Top Albums 2014 Part V 10 - 01

10. Saba – Comfort Zone

Strange dancing Chicago rapper Saba is the best newcomer in Hip Hop this year. Well, he has been around but this mixtape will hopefully turn a bunch a people on to him. Comfort Zone works in almost every direction of hip hop you want it to. There is the socially conscious, the fame-rap and many positive messages. Saba´s style of rapping is as variable as it is enjoyable. For someone making this kind of blend, not going into the dark, scruffy or gangsta rap might be a stepping stone as such, but hopefully, with affiliation to the likes of Chance The Rapper and the overall urge to finally deliver more positivity in hip hop music (read: messages that evoke thinking and not having a good time) hopefully Saba will see great success and musical growth in the future. Read my full review here.

09. WIFE – What´s Between

James Kelly, the man behind WIFE is better known for his work with Alter of Plagues, a black metal act, that as many others transitioned from unbearable hatred to conveying a lack of hope through lengthy instrumentals and stylistic deviations into the realms of post-rock and electronica. With Alter of Plagues sinking, WIFE emerged and sees Kelly pursuing the electronic tendencies and manner of drawing out gloom in more subtle ways. What´s Between in its nine tracks features almost every direction you could take this musical intention. From the snappy “Heart Is A Far Light” resembling a track from The Weeknd in the actual state of depression to distorted wave grave-digging on “Salvage” and the spiritual “Dans Ce”, Kelly might not construct a cohesive line with the styles displayed but grabs you with his sentiment of the downtrodden seeking the light. The half-sung, half-spoken vocal deliver carries a form of monologue with it and this is mostly supplied in the mix making a stark difference between the instrumental and vocal. The most intriguing moments are those in which WIFE really scratches upon the pop realms with his own credo. “Living Joy” could be the audition tape for a vocal part in Depeche Mode while the reverby chorus again takes us into a much more elemental and heavier side of electronics. “Fruit Tree” in contrast to the other songs becomes very dynamic and uplifting even when the vocals pull towards a different direction. Overall a very intriguing listen that gives no reason to miss any metal tendencies for dark and reflective music.

08. Andy Stott – Faith In Strangers

Titling his work Faith In Strangers seems pretty unfit for the music Andy Stott is making. The grand opus Luxury Problems introduced us to the first sign of a human element in Stott´s claustrophobic blend of dark electronic music: The voice of his piano teacher Alison Skidmore. However, to call it the human element is a rather far-fetching statement, at least for Luxury Problems. We found Skidmore´s voice hauntingly chopped and altered, sometimes falling into a ghostly whisper or only bearing the skeletal form of a few syllables. In Faith in Stranger, Stott furthered his collaboration with Skidmore and gives the voice more space on a few tracks. We get real lyrics here, sentences and little to no deconstruction of the form. You can´t call it audible all the time, but it seems that Stott wanted to stir you not only through his crazy synth intrusions, crazy bass lines or later noise alone. Speaking of which, the is a lot more musical variance in Faith In Strangers then in his previous efforts. Seemingly, Stott wanted to venture out from all his bone crushing darkness into every territory: The industrial-r´n´b fusion of on “Science And Industry” or some dream pop on “Faith In Strangers”. On the solely instrumental parts Stott also gives you everything out of his repertoire. A long organ howling introduction with “Times Away”, spacey jungle beat on “No Surrender” and even some deconstructed trap music on “Damage”. For all this side-tracking, Stott still dwells with his usual vigor and remains infatuated with sounds that lurk and glow in the dark. Faith In Strangers finds his conceptual point in the deviation from the cold and ghostly, adding the warmth of human expression in its fullest. Just like in meeting a stranger you will not know if he will do you harm or reveal himself to be an enrichment to your life, faith is all you can have.

07. Run The Jewels – Run The Jewels 2

Thank you Run The Jewels to reminding us of the evil in the world. Most rappers have some social commentary in them, no doubt, but in RTJ2 the combination of spitting your ass of and getting a message across is reaching new heights. You can´t really say that El-P and Killer Mike follow the agenda of enlightening the people with their music. “Run The Jewels Is The Answer / The Question Is What´s Popping?” El-P boasts on opener “Jeopardy” and this is true for the production side of things: The menacing bass lines alone are El-P´s best work to date when it comes to appealing to every hip hop listener’s ear without fully cutting away from his roots and usual brooding qualities. But still, for me the content is what counts, every playful sentiment aside. Here we have two rappers, who are harder and more gifted then everyone around and yet they don´t hesitate on speaking about love and self-reliance in the same sentence as shouting “Fuck The Law / It Can Eat My Dick That´s Word To Pimp”. As the duo carves out its own lane, thinking and writing in an off-space of what currently happens in rap music, they want to enable the listeners to take his own and find his own thoughts. While other rappers deliver the message of “Look around people, the world is bad”, RTJ say it cordially “Look around and fuck you to the fullest! It starts with your shit and ends with your shit, so fuck you!”. 

