Top Tracks 2015 Part VIII 30–21
30. Container – Remover (LP)
Container´s short LP bore some of the best electronic tunes of this year. While the mind-shattering “Eject” is an unforgettable introduction to gutbumping noise, Remover blends these elements even better. The deep bass is carried by a wide array of percussion, remaining constant throughout with Container adding and subtracting looping elements and effects into little islands of noise. The great thing here is that Container never breaks away from something that is more danceable than experimental, more likely to get the crowd dancing and jumping around rather than distracted or confused about the evolution of the song. Slam dance and riot!
29. Years&Years – Take Shelter (Communion)
Years&Years were a huge find for me this year and only after pestering all my friend I found out that they were having quite some sucess in the radio. Rightfully so, because with singles like Take Shelter, the bands delivers music that is so filled with anxiety and lust, that it´s sweet sound is balming the words only to create deep affection for the songs. Here the band has takes inspiration from dancehall, delivering a staggering beat with the synth mimicing a laid back steel drum.
28. Foals – Mountain At My Gates (What Went Down)
Foals debut album Antidotes will stand as one of the finest indie-rock releases ever. Their approach on blending edgy electronic and math rock while still writing indie rock tunes was much welcomed and played out well throughout the whole record. With continuous releases, the band has become more straightforward in their ideas and sounds, almost akin to being a full on rock band. When Went Down is no exception. The album works as a quick and fast rock record, with the usual slow ballads thrown in, but the instrumental levels don´t stretch out into many genres. But still, there is form and function in this approach and Mountain At My Gates describes a struggle in fashion of "the weight of the world" with a clearly picked guitar lead and driving rhythm section. A highlight and example of Foals´s still growing prowess in songwriting.
27. Jay Rock – Money Trees Deuce (90059)
Money Trees, the first part on Kendrick Lamar´s good kid, M.A.A.D city was a stand out track, one I return to often and it had the standout verse by Jay Rock. On his album, Rock came back with a part-two. Describing the hussle as the only thing people know, he delivers a message of strange positivity and not giving in to the problems arising from the life of a gangster. This isn´t the self-reflection of Kendrick Lamar but Jay Rock as a different character and view point. Someone who is deeply entrenched in this life, without a real outside view or even trying to find an escape. Seeing rap as the "reporting from the inside", this track is a striking account, especially for the words Rock finds.
26. Battles – The Yabba / Megatouch (La Di Da Di)
One thing that I almost never care for are instrumental bands starting with using vocals and inviting an array of singers into their often complex and dense compositions. Most of the time the songs appear broken and never reach their full potential. And while I must give it to Battles for doing a great job in blending the different vocal styles into their music on Gloss Drop, the instrumental songs still delivered a better dynamic and show of force. With La Di Da Di this notion is approved even more. Every song here is a ride, an exercise in experimentation and sense for beats crashing and fighting for the upperhand. While Megatouch is the cartoonish rag-timey tune you might expect from Battles by now, the twists and turns, especially with the Nightmare Before Christmas synth line at the beginning of the songs, give the best representation of what dynamics in music can be. Hearing this track, it becomes hard to imagine, that a mere three people are playing all this and are not ending in a garbled mess. I had to add The Yabba in this listing because the opener of this album instantly redeemed the promise of innovation and growth of this band. The drum orientated, slow and interchanging build of this song, up until the instruments find to each other, shows the band communicating, bouncing off ideas at one another and comes close the what I would image a real time jam would be between the members. It´s like every member bringing in a new element, going like “dude, check out this sound” and the others responding with musical tropes of their own. Pure fucking genius.
25. Lupe Fiasco – Mural (Tetsuo & Youth)
This is the ultimate puristic no-hook rap track of this year. Lupe got much bad press for his ventures into pop music, while his best tracks and albums were those that had him crafting wordy pieces, split between referencing everything from pop-culture to making a huge stand on social and political issues. Tesuo & Youth was his true redemption after The Great American Rap Album. And Mural is his way of showing off his impeccable lyrical skill. He goes from Mortal Kombat and Naruto to comments on Samsara as if these two things were connected from the start. Over the course of close to nine minutes, Fiasco delivers a bunch of complex rhymes and many quotables. After listening to this song, you´ll have smile on your face, seeing that this art is poetry and without a doubt, painting with words. And to close with my favorite quotable: "Life is not a dictionary, it's a thesaurus".
24. Wale – The One Time In Houston (The Album About Nothing)
Wale as an artists might make himself known through many, many dumb ideas and overall through his very high opinion about his own music. But one thing he sure is able to do, is to create songs about "nothing", as in giving glimpses of, and finding poetry in the everyday. Furthering his collaboration with the comedian Jerry Seinfeld following the Mixtape About Nothing, Seinfeld provides little narrative intros and intersections, somewhat touching on the song from a different angle and providing some context. The One Time In Houston mixes the experiences of Houston strip clubs and the theme of love in a way, that makes going to a strip club and falling in love with the strippers - as a experience, I think not many people can relate to - understandable and transforms the song into a song about broken love and affection. The chopped and screwed vocals, the whole warped atmosphere transports the feeling of a strange reflexive moment, like drunken remorse, really well, and is one of the few times, this method of alteration is used to mediate more than just a happy trippy vibe.
23. Kendrick Lamar – How Much A Dollar Cost (To Pimp A Butterfly)
This track blew the top on my whole experience of How Much A Dollar Cost. To really get a grasp, after a very unsatisfying first listen, I sat down and listened to the whole thing while reading the lyrics. Only then did this album and this song click. In this song, Kendrick encounters a homeless man who asks him for a dollar. Upon saying no, retributing that his money is the reward of his own work and furthering the quarrel with the homeless man, who "demands attention" referencing bible verses, the man reveals himself to be God and tells Kendrick, that he has lost his place in heaven because of his petty greed. Afterwards Kendrick repents, asking for God forgiveness. The whole bible and God thing aside, this song shows Kendrick spinning a complex story with tons of metaphors and references. The theme of humility is something that is bigger than any religion this story is set in and makes the encounter with a bum transferable to the everyday life. Above that Kendrick´s words and story work better than any religious lecture and have me thinking about his story in my encounters with homeless people more than any other call for alms might do. Just ask yourself: WWKD?
22. Violet Cold – I See The Air You Breathe (Desperate Dreams)
Check out my review of Deperate Dreams to get a full grasp of the phenomenon that is euphoric black metal. Everything you need to know for I See The Air You Breathe is to just let the sounds, the screams, the synths wash over you. Don´t be thrown off by what you hear, but try to understand the intent behind and beyond the sounds themselves. Listening to this track, I feel energized, as if enabled to grasp something bigger and activate a creative drive, obstructed by rational inhabitance most of the time.
21. Vince Staples – Norf Norf (Summertime ´06)
Norf Norf is the second best rap track of this year. Vince Staples approach on rap might come of as what many people call the ignorant type of rap, that is glorifying the life on the streets. But as always, this view is as dumb as those who represent it. Norf Norf is the account of a system within a system. As Staples repeats on his hook, "never running from nothing but the police" he reiterates the notion that in Long Beach, his hood, there isn´t anything to be afraid of even though it might be the ghetto, with people shooting guns, selling drugs and so on. The only thing a gangbanger has to fear, is the interruption from the external system of law-enforcement, as things inside his hometurf have their own way of working out and getting worked out. No glorification. With the subliminal and submarinal production by the one and only Clams Casino, this dark epic is divine.
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