My Favorite Albums of 2013

[Derek]

Sorry, I've been overseas for a little over 3 weeks and just haven't had time to get this going. That being said, 2013 was too good a year in music to trim to less than 30, so longer write-ups may be limited mostly to the top 10 or 15 albums. Or maybe not. It'll probably depend on how tired I am, but nevertheless, let's get started.


30

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Neko Case - The Worse Things Get, the Harder I Fight, the Harder I Fight, the More I Love You

For the past decade, Neko Case has been one of the most consistent alt-country artists, delivering the goods on every album since Fox Confessor Brings the Blood. With The Worse Things Get, Case transforms heartbreak and loss into a dozen direct and concise little tunes that carry more emotional weight and precision than anything she’s released before.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jY8RGRyRpw


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhnFl3Y2FVI

[Derek]

29

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Parquet Courts - Light Up Gold

Marrying a go-for-broke energetic cow punk sound with a bit of the precision of math rock, Parquet Courts were one of the best new bands I discovered last year. In a year light on great rock albums, Light Up Gold was a welcome reprieve. Full of glorious little guitar riffs and a sense of pure fun and joy, this was an album that I kept returning to more and more as the year passed.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UFzde_Y_t0


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq1LtxdpQEo


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5P1SzaJ3jk

[Derek]

28

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Future of the Left - How to Stop Your Brain in an Accident

Speaking of great rock albums, thank god Andy Falkous is back with his best work since the dissolution of mclusky. How to Stop Your Brain in an Accident is an absolutely furious return to form in its absolute ease in shifting tones and tempos without skipping a beat. Future of the Left have finally delivered the album everyone expected since their inception – one with all the sprawling creativity, incisive humor and palpable rage of Falkous’s prior band and with the musical chops to bring it to fruition.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwmIgIiITI0


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt70zeX3xm4


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxz0uft3hD0

[Derek]

27

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Ghostface Killah & Adrian Younge - Twelve Reasons to Die

Like Andy Falkous, Ghostface Killah was another great artist in a bit of a slump who exceeded expectations in 2013. His best work since 2006’s Fishscale, Twelve Reasons to Die is unlike any of Ghostface’s previous albums, yet the spaghetti western-inspired hip-hop tunes, aided by Adrian Younge’s typically inventive throwback production, fit his rapping style like a glove. In a year where so many hip-hop albums seemed determined to be different, it was actually quite comforting to have an artist content simply to do what he does well rather than become a slave to the current trends.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLYB8Z9ggLg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USd3ay54C3g


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geF_YpHWPoE

[Derek]

26

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Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Push the Sky Away

Nick Cave has always been a moody son of a bitch, but never quite as melancholy as on Push the Sky Away. These is as patient and direct an album as Cave has ever made, yet it is also his most haunting, with each note seemingly striking a new chord of sadness, longing and unease. It may lack the energetic punch of the prior Bad Seeds albums, but the band has proven that even in chill mode, they can still deliver something just as strange and wonderful as their earlier work.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6rTZe6gtS8


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjF57zEbxpI


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzTCbaZj5HA

[Derek]

25

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Huerco S. - Colonial Patterns

With Colonial Patterns, Huerco S. has released the year’s most unsettling and terrifying album. From the heartbeats that pervade the twitchy unease of “Plucked from the Ground, Towards the Sun” to the static and almost off-tune synth that carries “Prinzif” into its killer beat (buried almost 4 minutes into the track), this is an electronic album full of contrasting layers that often combine to create a nightmarish vision that is downright Lynchian (and the industrial sounds within Quivera seem perfectly suited to the imagery of Eraserhead). As unique and alien as anything released all year, Colonial Patterns is like something unearthed from another planet. It’s not an easy listen and certainly not the kind of electronic album you can allow to drift into the background, but in what it demands from the listener, it returns tenfold in the indescribable emotions and moods it creates.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqJ7Uh2ICl0


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ndALY-6qWM


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gugPW6s31RE

[ledfloyd]

For some reason I have not listened to that Parquet Courts album, despite Stoned & Starving being one of my favorite songs of the year.

[Derek]

For some reason I have not listened to that Parquet Courts album, despite Stoned & Starving being one of my favorite songs of the year.

"Master of My Craft" is my fave, but I love all 3 tracks I posted. The rest of the album isn't quiiite as strong, but definitely worth a listen if you love "Stoned & Starving" that much.

[Winston*]

Haven't really been able to get into that Nick Cave album. Prefer the horny old man energy of Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!! and Grinderman. I like Jubilee Street quite a bit.

Love the Neko Case. Will be getting some recommendations from this list. I really don't keep up with music as much as I should these days.

[Derek]

24

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The Field - Cupid's Head

I suppose I’m a bit of a Field fanboy by the point, but even I’ll admit this seems like a bit of a downgrade from the wonderful Looping State of Mind. Nevertheless, Cupid’s Head still has some absolutely killer beats and like all of Axel Willner’s releases, the repetitions are infectious and build towards a grandiosity that few electronic musicians can match in even a single track, let alone album after album. Cupid’s Head may not see Willner pushes his sound forward, although he does implement some new percussion, some heavier base than is typical for him and in the final track, a wall of sound that gives it a transcendent hue akin to early Eluvium. So maybe my slight disappointment isn’t disappointment at all – just ridiculously high expectations for an artist who is one of the best in his, er, field.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t920e80q-4


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXr_rvlzvnM


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA95P_zkAj8

[Derek]

Haven't really been able to get into that Nick Cave album. Prefer the horny old man energy of Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!! and Grinderman. I like Jubilee Street quite a bit.

