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…
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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.
Alas, the summer is officially over. And in spite of my wanting to spend it in as foul a mood as possible, it actually turned into something rather wonderful. Amongst the most purely amazing was Björk herself singing “Jóga” directly at me when I went to see her with my good friend Omissi0n at one of her sold-out shows in Manchester as part of a two-week residency to promote her new album Biophilia (of which I’m sure I’ll be writing about in my next installment). Amongst the most slap-the-forehead horrible was that no matter how often I bleached my hair, I came to realize that I’ll never look as cute as Simon Pegg did in Spaced, never mind Bruce Willis in The Fifth Element. Then there was the horrid realization upon tearing up my living room carpet of just how much my dog had marked his territory since we first welcomed him into our family four years ago… you’d think after searing my nasal passages with the stench of hair-burning peroxide for six months I’d be used to such trenchant ammonia-based smells, but no.
However, the most sublimely bittersweet was bearing witness to my mother’s reaction on the day that the world lost Amy Winehouse. Instantly upon hearing of Winehouse’s passing, my mother ended up calling everyone that she knew, imparting the news to all who would listen with the kind of wounded reverance one would normally reserve for close friends and dear family. Such was the power of Winehouse’s music, she was able to inspire such resolute feeling and heartbroken loyalty in a random person whom she would never even meet. So, despite the tragedy of her death, I can’t help but be heartened by such emotional spontaneity, however minute or inconsequential it may seem to the world at large. I’m sure Winehouse herself would be honoured (or perhaps more likely a little embarrassed) that her songs have provided such a sterling example of the power of music and that it could still herald such a poignant outburst of emotion. Much better than that shockingly bad tribute to her at the MTV Video Music Awards by freakish manchild Bruno Mars, anyway.
Also, I can’t go on without honouring the passing of both Gil Scott-Heron and DJ Mehdi also. So sad.
But in any event, the summer did well to throw some more good new music our way too, of which I have dutifully compiled my third year-quarterly playlist of the best of the best. So here goes:
By way of some sonic verisimilitude after his latest side-project Cat’s Eyes closed things up rather ominously on my last playlist, first up we have Faris Badwan returning to the fray with a cut from The Horrors’ latest opus, Skying, an album that pretty much confirms the young five-piece band as one of the UK’s most genuinely accomplished acts of their generation. Tipping their unruly-haired heads further towards the warm 80’s-sponsored psychedelia of previous effort Primary Coloursand away from the bilious garage-punk rabble of their debut LP Strange House, Skying in its best moments delivers the kind of timeless sweetness that pervaded the best alternative rock and electronic pop music from twenty years ago. One such example is this lead single, a five minute slice of epicness that trades on benevolent euphoria, the percussion loping genially along as the reversed guitars sing in the background, making way for those strikingly lovely synths that do well to transport you back into your teenage self, redolent with frustrated wonder and anticipation. Few bands can take you back to those feelings with such authenticity, so the fact that this appears to be the only way The Horrors can create music is something to be applauded.
Now a little late arriving to this lovely young girl’s party I may be, but I can still count myself as one of the rightly-riled music fans who can’t understand why someone responsible for bright pop music as delightful as that found on Anita Blay’s debut album has gone unnoticed by most listeners. A most disarming mix of sweetness and tartness wherein a sly wit pervades throughout, Blay’s album is a joyous throwback to 90’s indie urban pop, holding court herself with an assured voice that eschews typical octave-vaulting for something more approachable and endearing. It helps that she has a catchy ear for melody too, as evidenced on this track with its adorable synths bouncing around the tight harmonies on the chorus, featuring Blay imploring the object of her frustrated desire to “work it out” with such effortless guile as to make the listener question said subject’s apparent absentmindedness. Adulthood is the rare debut album that doesn’t rely on eye-rolling “look-at-me” moments that smack of desperation and obnoxiousness to get its heroine’s personality across; instead it is a beyond-charming portrait of a self-effacingly confident young woman that the rest of the world could do with getting to know a bit better than it currently does.
