Kompakt banner, the Danish disco triumvirate delivered a mini-marvel of glitchily-tripped-out Eurodance after coasting around with previously agreeable-yet-unremarkable results, almost sounding like they believe they can be genuinely great. A shame then that it remains otherwise undiscovered by most, as beat pummeling this pleasantly, unadulteratedly euphoric is something to be celebrated.
Electronic Album Of The Year
Replica by Oneohtrix Point Never
New York-based alternative electronica musician’s sixth solo album in four years, using old-school synthesizers and otherworldly samples to create a perfect would-be score to the best existential, martial arts-heavy, sci-fi anime epic that Stanley Kubrick didn’t get round to making. A sublime enmeshing of ambient electronica and tsunamic drone, it’s a fine evocation of what both sub-genres have still got to offer to the pantheon of electronic music.
Folk Album Of The Year
Bon Iver, Bon Iver by Bon Iver
Cumbersome title aside, singer-songwriter-producer Justin Vernon opens up the emotional sonic realms found on his icily-remote debut solo release from 2008 with inspirational results, creating an album that traverses an immense emotional spectrum as well as a sumptuously-varied palette of genres without raising itself higher than that of a wizened, noble whisper. Fragile-yet-strong, intimate-yet-soul-stirringly epic, it’s amazing that the Grammys even noticed it, but thankfully they did.
Hip Hop/Rap Album Of The Year
Take Care by Drake
Rap music’s most endearingly-reluctant superstar (not in a pretentious way obviously, he just happens to be that sexily charismatic) fully delivers after the minor disappointment of his debut LP last year with a mighty-fine album of soul-hop-pop trading in self-effacing rhymes, admirably emotional contemplation and production/arrangement wares from the recent spate of introspective R&B/pop upstarts (alongside main producer Noah “40” Shebib, you have flourishes from the likes of Jamie xx and The Weeknd too). It’d all be for nought though if it weren’t for the mercurial wordsmith at its centre.
Pop Album Of The Year
Voyage by The Sound Of Arrows
Swedish synthpop duo earmarked as the natural successors to Pet Shop Boys make a debut album of utmostly joyous self-discovery and it goes largely ignored by the general public. Whilst everyone somewhat-justly fell in love with M83‘s double-album opus this year, Messrs Gullstrand and Storm created an album that similarly evoked wide-eyed wonder and giddily dreamy awe, but let you rather unreservedly dance to it like an album about such things undoubtedly should.
R&B Album Of The Year
Thursday by The Weeknd
Though the first instalment of this prodigious talent’s 2011 mixtape trilogy is the most critically revered (and also because I hadn’t actually listened to the third effort Echoes Of Silence until after I first announced my nominations), I reserve my right to laud this second album-because-come-on-that’s-what-it-really-is on the grounds of its being more sprawling, uncompromising and violently traumatic than its predecessor. We’re so very lucky to have three of these to savour anyhoo, right?
Rock Album Of The Year
Skying by The Horrors
And we’re back to The UK’s Next Genuinely Great Rock Band with their third album, which presents an even more psychedlic evolution of the 80s-style alt-rock of their second game-changer LP Primary Colours. Nimbly traversing the fine line between honourable homage and timeless rock-pop grandeur whilst still sounding gorgeously fresh, this is their “We Have Arrived” moment of artistic revelation, following through on the promises made earlier and triumphantly surging ahead.
Single Of The Year
“Video Games” by Lana Del Rey
Lana Del Rey or Lizzie Grant? Faded-glamourous alt-pop mastermind or cynically-minded cash-in musician? Without sounding too much like a fence-sitting shill, what does it matter? Much like the aforementioned Cat’s Eyes’ work, it’s a modern throwback to the gorgeous Hollywood torch anthems that its worldliest dames were singing decades ago, an anthem of all-consuming, passive-aggressive love that renders any and every listener starstruck in their tracks.
Video Of The Year
“Song Of Los” by Apparat / Directed by Saman Keshavarz
There are videos that turn shit songs into great ones and rather good ones into excellent ones, but rarely does it occur when a video enhances a song already so excellently fraught with emotion and resonance. But director Keshavarz does that rather amazingly here, using Apparat’s hyper-electro-ballad as a soundtrack to a short life that takes in all of the joy and horror that existence can give any single person. On top of all that, it contains the most heartbreaking use of emoticons this side of Moon.