I think most Cave fans tend to, but I actually prefer this one ever-so-slightly to Dig and the Grinderman albums. This one actually feels closer to one of his soundtracks than a typical Bad Seeds or Grinderman album.


Love the Neko Case. Will be getting some recommendations from this list. I really don't keep up with music as much as I should these days.

Cool! It's exhausting keeping up with new music. I don't know how many more years I can do it, at least to the degree I do now, but I do enjoy doing these years end shindigs.

[Derek]

23

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Pharmakon - Abandon

Pharmakon’s Margaret Chardiet wastes no time drawing a line in the sand on Abandon. Its opening track “Milkweed/It Hangs Heavy” opens with a deathly scream that quickly morphs into a background drone that carries throughout the track. In immediately setting a tone that either sucks you into its dark world or pushes you away in fear, Abandon gives you fair warning for what’s to come and somehow manages to maintain this intensity throughout its brief yet exhausting 26 minutes. Like Colonial Patterns, Abandon creates a sonic landscape that is alien and unsettling, relying even more on industrial drones and Chardiet’s vocals, which, especially in that opening track, will amaze you if only for her ability to scream so brashly without absolutely destroying her throat. And yet the albums standout track, “Crawling on Bruised Knees”, has its distorted vocals pushed to the background, instead relying on slow, heavy beats and repetitive drones that suggest some sort of submission to an unknown force. But whatever its method, Abandon is as forceful an album as you’ll have heard all year and contains a level of female empowerment that 100 Beyonces could never dream of.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBss8QtfvM0


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R60lYkmXeA8

[D_Davis]

Cool! It's exhausting keeping up with new music. I don't know how many more years I can do it, at least to the degree I do now, but I do enjoy doing these years end shindigs.


I try to listen to at least one brand new to me thing a week. This year I've already heard about 7 things that have blown my mind.

Sometimes I wish my tastes jived with more people here so I could get the conversation you do - mostly I feel like I'm talking to myself 99% of the time. :)

[Derek]

I try to listen to at least one brand new to me thing a week. This year I've already heard about 7 things that have blown my mind.

Sometimes I wish my tastes jived with more people here so I could get the conversation you do - mostly I feel like I'm talking to myself 99% of the time. :)

Eh, there's always at least 4 or 5 people here who are listening to you. I have been following your 15 album you loved thread, but haven't had the time to listen to any of the ones I haven't heard yet. It's interesting you're getting into more jazz recently since I know you're typically not much of a fan.

[D_Davis]

It's interesting you're getting into more jazz recently since I know you're typically not much of a fan.

There's definitely a lot of jazz I don't like. I'm not so into traditional trios and quartets. I'm more interested in music that utilizes technology in creative ways, or uses technology at all. I have liked some kinds of more traditional jazz - you could say that stuff that sounds like Miles Davis' In a Silent Way has historically been my style. But recently with discovering some of these German and Norwegian guys I've found a whole new circle of musicians to listen to. These guys are always using technology in interesting ways, creating an electro-acoustic mix of very atmospheric music that is sonically dense. They use laptops and samplers, loopers, synths, and traditional instruments. Basically I'm totally stoked that I've found a whole new circle of musicians that is similar to Jon Hassell, because I've been searching for years. That guy is a huge inspiration.

This is also part of my continuing desire to only listen to the best musicians. Most of the music I listen to in any given year is listen to from a position of research and study. I want to learn new techniques, new ways of playing and recording instruments, and new ways to compose and arrange. So I think that coming from the background that I do, I listen to music differently and perhaps listen for different things than other people who love listening to music. Sometimes I wish I could more often turn off my producer/engineer/composer functions and just listen to music with the ears of a fan of music, but it's really hard for me to do - it's makes me oddly critical in some aspects, and probably far too forgiving in others.

[Derek]

22

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Yo La Tengo - Fade

After the underwhelming Popular Songs and their brief side project, Condo Fucks, Yo La Tengo get back to doing what they’ve always done – releasing great albums. One of the most consistent rock bands of the last 20 years, YLT rarely disappoint and are so effective at crafting a wide variety of song styles, mixing acoustic and electric, succinct tender folk songs with epic, hardcore rock-outs. Fade finds the band operating at a more mellow tone, yet while it’s one of their more low-key releases, the intricacy and complexity of the songwriting is as good as it’s ever been. I finally had the chance to them live last year, twice no less, and was able to see firsthand the musical talents these three have. Their albums, great as they are, don’t even do them justice.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGzjC7dhjnw


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICFj0K7N6Lk


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py2KOyrtq6o

[Derek]

21

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James Holden - The Inheritors

