Top Albums 2014 Part II 40 - 31

40. Endless Melancholy – Fragile

Endless Melancholy is the brainchild of Ukrainian musician Oleksiy Sakevych and if one thing, you can be sure that Sakevych knows how to title his project and albums when the falling piano notes of opener “Whereever” hit you. And it is with this lack of place and the idea of melancholy much of Fragile can be explained. Sakevych draws much of his musical credo from the darker sides of emotion, with the dichotomy of happy/sad of melancholy still imbued. His piano compositions, accompanied by cello, viola and sometimes even drums are a gaze into the distance, or the expression of nostalgia as Sakevych himself alluded. Nostalgia can be either restorative or reflective in nature. In the first you want to harken back to a time or place that went missing, meaning there is a home, a place to return to. Fragile rather finds its place in the latter category, a yearning for a place that never existed and thus there is no way of retrieving it. Fragile for evoking the tearful side of contemplation more than giving hope, is a beautiful listen, full of charming melodies and swaying string sections – so entrancing that the positive can be found in the sheer aesthetic value of the compositions alone. 

39. Mick Jenkins – The Waters

Water is a powerful metaphor, all encompassing, be it in religion, philosophy or psychology. For Mick Jenkins water is the essence and the truth, a multiple entity, designed to enlighten. With his mixtape Jenkins takes his knowledge obtained and finds his metaphor in water. Throughout he speaks on the vices of hood life and the lack of spiritual guidance. “Water more important than the gold, people for the gold” he repeats on the title track and on several occasions speaks against the materialistic and vain ways of what is considered making it and he follows this notion to its fullest when we see him "starving" while "having a full heart" in “Healer”. As with this, The Water[s] is full of little bits and pieces that can be considered to follow a narrative and Jenkins keeps his metaphor of water running over the course of the aurally very diverse mixtape. The beats don´t fall into a solely “oceanic” category. You get a boastful banger with “THC” the serene ballad with “Healer”, something experimental on “Who Else” and even smooth jazzy on aptly titled “Jazz”. 

38. GoldLink – The God Complex

“The moment God is figured out with neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God”. This is the quote attached to The God Complex and all musing about God aside, also serves to comprehend GoldLink. The God Complex is a hectic listen and seems to be raw at the edges. It seems that GoldLink doesn´t really see the relevance of sticking to one of his dance beats or even to deliver earnest lyrics until the very end. The feeling of a demo comes to mind, GoldLink trying to define his method on making music, changing between the good-times rapper, the pumped up, drugged out party hopper or the introspective sullen harbinger of “the message”. In the end he is neither and his approach is not that of a demo and having musical ADD. His lyricism lives from the short-tempered and versatile beats from his producers. The God Complex never tries to find its way to the dancefloor with its bumpy beats and quick renditions of Fat Man Scoop or Will Smith, but rather serves as the container for a rapper whose ability, while far from fleshed out, demands more input then a simple beat built around bass and drums could ever give. For the first few listens there might be discontent and the feeling of non-finito, but quickly GoldLink will become a habit you want to return to; for the sway of the beat, the nonsense and the sprinkles of introspection.

37. The Hotelier – Home, Like Noplace Is There

Home plays like the realization that you are to broken to carry on. It is the time of reflecting about your friends and loved ones and concluding that everybody is broken beyond repair and that you yourself are not able to help as your either the root of the problem or too broken yourself. Christian Holden in all his songs furthers this notions of regret, refusal and innermost insecurity. When in “Your Deep Rest” he reflects on the death of his friend and not being able to attend the funeral out of regret and shame for not reading the signs. Or in “Discomfort Revisited” as the fate of a friend you once admired marches him to mental illness and suicidal tendencies. The Hoteliers don´t give themselves to any great positivity even though much of the instrumentation is emotional pop punk at its most cheerful. In fact, you might be easily deceived by the uplifting tendencies the band finds in their music while expressing utter loss in every aspect of human relationships. If one thing, this can be applauded and I can only advise you to sit down and read through the whole of Home to fully understand the record.

36. Liars – Mess

I only caught on to the long running escapades of Liars this year and going back to their previous efforts reveals that Mess might be the most listenable, better said digestible album of their career. Yet, it still is a hard and loud piece of work. Here Liars make dance music, hard hitting drum heavy and pretty dark dance music that sounds like the muffled afterthought of other electronic acts. It is the moment when your headache from all the banging starts producing its own beat, when the intoxication of any sort begins to form disease. The pace of this one is impeccable, only after the first twenty minute do you get something like space in “Can´t Hear Well” and even here the looped high rising synth weighs on your chest. For all the experimental tendencies that come to the forefront on the latter half of the record, like the lurking darkness of “Left Speaker Blown Out”, the way Liars “mess” with electronics remains fairly unique and far more enjoyable then other contemporaries that might fall into the same categories like Fuck Buttons, who for all their experimentation and abrasiveness often times fail to convey depth in their instrumentals. Definitely the best synth driven record that isn´t noise or falls into the purely conceptual.