Sharing some of the same songwriters and production staff as Blay’s album is Cinderella’s Eyes, the solo debut from Miss Roberts also fuses an arch indie wit and irresistible girliness together to create one of the best pop albums of the year. Known rather unfairly by most as the miserable-looking one from Girls Aloud, many of the band’s smarter fans earmarked Nicola as the pop behemoth’s true solo star-in-waiting, and though comparing her premier disc to those of bandmates Cheryl Cole and Nadine Coyle is doing her fabulous work here a disservice, it’s the best way to highlight just how natural a pop star she is. Whereas Cole’s music felt more like an afterthought to her celebrity profile and Coyle’s album fell flat due to it’s prominent whiff of desperation, Roberts’ LP is an enjoyably-cohesive little pop trifle that despite the multitude of know-alls behind the scenes doesn’t feel like it could possibly be carried by anyone else. Sugary sweet and at times rather silly, but still in possession of enough self-mocking awareness, intuition and heart to make it all deliciously easy to swallow, it’s an album you wish you could listen to as an eight-year-0ld girl just to get the absolute utmost pleasure out of it. And this anthem in particular is a succinct summation of all its charms.
***CAN’T FIND A VIDEO LINK FOR THIS SONG, SO PLEASE JUST TRUST ME ON IT***
Some homemade Scandinavian alternative pop now from Swedish musicians Maria Lindén and Fredrik Balck, of whom little is still known but for the encouraging buzz emanating around their debut album, Hearts. It’s the kind of delicate wide-eyed thing that would do well to soundtrack nestling inside on a cold winter’s night with a loved one just before sunrise, abounding with expansive sonic vistas of reverb-drenched guitars, ethereal vocals and soul-searching synths. Though the public at large doesn’t know very much about the shoegaze duo yet, what with their not having even performed their pieces live for press or public (though there are videos of “bedroom sessions” on Youtube and a blurb on the website big enough to describe Lindén as “a shit-kicker in high fidelity” whilst acknowledging the group’s musical debts to the likes of My Bloody Valentine), rest assured that their sounds should be reverberating around the hippest of after-parties for the rest of the year. This track in particular showcases the duo’s command of sonic textures and arrangements, building with plenty of curiously ominous luminescence until finally rewarding the listener with a tremulous wave of audio sublimity.
More eye-moistening electronica now, courtesy of German noisenik Sascha Ring, fresh from his stint in the excellent Moderat project with dance-duo Modeselektor. The Devil’s Walk (named so after a poem written by nineteenth-century English Romantic Percy Bysshe Shelley) is his fifth album, his first to be released by English label Mute Records and quite the emotional sojourn into bubbly electro, orchestral flourishes and tear-stained balladry it is, lead single “Song Of Los” already inspiring one the best and certainly most heartbreaking accompanying videos of the year so far. However, despite even a stirring collaboration with Soap&Skin‘s Anja Plaschg surfacing pretty early on the album (and by the way, where’s your second album, Miss?), it is with this track that the breadth of Ring’s musicality is truly revealed, at once achingly intimate and incredibly grand, offering more moments of almost-painful quietness and sweeping beauty within a single piece than most albums this year can claim to have done in their entire duration.
And just in time before everyone gets a little too emotional to carry on (we’re only a third of the way through here, people!), let’s hand it over to the US’ latest alternative music star, Ernest Greene, a young man who has been fanning generous plaudits from bloggers the world over for the past two years via his well-received EP’s consisting of what has been coined by whatever hipster got there first as “chillwave”. Signing with the label Sub Pop last year, 2011 saw the drop of his debut album, Within And Without, upon whom its progenitor was bestowed with even more critical garlands for its intoxicating mix of ambient chilled-out electronica, hip hop beats and trance-style signatures, with Greene’s vocals flowing over the top to provide yet another layer of soporific sultriness to the proceedings. The LP itself is probably the single most successful amalgamation of disparate genres that has created a universally-friendly whole that the world has heard this year, feeling as much at home on mainstream radio as it would in the clubs or at the hazy after-party. The best example of Greene’s work at its most mellifluously mesmerizing has to be this track; caution, it may actually make you feel a little happy inside again.
