TranscendNoise

30. Siavash Amini & Matt Finney – Gospel I've written quite a lot on the sonic world of Clawing and had the incredible chance to pick Matt Finney´s brain about his life and creation. Gospel , however, I didn´t highlight enough and this despite it becoming my favorite Finney moment of 2018 and at that one of the most jarring edifices of abuse and trauma, I ever listened to. With Siavash Amini at the helm, bringing to life three haunting soundscapes that feel like living inside Silent Hill´s hospitals and small neighborhoods, Finney went deeper into his past and explicitly stated what close listening unearthed in his previous work. The horrors of becoming a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of your own father, the aftermath that deals with unheard prayers to God and a religion unable to help in the real violence humans inflict upon each other. Maybe the thing that always pulls me towards Finney´s music is the fact that he is equally at loss as the next victim, his trademar...

60. James Ginzburg – Above Water, Inside (Six Correlations) As on half of emptyset, the modus operandi of Ginzburg on Six Correlations might sound familiar if you listened to their last album Borders in 2017. Here Ginzburg tones down the distortion and emphasis on colliding organic and synthetic for a different relation of these two parts. There is no dichotomy between them, yet Six Correlations was born as part of a performance that deals with the disappearance of an analog and natural world in favor of the digital and networked. Maybe it is the intrinsic failure of this theme that sets "Above Water, Inside" and Six Correlations in motion in the first place. Build from a simple drum pattern, clear drone, and white noise weave and breathe around to convey an effect of overtaking the organic sounds. Still, as in Borders and Ginzburg and Paurgas concept of overriding electronic sound made through acoustic means of triggering sounds, there is no part overtaking the other,...

55. Flo Morrissey – Tomorrow Will Be Beautiful Nostaglia is a huge deal in folk-music. My mental image most of the time involves someone old, pained and beautifully ridden by life´s playful banter. Breaking this image, many young artists are emerging with huge success, bringing in their own nostalgia, one that is not restaurative anymore, but of the more beautiful kind: of the reflective. Flo Morrissey record is there fittingly titled Tomorrow Will Be Beautiful . As every track here conveys the feeling of looking back, a dreamful resistance against the contemporary, this kind of nostalgia somehow haunts you forward, towards a tomorrow and a different, if not even idealistic world where love, longing and believing still hold true against the world. It´s not “Once I was young, and the world was full of wonder”, it´s “I´m young, I want to dream”. Very Deafheaven indeed. If that´s too much for you, Flo Morrissey has such a unique voice, its sheer tone is worth listening to all t...

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 fi...