Top Albums 2015 Part IV 20–11

20. Oneohtrix Point Never – Garden Of Delete

Toying with Oneohtrix Point Never and his conceptual ideas is great: Garden Of Delete is his reoccurrence of youth, the revenge of a kid, not cool enough to be grunge. His own Jeremy, “Ezra” is not the story of shooting up schools, it´s about a acne ridden kid. Garden Of Delete as a whole is the guitar wielding dream of Daniel Lopatin, the wish of becoming like the great bands of the 90´s, shredding away their pain. But dude only knows his electronics, his weird sounds and warped processed voices and has to make do with what he can. So you´ll hear the weirdest and roughest of Oneo´s digital clash yet, like puberty, not knowing where to go and what to do, your face melting constantly.

19. Battles – La Di Da Di

La Di Da Di is pure energy. A band playing math-rock with such an intensity and sense of progression over crazy starts and stops, you´ll never catch a hint of strain in the twists and turns of their music. While the process of writing music, coming up with ideas is obscure for many of my most admired artists, I can´t begin to imagine the creative process of Battles. How they come up with the ideas, the strange sounds and then put them together into pieces of five minutes length. This thing will just make you smile.

18. Puscifer – Money Shot

Apart from everything Maynard James Keenan does to seem like a strange freak, always being on the brink of perversion and stupidity, his music is one of the most thought-provoking things you´ll encounter in your musical journey. So, to start Money Shot with Galileo, recalling his “song” of tribulations, as one of the pioneers of science being restricted by the church and accused of heresy, is only fitting for Keenan and his dropping gems of knowledge over the course of the album. Whether he is writing a sweet ode to his new born daughter on “Agostina” or talking about opening the third eye sandwiched in a story of punks, his words, his metaphors and reference carry incredible weight. Just listen to “Grand Canyon”, Keenan weaving immortality, nature, humility and the ordering of the cosmos into one great piece of music. After all this, one can only imagine how great a new Tool album may be, with not only an ages Keenan returning, but the whole band maybe having grown like he has.

17. Aïsha Devi – Of Matter And Spirit

The dark and gothic has always been in factor in electronic music. The peculiar sense of community, of procession, of ecstasy is something that is very much agreed upon in dance music, just as the usage of psychedelic drugs. What Aïsha Devi adds to these elements is a sense of spirituality, breaking with the notion of worship and religion. It is much closer an out of body experience, the coming to the edge of perception and existence. With her hard hitting, eerie sounds in Of Matter And Spirit, the chanting that is somehow inspired by monks and mantras, Devi creates an aural experience that captures the widening of scope not just through frantic dancing or meditation, but through hearing the exceptional. 

16. Recondite – Placid

Placid is Recondite´s mastery of groove. Groove, as a kind of pattern in a song, something that is perceived via the intuition of one´s sense of melody and progression of sound. Acid House has this concept deeply ingrained. The repetitive part, the trance inducing simple drum patterns, the other sounds working on top and besides it. It has to resonate with your body and mind, signaling before even occurring, the changes of the song. Placid is a nocturnal and laid back listen, never moving too fast, irritating your sense of rhythm. It wants you to fall into it, live in the vibe, or groove of these tracks, inevitably evolving from one cut into the other and taking in every bass hit, every tiny snap, ghostly key. You´ll get it after the first seconds, don´t worry.

15. Violet Cold – Desperate Dreams

Read my full review of Desperate Dream here. Euphoria in metal might seem paradoxical for those who have no connection to this music. Images of metal heads raising their fist, being sullen to the bones and not letting go of the tension, reveling in it, taking it in. But begin to think about sound in general and you´ll see that sullen moods don´t have to go hand in hand with just feeling sad or even “nothing”. Euphoria, and in my eyes the feeling of love, are what Violet Cold succeeds in delivering on Desperate Dreams. Blowing the cap on emotions, getting in touch with something that can´t be described by words and the rational, but has to be screamed. Start this album and don´t think about what metal music is, or that screams have to be angry, just let Violet Cold do the talking.

14. Low – Ones And Sixes

Another duo vocal effort, but from a completely different direction. Low have been around for some time but is only this year that I caught up to their music. Often brought together with the slow-core tag, I only got that connection after reading about it. Ones And Sixes is beautifully dynamic, while never becoming arrogant and self-indulgent in its own mood – maybe, which is why this is called slow-core. The bands soundscapes, their way of creating powerful and yet somewhat quiet pieces of rock music is apparent from the wintry opener “Gentle” onward, the ripping synth offsetting the fragile ringing and singers Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker joining their voices with great pathos. The album only opens after that with the more frantic “No Comprende” being followed by the uprising mood up “Spanish Translation”. Overall every songs from Ones And Sixes works on its own, the whole project never becoming to dreamy or hazy. If one thing, Low are a rock band mastering the most subtle parts of making rock music, emphasizing mood and atmosphere over pompous effect and building and release of tension. 

13. Chelsea Wolfe – Abyss

I can only bring up the Jesu reference once again. Chelsea Wolfe with her approach coming from folk music, has almost completely left these elements behind for a haunting noise, drum machine pounding record. “Carrion Flowers” makes true with the notion of abyss and draws you in, Wolfe being the vocal seductress becoming a beacon between the noises that try to pick away at you. Between these harder moments, Wolfe comes through with slower movements, more on the melodic side, but not in any way letting you out of the overall bleak and beaten feel of the album. “Maw” or even “Crazy Love” start off, almost as folk songs, centered on simple guitars, but the noises, screeches and distortion can´t stay away too long and while not always overtaking the song, work as cold piece of metal touching one part of your skin as the rest is bathed in some notion of light. You can´t escape the feeling that this project is the manifestation of the darkest and self-destructive parts of depression, the black hole that yourself and your own consciousness can become.

12. Alessandro Cortini – Risveglio

I like the idea of Cortini setting his limitation by only using two synths, the MC-202 and the TB-303 to create his whole album. Risveglio is the best example of the transference of a mind-set, a way of thinking and ultimately acting, into an electronic instrument. I not talking about the image of the “man-machine”, the interface and the man melting into one being, but the mastery of technology as understanding and not just overarching the workings of given device. The sounds Cortini produces from these two instruments with a set of effects added are equally eerie and stressful as they are soothing and consuming. Take this effort for your own mental and creative building, letting the sounds color the space you´re in and building a third connection from Cortini to instrument to you. 

11. port-royal – Where Are You Now

To get the beauty of Where Are You Now, it will help to look at the kind of beauty that is transgressing into electronic dance music with many new releases and composers of our time. For me, one the greatest releases in recent memory is 2013´s Immunity by Jon Hopkins. Not entirely set in club bangers, Hopkins delivers slow moments, piano laden pieces of relieve and contemplation. Like many feel, good EDM should also be listenable outside of the context of huge spaces and crowds – headphone music. Even though they didn´t reinvent or invent any genre, port-royals blend of these elements with a clear post-rock mentality, shines even greater as their approaches never settles at a clear distinction of “loud” or bass-heavy and danceable moments. Where Are You Now mingles the feeling of creating sounds to move people to dance with the intent of creating soundscapes as would ambient music or post-rock. The organic and the electronic work like a charm as the port-royal still very much qualify as a band and not a bunch of guys hacking away at their computers. This is one of the most beautiful moments of 2015 and without doubt, a further highlight in the impeccable discography of the Italian craftsmen.