James Holden’s The Inheritors carefully balances abrasiveness and melody, faster glitchy beats with plodding rhythmic baselines, and a sense of impending doom with a few flighty, dare I say almost danceable tracks. The album is packed with an array of disparate sounds, an everything-but-the-kitchen approach that most musicians would not be able to craft into something as cohesive and enthralling as Holden has, and it is in this variety that its appeal lies. Incorporating everything from horns to guitars into his electronic palette, Holden broke the mold of recent electronic music and created an amalgam of noise, ambient and techno that’s quite unlike anything released all year.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqsy_PpyIqU


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn3KvNDbwug


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28eI_aihRFs

[Derek]

20

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Bill Baird - Spring Break of the Soul

Since releasing my favorite album of 2008, The Glowing City, under his {{{Sunset}}} monicker, Bill Baird has continued making quirky and uniquely personal music, but not until this year’s Spring Break of the Soul has he again released anything approaching the creativity and emotional tenderness of his masterpiece. While Spring Break never quite reaches the heights of The Glowing City, it has the same sonic dexterity, humor and playfulness that has been missing from his last couple albums. Due to its ever-changing tone, swapping tempo and genres every couple songs, Spring Break of the Soul is better experienced from start to finish. Its individual songs are fascinating bite size segments that are enjoyable alone, but function best as a whole – a psychedelic mishmash of all of Baird’s talents and influences. I can only hope this is a sign that Baird is back at the top of his game, because he has all the potential to be one of the best pop musicians out there.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjfZz1iUM-8

"World Gone Deaf (http://blankfritz.bandcamp.com/track/world-gone-deaf)"

"Santa Claus of the South (http://blankfritz.bandcamp.com/track/santa-claus-of-the-southhttp://blankfritz.bandcamp.com/track/santa-claus-of-the-south)"

[D_Davis]

Need to check out the Bill Baird. Liked the {{{Sunset}}} stuff a lot.

Yo La Tengo is a band that I, unfortunately, seem to have out grown. They used to be one of my top 10 favorites, but they just don't do anything for me any more. I think my tastes have evolved and changed, while their sound is pretty much still the same.

[Derek]

Need to check out the Bill Baird. Liked the {{{Sunset}}} stuff a lot.

It's very similar to the {{{Sunset}}} stuff, so if you enjoyed that, you'll like this too. It doesn't have the emotional punch that I got from Glowing City, but it's still very creative and personal.


Yo La Tengo is a band that I, unfortunately, seem to have out grown. They used to be one of my top 10 favorites, but they just don't do anything for me any more. I think my tastes have evolved and changed, while their sound is pretty much still the same.

It happens. YLT have always had so much range that they're not the type of band that has to grow or change very much for me to continue loving them, but to each his own.

[dreamdead]

Reading and listening. Not too much is matching up to my interests, sadly, so I can't offer too much commentary. I do really like the Case album and think that "Night Still Comes" and "Calling Cards" might be some of the best material she's done.

Not the biggest fan of glitch; that may be a result of bands like Purity Ring using it in boring ways.

Rightly or wrongly, I'm not sure I need more of Axel Willne than The Field's masterpiece.

[Derek]

Reading and listening. Not too much is matching up to my interests, sadly, so I can't offer too much commentary. I do really like the Case album and think that "Night Still Comes" and "Calling Cards" might be some of the best material she's done.

Not the biggest fan of glitch; that may be a result of bands like Purity Ring using it in boring ways.

Rightly or wrongly, I'm not sure I need more of Axel Willne than The Field's masterpiece.

I agree there's a lot of boring glitch out there. It's part of Holden's repertoire, but hardly the whole of his musical weapons. But if neither of the first two tracks grab you, then you won't like the album.

I can understand that re: Willner, moreso than YLT. He doesn't have much range, but goddamn is he good operating in the little niche he's created. I'm cool with him churning out a new 6 or 7 tracks every 2 years.

I think you'll find a little more to agree with as the list goes on. I know we share at least 2 or 3 of the same albums in our respective top 10s.

[Derek]

19

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These New Puritans - Field of Reeds

Field of Reeds was one of those albums that didn't immediately impress me, yet I found myself playing it over and over and appreciating all of the intricacies that aren't always apparent in their expansive, minimalist compositions. There are slight hints of Bjork and Radiohead, but These New Puritans operate at a much more languorous pace, so their songs have a spaciousness that allow them to evolve. The effusive use of horns, woodwinds and strings as well as slow vocal chants all help create a unique sonic palette that is both gentle and meditative as well as deceptively powerful and disquieting. The album's 9-minute centerpiece "V (Island Song)" is its most accessible track, helping to give it a more cohesive feel while sporting the band's more traditional songwriting chops. It is the perfect respite from the sparser, more experimental tracks that flesh out the album and one of the year’s best tracks, showing yet another level upon which the band can function. But even without this track, Field of Reeds would still remain one of the more interesting artistic statements of the year, which in itself is quite remarkable since their debut just 5 years ago was quite bad.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uxGf3FPFxI


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI5z2mba0Wk


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sJZcyQsdUM

[Derek]

18

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Foxygen - We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic

