Top Albums 2017 Part III 30 – 21

30. Voices from Deep Below – I Want to Stand Where the Sun Himself Shakes with Fear

Voices From Deep Below are one of my top finds of 2016 and this year they delivered yet another epic shoegaze album. While they even sing “I´m hazy” in one of their songs, this album is more than just one of the best shoegaze offerings I heard in a long while. The compositions are long, hazy and reverb-soaked until the brim. But without becoming too dreamy or ethereal, Voices From Deep Below keep it on the hard-hitting side of the genre and offer up respite only to drown out the negativity and longing their songs carry. It feels good to experience this kind of aggression in such an outfit and a hunger to deliver something that feels instantly recognizable in a sea of carbon copies. If one track, check out opener “This Is The Way” to be instantly immersed and turn that shit up!

<a href="http://voicesfromdeepbelow.bandcamp.com/album/i-want-to-stand-where-the-sun-himself-shakes-with-fear">I Want to Stand Where the Sun Himself Shakes with Fear by Voices from Deep Below</a>

29. Bell Witch – Mirror Reaper

Mirror Reaper is the most cohesive single track album I´ve heard that does not fall into the category of ambient or electronic compositions. This 90min journey carries the visceral encounter of death in life. Mourning a lost one as the absence of their being, while facing the fact of death, one´s own death. Slowly developing, rising and falling and yet remaining doom-soaked and heavy as can be, the album revels in the moments of clarity, when the attack is turned down for a few moments of light strumming when the voices, also of ex-member Adrian Guerra peak for a few moments that feel as cold as they are soothing, the sobering feeling of ache, feeling blood flow after a shocking realization. The ending, ca. the last half hour hits all the soft spots, the organ sounds that come through after the clean prayer like vocals and it all disappearing again in heavy guitars and finally dissipating into clean nothingness.

<a href="http://bellwitch.bandcamp.com/album/mirror-reaper">Mirror Reaper by Bell Witch</a>

28. Phoebe Bridgers – Stranger in the Alps

The mention of Julien Baker in connection to Bridgers seems like a must-have. Another young singer-songwriter with introspective heartbreak and observations on human relationship and the strange intricacies of life. However, Bridgers is strongly observant while Baker experiences. Bridgers seems to come from a place of deeply engaging with her surrounding and drawing out the essence to write a song, Baker sings her heart out. Both approaches lead to great songwriting, and the comparisons remain half-baked. Stranger in the Alps shows execution and even more promise of a future reference for up and coming singer-songwriters. You´ll encounter observations and thoughts that have you saying “yes, I feel exactly the same!” and through what feels like a handful of guest musicians and sonic ideas, this feeling of familiarity is brought to the front as organic as possible, never feeling caught in abstraction or even worse, in the first-person view of someone who tries to find meaning in the everyday. Stranger is exactly that, distancing yourself from experience to get a closer look, the best diary for the masses remaining a unique expression of Bridgers.

<a href="http://phoebebridgers.bandcamp.com/album/stranger-in-the-alps">Stranger in the Alps by Phoebe Bridgers</a>

27. Kelela – Take Me Apart

If Cut 4 Me was the experimental musing of a singer and a production group stepping out and trying to mold rnb with experimental beats in a way that interlocks and pushes both sounds to extremes, Take Me Apart is the sophisticated performance of this experiment, the rightful mission-statement of what rnb can and will be. Apart from some of the best instrumental work by the likes of Arca, Jam City or Bok Bok, changing from electronic soundscape worthy of ambient music to a beat-driven, garage-inspired club outing to smooth sensuality, it is Kelela effortless vocal work that ties this album together and stays in front of the whole experience. Not many vocalists could pull something like this off; have me not wanting the instrumentals of an album because their vocals only deviate from their greatness. There is not a single miss on the whole album, not a repetition of texture or atmosphere, and this alone is an accomplishment many recent rnb singers will continue to fail at. 

26. House and Land – House and Land

If you´re like me, you´re a little fed up with the use of the label folk music and never quite understand, what it exactly means. Sometime the sheer usage of an acoustic guitar will have people calling it folk. And I myself do it at times too, I´m not gonna lie. But with House and Land, you really get a deeper idea of what folk means or meant over the last few years. Nostalgia and history play a huge part in it. And yet, also an understanding of these histories and the drive to channel them into the actual present, not just playing at histories and heralding the past as only truth. Apart from using instruments like the banjo, Shruti box, and bouzouki, their vocals and styles of singing are as central to this album. The most intriguing moments happen when both singers harmonize with each other or stretch out the notes and sustain them in their performances. At certain times there is this sweet spot that occurs when two or more great vocalists collide and feed off each other, a kind of discernable unity. The whole album doesn´t consist of original songs but takes up old folk songs, especially from the Appalachian region and has House and Land taking their shot at these songs. As they profess in their liner notes, they took most songs from acapella versions, letting in only the words and feel without instrumental ideas. Overall this album will be something for you if you´re searching for music that has a very organic feeling to it, something that also shines through in the mixing and recorded feel. I guess what draws me in the most is this intricate power of two women taking up traditional songs that must be very much embedded in their lives and offering someone like me, who is as distant from this, their very fresh takes on their inherent music. Again, working out their own aesthetic, tapping into an oral and now recorded tradition and pushing this further and infusing it with a new and different life.

