Posts Tagged ‘Best Albums of 2016’

LOMELDA – ” Forever ” Best Albums Of 2016

Posted: December 18, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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There are records that you end up writing about in varying different places, so much so that you feel, that everything you wanted to say has now already been said. Lomelda’s 4E* An acoustic take on her band’s wonderful 2015 LP, Hannah Read recorded this stripped-back counterpart late one night in a recital hall in Waco, Texas, and from the outset it positively burns with that aching, tender, world-weary heart .

Shaped by a sense of summer-tinged nostalgic longing the record unwinds beautifully across its nine-tracks, feeling like a true story, rich, vibrant, fully-realised, as Read’s incredible voice sings songs of travelling, of growing old before you’re ready to do so, of a land shaped by endless roads and endless nights, of the stars and the sun and the quiet lives that punctuate the stillness. “I’m not sure many of you will like it much. It requires more patience than I’d like. Forgiveness, even. It is static and small, privileged and careless, indulgent, digital, bare and a lil embarrassing,” Read said, when introducing her work and, aside from the embarrassment, is it every one of those things and more. A timeless, graceful dusting of magic .

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such a good album!I love everything about this. her voice is unique and captivating. the melodies are wonderful.

Performed by Hannah Read, Andrew Hulett, and Zach Daniel
with guest performances from Diana Rudd and Josh Stone

ANDY SCHAUF – ” The Party ” Best Albums Of 2016

Posted: December 14, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Andy Shauf’s The Party is one of the most criminally underrated albums of 2016. Truly beautiful in its production alone, The Party focuses on orchestral arrangements that vary between grandiose and understated, while its upfront vocal crispness gives Shauf a quiet confidence. The Party serves as the ultimate outsider’s guidebook. It focuses on an array of situations you never want to find yourself in: being the first person to arrive to a party while visibly annoying the host, counting on someone to stick with you throughout the night and having them ditch, and pining over painfully unrequited love. His second single, “Quite Like You” focuses on overstepping the boundaries between friends and lovers, and asks the listener to choose between allegiances with friends or with potential romantic conquests. Andy Shauf’s 2015 debut, The Bearer of Bad News, announced the arrival of a new talent possessing more than a passing fancy for the darkened pop chime of Elliott Smith and Paul Simon. But on the Saskatchewan-based musician’s 2016 ANTI–Records debut The Party, his subtle and gorgeous tunes capture the characters, ebbs, and ending of a run-of-the-mill suburban fete with all the mature songwriting sensibility

The final track, “Martha Sways,” is a simple tune accompanied by hushed vocals, heart wrenching orchestral lines and lightly plucked guitar. It asks the listener to confront the ghosts of his or her own past within the prism of new love. Ultimately, if you ever want to get misty about the past, feel your feelings, and have a good cry: this is the record for you

LAMBCHOP – ” Flotus ” Best Albums Of 2016

Posted: December 14, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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DM STITH – ” Pigeonheart ” Best Albums Of 2016

Posted: December 11, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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DM Stith

The return of the dirty kid unclassifiable, unrecognized genius between Pop and foutraque with his second solo album, Pigeonheart we present DM Stith.

For that matter, he likes to confuse the issue in the wake of the album that was a little pointed,  under the name of The Revival Hour with John Mark Lapham of The Earlies . Once again, this is a beautiful object that allows this gifted musician to truly make a name in which he seems to delight.
DM Stith with Pigeonheart , this young man does not find better than to start this album with a title and choppy named Human Torch . a  melody in Stith is made to be broken, broken, corrupt. Take the track Sawtooth any electronic voltage in which the New Yorker plays like a brat.

What we accept from DM Stith is certainly the vocal abilities of the man that suggest an angel fallen to Earth. We also better understand the interest that can carry him the author of Illinoise . Amylette could come straight out of The Age Of ADZ when Rooster trigger the enthusiasm of fans of Grizzly Bear or Animal Collective .