Continuing the theme of electronic one-man projects, we now have Alan Palomo and his plucky electro-bandmates with they’re sophomore LP, Era Extraña, arriving two years after their debut Psychic Chasms found favour with electro-fans the world over with its characteristic blend of arty chillwave synthpop. For his second sonic tome, Palomo holed himself up in Helsinki for four weeks, prompting a severe case of cabin fever that was punctuated by the intermittent stalking of a hobo. Not that such personal tolls on the man found their way on to his second album though, with the majority of it being as upbeat and resonant as any electro-geek would like their music to be, very much in the vein of the punchy ambience offered by Washed Out’s track earlier, but with more of a heavy lean towards 80’s electro and cacophonous arcade samples (the latter best exemplified by the closer “Arcade Blues (Single)“). However, the standout from the album that made it on to my playlist is this slice of electro-dance, complete with mantra-style intonations and vocal layering alongside some rather appreciable toe-tapping beats.
One artist whose modus operandi seems to offer no end of sonic delights for his faithful listeners is that of Axel Willner, the Swedish DJ/musician who can take a single particular moment from a popular song and through his superlative brand of hypnotizing loops turn it into something head-noddingly epic (one of his better examples being this cut from his debut LP From Here We Go Sublime that doesn’t reveal its origins until the very end, prompting one of the most laugh-out-loud moments in dance music for recent years). Granted, since his universally-acclaimed first album Willner’s compositions have been getting longer and more intimidating, something that the more passing dancehead won’t necessarily be down with. Having said that, once you’re caught within Willner’s thrall of sequenced looping, even the tracks that last as long as eleven minutes still fly past, be they extended moments of chilled-out euphoria (like this one) or shape-throwing efforts of dancey propulsion. Looping Is A State Of Mind; and you’ll be lucky to find yourself enjoying the kind of pulses racing their way through Willner’s.
9) “Fragile Hope” by Balam Acab
Does anyone still remember when bloggers and musos were getting excited about that new sub-genre of electronic dance music, “witch house”? Last year, when it was gathering up some steam for its heady mix of chopped ‘n’ screwed hip hop beats, ambient industrial shoegaze and disembodied vocals, one of the artists people were getting more excited by was 20 year-old Alec Koone. After coming out with the well received Birds EP late last year, Koone released his debut LP Wander/Wonder and though the initial critical reaction may have been cooler in accordance with the hype dying down around the whole witch-house movement, there’s no denying that there’s still plenty of head-turningly wonderful stuff to be found. What’s somewhat gratefully missing from this full-length effort though is the harsher side of this so-called genre, Koone leaving behind the grimier side of the dusted beats and processed vocals for something a lot more soothing and wistful. It might not strictly adhere to the witch-house aesthetic, but alongside the more ambient works of his peers such as How To Dress Well (a fellow labelmate with white-hot imprint Tri Angle) and Baths, it’s still pretty fucking gorgeous; just listen to this track and you’ll see.
One feels that 2011 is the year when R&B and hip hop music began to take a dramatically exciting new direction. The debut artists creating genuine heat these days seem to be informed by a disillusioned stance against the world, informed as much by the elegiac soundscapes of ambient dream-pop and reverb-soaked post rock as they are the typical genre tropes of booties, bitches, money, drugs and thuggery. Without doubt the most impressive of these new prognosticators is The Weeknd’s Abel Tesfaye, the 21 year-old musician who is only on his second mixtape but quite rightly has the Internet waiting with baited breath on his next move. His debut House Of Balloons is the best-reviewed full-length release this year and his second effort, Thursday, is every bit as beautifully dystopian, emotionally haggard and sensuously sinister as its predecessor, perhaps even more so. Standout track “The Zone” also happens to feature fellow Canadian wordsmith Drake, who not only delivers one of his more eloquently powerful verses ever, but also excitingly helps to cement Tesfaye’s reputation as someone the music world is willing to take very seriously by his appearance here. And we’ve still got one more album to come from him before the year’s out…
After enjoying a steady head of hype since their eponymous debut of lo-fi soulful grooves in 2007, this five-piece electro-pop band from Sweden received some breakthrough recognition last year when they featured twice on one of 2010’s biggest releases, virtual-pop juggernauts Gorillaz’s expansively-realized Plastic Beach (on which their collaboration “Empire Ants” repped as one of that album’s hidden treasures). Since then, not before stopping off for a couple of guest spots on both Dave Sitek‘s one-man-dance-project Maximum Balloon and London-based producer SBTRKT‘s debut from earlier this year, they’ve finally released their third album proper, Ritual Union, which sees the group embrace an even more minimalist sound than previously, marrying nu-soul R&B with the hypnotic beats and bass dominating the loftier echelons of the post-dubstep movement. This track in particular bears the finer virtues of the group’s new direction, consisting of little more than a rustling beat shuddering away as Yukimi Nagano’s vocals moan plaintively under Autotuned duress and an ominous synth continuously swoops throughout it all before delicately submitting itself into a jazzy percussion breakdown.
