TranscendNoise

90. Lingua Ignota – Holy Is The Name (Of My Ruthless Axe) Kristin Hayter first made an impression through her work with the body. The at once beautiful and violently commanding strenght of her voice gave rise to many of the finest moments of the newest output of No One Deserves Happiness and I Have Fought Against It . Her solo work as Lingua Ignota is as pressuring to be comprehended and positions toward in the same way. Self-released in 2017, Profound Lore gave All Bitches Die a major release this year and thus it is only right to highlight the intensity of “Holy is The Name (Of My Ruthless Axe”. Closing an album of industrial electronics mixed with metal and operatic vocal styles, “Holy Is The Name” is a nocturnal and transcendental conclusion. Hayters performance opens towards the operatic and ecclesial music while still grappling with rape and sexual violence in the framework of vengeance. It brilliantly captures the exhaustion of laying down between cold bodies of your aggre...

10. Tim Hecker – Love Streams Tim Hecker is the master of affective forces in music. Since his 2011 album Ravedeath 1972 , my listening to music and my experience of sound haven´t been the same. I have yet to experience this power in a life setting, but Hecker talking about the importance of fog, about the sheer intensity of loudness, actually feeling the sounds in your body stand as the reassurance, that this experience will be something to remember. His work with sounds is something entirely different from making music for enjoyment and is hard to grasp if you´re searching for easy listening. The understanding of drones, of elongated sounds, chopped organs and the semblances of air or fog have driven me to pursue studies of ephemerality and the sense and pushed me in a direction a book or teaching would have never accomplished. That being said, Love Streams is a departure or a side-step from his previous work and is already visible through his choice of colors for the a...

20. Allan Kingdom – Fables ft. Chronixx ( Northern Lights ) This is Kingdom at his most introspective, while at the same time not compromising on the melodic and catchy quality of his songs. The atmospheric and almost ambient keys and altered vocals are contrasted with a menacing bass line and snappy snares for the full effect of delivering the same broken aggression the lyrics convey. I´m not a huge fan of religion and we see Kingdom recounting the smoke and mirrors of his own experience with Christian belief. Chronixx complements this with his reggae-infused deliverance, calling out the intrusion of Christianity and in right manner swearing allegiance to Selassie and the Rastafari movement. The fitting aural experience for realization and the overcoming of submission stressed by the stunning visuals. 19. Case/Lang/Veirs – Delirium ( Case/Lang/Veirs ) This collaboration by three artists I never listened to yielded great songs from top to bottom. “Delirium” is a dynamic...

50. Future Islands – Singles Like many this year I learned about Future Islands through their Letterman performance of “Seasons (Waiting On You)” and Samuel T. Herring´s stage antics . What started as a synthpop band playing pretty much revivalist tunes became a really interesting listen as Herring´s powerhouse performance was so over the top, I had to rewatch it to get that it wasn´t my speakers lagging. The duck-dancing aside, Herring stretched and drowned his voice, becoming guttural as singing for a metal act. And it is exactly in this guttural quality, where some might even say, it is pretty much amateurish, where the appeal of Future Islands is hidden. There are far more interesting bands instrumentally, but it´s the strange introspection and slobbish singing that keeps them in your mind and Singles a great listen from front to back.  49. S. Carey – Range Of Light  When knowing that S. Carey is one of the musicians in Bon Iver, correlating...