Collaboration Of The Year
“My Cloud” by Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie xx
I can be called up on this being considered a genuine collaboration on account of it, along with the entirety of its parent album We’re New Here, being a remix from The xx‘s frontman with minimal involvement from its key progenitor, though he contractually takes a co-headline credit. That being said, it was more-than canny of Scott-Heron to tap Jamie Smith in the first place, turning this b-side from the Godfather Of Rap’s last album of his lifetime into a prettily-percolating, soulful triumph. R.I.P. Gil. :,(
Best Bit-In-A-Song Of The Year
The “You Wan’ A Key-Change? I’ll Give Your Four!!” finale on “Love On Top” by Beyoncé (1:43-3:07)
Despite, Knowles’ 4 LP not catching the world on fire quite like it should have done, this proteanly-giddy midtempo ballad has finally been dragging some attention back towards it. An infectiously joyous R&B/pop juggernaut reminiscent of the early Mariah years, its reputation as a future-wedding-reception-floor-filler is cemented by the almost-demented vocal powerhouse finale; there’s been no other more impressive moment for a singer in pop this year as when Knowles ascends those octaves in effortless bounds, trust.
Best Live Act Of The Year
Anna Calvi
Diminutive in stature and music-press profile she may have been at the start of 2011, but Ms Calvi rode the enormous hype propagated by her epmonymous debut album incredibly well, thanks in no small part to bewitching performances that constituted a lengthy European tour. I was able to catch her third of four London dates this year and can honestly say that you haven’t heard this girl do herself justice unless she’s strumming that guitar and wailing like a lovelorn banshee right in front of you.
“Where Have You Been All My Life” Award
The Weeknd
To think, this time last year most people didn’t even know who or what Abel Tesfaye’s alt-R&B project was; twelve months later (alongside the production hands of established hitmaker Doc McKinney and fellow upstart Illangelo), he’s delivered three whole albums for our delectation. His beautifully frank odes to debauched nights out of drinking, taking drugs, screwing strippers and cataclismyc heartbreak are now an essential part of any wannabe-cool-dude’s Best Of 2011 playlist. To quote Kanye himself: Could he get much higher?
Producer Of The Year
Justin Vernon
Whether the songs therein are beautiful on their own or not, the main reason for Bon Iver, Bon Iver‘s success this year was down to the hard work done by its progenitor on the album’s production. Working with more foreign elements and players than his previous tome, Vernon’s smarts as a producer brought all the disparate elements (acoustic folk, sunset-coated Americana, glitchy electronica, electro-pop synths) together to create a beautifully yearning whole.
“Get On With It Already!” Award
Burial
Though post-dubstep pioneer Will Bevan did well to actually release some new material via his Street Halo EP earlier this year, given that it’s been four years since his last album, the blisteringly wonderful breakout success Untrue, it’s a case of too-little-too-late. And seeing as he’s been plying his dusty wares on various other projects of late in collaboration with the likes of Four Tet, Thom Yorke, Breakage, Jamie Woon and Massive Attack, there really isn’t even a smidgeon of an excuse against it.
Villain Of The Year
Jessie J
It’s not that I don’t like pop stars who clearly think they are at the centre of everything that we know to be absolutely magnificent in our world; it’s that I don’t wish to be reminded of it every five seconds with a melismic klaxon of a human voice that trades in ear-splitting volume and snotty brattishness for earnest emotion and profound experience whilst singing ballads filled with enough platitudes to make even the least-sincere self-help guru cringe. How the rest of the world has fallen for it is genuinely beyond me!
Heroes Of The Year
Foo Fighters
America’s leading rock ‘n’ roll band became champions to their gay fans earlier this year when they responded to a picket of their arena concert in Kansas City by the batshit-crazy Christian sect Westboro Baptist Church by performing a song concerning the joys of gay sex entitled Man Muffins at the pious morons as they drove past on an eighteen-wheeler. An impromptu gesture for tolerance, it had more power and resonance then at least one so-called empowerment anthem released in 2011.
Debut Album Of The Year
House Of Balloons by The Weeknd
Seeing as he’s given us three albums this year, it only seems fair I acknowledge Tesfaye three(?) times in my end-of-year blog, but what else is there left to say? Well, with regards to House, the album that single-handedly put him on the musicworld map, there is the fact that for a debut album, its statement of intent with regards to its creator’s sound is so sublime, vicious and ultimately beautiful, that it’ll stay with you for months to come after your first listen.
