2015

Here's what I posted last year.

My Top 20 Records of 2014:

1. St. Vincent - St. Vincent
2. The War on Drugs - Lost in the Dream
3. Tweedy - Sukierae
4. FKA twigs - LP1
5. Damon Albarn - Everyday Robots
6. Sharon Van Etten - Are We There
7. Caribou - Our Love
8. Beck - Morning Phase
9. First Aid Kit - Stay Gold
10. Flying Lotus - You're Dead!
11. Lykke Li - I Never Learn
12. Andy Stott - Faith in Strangers
13. Drowners - Drowners
14. Aphex Twin - Syro
15. Thee Silver Mt. Zion Orchestra - Fuck Off Get Free
16. Cloud Nothings - Here and Nowhere Else
17. Parquet Courts - Sunbathing Animal
18. Ex Hex - Rips
19. Hospitality - Trouble
20. Woods - With Light and With Love

Honourable Mentions (alphabetical order):

The Afghan Whigs - Do to the Beast
Alvvays - Elvis
Ryan Adams - Ryan Adams
The Antlers - Familiars
Clark - Clark
Kevin Drew - Darlings
J Mascis - Tied to a Star
Mogwai - Rave Tapes
Thurston Moore - A New Day
MSMW - Juice
Angel Olsen - Burn Your Fire for No Witness
Phish - Fuego
Real Estate - Atlas
Ty Segall - Manipulator
Spoon - They Want My Soul
A Sunny Day in Glasgow - Sea When Absent
Tennis - Ritual in Repeat
TV on the Radio - Seeds

In retrospect, I stand by most of that, though there were some misses.  The Spoon record, for starters, should have been close to the top ten.  And the Aphex Twin record should have been alot higher.  TSMZ should have been lower - that record creeped up because that band always reminds me of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, which always reminds me of my best friend Matt.  FKA twigs and Caribou should been lower, too.  Those were probably last-minute hipster calls in the endless, pointless search for indie cred.  Real Estate and Tennis could have been higher, I guess?  Maybe TVOTR, too, though I can't remember their record at all.  But who the fuck are A Sunny Day in Glasgow, and why did the one time I listened to their record on the bus home make any impression, much less an honourable mention one?  Then there's Ryan Adams.  And Phish?  I think I was making shit up toward the end.  Sorry.

And, wow, sorry for that whiny-ass post.  My heart wasn't in it.  The core point was solid-ish?  The opposite of the listener-driven "music is the best" view is something like an artist-driven "music is the point."  (Point may not be the right word.)  Both are important, but if the former unites us together in collective appreciation, the latter makes that possible.  What's cooler?  Enjoying something or making something?

Probably making, right?  Yeah, it's making.  Producing content, something that didn't exist before.  Kinda like this blogpost.  

I'm not equating what I'm doing here with the truly magical process of creating music.  I'm just saying, being a struggling blogger is like being a starving artist (without the romantic gauze or, you know, the art) in the sense that it's difficult to find anyone who cares what you have to say.  I've blogged a fair amount.  The personally interesting stuff - my fiction writing and my music writing - rarely gets a click, not even from my team.  The other stuff, specifically the Finnegans Wake blog that OM and I are doing (are we still doing that, btw?), yeah.  The page counts on that one are great.  Or were great, last year when we posted regularly.  Apparently, if you try to read the hardest book ever written in the English language, then get on the internet to sorta complain about it and riff about what little you understood, people will check out your blog.  Like super smart people, who totally understood the book and have read it umpteen times.  True story, who knew?

Well, I'm bogged down somewhere in Book II, but I just listened the new Kamashi Washington record all the way through, again.  What you got, smarties?  Unlike the new Joanna Newsom record, it has nothing to do with FW (as far as I know), so you probably didn't hear it.  Or what about the new Floating Points or some of the amazing stuff Nils Frahm put out last year?  Probably not, huh?  Actually, I just realized that I have no idea what Joyce-heads on Twitter listen to.  No idea.  Maybe their tastes are snobby, or even snobbier than mine.  It's possible that there are some people who are really into Joyce and also really into Pitchfork-reviewed music.