It’s hard to recover from a bad band name like Foxygen and an even worse album title in We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic, but the band’s loveable brand of psych pop is the kind of catchy, instantly endearing and simply pretty music is all too rare these days to not embrace. From the kaleidoscopic music box tune “San Francisco” to more upbeat songs like “No Destruction” and the blues-infused “On Blue Mountain”, Foxygen have successfully melded all forms of 60s psychedelia into an accessible yet immensely entertaining and joyous little package. 2013 was a hell of a year for dark and brooding music, but this one of its best pick-me-ups.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq7aPbhTqdQ


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtdWGGpvY1s


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg-RT9Iqg2U

[Derek]

17

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Tim Hecker - Virgins

One of the most consistent and rewarding electronic musicians out there, Tim Hecker always brings a unique blend of ambient, drone and noise, balancing his tracks between a sense of progression and discovery and one of decay and loss. Melodies form and develop, only to be interrupted, complicated and reformed – the whirls of noise that threaten to break up “Live Room” before the piano and synth push through to the other side, the shimmering static that makes up the top layer of “Stigmata I”, even the little sputters in the otherwise peaceful “Amps, Drugs, Harmonium”. It is through these opposing forces and disparate sounds that Hecker once again creates a wholly haunting collection of music, multifaceted and complex, yet never overstuffed or overproduced. Unlike much other music in these genres, Hecker’s Virgins isn’t made for the background; it demands attention whether you want to give it or not.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoGUgcI5kLM


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEqV5TqqogM


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkArDyC0BsE

[Derek]

16

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Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest

I was never all that impressed with Boards of Canada’s supposed masterpiece, Music Has the Right to Children, so when all the hype started about Tomorrow’s Harvest, the band’s first album in 8 years, I was hesitant at first. But after a single listen, it was clear this was something special, not only meticulously produced and composed (certainly one of the best sounding albums of 2013) but dense, adventurous and completely enthralling. Boards are also fantastic at operating all over the spectrum of sound, even within single tracks, often layering tight drumbeats that pop and crack over pulsating low-end ambience or slow, elongated synth notes that create a sonically alien atmosphere that is as enrapturing as any ambient release this year.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4v7mg0pK_Y


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdglpRwhoQE


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvCsPMyey9A

[Derek]

15

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Jon Hopkins - Immunity

Jon Hopkins spaced out Immunity is the minimal techno album of the year, so for those tired of this genre’s appearances on this list, fear not, variety is a-coming. Hopkins compositions are tight and efficient, packed with creative yet upbeat and danceable baselines, complex and layered percussion that creates multiple tempos and swirling ambience that fills out the background. Tracks like “Abandon Window” and the first half of “Breath This Air” show Hopkins skill at functioning in pure ambient mode, while the final two tracks “Sun Harmonics” and “Immunity” boasts a more spacious, less claustrophobic feel than the rest of the album. But despite the mode Hopkins is operating in, each of the albums 8 tracks is impeccably conceived and realized, exploring different moods and paces while still feeling like they’re knit from the same cloth.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqhCDbagWh8


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q04ILDXe3QE


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acFxRQWiMEQ

[ledfloyd]

I still can't get enough of that Foxygen record.

[Derek]

14

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Danny Brown - Old

With the utterly jaw-dropping, absurd and tasteless XXX, Danny Brown broke away from the pack of young hip-hop artist with a brilliant blend of high and low-culture, sporting a whip smart sense of humor and a vocal range most rappers would kill for. His follow up, Old, is both more mature in tackling his sense of regret and loneliness, but there's still more than enough debauchery to go around. For the most part, I find this sort of over-the-top approach to be tiresome (ie, Tyler, the Creator), but Brown pushes his content to extremes that are hilarious in their ridiculousness yet still effective representations of excesses of hip-hop life, almost so hardcore that the sex and drugs seem too exhausting to be glorified. And with most of the more reflective, self-critical tracks coming in the album's first half, the excesses of the second half operate on a dual level as they are subtly undermined by the knowledge that they will ultimately lead him back to a state of regret.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o9evdV78v4


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcGGfojS58U


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8ZpCygkMa8

[dreamdead]

Yeah, I knew upon first hearing the Jon Hopkins album that it'd be making your list. It's the sort of album that succeeds precisely because of its variety. "Abandon Window" and "Immunity" are delicate songs, anchored by minimalistic piano notes, yet they match up in the overall design as well as the club tracks. A rarity for this kind of style, able to be played straight through and never feel my mind wander.

[Derek]

I still can't get enough of that Foxygen record.

It's such a fun album, definitely the pick-me-up album of the year for me.


Yeah, I knew upon first hearing the Jon Hopkins album that it'd be making your list. It's the sort of album that succeeds precisely because of its variety. "Abandon Window" and "Immunity" are delicate songs, anchored by minimalistic piano notes, yet they match up in the overall design as well as the club tracks. A rarity for this kind of style, able to be played straight through and never feel my mind wander.

Haha, my taste isn't always as unpredictable as I'd like to think. :) But yes, this album never suffers from any sameness, always switching it up while still clearly remaining a part of a singular artistic vision. Great stuff - glad you dug it too!

