[Skinny]

I feel a little uneasy doing this before the year's out, but it's not as though I don't have the opportunity to come back and re-do it if I find something I totally love. So, here goes nothing...

My 'Actual' Top Three Albums of 2014

3. Aphex Twin - SYRO

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You can't continually expect one man to re-invent the wheel, especially in a day and age where nearly every conceivable version of said wheel has been attempted (and botched beyond belief). Just thought I'd get that one out of the way early, given that much of the criticism SYRO received, both upon its release and since, seems to have been based on those entirely unrealistic expectations. What we actually got was a master craftsmen doing what comes naturally to him, and in the process finding an ideal midpoint between his almost unmatched (in house and techno, anyway) knack for a killer melody, and his desire to constantly change direction, never allowing those melodies to lie around and become stale. What this means, in practice, is an album that's incredibly dense - to the point that even several months and dozens of listens later I'm still discovering new easter eggs hidden in previously unseen nooks and crannies - and yet delightfully breezy, skipping effortlessly along and making a mockery of its 65 minute runtime. (In a rather strange coincidence, all three of these albums clock in somewhere between 60 and 68 minutes, and make me question my own previous assumption that 38-45 minutes is the perfect album length.) Largely relying on a palette of solid breakbeats and squelching acid bass, the Aphex Twin put together his most accessible full-length since Selected Ambient Works 85-92, switching up tempos at will, stitching together huge, fluid suites that were constantly turning unexpected and welcome corners, and then putting them next to snippets of songs which would have garnered few complaints if their length was increased five-fold, without any of it ever feeling forced or unnatural. The whole album was clearly painstakingly crafted, and yet it stills feels spontaneous. Perhaps the most overriding feeling I get from the record, though, moreso than the melancholy moods brought on by those hazy synth washes, or the energy provided by the expertly treated breakbeats, is one of playfulness and fun. I can see Richard D. James cackling like a mad scientist as he rigs up his equipment and goes to work on a deceptively funky bassline, and any music that conjures that image has got to be worth cherishing.

2. Ariel Pink - pom pom

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There's a lot of music I adore, and there isn't necessarily any rhyme or reason to my taste. I might love one album for being one thing, and then hate another for being almost that exact same thing. It's dumb as fuck, and it makes giving me recommendations something akin to a game of Russian roulette, but it's the the way I am. However, there are certain signposts that I can use in figuring out whether or not I will like or do like a particular record, and one of them is this: I basically love any music that makes my girlfriend screw up her face and ask, disgusted, "what the fuck is that shit?!?", and Ariel Pink's pom pom passed that particular test with flying colours. It's just an absolutely nuts journey through 1970s AM radio pop, new wave (of both the bright and the gothic varieties), and forgotten TV theme tunes - hell, there's even excursions into heavy blues rock, synth-funk, surf-pop, cosmic dub, and Omar Souleyman-style Syrian wedding music. Lyrically, half of the songs on the record are either uncomfortably perverted or otherwise just downright ridiculous, and I find the best way to deal with the potential problem of deciding whether Pink's ever being sincere or if it's all just a big joke is simply to ignore the question altogether. He paints in garish and gaudy shades of gold and hot pink, and deliberately sabotages some of the album's most beautiful moments with bizarrely inappropriate sound effects or incantations. But then there's that fucking panpipe in 'Lipstick' and I just know that this is pure genius, the work of a merry prankster who wants to force his audience to accept both the sublime and the undeniably ugly, to make them chase down that sugar with a spoonful of bitter medicine. Much like SYRO above, pom pom is just a ridiculously fun and playful journey, an album that revels in fucking shit up for the sake of fucking shit up. It's not even that it's particularly weird, but when it is weird it is being so deliberately. And, just like a child pulling the stupidest, ugliest faces possible just because he's a child and fuck it why not be disgusting, it's completely infectious. This whole album has a childlike sense of wonder, and occasionally it crosses that line into childishness and a desire to just fuck shit up, which only makes it more endearing to me. Maybe it's because I work in a school, but if a child gurns at me, I'll gurn back twice as hard until the little fucker starts laughing uncontrollably. And that's what this album is; a 'who can make the ugliest face?' competition followed by a moment of genuine joy with a charming, horrible child.

1. Freddie Gibbs & Madlib - Piñata

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And so, for what feels like the hundredth time, I sit down to write something about Piñata. There isn't much left to say. You know that Gibbs is probably the most mature gangsta rapper since Scarface. You know that Madlib's stoned, unquantized beats are hazy and psychedelic and dripping in soul. You know that 'Thuggin'' is the best rap song since 'Shook One pt. II'. And you know that I adore Piñata. So I'm just gonna leave that there. It's my album of the year, and probably would be in most other years too. When the best rapper around meets one of the greatest producers of all-time, magic should happen, but it doesn't make it any less magical when it does.