Group Album Of The Year
Eye Contact by Gang Gang Dance
There are so many intoxicating facets to Gang Gang Dance’s sound that one has trouble trying to come up with what to label them as, other than the ever-sheltering, pigeonholing umbrella of “Electronic” music. Do they make dance music, synth-driven drone, alt-electronic world pop, swoonsome avant-R&B or indie-electro gone pulsatingly, gorgeously mad? Or do they synthesize all of this into a wonderful concoction? Ahh bollocks, let’s just call them Fucking Awesome, and have done with it.
Solo Male Album Of The Year
Looping State Of Mind by The Field
It’s more-than-something of an immeasurably sweet irony that Swedish DJ Axel Willner has been able to create some of the very, very best dance music of recent years purely via the old adage of looping, especially seeing as his brand of finite twiddling is so peerlessly excellent, he feels no need to deviate too much away from with it. Taking isolated moments of pop excellence and spinning them into sonic opuses all of his own is his gift to the world. I wonder if he takes requests?
Solo Female Album Of The Year
Biophilia by Björk
Björk’s latest LP prompted as many genuinely intrigued reactions as she did typical eye-rolling from those too stuck in the mud to want to bite. And though the iPad-app-based multimedia aspect provided a fascinating enough PR launch for this particular work (which ironically enough knotted its lyrical themes more than ever to her love of nature), the spine-tingling mix of cutting-edge electronica, robust melodies and especially that iconic voice of hers remained just as beguiling as it always has.
And then there was The Album Of The Year…
—
Which will be revealed in a short while along with my Top 50 Albums Of 2011… You didn’t think I’d give everything away now, did you?
What with the Grammy nominations due to be released in a few hours, I thought it customary to get my two cents in before the announcement in an effort to get my word out on a few of the finer examples of new music to come our way over the past year, rather than get into the typically blog-centric spirit of things with lengthy Top 50 charts and such. Alas, there will be no live telecast or glamorous awards ceremony at the end of the year in which these awards will be bestowed upon their oblivious recipients, but I’ve always had a thing about the pat-on-the-back pageantry since I was a young boy who used to stay up late and watch the Oscars live early on the last Monday morning of February, and until I marry wealthy enough to make such things a reality, the web will have to do for such inconsequential piffle. But enough already, may I present to you the nominees for the Vessalis Music Awards 2011:
And there you have it; R&B superstar-in-waiting The Weeknd leads the haul with six nominations (not including the production nomination for both of his albums for Doc McKinney and Illangelo), with multiple nods also going to baroque troubadour Anna Calvi, pioneering alt-electro goddess Björk, Kanye West’s new best friend Bon Iver, misunderstood cuddly lothario Drake, R&B/dance upstart Katy B, swoonsome pop duo The Sounds Of Arrows, gothic retro-pop outfit Cat’s Eyes and hip hop music’s very own Eeyore Ghostpoet.
Winners, as well as a breakdown of the awards already announced, will be announced before the year is out. Until then… xxxo.
*Note* This is being published for posterity and continuity purposes only and is actually a blog I had written at the beginning of April this year on Blogspot. I wasn’t too keen on the layout there so that has since been deleted. This particular entry can still be found on my last.fm profile in the online journal though. So if you’ve already read this, apologies. If not, have a gander and a listen!
And on with the show…
It wasn’t until recently that I’d realized quite how much I have often emotionally invested in making playlists in my iTunes library. Be they to commemorate a special occasion, honor a friendship or foolhardedly assuage passages of time dictated by particular moods of mine (those never last as long as a first playthrough though), I still take far too much care in comprising CD-shaped compilations and, as a result, treasure them just that little bit too much. This is made immediately apparent by a few stringent disclaimers I always give myself whilst making said mini music-fests:
1) As hinted previously, the duration must never exceed seventy-nine minutes and fifty seconds so as to be able to fit on a playable CD;
2) The music featured needs to pleasingly tread the line between the mainstream and the obscure, specifically when being made for another person;
3) No genre should ever be considered taboo;
4) All songs must be at least five-star-rated.
