Top Tracks 2016 Part VI 50 – 41

50. FAYE – Ancient Bones (Faye)

Faye are one of the newest and youngest signees of the Tiny Engines imprint any their debut EP was a musical moment to behold this year. Clear stand out between their agile punk rock is the closer “Ancient Bones”. The band slows their tempo down on this unexpected left turn and lets the instrumental slow down between the breathy vocals of Sarah Blumenthal. This track alone carries more disarray and yearning than any flip out could ever deliver and hopefully serves as an indicator for a promising new band.

49. Frightened Rabbit - An Otherwise Disappointing Life (Painting Of A Panic Attack)

Who do you sing your blues to, who will cover for the disappointments without becoming one itself? This is the basic premise of this broken ballad between hope and total surrender. The band is one of the greatest when it comes to charmingly saying that your life is fucked and there isn´t that much to look forward to, if you take a sobering look at your life. But still, they deliver some redemption through their songs and as this track acknowledges, you might even stick to someone that is hurting you for the little good that person delivers. And even if that fails, maybe, just maybe, this person can help you up and light that fire again.

48. Yndi Halda – Helena (Under Summer)

Yndi Halda took their sweet time (let´s generously say 10 years), to come out with a follow up to their legendary debut album. But the band member’s clearly developed their skills and used their time for various projects, mostly employing some folk sensibility to their instrumental and electronic ideas. After all this, Under Summer emerged as a great leap from their debut and saw the band delivering folky lyrics to more subtle instrumentals. No more great freak-outs or other post-rock clichés, but a great understanding of using their songwriting capabilities, to deliver holistic songs. In my personal taste, the lyrical side will never reach the strength of their solely instrumental cut “Helena”. The track develops without exploding at one point and is recognizable for a bassy groove starting around the middle of the song, which leads to an enlightened lead out, shimmering between the violin we´ve come to know in Yndi Halda and some wordless vocals. It feels like the most natural jam, not exactly playing for a crowd and more like picking up your instruments and learning each and every new side your companions have gained over the years.

47. I Like Trains – X (A Divorce Before Marriage)

Most of the artists and bands I enjoy listening to, are the ones that don´t promote the same album every time, that progress, experiment and want to deliver something new and exciting through their work. Despite this commendable intention called being an artist, most of these bands also struggle to be financially rewarded for their efforts and lead a life of touring and facing existential crisis while making music. A Divorce Before Marriage is the soundtrack album to the documentary of the same name, following the fate of the band and while I haven´t had the chance to see the doc yet, it´s story is greatly appealing. And it is not without irony that I Like Trains are the band that are at the center of this elegy. Their music is full of narratives, many of historic origin, and their songwriting takes great inspiration from the narratives of struggle, failure and life´s paradoxical nature. Apart from all this, the band delivering yet another instrumental album, was all the more reason to get excited, as their Christmas Tree Ship EP stands as my favorite from the band. Listening to this album and tracks like “X”, my first thought was, that they should start doing soundtrack work and relieving their lacking backing by major labels through this. This track slowly flows from the beaten and hopeless to a victorious uplift, showing a band that has weathered storms and is able to deliver great music despite the usual troubles of being in an unforgiving business.

46. Kodie Shane – Losing Service (Zero Gravity)

Kodie Shane came up in the Sailing Team posse of much hyped (and sometimes hated) rapper Lil Yachty. While he is undeniably iconic and hopefully there to stay, Kodie Shane might be the bigger artists solely from vocal performance and musical appeal. Her music, whether being funny and quirky in the vain of her cherry-headed friend, or when delivering heartbreak and earnest personal feelings, is melodic and catchy beyond her contempories. “Losing Service” hits hard and comes off as trippy beat-wise, but that doesn´t distract from a certain kind of heartbreak in Shane´s lyrics. Breaking communication in an age, that is so full of words. Maybe, Yachty and Shane are using the repetitive and catch-phrase /twitter conversation kind of rapping fueled by these experiences for a reason.

45. Carla Dal Forno – Fast Moving Cars (You Know What It´s Like)

Mixing a folky attitude with electronics isn´t an especially new thing to do, but Carla Dal Forno´s approach on delivering desolate songs over darkened synths and a hollow drum machine hits a sweet spot of neither/nor. These songs do not recall a lone singer-songwriter switching her guitar for electronic, nor do they come off as an electronic producer spewing some words over her production. “Fast Moving Cars” is haunting and fantastical in its own right, rendering Dal Forno´s words on the brink of being incomprehensible and creating an atmosphere that complements the negative space of her electronics.

44. Lil Yachty – Wanna Be Us (Ft Burberry Perry) (Lil Boat)

Lil Yachty broke this year, sailing directly towards stardom and right through the always shifting threshold of what rap music can be. He is the next step of the evolution from Chief Keef, Future and Kid Cudi and his bubbly production, ripping the oceanic, as well as your favorite cartoon soundtrack, are a welcome expansion of the sonic palette in this music genre. “Wanne Be Us” is catchy as hell and has Yachty and his 2nd mate Perry rapping some ok mid-tempo bars over some shiny production. Songs of the summer, delivered with an all-year round sunny attitude.

43 - PARTYNEXTDOOR - Only U (PND 3)

The informed listener should be aware that PND was the writer behind Rihanna´s "Work" and judging from his demo, the song would have sounded better with him alone, too. While there is some dislike for furthering dancehall inspired rnb sounds, there is a fruitful ground many artist are capable of threading (and to be honest, the sound isn´t that new and was pushed even years back). PND is able to pull this off with ease, as he shows over the course of his work, Drake´s Views and will most likely for other artists, too. "Only U" is one of his tracks that carry this sound and his performance over the sparse beat, with a shuttered and distant melody changing in an out for a foreground of modern production is instantly infectious.

42. Khary – Quitting feat. Latrell James (Intern Aquarium)

Khary delivered a whole project on a topic that isn´t talked about much in the form of rap – being a millennial caught in an endless cycle of internships and part-timing while dreaming of something bigger, a creative lifestyle and the self-fulfillment, we´ve been advertised since we were born. “Quitting” takes you to the point of leaving your dead-end job or internship and trying to pursue your dream, but not without leaving you with the bitter taste of financial problems and the nagging feeling of having an option and privilege your parent’s didn´t have. Striving and becoming someone might entail mishaps and failure, but not becoming a pawn of the system might be a good starting point of achieving something greater than slaving away for no pay.

41. Amir Obe - The Only (Happening In The Grey Area EP)

The Weeknd will never return to making his heavily atmospheric r´n´b and that is a good thing, since he did almost everything that could be done with this sound in his trilogy. More importantly, he opened the door for others to play with this sounds and push it into various directions that he wouldn´t fit in. There isn´t any kind of sweetness or lustful appeal in the music of Amir Obe, even when he declares his most most vulnerable on songs like “The Only”. There is a decent amount of closure in this track, even when it has Obe reflecting on his past love and the problems of their relationship. There´s no whiny self-pity here, but the retained hurt and negative emotions that break in a powerful chorus.