The Year in Music - 2015

The Tops

The Epic – Kamasi Washington

Legend has it that John Coltrane, addressing the ever-increasing length of his own solos during his time in Miles Davis’ band, complained to Miles, “I don’t know how to stop.” Miles responded in typical Miles fashion with the exasperated instruction to Coltrane to “try taking the fucking horn out of your mouth.” You have to assume that Kamasi Washington is aware of this anecdote, as steeped as he clearly is in the history of jazz, to which The Epic enthusiastically attests. This triple (you heard me) album contains so much material of such breadth and depth, that’s it’s hard to digest, so I’m glad it came out early enough in the year for me to try to get to grips with it. It’s truly a remarkable experience, containing jazz multitudes, an extended virtuoso performance by Washington himself, but also revealing of a fierce collective spirit. The band is powerful throughout, and nothing about the material falls short of the ambition and expectation established by the title. There is a recurring choir of celestial voices that recalls a couple of antecedents, and also suggests commentary on something else more contemporary. The first thing that the backing choir (and they appear on the opening song, “Change of the Guard” to establish the tone from the outset) calls to mind is nothing less than the theme from Star Trek, and this may well be accidental, although there is something of a statement about our rather quaint imagining of “the future” in such a reference. But the second reference seems more serious and important, because it’s the same kind of choir that Marvin Gaye gave us on parts of What’s Going On, notably “What’s Happening, Brother?” This is important for at least two reasons, firstly because Washington is aligning himself with a tradition of serious jazz and soul music that includes members of the all-time pantheon, of which Marvin Gaye is clearly a leading light. But what’s also interesting is that he pays tribute in this way at a time when Robin Thicke and Pharrell’s multifariously offensive “Blurred Lines” “borrowed” from another Marvin Gaye song in such a callow manner that I can’t help wondering if Kamasi isn’t throwing some kind of shade in their direction and saying some version of, and I’m paraphrasing, “This, motherfuckers, is how you get intertextual with Marvin.” The triple album cannot be absorbed in one sitting, clearly, so it’s something that you have to live with for a while. It may even take you some time to get to disc three, but when you do, you’ll get the double whammy treat of Debussy’s “Clair de Lune,” and the ancient Ray Noble standard “Cherokee,” with vocals from Patrice Quinn. It wasn’t until I got to the third disc that I realized I might be experiencing Kamasi Washington’s version of a jazz sampler, containing an historical review of sorts, of straight-ahead and more avant-garde (but honestly not so much in that area) materials, so that it’s really a giant statement, not only of his own knowledge and aptitudes, but of his zeal on behalf of his subject and genre. It’s a form of revival music, bringing a presently rather moribund form back to the forefront of our attention, and it’s long overdue in that regard. What you also have to do, though, now that you’re in Kamasi’s world, is acknowledge that he’s truly part of a collective, and that he’s fully established in the present moment, not just looking back to the footsteps of his heroic predecessors. This realization in turn will lead you, inexorably, down an incredibly rewarding rabbit-hole of musical foraging, because he is an integral part of work by other artists from related genres, notably hip-hop and soul, playing an important, if not integral part on outstanding work by both Kendrick Lamar and Thundercat. This is a loosely affiliated stable of artists who are, not so quietly, taking the world by storm. Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly “gets” jazz in the same way the Washington’s album “gets” hip-hop. And Thundercat, don’t even get me started on this dude. Thundercat (his real name is Stephen Bruner) is a prodigal bass player and vocalist, whose The Beyond/Where the Giants Roam EP is every bit as remarkable as either the Washington or Lamar albums. You almost have to listen to them as a suite to get the full impact of this new hybrid wave. By the way, Flying Lotus is also part of this collective and Kamasi and Thundercat have both played on his stuff too, so I hope your head just righteously exploded. All of this gives us great hope for the future of music, assuming that we actually have a future, but that’s a story for another day.