To be clear, this is not Pop disc  or is it not a pop record. It is also no experimental music. Actually, we do not know what it is.  DM Stith  album Pigeonheart on Rough Trade Records
Released: July 29, 2016

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St PAUL and the BROKEN BONES – ” Sea Of Noise ” Best Albums Of 2016

Posted: December 10, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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St Paul Broken Bones 2016

While “Sea Of Noise”—the follow-up to their widely hailed debut, 2014 ‘s Half The City—doesn’t shirk from offering commentary on society’s failings, it doesn’t revel in them either. To the contrary, it attempts to rally its listeners to a higher calling where intelligence and inspiration take precedence over name-calling and accusations. Singer and frontman Paul Janeway exhorts his listeners to find that higher purpose that great music strives to attain. Like another of soul music’s revered roots, the rousing gospel sounds that gave congregations reason to look heavenward, St. Paul & The Broken Bones use their effusive, ecstatic revelry to rouse their audiences and encourage them to get caught up in a kind of aural delirium.

There’s a real soul music is named as such. It comes from the soul. It soothes the soul. And Birmingham, Ala.’s best octet St. Paul & The Broken Bones has soul for sure. Frontman Paul Janeway shimmies and prances in the most impressively flamboyant suits and shoes and climbs on drum kits and speakers too tall to crawl down from without assistance, all while delivering lines in a tenor/falsetto with religious-like fervor. But, as this is a band affair, The Broken Bones never fracture or falter. The horn section rings in all the right places. Bassist and co-founder Jesse Phillips stays right in step with drummer Andrew Lee. And lead guitarist Browan Lollar adds a rock ‘n’ roll touch in his solos that’s exclusive to the band’s live sets. When all forces combine, whether Janeway wails about broken hearts or civil rights, St. Paul & The Broken Bones reach a place in their audiences that can’t come from any place other than the soul.

This Birmingham, Alabama, soul act toggle the traits typically associated with men or women, with St. Paul Janeway (not actually canonized, but give it time) lending gospel testimony to the different ways we can rescue and support and, sadly, leave each other. When he declares, “I’ll be your woman,” it sounds like a monumental act of empathy and compassion, proving that soul music doesn’t need a revival with bands like the Broken Bones around.

JOSEFIN ÖHRN & The LIBERATION – ” Mirage ” Best Albums of 2016

Posted: December 10, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Having already been nominated for a Swedish Grammy with their debut EP, Diamond Waves, their debut full-length 2015 on Rocket Recordings, “Horse Dance”, marked out a territory in which beguiling repetition could sashay with sweet pop sounds, melodic flourishes with experimental intensity, and it was summarily rapturously received on arrival, making new fans and earning them appearances at Roskilde Festival and Eindhoven Psych Lab.

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This their second full lenth effort “Mirage”, which follows a mere year after its predecessor, sees the band sculpting sprawling, hypnotic jams into elegant nocturnal serenades. “We agree on not remembering very much about how these tracks came about, that all of them were written on the road and that most of them came fully formed” note the band. “Most were really long to begin with, but we found it relieving to break away a bit from the mandatory psych jams a little bit.

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We also just realised that none of them were written in daylight, which might be why memory is so elusive.” Indeed, this approach seems to fit well with the primary inspiration for the five-piece band, which centred on ‘the state where dreams, visions and the present are entwined’ .“Mirage” sees the band taking a chic tradition of avant-pop that extends all the way from Serge Gainsbourg and Françoise Hardy to Broadcast and Saint Etienne, and warping it mercilessly to their own darker ends. Whilst the brooding yet sultry ‘Sister Green Eyes’ is no less than a sharp slice of motorik-pop and ‘Looking For You’ reinvents three-chord garage-rock attack with mighty finesse, The Liberation are just as comfortable dealing out the heavy-lidded and electronically-driven ‘In Madrid’ or the dive in the hallucinatory deep end of ‘Circular Motion’, on which they’re aided and abetted by the Lay Llamas’ Nicola Guinta. The seductive splendour of these ten songs å make manifest a parallel world of disorientation and deliverance in which one would be a fool not to want to languish adrift . Fresh excitement for the band lies in wait, courtesy of a UK tour with Goat and an appearance at Liverpool International Festival Of Psychedelia.