[Derek]

13

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The Flaming Lips - The Terror/Peace Sword EP

Fresh off their double LP masterpiece Embryonic (*nudges Davis in the ribs*), a joyous yet raucous affair, The Flaming Lips take a turn for the dark side with the more stripped down The Terror. Drawing inspiration from krautrock and dark ambient, The Lips have created their most disorienting and unsettling album and while it is a unique direction for the band, it is perfectly in line with their even more experimental approaches since returning from the singular dud, At War With the Mystics. From EPs stuffed into gummy skulls and 6-hour songs to collaborations with K$sha and Amanda Palmer (all surprisingly good!), the band seems to be catching a second wind of creativity, not only coming out with multiple releases every year, but taking new and exciting directions with each of them, and more importantly continuing to make music that is both fresh and just really damn good. For those who find The Terror incessantly disquieting atmosphere to be overwhelming or lacking in the band’s usual charm and fun, their wonderful 6-song EP, Peace Sword, hits that mark. Returning to the bands more positive and orchestral Yoshimi days, Peace Sword is more traditional yet its swirling psychedelia and chill atmosphere allows it to function as a perfect follow-up spin to The Terror – a more accessible and soothing comedown from the LPs bizarre and fantastical trip.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7xGD--8XF4


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzZig-Q8fm4


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTWcn8xFGCo

[Derek]

12

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The Stranger - Watching Dead Empires in Decay

Leyland Kirby’s music, whether under his own name, The Caretaker, or now The Stranger, has always had elements of decay integrated into it, be it digitally enhanced or through the recycling of damaged LPs in his An Empty Bliss Beyond This World release. His newest album, Watching Dead Empires in Decay, is his darkest, most focused to date, moving into the foreboding musical territory of Demdike Stare with slow methodic percussion layered with swirls of ambient and orchestral drones, enhanced by a washed out, echo-y production that's the perfect sonic equivalent of the crumbling building on the album cover. The mix of denser drone and dark ambient tracks with more minimal, lighter pieces gives the album a nice balance, never so weighty as to discourage repeated listens nor light enough to remain insignificant. But while Kirby's atmospherics are not always linked sonically, they are thematically tied to notions of beauty and its inevitable decay and how our perceptions of that decay affect our previously held opinions of that beauty. The album sounds dirty, even rusty, at times, but the gorgeous melodies that lie beneath that veneer can always be felt, if not fully grasped. As such, it is a challenging album, but quite rewarding for Kirby's impeccable balance of the two elements he constantly brings to the forefront.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjG2uP-qsfQ


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iRLLxpqr1E


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egOSi3zjsrI

[Derek]

11

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Julia Holter - Loud City Song

Julia Holter has become quite the critics’ darling these past few years and while I had appreciated her more experimental approach to singer/songwriting (she’s becoming the Kate Bush of the aughts), her first two albums were just too distant and off-putting to fully embrace. My initial reaction to Loud City Song was similar, except for “Maxim’s I”, which is one of the year’s best and most achingly beautiful songs. It was this song that led me to return again and again to Loud City Song and each time I did, my appreciation grew exponentially. Not only is Holter’s voice one of the most gorgeous and unique in music today, but her songwriting here is unparalleled. From the accessible dream-popiness of “Maxim’s I”, Holter immediately moves into more challenging territory with the existential “Horns Surrounding Me” – a perfect melding of theme and content, the character whose lyrics voice the song is literally being haunted by the music in the song. Like a snake eating its own tail, “Horns” is magnificently original and challenging, showing the unique territory within which Holter is working. Other wonderful tracks like “In the Green Wild” and “Hello Stranger” display this same thoughtfulness and complexity, but unlike Holter’s earlier work, remain relatively accessible and enjoyable in their own right rather than in purely academic terms.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7paoM2cghjI


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0_LuSW61GI


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5M8qRN_Rl0

[elixir]

i guess i didn't realize bill baird had new stuff out, thanks for that.

fwiw, with regard to BoC, i love music has...but my fav is actually campifire headphase.
i feel like foxygen's previous album take the kids off broadway is a lot better than this one.

i agree the field isn't as good as his others perhaps, but he's still so consistent. the other night i was clicking around on youtube and found a really great remix he did of the honeydrips' fall from a height. it's worth checking out.

it's so banal to say 'i need to listen to some of these' but the list does includes ones i've been meaning to check out + sound up my alley, so this is a nice push to do so. :)

[Derek]

i guess i didn't realize bill baird had new stuff out, thanks for that.

fwiw, with regard to BoC, i love music has...but my fav is actually campifire headphase.
i feel like foxygen's previous album take the kids off broadway is a lot better than this one.

i agree the field isn't as good as his others perhaps, but he's still so consistent. the other night i was clicking around on youtube and found a really great remix he did of the honeydrips' fall from a height. it's worth checking out.

it's so banal to say 'i need to listen to some of these' but the list does includes ones i've been meaning to check out + sound up my alley, so this is a nice push to do so. :)

Yeah, kinda randomly stumbled across the new Baird. Good thing I did! As for BoC, I've only heard those 2 albums. I'll have to go back and listen to more now.

I'm with you on The Field. I love his style, so I always manage to connect with whatever he puts out, which is a rarity for me, especially with that type of music. Dig the Honeydrips' remix.

