Top Tracks 2015 Part VI 50–41
50. Helena Hauff – Funeral Morality (Discreet Desires)
This tune, while alluding to something dark wave and goth sounding, has a very playful vibe hidden at its industrial core. It´s something you might expect from the clocktower levels in a Castlevania game turned into a dancefloor track. The keys jingle between mechanical noise and spring with energy, never turning into something dark or morbid as the title might suggest. Dive in to one the best forward thinking dance tracks this year.
49. Christine & The Queens – Jonathan feat. Perfume Genius (Christine & The Queens)
You want heartbreak? Get into Perfume Genius! You want to double the feeling? Listen to this collaboration with Christine & The Queen. I missed the French release of her great Chaleur Humaine and in retrospect it would have made the list of 2014 without question. There is a strange tenderness and power in both singers vocals performance. The song revolves around unrequited love. In the small gesture of comfort, “laying ones hand on the others forehead” the distance and deep longing is greatly exemplified and Hedreas´ glass vocals envelop Christine´s bittersweet tone like the caress the two miss in their love interest. Do check out Chaleur Humaine over the English re-release, the french-vocals have been switched in some songs, and while still working well, I´d prefer the original.
48. Dmitry Evgrafov – Like Foam / Fracture (Collage)
Dmitry Evgrafov will be a find if you´re into modern composers. Also a part of the modern classical label re-launch of FatCat Records, Collage yields some of the best tunes in that vain this year. Strikingly, this is also the first time Evgrafov stepped away from composing with real arrangements and going full digital. If I had to make out one way in which it shows, it would be the flowing, intermingling and interchanging of ideas. Like Foam and Fracture can be listened apart from each other, as separate tracks, but the real beauty come from the combination of the sweeping parts, the steady growth of Like Foam transitioning into the full bodied blossom of Fracture. While the comparison can be made with many songs like this, you get a huge connect to nature, Like Foam being the slow beginning of a day, sun rising and setting the stage for the ordered explosions of Fracture.
47. Fetty Wap – No Days Off / Time (Fetty Wap)
Fetty Wap might be the biggest commercial newcomer of this year. In a way this just proves that complexity in Hip Hop is not really sought after, very much to the dismay of other great projects that hit this year. I personally would prefer equal commercial and public interest in the works of politically charged artists with a greater message. Still, it would be high minded not to consider this music for this reason alone and snub at something without a clearer purpose then just sounding good. Drake and Future do it with great acclaim, why shouldn´t others. No Days Off was featured on Fetty Waps, a little too packed (38 tracks!), mixtape Two Face and has the crooner reflecting his “grind” and his longing for success. The message is pretty simple but Fetty´s quite unique voice sticks with you. This could work as an workers anthem in a strange way, it definitely has a calming quality to it hidden in a sense a sadness the instrumental evokes.
Time is pretty much the same message expressed towards Fetty´s love interest. Appearing on his debut album, the song has a chromatic scale running in the background and while a pretty obvious choice, it just shows how Fetty might be able to impress over the course of many albums to come, even if his content never changes that much, his singing voice carries that much power.
46. JK Flesh – Nothing Is Free (Nothing Is Free)
A year with a JK Flesh release is a good year. While I´d rather have Jesu incorporating all the elements Justin K. Broadrick is capable of, instead of splitting them between his various creative outlets, Nothing Is Free leaves little slow moving catharsis or uplifting moments to be desired. Every tracks burns with evil energy and noise. The title and opener Nothing Is Free is the satanic love child of dub and industrial music. Gripping and dangerous, this tune is trying to crush your auricle.
45. Editors – No Harm (In Dream)
What Editors did with their lead single of In Dream, No Harm comes close to the vocal rehash of a ambient electronic tune crafted by the likes of Abul Mogard. The appregiated layers of synths envelop you, creating expectance, which is where Tom Smith´s translucent vocals come in. When he intonates “Don´t Harm / No Harm” and breaks of into his longing croon the songs opens up, breaks the gloomy surface and has the likeness of a stage light breaking through smoke, revealing a band in full control of their emotive powers. While the band also created beautiful visuals for their releases, especially with black&white endevour for No Harm, I wish this vibe would have stuck throughout the whole experience of In Dream.
44. Anna Von Hauswolff – Discovery (The Miraculous)
After synths in any form and variation, if I had to pick the most gripping and emotive instrument, the organ would win over every stringed instrument. Anna Von Hauswolff´s music centers around the organ and on The Miraculous she sheds the layers of easier comprehension for a deeper and more intricate use of this mind-bending instrument. Discovery is a slowly evolving journey, a true intro to The Miraculous. After building for five minutes, Hauswolff delves into sparse noise, only to greet us with her incanting vocals, sung to a few touches of guitars and a drum-set. The whole thing ends in her being joined by a collective of voices, repesting the phrase "run into the sun" and while the soundbite may come of as cheesy, the whole feel of the song gives you the impression of attending Hauswolff´s version of a holy mass.
Listen to a stream of the whole of The Miraculous over at FactMag.
43. Travi$ Scott – Maria, I´m Drunk feat. Justin Bieber & Young Thug (Rodeo)
This cut is the strangest think Travis Scott has crafted so far, and not only because of Young Thug lending a quirky verse to it. The out of piano tune, the wobbly bass and the hook that sounds as being sung from a crazy preacher click well with each other. The most recent modes of Hip Hop live from creating spacious and still catchy beats with interesting twists and turns and while there is a huge lack of vocals or message other than being a party-anthem, this track will stick with you regardless.
Listen to the song over at IndieShuffle.
42. Levon Vincent – Junkies On Hermann Strasse (Levon Vincent)
Stepping into the darker terretories of techno, Junkies On Hermann Strasse lives up to its name. The constant dull bass triggers and the hydraulic industrial sounds create the perfect ground to move into the high rising synths, going from dark grey into shattering stroboscopic light. The lurking drones and sounds akin to digital artefacts and reverbs close the deal seamlessly. This track is meant for huge spaces, tight crowds and crushing volume.
41. Virgin Forest – Youth (VF3)
A big shout of to Myke C-Town for bringing Virgin Forest to my attention. Youth and almost all of VF3 has a heavy 80´s and Depeche Mode vibe to it. Not as a mere clone, but as a artists that has taken these elements for his own expression. The dead-pan, almost unsung vocals are catchy as hell and the synths over the simple drum beat click with you instantly. As bands like Depeche Mode have gone deeper into blues and have started to give a bigger emphasis on guitars, Virgin Forest brings out the soul-searching and instantaneous nature of synth music as many people have grown up with.
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