My 'I'm Cooler Than You' Top Three Albums of 2014

3. Busdriver - Perfect Hair

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I've never been able to get fully behind Busdriver's music - in the past, it's definitely been more a case of appreciation than adoration, able to admit that Busdriver is incredibly clever (and probably pretty fucking vital, especially in the history of alternative West Coast hip-hop), but without ever being able to tolerate him for long periods, let alone love him - but that all changed with Perfect Hair, on which he curbed his weirder aspects and tendency towards messy sprawl in order to fashion a statement much more compact and concise than anything else in his discography, and at which point I'd finally become attuned enough to weirder rap music to really learn to love his music (I have no doubt that it's definitely both of these things combined, and probably in fairly equal measure). Built on a canvas of wonky, glitchy beats (that sound something like Joker through a Brainfeeder lens), Driver basically has the most beautiful neurotic crisis hip-hop's ever seen, questioning the genre, his place in it, his relationships, and the world around him, and he emerges as a tragicomic hero to rival Yuri Nikulin, treading that same fine line between slapstick absurdity and staggering intelligence, whilst never forgetting that the most powerful weapon in any artist's armoury is sincere human emotion. And so we're treated to almost impossibly well-articulated heartbreak ("knowing that my capricious lover is a migrant bird, your absence caused quiet stirs that progressed into a violent dirge"), artistic insecurity ("I'm a decent liar, and that's a lie in itself but you knew that"), anger at the world ("the fact that this pony show's racist stirs the colloquial cake mix, and charges the homeostasis"), and a whole host of other sincere human emotions that actually make the occasionally impenetrable web of words (and believe me when I say that it's a web) far easier to approach. I know that Busdriver has managed this in the past, but it's also been tempered by some late-era-Prince-esque desire to go in as many different directions as possible on his records, often leaving me dizzy and cold, whereas here it feels like he had things to say and he said them in the best and most efficient way possible. If somebody had told me last New Year's Eve that Busdriver would make one of my favourite albums of the year, I'd have laughed in their face, but it's extremely pleasant surprises like this one that truly make music worth listening to.

2. Various Artists - Keysound Recordings Presents... Certified Connections

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For a little while now, progressive instrumental grime has been arguably the most exciting genre coming out of the UK. In a genre where beats were, for the longest time, strictly functional, it has been a breath of fresh air to see talented producers take the core elements and arrange and re-arrange them in new and dizzying ways, completely unbeholden to the will of MCs and finally free to fuck with the form to their heart's content. This isn't to belittle Wiley's beats, or Dizzee's, or Skepta's, or Terror Danjah's, or Ruff Sqwad's, or any number of excellent grime producers over the years, but where once the production was largely secondary to the MCs, and tailored accordingly, there's now a throng of producers who are shoving their beats unapologetically to the fore, whilst never betraying the true spirit of grime. This is some uncompromising shit right here, and Certified Connections, Keysound Recordings' second compilation of exclusive material in as many years - featuring some of the scene's biggest and brightest names - is probably the best LP-length example yet, managing that rarest of tricks by being both massively diverse and yet satisfyingly coherent at the same time. (In truth, though, it's a little disingenuous and more than a little disrespectful to lay the credit squarely at grime's feet here, given that so much of this material is just as indebted to UK garage, UK funky, and dubstep, but they all share so much of the same DNA that it seems inconsequential to quibble over specifics.) What we have here are fourteen tracks that show the full breadth of the scene as it stands, from the weightless meanderings of Logos (whose 2013 album Cold Mission is a must-hear), through the black comedy formalism of label head honchos Dusk & Blackdown, the sweeping ragga-step of Etch, the cinematic stylings of Murlo, and onto the dusty trip-hop of Epoch, with every base in-between covered - all of it sequenced beautifully, so as to act as both an introductory guide to the scene and a definitive document of it. This is probably the most essential, zeitgeist-capturing dance music compilation since Planet Mu's footwork extravaganza Bangs & Works, and to ignore it would be to live a slightly less fulfilled life - yes, it's that good. (n.b. This album was released less than a week ago, and if I'd had more time to fully digest it then it might have found a spot in the Top Three above.)

1. Kassem Mosse - Workshop 19

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There's been a tendency in recent years, in electronic music, for artists to try to create "albums" with their debut full-lengths, records that ebb and flow and all too often contain pointless drone sections and awkward stabs at genres that clearly fall outside the producer's comfort zone. And that's fine. Sometimes it produces some stunning works, but it's an all-too-predictable formula followed by artists trying to free themselves of the 12" single and EP shackles of the dance music world by venturing into something ostensibly more "progressive", but which in reality is actually a regression into that Dark Side of the Moon world of quote unquote albums. What dance music producers forget is that dance music fans don't want Forever fucking Changes - we want albums of bangers that work in the club and via headphones on bus journeys. So I can't tell you how refreshing it was when Kassem Mosse forewent any attempt at pandering to a larger audience, and just released nine murky, heavy house cuts of the same sort of quality that he'd been putting out on EPs for years. These tracks don't have names, they don't transition seamlessly into one another, and they don't try to create a larger mood over the course of an LP - they just, one by one, lock into their own groove, hang around for five or six minutes (or, occasionally, two or ten), and then fuck off again, having done their job, making my head nod and my brain throb. They're virtually all bittersweet to some extent, propelled by some semblance of a cutting-room-floor melody, often little keyboard riffs or motifs that stick around just as long as they need to. Sometimes they're dirty as fuck, floorfillers that drip with sweat, and that's cool too. They all feel, to some extent, obscured, leaking out drip by drip, never revealing themselves in full, but lingering for minutes afterwards, perfectly recreating the feeling of trying to remember some song you just heard but were too fucked on MDMA to completely comprehend. And that is where the beauty in this album lies - it's dance music that feels like it's made for the rave, but also as an ode to the rave, managing to draw on those same half-memories that Burial utilises so well, but never forgetting that dance music's goal, first and foremost, is to inspire dancing. Kassem Mosse made a record for dance music fans, and it showed. If anybody else likes it, that's just a bonus.
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2021 in full effect. Come drop me some recs. Y'all know what I like.