[Derek]

10

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Eluvium - Nightmare Ending

Eluvium's Matthew Cooper has long been making some of the most powerful and emotional ambient music out there. With his previous outing, the underrated Similes, he even added his own flawed yet tender vocal to a number of tracks. While that approach was an interesting, and mostly successful, turn, I’m quite glad that with Nightmare Ending, he returns to epic instrumentals (except for a brief appearance of his voice in the final track) that generate musical landscapes of their own, tinged with feelings of loss and nostalgia as well as hope. The 14 tracks spread across the albums 2 LPs may not break much new ground, but they offer some of the artists most satisfying and fully realized statements as well as perfect pacing with briefer, yet still affecting, piano interludes breaking up some of the albums longer pieces. It’s ironic that Cooper‘s simplest, most stripped down album is also his longest, but this is the kind of spacious music that awards time and patience. In a year with a lot of fantastic “busy” music, Nightmare Ending was the perfect reprieve to catch my breath.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHbmM1cm_Lo


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKyMDjFxIQ8


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTJZybIOhEA

[Derek]

9

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Thee Oh Sees - Floating Coffin

Thee Oh Sees have already mastered the live act, thrashing and blasting through their catalogue with speed and verve. They’ve been a can’t-miss since they broke onto the scene, but starting with Carrion Crawler/The Dream, they’ve started making consistently fantastic albums as well. Floating Coffin, their most balanced album in terms of John Dwyer’s more offbeat experimental tendencies and their more traditional psych-garage rockouts, is their finest effort to date and evidence that the band is equally comfortable in the studio as on the stage. The album has a remarkable sense of pacing and progression, an ebb-and-flow that none of their previous albums quite mastered. Here, not only every song is strong, but it feels like a piece of a larger whole with every transition quick and seemless. Even the slower tracks here like “Night Crawler” and “Minotaur” have a liveliness and energy that many of the, still fantastic, songs on last year’s Putrifiers II didn’t quite capture, making Floating Coffin the bands most successful blending of all their various forms to date.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-e5M3EdjSc


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwmQp95DXes


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeD3-sdGf1c

[Derek]

8

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Fire! Orchestra - Exit!

Perhaps the sole band in existence, at least in recent years, that has successfully made big band music cool, Fire! Orchestra combine that genre with a jazzy flare, krautrocky rhythms and offbeat vocals and compositions in what may be this lists most unique albums. Broken into two 20-minute tracks, Exit! is full of shapeshifting, transformative music that defies all genres and classifications (it is as much pure jazz as it post-rock or big band) and explores all of these various paths while remaining wildly entertaining, full of vigor and vim and as passionate as any album all year. This is one of those albums that defies descriptions, so you’ll just have to hear it for yourself.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqoBUuA8g1o


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z53ltfMGbLY

[Derek]

7

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Stara Rzeka - Cień Chmury Nad Ukrytym Polem

One of those albums I never would’ve heard of or heard without RateYourMusic, Cień Chmury Nad Ukrytym Polem is, like Bill Baird’s, the kind of personal and experimental music of which the world needs more. Right from the first track, Stara Rzeka‘s genre-bending sound takes off, morphing post-rock, metal, ambient, folk, prog and krautrock into 6 bigger-than-life tracks. Seemlessly shifting genres, tempos and moods within every track, Stara Rzeka display a mastery in every form, producing a wholly singular musical vision that is as dense and multifaceted as it is raw and powerful. There are times when going through nearly 250-300 new albums a year becomes something of a chore to satiate some of my more OCD impules, but Cień Chmury is one of those rare rewards that make taking all of those chances worthwhile. It’s quite simply the most pleasantly surprising album of the year and the birth of a very special musician who will hopefully continue to garner more fans and appreciation in the coming years.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrgAZXqYq2g


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRg3on17WNE


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G10TEy6NG-4

[D_Davis]

I'm surprised I haven't seen Dawn of Midi mentioned yet.

Did you get a chance to check it out?

That Stara Rzeka album is great - reminds me of a lot of that early new age stuff on the I am the Center compilation released this year, and of Popol Vuh. I like it.

[D_Davis]

8

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Fire! Orchestra - Exit!


Perhaps the sole band in existence, at least in recent years, that has successfully made big band music cool, Fire! Orchestra combine that genre with a jazzy flare, krautrocky rhythms and offbeat vocals and compositions in what may be this lists most unique albums.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aVjQ5RzchU

[dreamdead]

Woah. Stara Rzeka is magnificent. Listened to the album on the drive to work today, and the drone on the title track--into the sudden shimmer of clean guitars in the last three minutes--was ascendant. Truly fascinating to watch how the songs morph and shift.

This is gonna get a lot of listens in the coming week.

[Derek]

I'm surprised I haven't seen Dawn of Midi mentioned yet.

Did you get a chance to check it out?

It's in the queue along with those Norwegian jazz artists you posted. I need to download it so it's on my Ipod, since I've barely been at home to stream music the past couple weeks.


That Stara Rzeka album is great - reminds me of a lot of that early new age stuff on the I am the Center compilation released this year, and of Popol Vuh. I like it.

Yeah, there definitely is a new agey feel to it now that you mention it. I don't remember your post about that comp, but I'll check that out as well.