Again, it comes back to Pitchfork.  Not because that website or its writers are so great, but because it/they are so great at identifying interesting music - or, at least, music that's interesting to me.  And they literally cover the field.  OM and I challenged each other to come up with one non-Pitchfork record for our lists.  I don't think that I had a single one that wasn't at least mentioned there.

I know it's late for a Best of Last Year list.  Those few folks who once might've cared and read this in their spare holiday time are long gone.  Then there's everybody else who doesn't care and wouldn't have read this anyway.  Blahblahblah, something about the lady on the porch from Franny and Zooey, blahblahblah, something about how she was actually listening so that's a dumb reference, blahblahblah.  (Obviously, I'm having real difficulties understanding why I should bother to do this.  Maybe it's less Salinger than Bishop Berkeley.  Q: If a blog is written in the forest and no one reads it, does it make an impression?  A: No, it doesn't.  And if it doesn't make an impression, it's hard to say it should exist.)  Anyway, here you go - no editorial blurbs this time.  If you want to talk personally about anything listed or left off, let me know: jafreitag@gmail.com

Top 20 Records of 2015:

1. Joanna Newsom – Divers

2. Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly
    Kamasi Washington - The Epic

3. Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell

4. Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit and Think and Sometimes I Just Sit

5. Father John Misty - I Love You, Honeybear

6. Nils Frahm - Solo

7. Björk - Vulnicura

8. Beach House - Depression Cherry

9. Wilco - Star Wars

10. Chvrches - Every Open Eye

11. Grimes - Art Angels

12. Tame Impala - Currrents

13. Kurt Vile - b’lieve I’m Goin Down

14. Sleater-Kinney - No Cities to Love

15. Deerhunter - Fading Frontier

16. Blur - The Magic Whip

17. Julia Holter - Have You in My Wilderness

18. Panda Bear - Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper

19. Floating Points - Elaenia

20. Hop Along - Painted Shut

A Baker's Dozen Honorable Mentions (abc order):

Alabama Shakes - Sound & Color

Arca - Mutant

Battles - La Di Da Di

Beirut - No No No

Andrew Bird - Echolocations: Canyons

Built to Spill - Untethered Moon

The Decemberists - What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World / Florasongs EP

Drake - If You're Reading This It's Too Late

FKA twigs - M3LL155X EP

Lower Dens - Escape from Evil

Laura Marling - Short Movie

Sidekicks - Runners in the Nerved World

Waxahatchee - Ivy Tripp

If OM reteaches me how to do a postable Spotify playlist, I'll do one for my fave songs of last year.

2014

Hi, again.

There are some best-of lists that come in December, and there are others that come in January.  Not early January, either.  What’s the point of that?  I mean, an early January list just tells the reader that, eh, maybe you were lazy, maybe you were distracted, maybe both, but you could’ve finished before New Years.  A late January list, that’s where it’s at.  You were not only lazy and distracted, but sorta willful about it.  Like, if this microscopic corner of the internet where my friends hang out really cares about what I thought were the Top 20 records of 2014, that corner is just gonna have to wait.  Until I’m gotdam good and ready.

Amirite??  Srsly.

: drops mic, leaves stage :

Oh.  You’re still here?  Dang.  Alright, I guess I’ll have to finish this after all.

So I’d like to come off as the less conscientious of the two bloggers here, but I don’t know if that’s true.  Between Owen and me, I’m the one who probably heard more new music last year.  (He would probably acknowledge that.)  But I’m also the one who got, as usual, somewhat frozen by the amount of it.  And I don’t know if the breadth of my listening gives me much of a leg to stand on, critically, because so much of it was so superficial.  Yeah, that one time I listened to the Weyes Blood record, or the Hundred Waters Record or the Quilt record, I really liked it and made an asterix next to it.  Now I can’t remember if that was supposed to indicate “good/listworthy” or “relisten/maybe listworthy.”  It’s quite possible that if it’s the latter, I might not be so impressed.  Or I might be more impressed.  It could honestly go either way.