[samistake2ice]

[paladisiac]

another takeaway is i need to revisit pin~ata.
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fav artists NOW | ALL-TIME favs | i listen 2 more music than u so u don't have 2!

[joyofdivision]

1.

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Lost In The Dream by The War On Drugs


2.

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LP1 by FKA Twigs


3.

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Dimensional Space by cv313

[JMan]

[SquishypuffDave]

[benpaco]

I'll include my note on each below [except #2 I'm writing a new one for], though I gotta say there's no way I can outdo Skinny, your write-ups take an amount of time, energy, and knowledge I just don't possess.

#3:

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Pink Narcissus by Tuxedomoon

I was so excited to see this album appear on Spotify finally, and plugged in, expecting a Half-Mute/Desire/Pinheads on the Moon sound. Nothing like that. You know how it's really hard to describe what Talk Talk's sound is, so people say it's post-rock influenced by new wave and jazz? This to me is post-rock influenced by new wave and jazz. It's entirely instrumental, and gives you the instant feeling of being out homeless in a cold night in a big city. One of the best soundtracks ever made, for certain, and not even an official soundtrack, unfortunately.

#2:

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Nobody Wants To Be Here And Nobody Want...ilight Sad

With each album, they come a little closer to reaching the sound I've heard on live recordings. If you listen to their debut, it's gorgeous, it's interesting, but it's not particularly ... upset. If that makes sense. It's upsetting without being upset. Which works, it's a little unsettling while also peaceful and wonderful, and will be going on my overall with the next update. And this is special in it's own way. I don't think it's as good, but it's gone from shoegaze with hints of post-punk to post-punk with hints of folk. I love and have promoted Frightened Rabbit's Midnight Organ Fight on here a lot for being trasporting and just taking you to a moment, not even that it's a concept album so much as it could be. This does the same for me. Except instead of some bar reminiscing, this is like a party where the music isn't quite right, there's a haze over it of talking around you, and you sit there and drift between spacing off and talking to someone and talking to yourself and going in and out in this loud environment that's almost become white noise. If that makes any sense, bravo.

#1:

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Teledrome by Teledrome

Right, I was going through our "worst" (really just our most unknown) albums of the year, just cuz I was curious. Picked out a bunch with cool covers, this being one of them. Threw it on. This is the genre I've been waiting as long as I can remember to find. This is true synthpunk. This takes every element I love about New Wave and synthpop and puts that heavy bass, that raging guitar, that anger into it. I love Post-Punk to death because it's as close as it comes, but this is incredible. Is it spot on? No, there's some flaws, lyrically it could be better, drumming could use a lot. But I mean even lyrically, it manages to have some just poppiness (see "Boyfriend") and some songs about an unfortunate but overwhelming want to partake in rape-play or extreme BDSM with a friend until they're bleeding (see "Blood Drips"). This is going on my overall chart, this is one of my favorite albums I've ever heard in my life.

Oh, also, Pinata is worth checking out again, Benji isn't. Benji's worth a listen or two but that's about it. Although Pinata fell a fair amount on my chart, it's a really great album that I do find myself going back to from time to time.
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. . . 2016 . . . 2015 . . .

"While I'm alive, I'll make tiny changes to Earth" - Frightened Rabbit

[meruizh]

1)

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Worlds by Porter Robinson

2)

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No Mythologies To Follow by Mø

3)

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It's Album Time by Todd Terje

A lot of dance picks. Plastikman and Hercules and Love Affair released top albums this year too.
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"Hurry Up, We're Dreaming"

[Silver]

I'm not sure how accurately my chart reflects my thoughts on the year right now, at least the top ten is a bit out of order. I think if I was forced to choose right now I'd go with these.

1.

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Plowing Into The Field Of Love by Iceage

2.

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Benji by Sun Kil Moon

3.

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A U R O R A by Ben Frost

[Precedent]

1.

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Here And Nowhere Else by Cloud Nothings

2.

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Clark by Clark

3.

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Xen by Arca

All of these are close, so time will tell which one comes out on top. Also, the new J. Cole comes out in a week and I have a feeling that that'll sneak its way into my top 3 of 2014.