Woah. Stara Rzeka is magnificent. Listened to the album on the drive to work today, and the drone on the title track--into the sudden shimmer of clean guitars in the last three minutes--was ascendant. Truly fascinating to watch how the songs morph and shift.

This is gonna get a lot of listens in the coming week.

I thought of you before I was even halfway through my first listen. This seemed like something you'd totally love. Glad I was right! :)

[Derek]

6

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The Knife - Shaking the Habitual

A good friend of mine got food poisoning the day he purchased Shaking the Habitual and after vomiting his brains out, he laid on the floor of his apartment and took in this album for the first time. There’s something poetic about that sort of extreme physical release in relation to The Knife’s epic experimentalism. Where most bands temper their weirdness, streamlining their sound to something approaching accessibility, The Knife have plunged further into the depths of their own unique electronic sounds, creating dance music for aliens and using the album as a stage for political protest, both in its anti-capitalist content and its challenging structure with rapid pace changes and otherworldly passages of drone functioning as portals linking the slightly more traditional dance pieces together. Shaking the Habitual is far greater than the sum of its parts, truly a great double album for both its complex themes and wild variance of sounds and evidence that The Knife isn’t worried about alienating fans, but in pushing their already singular music towards uncharted territory.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W10F0ezCTIQ


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoH6k6eIUS4


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSIzOTWcSlM

[Derek]

5

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The Stargazer Lilies - We Are the Dreamers

Like Davis, I’ve been waiting for The Stargazer Lilies debut LP since hearing their first four tracks (only two of which made the cut here) a couple years ago and We Are the Dreamers does not disappoint. Shoegaze is en vogue these days, but few bands return to its early 90s roots and play as a genre in and of itself. Like A Sunny Day in Glasgow, The Stargazer Lilies are strongly informed by the early shoegazers like Slowdive and MBV, but they also have their other foot firmly planted in the 21st Century. Their album is packed with brilliant slowburners full of gorgeous guitar textures and methodical, echoey drums that play perfectly off of K Field‘s angelic voice. These elements combine to create a dense atmosphere thick with warbly distortion that gives me goose bumps every time I hear it. The Stargazer Lilies are one of the most exciting new bands to hit the scene in the last few years, so here’s hoping they continue to pump out more material as great as this.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqL19g0HVRo


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqPrzKV2Cfc


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9WPaGs64RQ

[Derek]

4

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Arcade Fire - Reflektor

After the last 2 Arcade Fire albums, which are both good in their own rights but nowhere near touching the now-classic Funeral, and the Grammy for The Suburbs, I figured these guys would be heading towards an even more streamlined sound and lots more FM radio play. Not to suggest that Reflektor is in any way revolutionary, but in taking cues from Talking Heads and James Murphy, while besting Vampire Weekend at their own game with the lovely "Here Comes the Night" and ditching the faux-Springsteen sound for the most part, the Arcade Fire have crafted a dance/rock album that’s accessible and creative, purely fun as mindless background music and thematically complex when the lyrics are unpacked. Win Butler & Co. have not only successfully switched up their sound to something different yet still definitively themselves, but have done so in the context of a massive double album that, with the exception of their absolute worst song, the wretched “Normal Person”, is full of brilliance without the bombast that marred their previous follow-ups to Funeral. With so much of mainstream music being total and utter garbage, it’s hard not to appreciate when a successful band does something so so right and Reflektor gives me hope not only for Arcade Fire, but mainstream music in general.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E0fVfectDo


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAYeLfSE8k4


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eepfdrU55KA

[D_Davis]

Yeah, there definitely is a new agey feel to it now that you mention it. I don't remember your post about that comp, but I'll check that out as well.


Specifically, it reminds me of Wilburn Burchette - even the artwork is similar.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_StCYPaxjLU

Unfortunately, all of Burchette's albums are OOP, nearly impossible to find, and super expensive.

That compilation is incredible. I've fallen in love with at least 10 of the artists on there.

[D_Davis]

It's in the queue along with those Norwegian jazz artists you posted. I need to download it so it's on my Ipod, since I've barely been at home to stream music the past couple weeks.


I could have sworn that you had already heard and mentioned Dawn of Midi; I thought I was late to the party on it. Maybe it's because I just though it sounded so much like something you'd love.

[D_Davis]

MBV #1?

[Derek]

I could have sworn that you had already heard and mentioned Dawn of Midi; I thought I was late to the party on it. Maybe it's because I just though it sounded so much like something you'd love.

Listened to that Dawn of Midi album a good 5 or 6 times. Great stuff! Not sure whether it would've made the list, but it would've been close. Thanks for another solid rec!


MBV #1?

Patience, young Daniel. Trust me, I want to be done with this too. I'll have the last 3 up by tomorrow night.

[ledfloyd]

Dawn of Midi is fantastic.