Though it’s seemingly hip to belittle the UK’s Mercury Prize every year as much for the omissions as it is for the nominees and eventual winner (though it was rather nice that despite most people having their favourites, everyone who was bothered enough to keep track was happy for PJ Harvey‘s win this year), it must be said that they do well to throw the spotlight on certain acts whom the general music-buying public would otherwise ignore. 28 year-old Obaro Ejimiwe is one such musician whose debut album, Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam, near-silently crept into the world in February this year and, despite several adulatory notices, was due to be largely forgotten until it received a nomination. Granted, this didn’t necessarily translate into amazing unit shifts or anything but at least it granted some valuable media time to one of the most warmly observant, poignant and humbly impressive albums of 2011, Ejimiwe being very much a rapper of the introverted variety á la Roots Manuva. This track is the finale to the LP, as much a critique of the songwriting process as it is of the more vacuous poetry flowing through others MC rhymes these days, of which no one can accuse Ejimiwe of being so.
13) “Dreams” by CunninLynguists featuring Tunji and B.J. The Chicago Kid
And the introspective hip hop continues, this time from across the Atlantic by rap collective CunninLynguists and their fifth album, Oneirology, taking its name from the scientific study of dreams. Despite making music for over a decade and all the while receiving plenty of worthy notices from publications like The Source and The Onion A.V. Club, you’d be forgiven for not knowing who this hardworking trio of Kentucky-based MCs are, which only makes the at-times amazing work on this album all the more powerful. Entirely produced by founding member KNO (and on it’s own, the production serves as a marvelous showcase for the man’s talents as a beatsmith), it’s an album that finds its progenitors and its guests navigating through the nightmares of everyday life, simply living and getting by, occasionally dreaming ahead and striving to attain something better, but never once losing their integrity and nobly resisting to glamourize the violence often portrayed. Such honourable and intelligent conviction is on ample display in the above track, if you fancy a listen.
And before finishing up, we’ll have just a couple of verses from Brandon McCartney, a young rapper from California who was able to collect a few death threats from homophobic hip hop enthusiasts and budding MCs when he declared that his latest album was to be titled I’m Gay (I’m Happy), even dedicating it to his fans in the LGBT community (and just for the record, he’s what The Lonely Island would call “no homo”). However, whilst Lil B does in part earn a spot on this playlist for his devil-may-care showmanship and heartening bonhomie (as well as some personal brownie points for being the first rapper to remind me of a Fry & Laurie sketch), it would only take away from album that is in of itself a strikingly personal tome of a young man trying to deal with the world and everything that it throws at him, his rhymes refreshingly shot through with surging passages of hope and optimism despite crippling moments of doubt. I had to include this track above all others though, if only for marrying Obama’s victorious election speech (given more power for sadly seeming so long ago already) with Joe Hisaishi’s enchanting score for Hayao Miyazaki’s epic Spirited Away in a stroke of emotive genius.
And just when you thought this playlist couldn’t get any more queer, eh? Well, considering this song actually comes from a brand new musical from the creators of South Park and Avenue Q, you can rest assured that it’s place on this list is thoroughly justified. The big winner at this year’s Tony awards (the American version of the Oliviers… what do you mean you’ve never heard of them??), Messrs Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Robert Lopez’s satirical play concerns Mormon missionaries preaching the good word in the grim, war-torn environs of Uganda, taking potshots at the hypocrisy of organized religion and those who preach purely out of selfishness, whilst also appreciating the restorative power faith can have in peoples lives. The score itself is a mighty fine collection of pastiches from previous Broadway hots (specifically those adapted from Disney films), but they all happen to be shot through with incredibly dark, subversive humour, not least in this number wherein the missionaries thwart their own personal demons of domestic violence, cancer and homosexual desires with their artificially-programmed optimism. Hopefully all of this jet-black farce will remain intact for its inevitable West End run, but how well it’ll play outside of America will be interesting to see.
And there you have it my patient friends! Hope you enjoyed reading that one and I’ll see you back in November for part four. Until then… xxxo
dibdersbooth 