Posts Tagged ‘Best Albums Of 2015’

TORRES – ” Sprinter ” Best Albums Of 2015

Posted: December 16, 2015 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Torres, the stage name of Maicon born song-writer Mackenzie Scott, first came to the world’s attention back in 2012 when, whilst still a student, she wrote and independently released her self-titled debut album. As impressive as that record was, surely even Partisan Records, who snapped her up on the back of it, must have been quietly delighted with their decision when they first heard her latest record, Sprinter.

It wasn’t so much a step up in Mackenzie’s song-craft, as a giant leap. A stunningly produced record, it was made in Portishead’s Adrian Utley’s studio in Bristol and featured PJ Harvey collaborators Robert Ellis and Ian Oliver, but there was no doubt who the star was, this record was all about Mackenzie. The voice: capable of producing the raw power of Anna Calvi, or the emotive depth of Sharon Van Etten. The songs; from the experimental pop of Cowboy Guilt, to the squalling dark-electronics of Son You Are No Island, and the blast of noise that was Strange Hellos. This was a spectacularly good record, that questioned topics from religion, to unrequited love, and adoption, all delivered with an ambitious musical pallet and a lyrical light-touch. Put simply, it was just a fantastic record.

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Not that she is striving for it, but Torres (aka Mackenzie Scott) could be the female incarnation of Kurt Cobain. Sure, she has the lanky physique of the grunge god and her stringy blond hair doesn’t hurt either. And don’t forget about her love for Fender’s other guitars. But the real similarities lie in the Brooklyn-based singer-guitarist’s ability to create the most dramatic and polar-opposite of dynamics. One second she’s whispering into the mic and the next she’s yowling loud enough to carry across county lines. In her dynamically rich second album Torres, you can hear influences ranging from Funkadelic to the aforementioned Nirvana, and you can even hear the Queen of Pop in Scott’s more subdued, airy singing. I usually play with a more elaborate rig, but for SXSW I only brought a few pedals and carried them around in my backpack all week. I wanted to keep setup time to a minimum and reduce the weight of my gear as much as possible, as I’m usually carrying it all on my back from venue to venue during SXSW.”

C DUNCAN – ” Architect ” Best Albums Of 2015

Posted: December 7, 2015 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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It’s one thing to have your profile raised by a Mercury Music Prize nomination, it’s another thing entirely to be able to present an album with the subtle complexity of Architect, and the undoubted quality of Chris Duncan’s music will also last longer than any industry accolade. The strength is found in its depth, the layers of vocal harmonies and instrumentation create an entirely unique sound out of recognisable parts, something we can relate to and enjoy like it’s the first time every time.”

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Musician born and raised in Glasgow, On his breathtaking debut album Architect, The 26-year-old Glaswegian composer Christopher Duncan sings, “I’ll take you everywhere I go… I’ll take you everywhere I know. It’s all so wonderful.” That’s exactly what the Mercury Prize-nominated multi-instrumentalist does over the course of 49 minutes, and it’s anything but hyperbole to declare that “wonderful” is quite the understatement. From delicate, pastoral dream pop to intimate, electronic-tinged folk, Duncan’s luxuriant vocal harmonies and intricate compositions dazzle with ingenuity. For over a year the singer-songwriter isolated himself within his bedroom studio as he crafted the album’s 12 songs. Unencumbered by time constraints or the influence of outside producers, Duncan painstakingly layers guitars, synths, handclaps, found objects and vocal lines on top one another. The resulting product is astonishing, not simply because of how disarmingly beautiful it all is, but more that the record is the result of one man’s labor of love, not the work of an entire studio full of musicians. These songs breathe with life. Timeless, genre-defiant, and endlessly inventive, Architect is as accomplished a debut as any.