Please excuse the obsessive-compulsive-geekery on display here but I’m trying to make a point about how my pitiful brain works, though if you’re not offended by such meaninglessly indulgent and strict strata (you are reading a blog after all!), I commend you and shall continue… Though the nature of my seemingly endless playlist-mongering may be founded on unreliable conceits that always seem to end in disappointment, it is my philosophy that where life in all of its ravaged beauty can frequently fail you, great music never will. Sure, I’ve deleted playlists before when the motives behind their progeny have failed to yield anything healthy enough for my reminiscence to hold on to and will definitely continue to do so (this whole iTunes/selective memory metaphor was kick-started by my absconding two specific playlists for people I’d previously considered a lot better than I ultimately should have done… and yes I am still drinking), but as signifiers that shed light on how I see the rest of the world, nothing translates it all better for me than some of my favorite songs pooled together to extol their collective wisdom. So, amidst the music released thus far in 2011, what have I found ultimately exciting and sublime enough to help lay my neuroses bare for the entire Internet to see?
To kick off a playlist good and proper, you can’t really go wrong with a song that so positively welcomes the end of days that at its most epic moment collapses on itself only to be brought back to life for one last surging sonic mêlée. Co-produced by pop bigwigs Dr. Luke and Max Martin, co-writer Ke$ha’s earworm-style influence is clearly felt on this one, and the lyrics evoke nothing more than that of a truly awesome party, but Britney’s worldly-yet-still-sweet little-robotgirl voice proves a much more appealing fit than her current rival’s, the track escalating with enough club-friendly intensity to provide her with one of the most euphoric moments in her career so far. It must also be said that its parent album, Femme Fatale, is something of a triumph too, consisting of sophisticated dance-pop cuts that slightly lack the fascinating brokedown-American-princess edge of her critical breakthrough Blackout, but still registers with enough wit, filth and massive tunes to herald the title of Best Adult Pop Album Of The Year So Far.
Quite a few of his fans didn’t quite know what to make of Mr Fiasco’s third album Lasers once it was finally released after what the rapper has described as an extremely painful birthing process, the result being an album that takes great pains to coat Lupe’s socially conscious rhymes in a mainstream sheen to appease both his peers and his commercially-incented label. However, despite his ambivalence towards the work, it still offers quite a few wonderful moments when it hits, one such instance being this ravey floorfiller that features Fiasco and an always-welcome Sway eloquently delivering victorious verses about breaking away from negativity and hardship whilst Turner, fresh from his similarly-driving guest spot on Tinie Tempah‘s “Written In The Stars“, delivers a soaring chorus that is purpose built to get any crowd to raise its hands in the air.
And the hip hop/rave flavour continues with this entry from one of US rap’s most promising newcomers, earning itself a place in my heart if only for superlatively sampling one of the best dance tunes from last year. However, Forte’ doesn’t just earn cool points for honoring a hidden dance treasure, but also because the young man enhances it by delivering as impassioned and impressive a diatribe as the title of the song intimates, calling to question rap’s more money-motivated playas for succumbing to the game whilst still acknowledging its allure and promises of a better life. Take note, as this exciting new artist is showcased rather awesomely throughout his recent mixtape Eyes Of Veritas, so much so that I’ll even forgive him for clumsily using an apostrophe to accent his moniker.
A somewhat dramatic left-hand turn into electro-pop orchestral grandeur now to off-set the gritty urbanities of the last two tracks, but then I did make my excuses earlier about this playlist possibly veering off into different directions, and once the orchestra bruisingly saunters over the opening synth pulses of this seven-minute marvel, you won’t be quibbling with such foibles at all. Taken from Messrs Tennant and Lowe’s score for Javier de Frutos’ recent ballet production of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Most Incredible Thing, it is bold, beautiful, joyously camp and even cheekily throws in a typically blithe passage sung by Tennant halfway through to truly disarm the fans. Despite the fact that the rest of the score doesn’t feature any other vocals whatsoever, it is a perfect summation of everything Tennant and Lowe achieve with this assignment, providing proof (not that it was needed at all) that PSB’s arrangements are just as galvanizing and swoonsome as their melodies and lyrics. Note: the above video is not the actual track but a ten minute sampler from the entire score, you lucky things!
Uplifting revisionist indie-electro now from these Australian wunderkinds, whose third album Zonoscope has seen them enjoy some of the best reviews of their career so far and one only needs to listen to this opening track on the LP to hear why. With frontman Dan Whitford’s vocals delivering lines that alternate between excitable hope and inevitable dismay to the object of his affections as the percolation of beats and keyboards travel through an epically joyous crescendo, it’s like the classily raucous us-against-the-world power ballad that New Order didn’t get around to writing. And I really don’t care how facile it is of me to compare it to anything Order, it’s only because I need to stress emphatically just how lovely this song is.
