TranscendNoise

40. Gas – Rausch  Like many albums of this year´s list, Rausch represents a way to channel the recent Zeitgeist in sound. Gas build Rausch to grapple with the ideas of home, nationalism and right-wing sentiments, hijacking them for their absurd politics for a visceral thump that overrides any sense of comfort and meaningful discourse. The best description there is, is placing yourself, sonically, on the fringes of a Volksfest and experiencing the same sounds and affects as Rausch in its 60-minute runtime. The instinctive stomp, the musicality of feet marching lurking in the back all the time, surfacing for acute minutes of semblance, horror, even warmth to die out again and get lost in the miasma of sound that Wolfgang Voigt creates. Rausch evokes two distinct feelings and collapses them for a political and social statement: The feeling of ecstasy and the feeling of stark discomfort that can only exist in traditionalism and the untraceable affect of your environment going sour...

40. Bushido – Für Euch Alle (feat. Capital Bra & Samra) (Mythos) German hip-hop is a contested field in my view. In recent years the trap style of Future has seeped into the way the singers break out and fill banging beats with empty words. But the empty words of fame and fashion do not frame the same come up, the hardship and poverty and pain that someone like Hendrix carries in many of his songs. These are not gangsters, but young kids making music and this not with the same vigor you´d come to expect from their American SoundCloud counterparts. With this and on a more lyrical side, there is rap that is mostly made by students for students. A kind of white coolness that people can´t get enough from and word-smiths that do great things, but fail to actually catch hearts in terms of relatability. Backpackers without the right silliness or charming outlook on life and getting in touch with yourself. Bushido belongs to a still existent – now – old school of gangster rap that tran...