(It’s not simply a matter of vagueness in my symbols.  Knowing myself fairly well, I’m gonna go ahead and state that the big fat “X” next to Neil Young’s A Letter Home was supposed to indicate “suck” because suck it did.  And I’m not sure how the releasing an album of covers produced by Jack White and recorded on-the-go in his mobile recording studio jives with the whole Pono thing.  You heard about that, right?  Haha.  Waitwaitwait, that’s a blank look.  You didn’t hear about it?  Or you don’t care about it, and just want some sort of list.  That’s fair, but lemme just register my amusement about a $400 digital music player that delivers vinyl-quality higher-fi to us dummies used to already-cd-quality iTunes files, for which a version of the Who’s Quadrophenia costs $40-something.)

Where was I?  Oh, yeah.  The critical dilemma, in which Owen and I try to cram a bunch of music into our scattered dad brains long enough for it to make an impression strong enough for us to say, definitively, this record was among the twenty best of the year, and those other ones weren’t.

Idk.  I don’t really feel great about any of it.  Last year, there were definitely good records I listened to more than other equally good records.  There may have been so-so or even worse ones that I listened to more than the other equally good ones.  But how do you prioritize your limited time and effort?  At what point is your (my) listening done?

It’s never done.  That’s the writ-small version of my writ-large post last year.  Last year, I ranted (sorry) that music matters because it has the potential to bring us all closer, to connect us across our many, many divides.  But flip that around.  The point becomes not about the effect of the music on us, but about the cause of it.    Music matters because it’s often made by beautifully passionate people, who ask very little of us except our ears’ attention.  (And a cold beer.  Hey, Black Prairie.)

How do I tell the nice folks in Weyes Blood that not only did I only listen to their record once (the same number of times I listened to Neil’s way-shittier record), but that it’s didn’t quite make my list?  Not because it’s not good or even great, but because I ran out of moments to give their piece of art the chance it deserved to break my heart somehow.  Because real life.  Hashtag that.

The fact that Owen figured out how to deal with those questions, and post a list with pictures and blurbs,  makes me admire and love him more.  Me, I’m the dick who can lob opinions about music all day to whomever will read an email, but who can’t cement those opinions into something final.  Waaah, I didn’t hear that enough.  Waaah, I didn’t hear that ever.  Waaah?  Waaah, who the hell are you, and why do you assume people care what you think?  Go ahead, smart guy.  Email those nice folks in Weyes Blood and explain to them your concerns.  And don’t hold your breath for a response.

Maybe they would respond.  They might.  Or they might not.  But regardless, if some sort of allegiance to artists and their (in this case, much more than metaphorical) struggle to be heard is truly what’s keeping me from finishing this damn thing, I shouldn’t.  I should just make an unranked list of generically good records and suggest you hear them.

I’m not that cool.  I’m not that non-judgmental.  Like I’d rather be the less conscientious one here, I’d also like to be the less snobby.  And, well, that’s just not true.  Owen’s #1?  I listened to it, twice, which was one more time than necessary, imo.  I found it boring and unchallenging.  (Then again, I don’t like Stevie Wonder in his peak mid-70s period that much.)  And I listened to much better music last year.  

If you’re still interested, here’s my Top 20 of 2014.  No pics, no blurbs, unless I edit this later.