PSYCHIC ILLS – ” Inner Journey Out ” Best albums Of 2016

Posted: December 10, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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The seekers in New York City’s Psychic Ills have spent more than a decade following their muse wherever it takes them. Inner Journey Out, the band’s highly anticipated fifth album and first since 2013, is the culmination of an odyssey of three years of writing, traversing the psych-rock landscape they’ve carved throughout their career and taking inspired pilgrimages into country, blues, gospel, and jazz.

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Inner Journey Out started out the way many Psychic Ills records have – with frontman Tres Warren’s demos. Like all of their records, Elizabeth Hart’s bass is the glue that holds everything together. Where other recent albums found Warren overdubbing himself to create a blown-out, widescreen sound, this recording handed the reigns to a multitude of guest players. A cadre of musicians and vocalists – including Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval, who duets on lead single “I Don’t Mind” – join in on the journey. This is the first record to feature touring keyboard player Brent Cordero, his Farfisa and Wurlitzer work is a staple throughout. Rounding things out, is a platoon of drummers and percussionists including Chris Millstein, Harry Druzd of Endless Boogie, Derek James of The Entrance Band, and Charles Burst, one of the record’s engineers. These musicians build the frame on which Warren lays his hazy guitar and vocals. An endless array of friends and guests also provide pedal steel guitar, horns, strings, and backing vocals, which culminate in a career-defining moment for the Ills.

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Thematically, Inner Journey Out is a detailed exploration of the interior and the exterior, and the pathway between the two. The focused songwriting makes the stylistic departures fit seamlessly within the band’s dexterous ethos. The rousing gospel number “Another Change” and the far-out free jazz exploration “Ra Wah Wah” help shape Inner Journey Out into a multi-faceted, full album experience. It’s the most personal Psychic Ills album, too, hinting tantalizingly at love and loss but denying the listener resolution — asking questions, but never answering; seeking, but never fully concluding.

A decade on from releasing their critically lauded cult debut, Dins, and the deep dive into cosmic improvisation of Mirror Eye that followed, through the more recent and straightforward outings of Hazed Dream and One Track Mind, Psychic Ills have delivered their most remarkable statement yet with Inner Journey Out.

The I DON’T CARES – ” Wild Stab ” Best Albums Of 2016

Posted: December 9, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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According to an interview Paul Westerberg these are a bunch of songs/demos Westerberg had laying around his basement studio. Inertia had set-in and it took Hatfield to pick out some of the gems and help whip them into shape. If true, the collaboration has made for the best Westerberg release in ages. If you liked the harder stuff on “All Shook Down” or “14 Songs” you’ll dig this – lots of stonesy rock-with a tender side (“Whole Lotta Nothin’,” “Born to Me”).

It’s not a quite a “band” but Westerberg sounds really fantastic working in collaboration with Juliana Hatfield. A supremely enjoyable and impactful album. Lots of great songs here. A few tunes put Hatfield’s voice at the front,

Paul westerberg Harp Magazine

“I’m back if you’ll have me” — after too many years since a proper album this is a great and emotional album opener.

Born For Me – what was a slow piano ballad from a Westerberg solo release is rerecorded here as a joyous rock and roll song and it is fantastic. So fun and happy.

Kissing Break — the heartfelt performance here elevates what could have been a light and inconsequential throw away to something unique and beautiful. In a way it reminds me how “Dyslexic Heart” might have first seemed like just a fun song to place on a movie soundtrack, but the kept popping up all over the place for the past two decades.

