Truth be told, I can barely summon the energy to write the entry for this month considering how many political shit-storms of global proportions have occurred. Between Russia’s continued lethal indignation towards its LGBT citizens and visitors (barbed with the especially heartbreaking caveat that the IOC and all of the 2013 Winter Olympics sponsors have decided to turn a blind eye to it all) and the high cost of human lives prompted by the revolutions in Egypt and Syria (with potentially Earth-shaking consequences still circling the latter’s apparent use of chemical weapons against its countrymen, women and children), it’s basically a month where the world’s capacity for contempt and corruption has proven too hideous to not affect me. And the fact that all most people can seem to be capable of talking about online is the Lady Gaga Vs. Katy Perry singles battle, Ben Affleck as Batman and Miley Cyrus’ tongue makes me feel all the more dejected to be honest.
And yes, I appreciate it is supremely indulgent and ironically wank-ey of me to point this out on a wannabe-pop blog, but hey, the Internet is full of enough contradictions to get through already, what’s one more? And despite everything, I did actually listen to some new music good enough to keep my mind at an even emotional keel, so I hope you can forgive me for diarizing my distress just this once, please? As a show of good will to get back in the swing of things, I’ll even officially name the winner of the Gaga/Perry “feud”:
So, now that’s all out of the way, without further ado, courtesy of Mixcloud and Spotify, here is:
01) Invader Invader // Kyary Pamyu Pamyu >> Aside from VV Brown, August’s other leftfield pop treat came courtesy of self-made Harajuku pop superstar Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, whose third album Nanda Collection represents her biggest effort to break into the international arena.
02) Back Together // Annie >> Four years after she finally got her sophomore effort Don’t Stop released amidst label interference, the Norwegian pop maven is back with a valuable clutch of collaborations with Richard X and Little Boots via her The A&R EP.
03) All My Life (Mitch Murder Remix) // Sally Shapiro >> Little Boots reps another mention on the blog this month for being responsible for one of quite the veritable few of fabulous remixes found on the Swedish duo’s Elsewhere remix album (not this one, but worth checking out anyhoo).
04) Fool Me Once // NyLo >> Taken from the sultry Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter’s recent mixtape Indigo Summer, which you can download for free via her Soundcloud page here and also includes a swoony, table-turning spin on the biggest/most misogynist track of the year.
05) Bank Head // Kingdom featuring Kelela >> Following through on the popular trend of the swoonsome R&B and IDM-tinged electronica fusions, one-man-band Kingdom is one of the more prodigious names to be taking note of, as revealed all the way through his Vertical XL EP.
06) Burning Bright // Maya Jane Coles featuring Kim Ann Foxman >> Having dallied around with remixes and the odd single under different guises, Coles comes to fore with her debut solo album Comfort, a collection deep house tracks tinged with trip-hop flourishes.
07) The Chant // Dobie >> Former protégé of Massive Attack returns with his first album in fifteen years in We Will Not Harm You; though his status as an almost-was stalwart of the late 90s trip-hop scene might not have whetted anyone’s appetite at first, the album itself is quite the head-turning surprise.
08) Morphine For The Masses // Ebony Bones! >> Everything-but-the-kitchen-sink, apocalyptic alt-funk now courtesy of the former TV soap star, whose second album Behold, A Pale Horse mixes in a childrens choir, jangling guitars, breakbeats, Middle Eastern orchestras and more besides to create an awesome End Of Days gumbo.
09) The Weight Of Gold // Forest Swords >> Über-hip electronica label Tri Angle strike again, this time courtesy of UK musician Matthew Barnes and his debut LP Engravings; produced and mixed entirely outdoors, it combines English folk, Oriental chants, haunting bass and electronic drone to truly wondrous effect.
10) Look Into Your Own Mind // Julianna Barwick >> Nestling within a more cleansing and euphoric variation of ambient electronica with a bucolic twist, American musician Barwick’s second effort Nepenthe draws bigger responses than her debut, no doubt aided by Alex Somers (of Jónsi & Alex) on co-production duties.
11) Hotel Catatonia // William Tyler >> Consisting almost entirely of Americana-infused folk instrumentals of virtuoso guitar-playing, Tyler’s sophomore album Impossible Dream is plays like the soundtrack to the sweetest, most moving indie-road movie you’ll never get to actually see.
12) All I Know // Washed Out >> One time white-hot flavour-of-the-month Ernest Greene returns from the spoils of his critically-adored 2011 debut LP with Paracosm; it still has its moments of beauty, but the psychedelic touches are a little less streamlined and too obvious compared to Within And Without.
13) Avalanche (Slow) // Zola Jesus >> Removing herself from the goth-pop electronic gloom of her previous two albums, Jesus returns (ahem) with Versions, an acoustic, string-quartet-backed trawl through highlights from both Stridulum II and Conatus, thereby giving her beautiful voice full centre-stage.
And there you have it… Sorry for the despondent splurge earlier, five-week-months get the best of me all the time, global controversies or not. Until next time, xxxo.
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!!
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 