My Top 20 Records of 2014

1.  St. Vincent - St. Vincent

2.  The War on Drugs - Lost in the Dream

3.  Tweedy - Sukierae

4.  FKA twigs - LP1

5.  Damon Albarn - Everyday Robots

6.  Sharon Van Etten - Are We There

7.  Caribou - Our Love

8.  Beck - Morning Phase

9.  First Aid Kit - Stay Gold

10.  Flying Lotus - You're Dead!

11.  Lykke Li - I Never Learn

12.  Andy Stott - Faith in Strangers

13.  Drowners - Drowners

14.  Aphex Twin - Syro

15.  Thee Silver Mt. Zion Orchestra - Fuck Off Get Free

16.  Cloud Nothings - Here and Nowhere Else

17.  Parquet Courts - Sunbathing Animal

18.  Ex Hex - Rips

19.  Hospitality - Trouble

20.  Woods - With Light and With Love

Honourable Mentions (alphabetical order):

The Afghan Whigs - Do to the Beast

Alvvays - Elvis

The Antlers - Familiars

Black Prairie - Fortune

Clark - Clark

Kevin Drew - Darlings

J Mascis - Tied to a Star

Mogwai - Rave Tapes

Thurston Moore - A New Day

MSMW - Juice

Angel Olsen - Burn Your Fire for No Witness

Phish - Fuego

Real Estate - Atlas

Ty Segall - Manipulator

Spoon - They Want My Soul

A Sunny Day in Glasgow - Sea When Absent

Tennis - Ritual in Repeat

TV on the Radio - Seeds

Twin Peaks - Wild Onion

Thom Yorke - Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes

Records that I didn't hear that may have made the list:

Azealia Banks - Broke with Expensive Taste

Charli XCX - Sucker

Iceage - Plowing into the Field of Love

Shabazz Palaces - Lese Majesty

Todd Terje - It's Album Time

And the song of the year, my fave anyway, is “Young Chasers” by Circa Waves.  But I’m a total sucker for early Strokes wannabees.

JF

Liner Notes: Top Twenty Albums of 2014, Part I

Some things are not as easy to do when you start having children. You don’t always get out to the hot new restaurants. Going to the movies is a rare treat. You’d like to read more books, but when exactly do you have time to read books?

Music, thankfully, is another story. In 2014, more artists are more easily accessible wherever you are. You can listen to music while you’re working or when you’re in the car. You can listen to headphones while you’re taking the dog for a walk or when you’re at the gym. Whether you’re downloading files or using a streaming service, more music than you could ever listen to is essentially just floating in the air, waiting snagged by the device of your choice.

As a result, more and better music is available than ever before. If someone tells you that there isn’t any good music these days, feel free to verbally slap them upside the head. So much music is out there. It’s easier than ever for artists to make and share their music. OK, the music industry may be up the creek, and low-paying streaming services and no-paying piracy are the new normal. That’s a problem. But there’s so much music to be heard.

The challenge, especially for those of us who feel compelled to make and share best-of lists, is actually listening to all of it.  No, not even all of it, but what about just enough to put together a list that isn’t poorly researched or (worse) lame?

Spoon's They Want My Soul

When I find a record I love, I tend to over-listen to it for a couple of weeks. E.g., for two weeks in August, Spoon’s They Want My Soul was easily my favorite album of the year. I didn’t listen to anything else. I’m glad I did that, because I really enjoyed the crap out of that album. Then, in November, I got sucked into a loop of listening to nothing but Miles Davis albums. That was also great.

Point being, it can be awfully hard to make sure you’re listening to everything new that’s coming out all the time. Sometime around Thanksgiving I started seriously thinking about what might be on my year-end Top Twenty list, and realized I still hadn’t heard a number of albums I was excited about.

Truth be told, I didn’t get to everything. How could I? Possibly, my favorite album of 2014 will be one that I don’t even listen to until next year (or later). Obviously, list making isn’t a scientific endeavor. It’s extremely flawed but fun as hell. It’s more about sharing awesome music, and maybe arguing about it, but mostly sharing.

Here’s my list from last year, conveniently divided into part one and part two. And here’s the must-read 2013 list from my co-contributor.