Outta My System — another re-recorded Westerberg song, and again it’s way better than the original in every way. So deceptively simple it’s amazing how compelling it is.

Hands Together  An epic song. One of Paul’s best songs ever, imaginative and metaphorical and gut wrenching and uplifting. So good it is hard to put into words.

In between are 11 more great rock and roll songs full of life and enthusiasm. It all manages to immediately fit into Westerberg’s catalog and still sound new. This is among his best post-Replacements work and might prove to be one of his best overall releases

 

BIG THIEF – ” Masterpiece ” Best Albums Of 2016

Posted: December 8, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Big Thief

It takes nerve to title your debut album “Masterpiece”. As we noted on the midyear list, the Brooklyn band Big Thief has an awful lot of nerve. What is more important is that the group has excellent songs, which run on smoky, vulnerable vocals and superb melodies. Led by the midnight twang of Adrianne Lenker’s voice, Big Thief’s songs capture the rural desperation of a freight trainyard romance (“Paul”), a motel-screen movie marathon (“Vegas”) or an abusive family (“Real Love”). It is a taut, emotionally resonant collection of songs with a killer climax in “Parallels.” And among the group’s many recently converted fans is Jeff Tweedy, of Wilco fame, who tweeted: “Great guitars, great lyrics, great melodies…. What more could you possibly want?” It’s just that simple.

Big Thief’s Masterpiece is a shared experience. It was an album I’d put on riding in a car with friends, travelling to festivals and gigs . For their album debut, Big Thief added heft to these whispery tales. And that often comes in the form of Buck Meek’s guitar, as he underpins Adrianne Lenker’s chilling voice. I’ve listened to this album more than any other in 2016. It’s just about perfect. Calling your album “Masterpiece” is a bold statement, but Big Thief get closer than you’d think on the title track to their debut for Saddle Creek Records. Against a backdrop of beautifully ragged guitars, frontwoman Adrianne Lenker describes what sounds like a late-night bar crawl, always one drink ahead of loss and grief: “There’s only so much letting go you can ask someone to do.”

VARIOUS ARTISTS – ” The Day Of The Dead ” Best Albums Of 2016

Posted: December 8, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Best albums of 2016 Various Artists - Day of the Dead

This five-plus hour, 59 track Grateful Dead tribute album is a monument of living history – an image of their golden road branching out endlessly…. Pretty much every sound the band touched on or suggested gets represented – from ambient music (several sound-sculptures by Bryce Dessner of the National and experimental composer Tim Hecker’s “Transitive Refraction Axis for John Oswald”) to Afropop (Orchestra Baobob turning “Franklin’s Tower” into a shining desert mirage) to psychedelia (Flaming Lips making throbbing lysergic mush out of “Dark Star”) to roots rock (Lucinda Williams locating the lust in a slow humid “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad”). But indie songwriters and guitar nerds get most of the action; Courtney Barnett hazily savors the conversational drift of the post-Altamont rap session “New Speedway Boogie,” and Stephen Malkmus does his hey-whatever guitar wizard thing on a ten minute “China Cat Sunflower → I Know You Rider,” just to pick two of the more wonderful examples among many.

Tribute albums can be a profit center for record companies during dark times. They have a built-in fan base and they make great real-life, gift-wrapped, non-Spotify gifts. Day of the Dead is woefully original because its classics deviate so much from the original.  Curated by The National, the erudite indie giants, the five-album set’s interpretations eschew the long jams that are Dead staples and inspired a million stoned dance moves at concerts. “Truckin’” in the hands of Marijuana Deathsquads is less a road anthem and more despairing cry. Lucius’s “Uncle John’s Band” isn’t Jerry Garcia’s amiable life lesson but something more solemn. Other versions hew closer to the original, like a Kurt Vile and the Violators “Box of Rain” and a live version of “I Know You Rider” by the Dead’s Bob Weir so rollicking that The National, who back him on the track, forget their trademark lugubriousness, and revel in this classic.

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