Having previously flirted with a dancier-sound on the last Gossip album and finally taking the plunge with some style with Simian Mobile Disco on their Temporary Pleasure LP, The Girl Whose Parents Eat Squirrels has gone and given us all a taste of what’s to come from her upcoming debut solo album with her eponymous EP, the highlight being this gorgeously sensuous late-night/morning-after flirtathon. Aided with shimmering synths and buoyant bass provided by new best mates SMD, Ditto coos tremulously with such effervescent bliss tempered with craven lust that she makes a somewhat tremendous case that her metamorphosis from rowdy indie poster girl to sexy disco glamourpuss might turn into one of 2011’s most awesome moments. On this evidence, the album should be pretty indispensible stuff.
When The Strokes announced their fourth album was to be released nearly ten years after making the world fall in love with indie rock again via their debut album Is This It, you could practically feel the collective breaths of excited fans emanating from the press release as they first glanced upon it. And despite taking more than four years to regroup, Angles amply showcases that the five-piece still have enough robust synergy to crank out punk pop beauties better than pretty much any other outfit nurtured as Next Big Things since their breakthrough. “Happiness” is a textbook example of the band playing to their strengths, the song at first timeless enough in its melody and arrangement to almost make you affectionately feel like you’ve heard it before, only to ascend into the kind of breakdown of virtuoso rabble that the lads make their duty to sound so effortless and fresh, the fraught spectrum of intense infatuation that it charts made positively overwhelming. Welcome back, guys…
I’m going to be extremely lazy and link my friend Babs’ article here with regards to this highlight from the Brighton group’s third album Rolling Blackouts, as she hits pretty much everything that’s absolutely brilliant about this song square on its head. My two cents: a charmingly bright and brash interlude that counters harmonicas and horn sections straight from ye olde American frontier with boundlessly effusive and intense drum signatures, resulting in unabashedly pure joy in audio form.
9) “The Fairlight Pendant” by …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
***(still) CAN’T FIND VIDEO LINK FOR THIS ONE. YOU’LL JUST HAVE TO TAKE MY WORD ON ITS AWESOMENESS, THANKS!***
Taking their cue from orchestral suites as well as their formidable lineage as one of the US’s most well-regarded cult art-rock outfits, Trail Of Dead stripped back their usual intensive recording strategies from previous albums to hammer out this still-epic piece of alt-rock in less than two weeks. This specific piece is the finale of Tao Of The Dead’s first part, which is then followed by a final track actually comprising of five separate scores that bleed into each other over the course of sixteen amazing minutes. I couldn’t bring myself to include that in this playlist because of its length but this mini-gauntlet is still its own enthrallingly intimidating beast, following the band’s classical brief in its conjuring a sublime hard-rock symphony, the key to its success being its surging changes in tempo.
Sensual, theatrical and sinfully swathing herself in the kind of devilish guitars that could only soundtrack the most classic entrances of the most iconic of Hollywood sex bombs, what is there not to like about Anna Calvi? Rightfully earning herself a high-end spot on the BBC Sound Of 2011, Calvi’s particular blend of baroque indie often proves irresistible on her eponymous debut, not least on this stunning closer that bristles with menace and longing as she sings after a lost love to whom she’s still emotionally bound. And though Calvi’s beyond-sexy vocals effortlessly inspire all of this sultriness on their own, it’s those frankly amazing guitar riffs that steal the show on this and throughout her immensely promising premier disc.
Almost logically, Li follows Calvi on this particular playlist, what with their both happening to be almost-offensively talented young indie femmes capable of producing gorgeous lovelorn odes with an ear for arresting theatrical panache. Li’s sound though is arguably more wide-reaching in its scope, her second album Wounded Rhymes combining indie rock and grassroots soul with a subtle electronic influence, whilst the raspy thinness of her voice is able to summon up more character and empathy than most other singers her age courting greater success right now. And of course there are the lyrics; singing earnestly for carnal intimacy from her lover, she encapsulates the empty loneliness that forces people into confusing physical with emotional intercourse. It’s essentially a sympathetic torch song on behalf of affection-starved whores everywhere… You know who you are and be glad that at least one person in this world feels it with you.