A few honorable mentions from 2014 (aka, I like these and they were probably good enough or better than others on my list, but there you go):

Andy Stott - Faith in Strangers

Angel Olsen - Burn Your Fire for No Witness

Charli XCX - Sucker

Damon Albarn - Everyday Robots

Future Islands - Singles

How to Dress Well - What Is This Heart

Jack White - Lazaretto

Jenny Lewis - The Voyager

MSM&W - Juice

Phantogram - Voices

Ryan Adams - Ryan Adams

Stephen Malkmus - Wig Out at Jagbags

Sturgill Simpson - Metamodern Sounds in Country Music

Tennis - Ritual in Repeat

The Black Keys - Turn Blue

Thom Yorke - Tomorrow's Modern Boxes

Tune-yards - Nikki Nack

Tweedy - Sukierae

And now on to the list: The Top Twenty Albums of 2014

Liner Notes: Top Twenty Albums of 2014, Part II

Back to Part I

20. Dum Dum Girls – Too True

Too True hits and runs. Over its relatively short 30-minute run time, these ten songs grab your attention and worm into your brain, before melting into the next track.

19. Taylor Swift – 1989

Max Martin produced (for the most part), but still undoubtedly Taylor Swift, 1989 was the guilty pleasure of serious music critics this year. Not that you should feel guilty about liking pop music.

18. Chromeo – White Women

Listening to White Women from start to finish is like eating candy for dinner. With tongue planted firmly in cheek, Chromeo released the best nostalgia-for-the-‘70s-and-‘80s album since Random Access Memories, and they had as much fun as possible doing it. Bonus points for containing my toddler’s favorite song of his three years on this planet.

17. Spoon – They Want My Soul

Spoon just puts out album after album of catchy indie rock. The week that They Want My Soul came out, I listened to it so much that I’d wake up in the middle of the night humming “do-do-do they want my soul.” Witty, sharp lyrics complete the full package here.

16. Lykke Li – I Never Learn

The power ballad hasn’t sounded so good in decades. Taking a real-life break-up as inspiration, the Swedish singer goes for it with this collection of heart-on-her-sleeve anthems.

15. Real Estate – Atlas

Something about Real Estate’s music seems so easy, as though we’ve all been here before. Guitars chug along at a medium pace, strumming out melodies in swirls of sound. The happy-go-lucky pop music and the submerged vocals sometimes hide the seriousness of this record. Perhaps not as immediate as their previous releases, Atlas nonetheless had staying power, staying in steady rotation throughout the year.

14. Phish – Fuego

Phish has fashioned a 30-plus-year career on the strength of its incredible live shows, not it’s studio work. But Fuego is an album that encapsulates all that is Phish. “The Line” and “Sing Monica” show off the band’s pop sensibilities. “Wombat” begins as a barely listenable exercise in absurd Phishy-ness, only to develop an infectious funk groove that ends just as it’s hitting full stride. The title track, an extended prog number that churns through numerous sections, has already turned into a highlight of the band’s live shows.

OK, Fuego isn’t breaking new ground, but few bands can please devoted fans and convert new obsessives quite like Phish can.  Fuego is the sound of a band that’s still engaged with its sound, still finding new pockets in which to groove, even after three decades.

13. Woods – With Light and With Love

In truth, With Light and With Love could’ve been released in any year from about 1968 to the present. Earthy rock n’ roll, jangly guitar, and loose jamming dominate the album. Much of this is well-trodden ground, but Woods has a knack for a pop melody.  “Shining,” “Moving to the Left,” and “Leaves Like Glass,” are so catchy you could be forgiven for singing along with the singer and the guitar line.

On the title track, Woods really goes for it. What starts as another groovy pop song evolves into a full-stretched guitar workout with echoes of early Pink Floyd. Instead of just mimicry, Woods has injected new life into these familiar, jam-rock sounds.

12. Lydia Loveless – Somewhere Else

Somewhere Else is mostly a country album. I say mostly because there’s a good deal of gutsy rock n’ roll, and a smattering of punk attitude. Whether that makes her a country-punk singer, or an alt-country artist, or what, I’m not sure I could say. What I can tell you is, this is an outstanding album.

