Top Albums 2015 Part I 55–41

55. Flo Morrissey – Tomorrow Will Be Beautiful

Nostaglia is a huge deal in folk-music. My mental image most of the time involves someone old, pained and beautifully ridden by life´s playful banter. Breaking this image, many young artists are emerging with huge success, bringing in their own nostalgia, one that is not restaurative anymore, but of the more beautiful kind: of the reflective. Flo Morrissey record is there fittingly titled Tomorrow Will Be Beautiful. As every track here conveys the feeling of looking back, a dreamful resistance against the contemporary, this kind of nostalgia somehow haunts you forward, towards a tomorrow and a different, if not even idealistic world where love, longing and believing still hold true against the world. It´s not “Once I was young, and the world was full of wonder”, it´s “I´m young, I want to dream”. Very Deafheaven indeed. If that´s too much for you, Flo Morrissey has such a unique voice, its sheer tone is worth listening to all the different songs and ways of her using it. 

54. Adna – Run, Lucifer

Adna stuck to her guns and furthered her approach of making heart-breaking(-ly beautiful) music. Run, Lucifer often takes a louder, but not in any way more uplifting, tone. There are bursts of sorrow, the instruments almost overshadowing Adna´s fragile voice, but her striking delivery never wavers or gets distraught by these moments, they just manifest the disarray of given sentiment. Surprisingly, her dwelling on the sad never comes off exhausting or whining. The whole thing feels genuinely honest, the young singer channeling her utmost feeling and not lacking the reflexive moments, like on “Beautiful Hell”, when asking how all these feeling can exist and “multiply” within her as a single person. Weltschmerz is pretty easy in music, playing something sad and thereby touching people  is seemingly easier than addressing more complex feelings, but Run, Lucifer never shy´s away from becoming complex and entangling you with all shades of sadness. The whole record is a very rewarding experience and its grand emotive qualities show a singer who will continue to deliver many great records to come. 

53. Nicole Dollanganger – Natural Born Losers

When I heard that Grimes started supporting Nicole Dollanganger, I feared for the own sense of purity her music had. I only discovered her 2014 record Observatory Mansion in early 2015, but was immediately taken by the fragile and yet sullied beauty of this record. After hearing Natural Born Losers, I could rest assured and understand where Grimes´ shout-out came from: Like Grimes for electronic music, Dollanganger´s approach to subtle acoustic, singer-songwriter music is “strange” from a normative perspective on genre. But while electronic music is much more welcoming of the odd ones out, I don´t really feel that this holds true for female singer-songwriters. The themes of Dollanganger touch on the morbid, the bleek and distraught, she sings about killing angels, being white trash and executions of criminals. All this, with a soft, child-like voice, that would make millions as an J-Pop act, wearing cute dresses and being kawaii. Natural Born Losers is akin to a modern view on youth and suburban life, a view on societies nooks and crannies that are covert up by the fiction of pop-music praising youth and living the happy life. 

52. Jeremih – Late Nights: The Album

All that pain, any yet the feeling to look at the more uplifting sights of youth and life. While I couldn´t care much for the contents of Late Nights apart from a dosage of the romantic notions of the album, the production on this record is worked out up until its last detailed finger snap or synth line. Jeremih somehow delivers the record The Dream was to drop this year. Sweet and tender, not self-consumating like The Weeknd. Either high on bravado like on “Give No Fuks” with Migos or a little self-reflexive on the great Jhene Aiko assisted “Worthy”, every feeling of Late Nights delivers and stands as a varied display of the elements of current r´n´b.

51. Algiers – Algiers

There is a reason while Algiers debut opens with the gospel, slave spiritual vibe it does. The band is very grounded in the voice of the common-folk, the oppressed speaking of the oppressor. With that, their next element of synthesizers is also fitting. In a way, it is the instrument of the working class now, something that is far from the notions of high culture in its initial beginning and often than not used for creating the music of the masses. Every song on Algiers is worth being listened and read in detail. The political agenda of the band is clear and as left-field as can be, something that is much needed in music in my opinion. Making a statement, pointing fingers and unlike hip hop, not only being concerned with the troubles of the hood or the state of America for that matter, but post-colonialism in its widest reach. All this and still sounding punky in its own right, mixing various elements, from blues, gospel to industrial music and creating a angry machine against the THE MAN.

50. Foals – What Went Down

The music of Foals has become rawer with every release. The newest elements the bands introduces on this record come close to post-punk, as the loud noisy guitars on the opener “What Went Down”. But one song later, this notion, the rawness is doubled down into the intricate sound-managing of the band, that brought us the math-rock infused Antidotes, a band that has a incredible feel for delicate, tingeling guitar melodies. And it is because of these moments of crystal clear songwriting What Went Down made this list and had me returning to it. Foals might someday really be able to channel the loud and abrasive, but will still shine when taking some groove, the moving dynamics of their roots into account.

49. Virgin Forest – VF3

Synth-Pop for me is a genre of conversation, a kind of exchange, mostly directed towards your love-interest. They´re not love-songs per se, having a straight-forward and easily digestible message, but much rather a different kind of poetry. VF3 works well in 2015 as it would have in the 80´s, years before my birth and even more years into my true introduction to bands like Depeche Mode. The production on the whole album is pretty sparse, even when a sax solo is thrown into the mix, having a real bedroom vibe and that´s one thing that set´s Virgin Forest apart from being a Depeche Mode clone. In their days, they were experimenting with sounds, as much as they had to somehow write for a known audience, later even filling stadiums of people. Virgin Forest are more island-minded, concerned with their own heartbreak and so to speak minimalistic instrumentals. It works fine, not having to much pomp, heavy choruses or anything in that manner. Just a single voice talking to himself, talking to you in the intimacy of listening.