  

06. FKAtwigs – LP1

“I love another and thus I hate myself” is the start of LP1; twigs singing in an operatic voice with a heady banging beat enveloping her. The theme of love and hate are the most essential in Tahliah Barnett music, infused with a lot of lust, longing and candid expression of fragility. You find it in the contrasts she creates in the revelation of “Break or Seize Me” or “Live or Leave me” in “Lights On”, or in energetic single “Two Weeks” where we find twigs powerfully seducing her other with lines like “Suck Me Up I´m Healing For The Shit You´re Dealing”. In “Pendulum” a switch occurs from the powerful lover to the yearning “Little Lovemaker”. Twigs in her falsetto voice recalls losing her loved on in a heartbreaking way, being at loss with any kind of communication and reminiscing the excitement once felt. After the whole experience of LP1 it is proven that FKAtwigs will be a mainstay in the ever evolving realm of contemporary r´n´b music. Her approach is that of an experimental musician with an impeccable voice ranging from the highest register to being able to recalling Aaliyah in her most sensual. Be it for the variations of love in her lyrics or the wide array of crafty instrumentals, LP1 is the emergence of change in the perception of what it means to make sensual music. 

FKA TWIGS [two weeks] from nabil elderkin on Vimeo.

05. Cloud Nothings – Here And Nowhere Else

Like I said in my review which you can read here, Scarring is the best way to find creativity. Cloud Nothings are the epitome of scarring did in the youthful and angsty way. There is the component of human relationship and communication breaking in almost every song of the album. It is a steam-roller of emotion and a method of drowning out the voices in your head put to life by the shit-talk of other people. I can only imagine Dylan Baldi finding his safe-haven in the words and music of Here And Nowhere Else, creating a space of his own, a chaos, as he puts it in an interview, that sounds poppy and catchy. As if being truly present in your life and surroundings means cutting away from almost everyone and everything that reveals itself to be a draining influence.

  

04. Jessie Ware – Tough Love

I´ve said much about the Tough Love (Here). After sitting with it for almost three months now, I know that this deserves to be above FKAtwigs. Jessie Ware just stirs my insides without letting me think about grand ventures in production or visual style. While I like my music heady, experimental and leaving you at the edge of your seat, this is a purely emotional response and I know that it will last. 

Jessie Ware - Say You Love Me from tenthree on Vimeo.

03. Ben Frost – A U R O R A

If Tim Hecker is Jesus, then Ben Frost must be God. This statement is huge, but makes sense in the world of noise and drone. A frequent collaborator of Tim Hecker since Ravedeath 1972, it is never quite clear in how much of Hecker´s music Frost partakes. But it can be said that he lays the groundwork for Heckers recordings and might have been detrimental to the shift that has occurred from 2009´s An Imaginary Country to 2011 and onwards. So then. Let us quote Jesus to get a better hold of god: “Music is this thing that fills everyone's lives all of the time, but it's this thing that is completely taken for granted, and it's also totally fickle and it's infuriating and it's overloading you and it's often not good [...] It's often not done very well and there's also a system of production that doesn't reward people who do it well, so it's kind of fucked up in a lot of ways”. Spoken by the man who ripped apart organ sounds to created ashen beauty for us, Ben Frost takes up this notion in his work seemingly from the beginning and finds his biggest expression in A U R O R A. It is the elusive percussion work of various musicians that lends the organic to the highly distorted synthesizer -sounds on this record. Starting with the categories of dark wave or industrial will only end in failure here. Frost in almost every tracks lets the drums sits in a very audible manner, the electronics that slowly seep in and try to drown the living and breathing instruments out, never fully succeed. Take for instance the triangle of “Secant”, “Diphenyl Oxalate” and “Venter”. The slow drum set the tone for a swelling synth, but never fade in “Secant”, steadily pounding away. Then the break of “Dphenyl Oxalate”, an explosion of inaudible in under two minutes, only for the drums to be set back on track on “Venter” with almost Tool-ish tribalism. In this combination of the electronic and highly primal, I find the expression of music´s action circle and breaking point. The pounding, natural bass lines that correspond with almost every listener with an almost iconic and seemingly oversaturated use of electronics akin to techno – or better said the way to make every pop song successful. Frost takes these elements, combines them, severs them again and rinses and repeats this process to evoke dread and beauty. Think about your everyday experience of music when you listen to A U R O R A, reflect you consumerism and the simple notion of “I like it, because it sounds GOOD”. Trap yourself with Frost for a while and you might loosen the chains and silent compliancy you give to the music industry every day. Behold, G O D has spoken.

  

02. Mono – The Last Dawn / Rays Of Darkness

Again, just find my words here and if not, rest assured that Mono never needed words of explanation to begin with. I can only say that this one will be the true number one in the years to come, as Mono will continue to be the band interwoven with my life, process of thought and feeling. Listen to it, let it mend and break you and let it remind you of the incredible power of sound.

01. Protomarytr – Under Color Of Official Right

“Shade Goes Up / Shade Goes Down / One Of My Dead Moods”…

This is energetic nihilism, the account of four Detroit musicians finding their way from the cluttered streets of their city into the cluttered streets of their city. There is no escape. You can travel the world and you can feel as happy as you want, the relativity of life, the slow burning reminders of vanity will find you. Joe Casey still lives in the house he grew up in and will eventually never leave it. Not because he can´t because he doesn´t want to. Flight is a way of keeping things unresolved. You have to take in all in, reflect and break down time and time again before you can actually move in time and space. Read the full review here.