<a href="http://houseandland.bandcamp.com/album/house-and-land">House and Land by House and Land</a>

25. Lil Uzi Vert – Luv Is Rage 2

Sitting as high as position 25, this is the only album on this list that has a lot of throw away songs. With 16 tracks Vert went all in, going from usually short and sweet statements to almost an hour of music and this did not always take fruit. But Luv Is Rage 2 is a important project and the most successful project of the newest school of rappers. The first five tracks alone are impeccable, energetic and draw you in to everything Vert is. The grandstand of “Two” in all its boastful melancholy, reprising the accordion in a beat. “444+222” as the hypnotizing mantra, more hook then actual song with verses, the playful exhibition of a young dude that is completely present in his fame while still feeling the repercussions. “Sauce It Up” in all its energetic glory of not slowing down and the breakdown of “No Sleep Leak” in is drawn out pacing with Vert´s manic expressions between riches and poverty. Lastly this is topped off by “The Way Life Goes”, dream-pop Uzi in his special kind of vulnerability that made “XO Tour Llif3” such a showstopper. Maybe Luv is Rage 2 is truly the expression of the internet, the sequel of an energetic deluge of information, material showcasing and emotion garbled together with a lot of stuff that is just there. 

24. Oneohtrix Point Never – Good Time Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

You can find the quote by the Safdie Brothers, who directed the movie Good Time, in which Oneo took everything he learned on his last three projects and then he made a sequel to Rifts, or his earlier works again. And I do think, this captures the feel on most elements of this album quite well, especially in the regard of Good Time bearing the feel of being a direct progression from his last works and definitely taking elements from all of them and employing them here. But I think, utility is the much better term here. If you think about giving Oneo the job of soundtracking something, you might always run the danger of receiving the most idiosyncratic piece of work that is also able to break your work itself, or at least go off on its own. Yet, through his work with different artists and also his commission, in which he worked for art installations, Oneo proves to have mastered the understanding of his own musical abilities in regards to using them to narrate and create atmospheres. You get the feeling that this is explicitly meant for something, and something more than just his music. The album works fine on his own, but you understand the narrative moments of suspense and relieve in these pieces. One thing you can especially point out are the moments in which Oneo resorts to use clear drum patterns that could stem from organic recordings also. These driving beats over his production, for instance on “Flashback” provide you with the plotline that the track would otherwise be lacking in a way. This simple element helps his composition to take one step down from being meta and dysfunctional in a representational sense and working for images themselves.

23. Queens of the Stone Age – Villains

Villains is the return of the sexy playfulness of Queens of The Stone Age, the actual rehash of Era Vulgaris after the down-beat and storied approach of Like Clockwork. In concept Like Clockwork should have been my favorite Qotsa album, the dark epic that revels in abstraction and slow burning ballads, but Villains is what my listening experience expected of Homme´s brainchild. While the first single “The Way You Used To Do” was too simplistic and pointed at the unreflected good time Homme himself referred to, when speaking about the new album and his obsession with dancing, Villains as a whole has enough variety and great songwriting to compensate the focus on catchy tunes. “Domesticaed Animals” alone serves as the showcase of a slimmed-down and streamlined take on the alternative grittiness and spooky action of previous Qotsa, very much like something from Era or Lullabies but punchier and overall more in touch with its own wanting to be a pop tune – Nick Oliveris shouts at the end included. “Fortress” works as the most honest and introspective moment on the album, Homme´s personal confession and consoling moment for his loved one, still in the fashion of a man who knows that everything will die and you must go through shit to get somewhere. And lastly closer “Villains of Circumstance” touches back upon the feeling of Like Clockwork but pushes away the dreariness for a visceral return of force in the vain of truly creating the sensation of dancing with the devil. 

22. Kehlani – SweetSexySavage

Kehlani´s debut album went by me with a few listens not catching my attention. SweetSexySavage went from being a catchy rnb record to one of my favorites unconsciously. Kehlani shows as much as swagger as vulnerability on these songs. From the sophistication of “Piece of Mind” to transforming from the celestial to the nocturnal in “Everything Is Yours”, SweetSexySavage burns with the urge to speak out and lay open every possible side of a personality. This is the major point of making this album an enjoyable and varied listen. Very much Kehlani´s grappling with relationships and losing parts of her own sense of self as well as blooming again and finding a new sense through the creation of these tracks.

21. Drake – More Life

First off, fuck all that talk about this being a playlist before being an album, apart from a few joints, More Life is Drake at his best with grandiose features and the tracks that only have other artists on them are a nice touch that helps expand the whole experience of Drake´s megalomania in being a cultural figure like Kanye West. This album strikes out VIEWS in its density and variety by a long shot. Last year’s Drake seemed to aim for the same grand collage of his influences and affinities but ended up falling short due to his own being caught up in pushing out musical ideas before executing them. Here, with a stronger drive towards grime and dancehall, while doing something exciting in the vein of “Portland” in all its whistling happiness or the nostalgia of “Glow”, Drake succeeds in giving us more of himself and his narrative and being at the front of commercial hip hop. Listening to these 22 tracks and a year apart from VIEWS this is Drake going international and truly embracing the power of his home Toronto and his crisscrossing between there and Houston. Above that, this might be the point where he is finally moving away from being the singing-rapper under whom grew his label/ army of like-minded soldiers into becoming a figurehead that lets his craft inspire other people´s sounds, very much like the old-Drake in a new mindset.