[Derek]

3

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Fuck Buttons - Soft Focus

From their debut, Street Horrrsing, to their follow-up, Tarot Sport, Fuck Buttons cut down on the screamy vocals and noise, settling into a more soothing, yet still sprawling and adventurous sonic palette. It was a great album, but Slow Focus killed all doubt that these guys were moving away from their harsher, harder roots. This new album is the best of both worlds, colliding heavy beats and a slight abrasiveness with a playful sense of melody and rhythm. Songs like “Brainfreeze” and “Hidden XS” are just crushing and relentless where “The Red Wing” and “Prince’s Prize” find the band’s more freeform experimentation coming into bloom, leading to the duos most varied and wide-ranging album to date.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YxcVmALZ0s


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPukZ0IDkAo


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Icpr87yFxIo

[Derek]

2

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My Bloody Valentine - m b v

There are few equivalents to the 22-year wait between My Bloody Valentine’s seminal, genre-defining masterpiece Loveless and its follow-up m b v, an album that all but the most hopelessly naïve of us had stopped wishing for years ago. It seemed like the weight of this prolonged absence and the ever-looming shadow of Loveless - whose status had seemed to only grow with each passing year - were destined to eclipse any follow-up. Luckily, the actual content of m b v and the obvious care Kevin Shields took with his legendarily meticulous production assuaged those fears. While unmistakably building off the sonic palette they created with Loveless, m b v sounded exactly like the album everyone expected them to release in 1993, and yet it still found a home in 2013. Perhaps it was the resurgence of the shoegaze aesthetic and swirling, distorted guitars in recent years that made it play so well, or perhaps it was simply an album that was strange and beautiful in ways that only Shields & Co. have mastered. Whether it was the shimmering staccato of “New You,” the whirling cacophony of “Wonder 2,” or the classic MBV-sounding “She Found Now,” m b v proved that My Bloody Valentine were not only a sonic signpost for a generation of upcoming musicians, but also capable of creating space for their own aesthetic alongside the 21st-century greats.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXzrj4cpDRA


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWyRfqfEC2s


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocaTt0ILPWY

[Derek]

1

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Darkside - Psychic

While I enjoyed Nicholas Jaar’s Space is Only Noise and the 30 minutes of one of his live sets I caught, which had an interesting integration of saxophone, nothing quite prepared me for the blindsiding brilliance of Darkside’s Psychic, Jaar’s collaboration with guitarist David Harrington. The duo’s sense of pacing is immaculate, sometimes using slow builds to wind tracks in various directions before settling down (take the almost 5-minute build in “Golden Arrow” which suddenly becomes an entirely different song once the muted guitar hits at the 5:30 mark) and other times creating denser, faster paced intros that open up into more spacious and spacey sounds (take the guitar coming in at 4:00 in “The Only Shrine I’ve Seen”). The integration of Harrington’s guitar however is what takes this from a fascinating electronic into a truly brilliant, dare I say groundbreaking one. Adding flares of blues and italo disco rhythms, the guitar is used sparingly, but is crucial in setting the tones for the tracks within which it’s highlighted. Whether it’s the full-on blues riffs as in “Heart” or the layered, muted staccatos in “Golden Arrow” or “Metatron”, they work wonders within Jaar’s lush, thick and insular sonic atmospheres and along with flourishes in keyboard and sax, help to create one of the most complex and inventive sounds on any album this year. For 8 tracks, Darkside show a wealth of range and talents, mixing up their sound (this may be the best produced album of the year aside from being my favorite) with each subsequent song leading to a masterful album that touches on many moods while still retaining its identity as a single and singular album.

Favorite Tracks:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8NaWT0WvEE


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFfKPZhY16Q


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9llB3fL-qXY

[Derek]

And one more Darkside track just because...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID0hJ663zaU

[D_Davis]

The Darkside album is really good.

[Sven]

That James Holden stuff is badass.

[dreamdead]

Need to spend time listening to the Darkside album. Had listened to a few tracks before seeing your placement, and now I feel that more time needs to be devoted before assessing my thoughts.

The Fuck Buttons album remains one of my favorite writing albums from last year. It is wonderfully frenetic and pulsating throughout--love the latter half of the album a little more than the early tracks. Such a sense of progression and development to the songs, and it's fascinating to think about it in relation to the debut, which now feels so much simpler and more obvious in its transitions and sequence (though the opening and closing tracks there remain epic).

MBV is interesting in that I totally understand that ranking, even as newcomers to the shoegaze throne demand more attention. For me, it's all about the final three tracks on m.b.v., which just kill. The Stargazer Lillies are ascending, but I don't think they're to Slowdive's or MBV's level yet.

Any thoughts about the Laura Marling or Kurt Vile albums from last year? I kinda expected that you might place the latter somewhere on your list...

[D_Davis]

There aren't many bands at all at Slowdive's level. :)

Pygmalion is an all-time great album.

I heard that they're getting back together for some new music. I hope they do something completely new, just like they did with each album the released. But man - how the hell do you follow up Pygmalion?

[dreamdead]

I heard that they're getting back together for some new music. I hope they do something completely new, just like they did with each album the released. But man - how the hell do you follow up Pygmalion?

I'm holding out hope that Slowdive is announced for this year's Pitchfork Festival in Chicago... if so, I'll be totally locking up tickets.

[D_Davis]

I wish I could have seen their tour for Pygmalion, but I don't even know if they came to US for that.

I did see them twice - once with Ride, and once with Catherine Wheel, I think.