Loveless marries her smart, engaging storytelling with a powerful delivery. Listen to standout track “Chris Isaak,” where her voice rises, falls, and breaks over the sliding guitar sounds.  Or “Head,” which is about exactly what you think it’s about, where her voice wavers between pleading and demanding. It’s a trick that would see lesser singers fall flat on their faces, but Loveless pulls it off fearlessly.

11. Grouper – Ruins

Grouper's Ruins

Ruins comes alive in the moments of echo. The reverberations of the piano strings hover in space, waiting for the next line of notes to break though. As Liz Harris sings, her voice hides among the sparse sounds, blending in with the fading echoes.

Nothing about this music is urgent. Everything is given time to breathe, to contemplate, to meditate. It feels lightweight, unbearably so at times. The songs threaten to break away from whatever is holding on time them and get swept off in the slightest of breezes. Occasionally, an ambient sound—falling rain, a croaking frog, a bleeping microwave—intrudes, only to fade again into the background. Ruins is sparse, minimalist, and intoxicating.

10. Mac Demarco – Salad Days

Words like “slacker” and “stoner” come to mind with Mac Demarco’s Salad Days. The music is relaxed, and Demarco’s vocal delivery is laconic and unhurried, as though he tossed these songs off on a summer afternoon when he was playing hooky from his real job. On album highlight “Brother,” Demarco repeatedly implores us to “take it slow now, brother.” “Let Her Go” is an ode to the passive realization that a relationship is over.

But that’s just the spell that Salad Days weaves. Demarco may be playing the slacker role, but the album is stuffed full of carefully crafted guitar pop. Nothing is out of place. Every vocal hook and chord progression and drum fill is just right. Yes, it’s great music to take along when you’ve skipped work and are heading out to the beach, but it’s also great music.

9. Todd Terje – It’s Album Time

What to make of the debut album from Norwegian producer Todd Terje? At the time of its release, almost half of this album had already been available via singles and EPs. Was this just a way to re-release music we’d already heard, along with some connective tissue?

Thankfully, Terje had more in mind with It’s Album Time. It’s that rare thing in 2014: an album that’s better than the sum of its parts. The album ebbs and flows effortlessly, touching on one style of dance music before morphing into the next. And within that context, the standout tracks become ever better. “Strandbar,” “Delorean Dynamite,” and, especially, “Inspector Norse,” showcase Terje’s talent for steadily building tension into a euphoric release.

8. Sharon Van Etten – Are We There

Sharon Van Etten’s Are We There is a disarmingly honest album from the singer-songwriter. It’s a break-up album (or perhaps it’s a “I’m in a bad relationship” album). Songs like the devastating “Your Love is Killing Me” are urgent and unflinching in their view of love.

The music is often as raw as the lyrics; you can almost hear the fingertips pounding on the keys on a ballad like “I Love You But I’m Lost.” Although there are plenty of orchestral strings and drum-machine sounds, Are We There still manages of the trick of maintaining the intensity and intimacy of a live performance.

7. Flying Lotus – You’re Dead!

You're Dead!

You’re Dead! is the latest exercise in experimentation from producer Steven Ellison’s Flying Lotus project. Combining jazz, electronic music, and hip-hop into something totally unique, You’re Dead! demands close attention and repeated listens. This hyperkinetic album spits out ideas faster than they can be digested, before moving quickly on to the next thing.

“Never Catch Me” is the album highlight. Featuring an irresistible appearance from rapper Kendrick Lamar, it distills the Flying Lotus formula into something approaching a pop song, before it devolves into a transcendent groove. All that’s left is to wonder where Flying Lotus may go next.