Liars "Pro Anti Anti" (Director's Cut) from Yoonha Park on Vimeo.

35. Lykke Li – I Never Learn

This is Li´s best record to date and seems unappreciated by many. Following her career, many would have expected her going poppier and more radio-friendly with time. But even with her sophomore release Wounded Rhymes those expectations were not met. The bigger insult, well only musically not from the money perspective, was her reception being narrowed down to a bad electronic remix of “I Follow Rivers”. If Youth Novel was the teenage girl confessing her darkest in a diary and Wounded Rhymes was the same girl falling in and out of love and trying to make sense of relationships, I Never Learn is the beaten eulogy to love of an matured woman. Not without hope, but a lot wiser and keeping the flame of love on a low. Perfect album for your everyday yearning. Read my full review here.

Lykke Li - No Rest For The Wicked from Lykke Li on Vimeo.

34. Millie & Andrea – Drop The Vowels

Exciting and distinguished electronic music is what you get when you buy anything from Modern Love. Drop The Vowels saw Demdike Stare and labelhead Andy Stott coming together for yet another collaboration under the moniker of Millie & Andrea and might serve as the best introduction to the prowess this line of music has. Dance music isn´t enough anymore, you need to have an edge! Stare and Stott both see their edginess in being haunting and dark and in this effort, maybe just for the hell of it, throws in some killer beats. This is one of the definite moments of deconstructed electronic music and in that only topped by Stott´s Faith In Strangers. Read my full review here.

33. Lands – Misanthropy

Misanthropy in common knowledge seems the perfect ideological fit for anything associated with metal music. But as Lands trade in their lovely piano arrangements of their previous Eps, the warmth remains in their uplifting rhythm section and churning guitars, even when amped up and distorted to its fullest. And it is in this warmth, that they are able to grasp the full meaning of being spiteful of people. Misanthropy does not entail direct and utter hatred against people, it contains the spirit and sorrowful knowledge of hurt lying in the other. One can look at the parabola the scrooge of philosophy, Arthur Schopenhauer himself gave us: In the porcupine dilemma we find porcupines seeking each other’s company, only to realize that their spines are hurting each other. In order to live while still keeping warm, they have to arrange with each other and find their distance. For Schopenhauer this can be transferred to human kind, with love creating attraction, vice and ill-manners create compulsion and humans finding a way through customs and etiquette to keep them from getting stung by the other. For Lands the focus must be turned to the concluding sentence Schopenhauer gives: If you are person carrying great warmth in your heart, it might be best to keep far away from other people to prevent from being hurt and feeling the unavoidable contempt created. Misanthropy by the British rocker seems to be the account of going in and out of society, and it is only with the closer “Mistrust And Disdain” that there seems to be some redemption in all the negativity they paint. And yet, keeping distance might be the only true answer.

32. Diane Cluck – Boneset

Only with Diane Cluck I came across the denominator “intuitive folk”. As Cluck herself describes, Boneset was borne over the course of years and is arranged chronologically as a Mobius strip from light to dark. The intuitive in her music is apparent with first listen. Not necessarily in the intimacy of this short outing or the sparse instrumentation keeping Clucks voice always in front, but in the way her songwriting goes from the most cryptic notions such as “When I die / I Will find you” in “Maybe A Bird” to the simplistic notion of starting her verses on “Why Feel Alone” with “Hi!”. Following Clucks description, she doesn´t seem to be very much concerned with bringing out her music or even staying creative every day. The songs draw from time passing, from the feeling on creative intrusion that just hits you on special occasions. Listing to Boneset gives the impression of witnessing Cluck performing her songs as if for the first time, not in the sense of bad playing and deliberately toned down instrumentation, but in the aspect of herself being still sown with her own words and being somewhat overwhelmed when realizing her own outpouring. 

31. ceo – Wonderland

Image opening Pandora’s Box as ceo alludes to in “Whorehouse” and Wonderland starts playing. Destruction and chaos crashing around you, yet feeling surprisingly colorful and impressive, putting fear in you only through the idea of having done something forbidden. As the album moves forward, the vibe of a dark fairy tale, with a moral to be learned and a lot to think about never leaves you. Ceo did something incredible in Wonderland as he created the utmost shining beauty with bearing the sense for decay and chaos in mind. Form doesn´t necessarily have to mean sheer beauty and the intrinsic qualities of pop music can never be dismissed by a certain kind of instrumentation or mind set. Read the full review here.