YOWLER – ” The Offer ” Best Albums Of 2015

Posted: December 3, 2015 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Maryn Jones leads All Dogs, a band that channels some of her ferocious musings into catchy, honest punk songs. But when all of that snarling frustration has been unburdened, what’s left over and where does it go? Yowler is Jones’ solo project, and her debut release The Offer is a beautiful and hushed, almost intimidatingly personal collection of songs that feel like they’ve trickled down from a wellspring of emotion to make a home in the heart of anyone who bothers to listen, Yowler, a solo project by Maryn Jones.

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Sometimes when I listen to The Offer, I feel like I’m wandering through a landscape dotted with bare trees. Sometimes I feel like I’m returning to a river in the middle of nowhere to release a memory into the dark. I always feel like I’m creeping along the edge of a mystery.

As Yowler, Maryn Jones explores minimalism and symbolism, a stark contrast to the music she’s made with All Dogs. When I listen to All Dogs, I blast it and scream along to every song while zooming down the highway or dancing around my bedroom. When I listen to Yowler, I need stillness. Maryn opens with an image of water and she invokes various forms of water again and again throughout the tape. On “Holidays” she sings, “Someday the river will find me; solid walls of water / And I’ll gestate in white under layers of ice.” She paints water as a simultaneously destructive and creative force that sweeps you through hell and brings you back brand new. I wonder if that’s the heart of The Offer––introspection and personal mythology.

Listen to the album over and over, think about the essence of water as an element, how it’s about emotion and intuition. And how it can be scary to delve into the world of your feelings. On “The Offer,” Maryn sings, “So the offer I make / Is a promise to stay here / May they leave me out of their wandering / And be still.” I almost feel like I’m eavesdropping on this radical idea of retreat, which Maryn reinforces on the mantra of her eponymous track, “You can lead me to the water but you cannot make me drink.” Settling into solitude, allowing memories and people to pass like shadows, tuning into your own voice and recognizing its importance––perhaps Maryn is musing on self-care as a ritual, even a spiritual practice. I feel like I could read the lyrics of all eight songs on The Offer like I’d read poems in school and pick apart the images, but I prefer settling into the aura. I like the reflection. There’s something wonderful about creating a personal mythology from your experiences and sharing it with others and seeing how it resonates. I’ll be pondering the world of The Offer for a while. It’s beautiful album.

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HORSEBEACH – ” Disappear “

Posted: November 27, 2015 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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The result of Horsebeach’s hazy, jangly indie-pop is one that drums up the contented, stoned-on-life feel of an endless summer. Another regional act for the Manchester leg of Dot to Dot, and another bunch of locals that we love watching grow in prominence. Horsebeach sing melancholy songs about love, hope and despair. They are a guitar band. They are from Manchester. Obviously they will be compared to The Smiths but Horsebeach have more in common with America’s Real Estate. This album is the perfect autumn soundtrack. It flows all the way through (album highlights are “Avoid The Light”, “Disappear” and “Broken Light”)

For fans of High Hazels, Go Betweens, Real Estate and …….of course The Smiths!

 

Opening with the subtle rumble of early morning Chinatown, a hazy instrumental sharpens into focus with languid guitars, gently welcoming you into a dream of Kennedy’s creation. The summery groove and pop majesty of ‘It’s Alright’ soon sends you spinning into infinity, cares eased by the warm tones of chiming guitars, while Beth de Cent’s smokey vocals come together in perfect harmony with Kennedy’s. ‘Andy’ treats you to a yearning tale of forbidden love, packed with homoerotic overtones so full blooded they’d make Morrissey blush like a young Caligula, while the marbled melodies of ‘Broken Light’ come on in nostalgic ripples and waves of sepia-tinged beauty. ‘Let You Down’ finds Kennedy’s voice sounding better than ever, detailing visceral regret over a full bodied groove which marries the baggy backbeat of his hometown with the sultry exoticism of Thai-funk. Opening the B-side with a masterful subtlety, synth led instrumental ‘Midnight Pt.2’ sees Kennedy taking us for a moonlit stroll by the ocean before ‘Dana’ ushers in the dawn with the greatest X-Files inspired song ever written (sorry Cerys). The antithesis of over-serious hipster cool, the earnestly emotional lyrics, anthemic chords and shimmering should be enough to prompt John Hughes to rise again and make a much needed sequel to The Breakfast Club. ‘Disappear’ finds Kennedy and drummer Matt Booth drinking in the cosmic vintage of Düsseldorf ’72, as their chiming West Coast guitars are joined by celestial keys, head nodding bass grooves and a motorik rhythm. ‘Clouds’ draws us back into the haze as Kennedy’s multi-tracked vocals gently melt into the swirl of flanged guitar, while ‘Avoid The Light’ closes the LP with a plea to stay in the dreamworld just a little longer.