Fewer bands have embraced the digital age quite as tenaciously as the UK’s Best Band have done, especially with regards to the twists in their distribution of their music, boldly issuing a pay-what-you-like deal on In Rainbows back in 2007 months before its physical release and, with The King Of Limbs, digitally releasing the album a day earlier than the proposed release date, which had only been announced a few days beforehand, simply because “the album was ready”. Such charming directness and endearment towards their fans aside though, it would all be for naught if Radiohead didn’t deliver such beautiful music, and though Limbs is certainly not their best album, it still has moments of greatness, not least this blissful electronic meander that closes the LP. Absent of any kind of fraught drama and coasting by with soothing ambience, with Yorke’s dreamy vocals redolent of the ethereal euphoria felt after finally lifting the entire world off of his shoulders, by the end it has blind-sided you with just how subtly lovely it is.
Since courting plenty of white hot buzz late last year, with the release of James Blake its progenitor has become one of the more ubiquitous poster boys for a new music movement that trades in neurosis-smothered chamber soul-pop filtered through minimal electronics and processed vocals (see last year’s debut from the similarly impressive How To Dress Well for another such hero). And though plenty have balked in bemusement at the stripped-down sounds Blake has wrought on his debut LP, there can be little doubt about the man’s talent in composition and production, catching the listener’s breath just as much with the silent airs that punctuate his songs as he does with the homemade atmospherics plied by his bass and beats, successfully drawing your attention to every nuance to be heard. “Limit” is one of the more accessible tracks from the album (Blake’s vocals are less treated by effects here than on any other song for starters), but no less beguiling for being so, summoning more drama in a couple of piano chords than most other break-up ballads can do in their entirety these days.
14) “Space Is Only Noise If You Can See” by Nicolas Jaar
And the chin-stroking, electro-minimalist luvviness continues with the youngest artist to feature on this playlist and the title track from his debut, Space Is Only Noise. All of twenty-years old, Jaar’s reputation as one of the more exciting electronic pop music composers via a flurry of well-received remixes was given a shot in the arm with this LP, courting similarities to Blake for his lo-fi wares and seeming lack of any sort of BPM in his music whatsoever. One listen though reveals that Jaar’s work is much more fanciful and less serious in its tone, utilizing found noises, dialogue samples and often absurd lyrics written with more of an ear for syntax and rhythm than actual content, resulting in a more pleasantly enjoyable experience that is almost goofy in its charming playfulness. All of this is brought to bear on this track in particular, enhanced by a funky bass synth that sets the mood perfectly for amusedly-detached ambience, by the end assuring us that Jaar’s talent is one to watch with some attentiveness.
And to close the set we have yet another electronic music producer in Andy Butler and his dance music project that first caused a stir back in 2008 with their eponymous debut album that happened to contain one of the best disco tunes ever. The follow-up Blue Songs is a more ruminative and soulful affair, finally coming to a head with this stunning closer that finds solace from the horrors of the world in music itself. Though it is a resonant song all on its own lyrically and sung with a wary wistfulness that is utterly compelling, the genius of this is in Butler’s production, incorporating distorted sirens and crashes that vividly portray the horrific world outside, whilst the piano and a particularly moving guitar line front their own offensive in creating the song’s protective shield. Tellingly though, the song itself finishes before the noises do, making it that much more powerful in its acknowledgement of our world’s own destructiveness; as state-of-the-world anthems go, this is an eloquently hopeful one that doesn’t lie to its listeners. The world is shit and will still be shit long after we go, but we can create our own sanctuary if we try hard enough…
So what have I learned about myself via this veritable smorgasbord of sonic fracas? Well, for those who’ve skipped to the end, here’s the abridged version:
“…wit, filth and massive tunes…
breaking away from negativity…
impassioned and impressive…
bold, beautiful, joyously camp…
excitable hope and inevitable dismay…
effervescent bliss tempered with craven lust…
fraught spectrum of intense infatuation…
charmingly bright and brash…
enthrallingly intimidating beast…
bristles with menace and longing…
on behalf of affection-starved whores everywhere…
blissful electronic meander…
neurosis-smothered chamber soul-pop…
almost goofy in its charming playfulness…
the world is shit and will still be shit…”
Can’t really argue with that with regards to how these past three months have felt for me really. Well, that’s enough indulgence for quite a while now. Bye bye… I’ll try to be a little perkier next time, don’t worry! 😉 xxxo
And for those who actually read all that again, thanks… My heart sings for you!
dibdersbooth 