6. Run the Jewels – Run the Jewels 2

Run the Jewels 2 is the sound of a smack in the face, in the best possible way. Killer Mike and El-P bring us aggressive and in-your-face hip-hop. Everything coheres on this album, from the production to the beats to the flow. The energy threatens to explode over the edges at any moment. It’s a high-wire act that twists and turns and dares to topple over, but somehow keeps its balance at all times.

Each track bleeds into the next, making the entire album one long highlight. Although, I would be remiss if I didn’t call out the gloriously titled, “Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck),” featuring Rage’s Zack De La Rocha, whose sliced-and-diced vocals form the hook of one of this year’s best songs.

5. The War on Drugs – Lost in the Dream

Lost in the Dream is a classic headphones album. The latest from The War on Drugs pulls you under its waves of sound, dragging you down to get lost in its own particular world. Turn up the volume, close your eyes and submit to every splash of noise.

The War on Drugs takes standard rock n’ roll ideas and pushes them to the edge of ambience. Listen to the way album opener “Under the Pressure” morphs from a propulsive rock number to a spaced-out wash of feedback. And then there’s catchy, energetic “Red Eyes,” one of the great songs from any band this year. Is there a better moment than the build to that emphatic “Woo!” that keeps coming back around?

4. St. Vincent - St. Vincent

The influence of St. Vincent’s 2012 collaboration with David Byrne, called Love This Giant, is all over her follow-up, this year’s self-titled release. While Lady Gaga spent much of last year going on about art and pop (and then kinda fell on her face when it came to both), St. Vincent has put out a fantastic album of artistic pop music. She takes intelligence of her earlier work and feeds it into a channel of electricity that would recall the Talking Heads even if it weren’t for the obvious connection.

St. Vincent

On fiery cuts like “Rattelsnake” and “Birth in Reverse” St. Vincent appears to open up and give us a look inside her head, while at the same time remaining more distant and unknowable than ever. “Huey Newton” and “Digital Witness” are sly nods the oversaturation of technology. “I Prefer Your Love” and “Severed Crossed Fingers” are ballads that are just a bit off, cast with a shade of edginess.

What really ties it all together, though, is the searing guitar that Annie Clark plays. Deceptively fierce guitar lines cut through the album, never allowing us to let down our guards for even a moment, forcing us to again and again ask, “How did she get her guitar to sound like that?”

3. Beck – Morning Phase

From the standpoint of pure sonic quality, no album this year sounds better than Beck’s Morning Phase. Seriously, find your friend with the absolute best soundsystem and play this album at an uncomfortably loud volume. Every note rings clear as crystal, every tone is sharp as a blade edge. Sure, anyone can make music on a laptop in their parents’ basement, but could it ever sound like this?

Morning Phase isn’t just about the sound quality, of course. Thankfully, the music is deserving of such treatment. The songs are masterful, almost symphonic, pop songs. Backed by orchestral arrangements (contributed by Beck’s father), Morning Phase is contemplative, reflective music.

This far into his career, a new Beck album is a new opportunity to reassess his entire output. Much of the chatter around Morning Phase has been that the album is a sister to his 2002 classic, Sea Change. While that’s a good touchpoint, Morning Phase is more than just a successor. It’s a mature, intricate work that stands as one of the best of Beck’s long career.

2. Aphex Twin – Syro

While Richard James has continued to release music under different names, Syro is his first album under the Aphex Twin moniker since 2001. For such a profoundly influential artist (and we’ll see this again with the #1 album on this list), a return from such a lengthy layoff brings a mix of expectation and trepidation. Will the music be as good as those classic albums I’ve listened to so many times over the years? Will the sound be the same, or will it have changed in all the wrong ways? Electronic music, in particular, has evolved quickly in the last dozen or so years. Had Aphex Twin been left behind?

When Syro finally reached our ears, all that concern was tossed out the window in one assured motion. This album is undoubtedly Aphex Twin. Neither a reinvention nor a simple rehash, Syro pushed new ideas within a familiar form.