MILD HIGH CLUB – ” Timeline “

Posted: November 27, 2015 in MUSIC
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As if the name Mild High Club isn’t a clear enough indication of this band’s motives, their debut album’s artwork includes a symbol combining a marijuana leaf with an airplane. It’s not hard to guess what’s in store; appropriately enough, the album consists of mellow psychedelic pop filled with pleasantly dazed vocals, languid tempos, gentle guitar licks, and soft, atmospheric keyboards. The word “Mild” is key here; this isn’t some over-the-top hallucinatory experience in the vein of the Flaming Lips. Mild High Club is the home for the musical output of Alexander Brettin, a jazz-schooled musician transplanted from the Midwest to LA. The Club is due to release the debut album “Timeline” on Circle Star Records, the new imprint of Stones Throw Records. Recording with a Fostex 4-track cassette recorder, Macbook, 12-string electric guitar, portasound keyboard, bass, drum machine, software instruments “and whatever was lying around”, Brettin began working on Timeline in 2012. In addition to the pure pop of singer-songwriter Todd Rundgren, sixties psych wields an obvious influence over Mild High Club’s music, but Brettin strips away the opulence commonly associated with it in favour of phased melodies and heartfelt lyrics. Though he may have been “interested in making simple pop songs with a little bit of jazz,” Brettin’s subject matter is far from simple.

The hard, snapping beat of “You and Me” immediately makes the song standout, and its relaxed tempo and dreamy synths push it over the top. The drumless, acoustic-based ballad “Elegy” is about as blue as the album gets, but not enough to kill the buzz. The album ends with “The Chat,” a brisk tune featuring “ooh-la-la”s by Natalie Mering (Weyes Blood) as well as Ariel Pink; the track is in line with the more straightforward numbers from his 4AD albums (as in, the ones that aren’t covered in cartoon sound effects or filled with disturbingly perverse lyrics).

Timeline’s themes include the role of the internet and avatars, gender-neutral songs about hooking up, making real connections in the hyperreal world of social media and digital devices, and the artist’s internal wrangling over the process of song writing itself. Mild High Club recently toured with post-punk pioneers. Mild High Club doesn’t try too hard and avoids indulging in cloying weirdness, resulting in an enjoyable, naturally flowing album.

MOON DUO – ” Shadow Of The Sun ” Best Albums Of 2015

Posted: November 25, 2015 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Moon Duo‘s third full-length LP, ‘Shadow of the Sun’, was written entirely during one of these evolving phases – the results are off-kilter dance rhythms, repetitive, grinding riffs, cosmic trucker boogies and even an ecstatically pretty moment.

The highest apex of psychedelia, be it art, music, drugs or literature, is to induce a prolonged consciousness shift that affects the consumer far beyond the time that they were privy to the act. Working in a rare and uneasy rest period for the band, devoid of the constant adrenaline of performing live and the stimulation of traveling through endless moving landscapes, offered Moon Duo a new space to reflect on all of these previous experiences and cradle them while cultivating the new album in the unfamiliar environment of a new dwelling; a dark Portland basement. The effect was akin to the act of descending from a train after a long and arduous trip, only to see it (and all your subsequent realities) speed off into the horizon without you. It was from this stir-crazy fire that Shadow of the Sun was forged.