48. Jay Rock – 90059

good kid, M.A.A.D. City seems to hang over Black Hippy. Not in their own perception, but in the eyes of the critics. Everybody expects them to create huge conceptual masterpieces in the vain of Kendrick and his recent album furthers these expectations even more. But embracing the quality of the varied MC´s of this hip hop collective is essential, also detrimental to understanding why they exist under this umbrella. Jay Rock never tried to weave a huge cohesive tale, and he didn´t get fooled into believing he had to. 90059 is a straight-forward rap album, emphasizing bars over the bigger picture. Even when the pace is often slower, maybe not gritty enough for those who expect a “gangster rap” album to be gritty, all songs carry Rock´s impressive way of describing hood life, the thoughts and feels of his experiences. For all those who find rap too often dabbling in to many directions and variations and agenda´s, 90059 will satisfy all needs. 

47. Grimes – Art Angels

What a grand follow-up to Visions. Success seemed to be a thing that Grimes had to take some time adjusting to, especially being told by many voices, what her music is and what not. But through all the struggles, Art Angels is a step forward and refinement of the sound of Grimes, not just the expected image of hers. She introduces a weird rap verse by Taiwanese rapper Aristphanes, crafts her own hate-anthem on commodification and music criticism and most of all, keeps the weird energy of her colorful electronics running throughout the whole project. I personally don´t think that her musical style can be transferred outside of herself, or that others will benefit from copying her presence in anyway. That is the greatness and message of Art Angels and Grimes, keeping it unique and left-field, even when there was some tension and the fear of falling into really being commodified. For everyone searching for catchy pop tunes played in the fashion of someone who´ll never quite fit into being or making mainstream, Art Angels is a gem.

46. Protomartyr – The Agent Intellect

My most recent image or Detroit are strongly influenced by VICE documentaries. The newer addition to the images of a city left in the dumps but brimming with creative energy comes from Protomartyr. Under Color Of Official Right was a superb quick fix of raw energy, of life´s frustration made into grime guitars and a tone-deaf mumble. The Agent Intellect adds the emotion of anger to the mix while showing the bands growth in songwriting abilities. Only a year after their last piece, the songs feel like actual songs, in length and composition while still carrying the power of a band playing their set in the immediacy of a performance, no deep studio processing and ornaments sticking out. This one is far darker and unhappier, making it that with the success, the band only saw their way of living and making music much clearer and could grasp what they wanted to share with the world more precisely. In a way, the dark bloom of Detroit, the negative feelings as an integral part of moving forward and not forgetting the dust and rubble from where you came from.

45. Rae Sremmurd – Sremm Life

Listening to this, your view of the world will not in the least bit be elevated, there is only enjoyment of great production and some guys spitting their bars in it. It is full of great tunes, most of which deserve their heavy play and success in mainstream music. Even though I most of the time strongly advocate that rap should carry somekind of message, there is undeniable affective power in the bang of production and the bravado of these two MC´s. 

44. Colin Stetson & Sarah Neufeld – Never Were The Way She Was

Pairing Colin Stetson forward thinking saxophone with Sarah Neufeld, a violinist known for her part in Bell Orchestre and Arcade Fire, is a natural match from the first to the last seconds of Never Were The Way She Was. Both musicians sync up befitting the quality of their instruments, Stetson most of the time delivering the pulse, his kind of beat to Neufelds trickling violin. The tracks reach from an excursive introduction into more subtle, contemplative moments to erratic experimentation, such as “In The Vespers”. As this record demands your full attention, the sounds never becoming ambient and atmospheric, you nonetheless find yourself wandering off mentally, catching brilliant thoughts and ideas. That is the beauty of this collaboration, recorded live in studio without any overdubs: The intuitiveness of playing, creating. 

43. Liturgy – The Ark Work

The intro “Fanfare” might as well lead into a sweet little indie record, but following the conceptual line of transcendental black metal, as deputized by Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, introduce ascension, transgression into new realms of sounds. And this is what Liturgy have created in The Ark Work, a record that is breaking the limitations of black metal, marrying the digital and outright artificial with the traditional playing of metal. A elevation, that is hard to digest at first, for fans of black metal and even harder, for those who never stepped into experimental music before. Bells ring, trumpets drone and almost try to relieve the drums of achieving rhythm. You´ll hear the digital warping, artifacts sliding into the songs with intention and find the whole understanding of metal in the common sense superseded by this band alone. And don´t forget “Vitriol”, the best trap beat of this year.

42. Majical Cloudz – Are You Alone?

This is delicate electronica with the feel of a singer-songwriter not resorting to his guitar. Are You Alone? draws you in from the start, delivering ethereal sounds, almost ambient soundscapes combined with a refrained beat keeping the listener engaged, as singer Devon Welsh reveals his inner workings through his words. In a way, this record fails at transporting the feeling out of its own power, the whole thing works like a sealed off space that you´ll only enter if your own mood is set in a similar way, but this can speak for the intimacy and soul-searching set forth by this band.

41. Container – LP

It might sound strange, but going from the notion of music inviting movement, opener “Eject” incites vandalism and the urge to decompose your surroundings. The stark wobber, the harsh mix of noises and unforgiving drumming is like opening an electronic Pandoras box. With the other tracks of LP Container achieves the same energetic overload in different variations, always sticking to the frantic, the booming and eerie to achieve this. Pretty much irresistible for anyone interested in power-electronics and testing the durability and sanity of your peers.