Syro is a surprisingly easy listen. Yes, there are lots of different sounds on the album, and plenty of moments of dissonance and challenge. But it’s also a relentlessly melodic album that spins out hooks at a dizzying pace. It’s been said before that Aphex Twin is dance music that you don’t dance to, and that holds true here. Tracks like “produk 29[101`]” and “180db_[130]” bring up right up to the edge of the floor, but ultimately, this is music for headphones.

And then, after eleven tracks after beats, we are brought back to Earth with the stunningly beautiful, “aisatsana[102],” a gorgeous ambient piano number that provides the perfect bookend to one of the great albums of the year.

1. D’Angelo and the Vanguard – Black Messiah

First, there was Brown Sugar in 1995. Then, the landmark Voodoo in 2000. What followed was fourteen years without new music (aside from some leaked and live material). Then, with almost no forewarning, D’Angelo released Black Messiah on December 15^th.

Much like Aphex Twin’s Syro, Black Messiah is the sound of a much loved artist returning from a long hiatus with a bang. In the late ‘90s, D’Angelo was supposed to be the Great Hope of Soul Music. Would he lose his fastball after 14 years on the sidelines? Not only does D’Angelo still have it, but Black Messiah may be his best release. D’Angleo has expanded his sound by adding a heavy dose of rock guitar verve to his blend of RnB, blues, soul and funk.

On opener “Ain’t That Easy,” he sings, “You can’t leave me, it ain’t that easy, walk away, when you want me to stay.” Is that about a lover, or is he addressing himself and his years in the wilderness? His signature groove is noticeably fuzzed over with electric guitar. “1000 Deaths” is the edgiest song in his catalogue, with a thumping bass anchoring waves of angry distortion. There’s plenty of sex-funk, too. “Sugah Daddy” and “Back to the Future (Part I)” throb with dense funk grooves.

Clearly, this album has been labored over in the studio, but it somehow manages to not feel worked to death.  D’Angelo has credited this album to “D’Angelo and the Vanguard,” and the message is clear: this is the work of a band. Despite its polish, Black Messiah also maintains a late night jam session feel.

The temptation is to leave this lower on the list, as it’s only been in our hands for a few weeks. But the music here demands attention, and all the hype aside, it’s without a doubt the best thing I’ve heard all year.

All the albums listed can be found on the Liner Notes: Best of 2014 Spotify playlist (excepting the one artist who isn't available on that service).

Grizzly Bear Freemixes and Live in Sydney Video

In September 2012, Grizzly Bear released Shields.  Owen listed that record as his #1, and I listed it as my #2, that year.

In November 2013, the band released an expanded version of Shields, adding a second slab that contained b-sides, demos, and remixes.  Two of those tracks - "Listen and Wait" and "Will Calls (Marfa Demo)" - ended up on YouTube, along with an unreleased track, gadfly producer Diplo's remix of "Will Calls."

If you're still the type who prefers snagging mp3s over streaming them, that Diplo remix and another by Baths (a.k.a. Will Wiesenfeld) are over on Stereogum.

Download "Will Calls (Diplo Remix)" here.
Download "Will Calls (Baths Remix)" here.

And here's a link to a video stream of Grizzly Bear's final show on the Shields tour. Live at the Sydney Opera House:

http://youtu.be/A1izv0BBgHY

All of that should chase away the cold for a few minutes this weekend.  Enjoy.

JF

What's new, 2014?

From our friends (ok, they're not technically "friends," more like people who run a really solid music website that we like) at Consequence of Sound, here's a list of 50 records due or rumored to drop sometime this year.

And from our friends (ditto) at Pitchfork, here's a similar list of 40 records.

Happy Friday!  Stay warm!!

JF

St. Vincent Album Preview

On February 25, 2014, art-rock ingénue and guitar hero Annie Clark will release her fourth record as St. Vincent.  According to a press release, the self-titled, and paramount-grooved, album will feature party music appropriate for a funeral.

Check out two tracks.  "Birth in Reverse," which you can also download for free here, and "Digital Witness."