Evolving the sound of their critically acclaimed first two full length records, Mazes (2011) and Circles (2012), Ripley Johnson and Sanae Yamada have developed their ideas with the help of their newly acquired steam engine, Canadian drummer John Jeffrey (present on the band‘s last release, Live in Ravenna. Moon Duo used the creative process as a flickering beacon of sanity in an ocean of uncertainty while in these land bound months. The unchartered rhythms and tones of this album reflect their striving for equilibrium in this new environment, and you can hear that Shadow of the Sun is the result of months of wrangling with this profound, unsettling way of being. Exploring the record, a listener will perceive the song “Night Beat,” with its off-kilter dance rhythm, as an attempt by the band to find meaning and acceptance in this new, shifting ground, while “Wilding” delivers a familiar Moon Duo sound, taking refuge in a repetitive, grinding riff-scape. Elsewhere on the record, the band recognizes that no journey is possible without being on the road, paying tribute to the cosmic trucker boogie saint in “Slow Down Low” and “Free the Skull.” From the narcoleptic dancefloor killer “Zero,” the record spirals perfectly into a resplendent daydream, the ecstatically pretty “In a Cloud,” which is a spectacular moment to witness.

In a nod to a great pop tradition, the lead single, “Animal,” will appear as the A-side of a 7-inch, packaged with each copy of the vinyl edition. The song has an early West Coast punk viciousness to it that is entirely unique to the Moon Duo catalog, and it will also appear as the last track on the CD.

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The result, at the end of the trip, is the album Shadow of the Sun.

RYLEY WALKER – ” Primrose Green ” Best Albums Of 2015

Posted: November 25, 2015 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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A modern day classic in the style of “Solid Air”; finds Ryley Walker roaming through languid folk-jazz with rich instrumentation and deft improvisation.

Ryley Walker’s Primrose Green is the guitarist’s second LP in less than a year, and he’s already gotten way better. Last year’s All Kinds Of You was a good meditative folk record. Primrose Green has that, too, but it also has highlights like “Summer Dress” and “Love Can Be Cruel,” songs that incorporate jazz and psychedelia, unfolding into strange and exhilarating passages. It has roots in the British jazz-folk of the ’70s, but in 2015 it feels like it’s born from some other place entirely, or at least from Walker’s custom cocktail for which the album’s titled: whiskey with morning glory seeds.

Summoning up the spirit of songwriting past masters, Primrose Green takes elements of Van Morrision, Nick Drake, John Martyn and more without ever descending into pastiche – instead it’s a cosmic journey into jazz-inflected summertime rock and roll. The instrumentation positively dances amid brass, organ and fancy fret-work while the dizzying Sweet Satisfaction extends proceedings into a darker, rampaging terrain.

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Ryley Walker ”Sweet Satisfaction”(from Primrose Green)

”I came up with that in the middle of winter in a desolate Chicago last year, it gets really cold there, way below zero, three feet of snow, dangerous to go outside. I think it’s kind of a cover poet drunk song, a desperate song. You have seven or eight drinks and all of a sudden you think you’re this poet and can reach into a woman’s heart with this poem. It comes from that standing point. A drunk leaning against the wall poet. We had to cut that song down, because originally it was like fifteen minutes long. Maybe in the box set in twenty years! I like that version better but the label thought there was no room left on the record. We had to edit out that jam section in the end. It went on forever, not in a bad way, I thought it was pretty cool with the strings and that bit that sounded like Terry Riley.”

JULIA HOLTER – ” Have You In My Wilderness ” Best Albums Of 2015

Posted: November 25, 2015 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Julia Holter’s fourth and most accessible album to date. A sonically direct, shimmering, leftfield pop classic that everyone at Piccadilly Records has been willing her to make since first hearing 2013’s ‘Loud City Song’. Dark and lovely, exploring pop’s universalities of love and relationships, ‘Have You In My Wilderness’ is the perfect soundtrack to winter’s long nights. Julia Holter’s experimentalist pop symphonies have always been gorgeous, but in the past, even the catchiest of her compositions had a tendency to float off into airy abstraction. Have You In My Wilderness, on the other hand, has an immediacy to it, tethering her to reality in a way that feels liberating instead of constricting. There’s no conceptual framework, no Greek tragedies or MGM musicals, just Holter and her own idiosyncratic vision, that shapeshifting voice pushed to the front of the mix where it belongs. As she cries on “Sea Calls Me Home,” “It’s lucidity! So clear!” It’s exhilarating

A semi-conceptual record filled with narratives and characters that resonate deep into the subconscious, it’s a creative peak for the LA-born artist.

DEERHUNTER – ” Fading Frontier ” Best Albums Of 2015

Posted: November 23, 2015 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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The Atlanta art-rock provocateurs have done what so many of their peers from the Early Aughts Indie Explosion have failed to do: age gracefully. They aren’t making soft rock per say, but they are making some sublimely smooth indie rock that encapsulates the best lessons learned from their earlier, more aggressively arty works. Tracks like “Duplex Planet” inspired by the legendary fanzine of the same name and “Living My Life” make getting old just as mysterious and exciting as being young, while the glam-rock shuffle of “Snakeskin” is the grown-and-sexy song of the year. Bradford Cox and company have found a way to tease pop concepts out fine art, have rebuilt their songcraft out of the shattered pieces of 21st century rock ‘n’ roll to create and art-rock record that is as challenging as it is mature.

Last year, Bradford Cox got hit by a car, and he came out of the resulting depression with his gentlest, most comfortable collection of songs yet. “Fading Frontier” isn’t a happy album, exactly — there’s still anxiety and uncertainty and a nagging preoccupation with the looming specter of mortality. But those are all essential parts of human existence, and it seems that Cox has made peace with them. That maturity could translate to a lack of urgency, and Fading Frontier doesn’t feel like a statement on the level of something like Monomania. But when you’ve got songs this good, who cares

Deerhunter, imbued with a melange of R.E.M., Big Star and, dare we say, a touch of Roger McGuinn and Gene Clark harmony, have embraced the melodic on their lamentable opus to the Fading Frontier. Suffused in a crystalline and hazy production that recalls both the Animal Collective and Beach House, the band, mostly carrying around Bradford Cox’s baggage, have never sounded clearer and brighter. Slithering to esoteric swamp boogie, college rock and dreamy Numan-esque synth, Deerhunter navigate through the depressive thoughts and resignation of their de facto band leader; his near-fatal car accident, delusions and Marfan syndrome illness plaintively and sometimes philosophically pouring from every lyric.

BULLY – ” Feels Like ” Best Albums of 2015

Posted: November 23, 2015 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Alicia Bognanno performed the realest/rawest video of the year. “I Remember” is a blistering, intensely emotional missive, and even though Alicia’s probably performed this song 1000 times at this point, it looks like the sentiment expressed here hits a nerve every time. She holds nothing back, and by the time she’s done it feels like pure, sweet catharsis. Bully’s debut full-length “Feels Like” came out June 23rd. Of all the albums released this year, Feels Like is one of the most personal, honest and raw; it finds singer Alicia Bognanno laying herself emotionally bare in all arenas of her life, from a caustic past (or doomed present) relationship lamented on “I Remember,” the album’s lead single that hit pretty much everyone like a smack in the face when it dropped earlier this year, to reming a friend that he or she is better than their own bullies on “Six,” to pondering the possibilities of the future on “Milkman”.

The album is evidence of how strong Nashville’s oft-overlooked rock and roll scene really is, and makes a strong case for the resurgence of electric guitars in a city generally associated with pedal steel, fiddles and, more recently, the computer generated sounds that dominate modern country. Each song teems with unrestrained energy that doesn’t let up for a moment, and Bognanno’s rough-around-the-edges vocals push the tracks even further. If you’re not yet familiar with Bully, get familiar, because Bognanno and co. could be headed straight to the top.

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