Songs to Play – Robert Forster

Succinct where The Epic is sprawling, Robert Forster has not lost a single ounce of energy or acuity as he has aged. This is a perfectly crisp, exquisitely tasteful, and yet devil-may-care engagement with what can be done in the increasingly tired rock and roll format. The lyrics are as arch as ever (“Please don’t tell me, let me dream and guess,” “please don’t twitter, let me imagine you”), and any of these songs would sit very comfortably among any of the Go-Betweens’ finest work from any period you might care to name. Not looking back and relying on the comforts of his old musical cohort, he picks a great band to work with in collaborating with members of the John Steel Singers, who bring great energy to the project. These songs are very economical, but there’s plenty of room to roam inside of them. Spoon would be proud of the spaces in this music. There’s something very heartening in the knowledge that a) this genre of music is by no means exhausted, b) the loss of Grant McLennan didn’t send Forster into early retirement, and c) that Robert opens presents before Christmas, because fuck you. I still miss Grant’s voice, though, and I kept expecting to hear it every other song, as we used to back in the glorious days of the perfect Go-Betweens. But we should join Robert in not looking back. There’s a lot of great music still to be made, and still to be heard, and he’s fully invested in doing that. We are lucky to have him. Very lucky. It’s also interesting to note that we are still, *still,* after all these years, in thrall to the miracle of the Velvet Underground and the blueprint they gave us for how to do this kind of thing properly. See the Faith Healer entry below for more (and very compelling) evidence of their enduring and positive influence.

In Colour – Jamie xx

Speaking of samplers, as we were in reference to Kamasi Washington’s masterpiece, Jamie xx appears to offer us another kind of sampler with his defiantly-spelled album, In Colour. In my imagining of it, the album gives us a sampling of an entire night out, with all its attendant ups and downs, as we bounce from club to club, as our energy levels rise and fall, and we experience moments of collective exuberance, interwoven with an abiding awareness of romantic uncertainty, the hallmark of any honest-to-goodness night on the town for people of a certain age. For me, this album seems to recall Everything But The Girl’s Temperamental, which found Tracey Thorn at a slightly more advanced age, wondering why she was at the club at all anymore (“the only way out is down/the only way up is down”). Musically eclectic, although all of a piece, this feels like one of those Fabriclive, Late Night Tales, DJ-Kicks, or Back to Mine compilations. It also contains the glorious “Loud Places,” easily my song of the year, even as it delivers, simultaneously, the saddest lyric and the most joyous musical sound imaginable. Mr xx appears to understand very well the notion of negative capability, and God bless him for that and all the other wonders he provides here. I just hope that the xx are brave enough to follow him where he could undoubtedly take them when it comes time to make their third album.

Cosmic Troubles – Faith Healer

Faith Healer is basically Jessica Jalbert, so we’re starting to see a pattern of solo artists masquerading or doubling as band leaders at the top of this year’s musical tree. There is another unifying element between this album and the aforementioned Robert Forster contribution, and that’s the uncanny influence of Lou Reed and VU. The album-opening “Acid” is almost surely a very deliberate nod to “Sweet Jane,” but it’s also a feint, because once we’ve recognized the chords as coming from Loaded, we also have to note that the vocals and the rest of the arrangement owe more than a little debt to the more contemporary Cate Le Bon, whose aesthetic seems to haunt this album a little bit, but only in the best of ways. The rest of the album is much more thrillingly original than my summary of its opening might suggest, and there’s a relentless and driving force to the work, full of energy and surprises, so while it might feel somewhat like a pastiche of earlier musical forms it also doesn’t really feel derivative. This is the album I played most often in 2015, and it’s one of the very few that never, ever, not even for a moment, made me feel sad. For all its influences (Krautrock, VU, Cate Le Bon, psychedelia, and so on), it ultimately shares another important element with the other three albums at the top of this list, and that is its sui generis quality. This album has no weaknesses, and while it is, like some of my other favorites from the year, quite eclectic, it’s also consistently strong, establishing a very identifiable and original sound. It’s also, like the Forster album, concise and succinct – we get the cosmos in miniature here, not writ large. Jalbert gets in and out with no undue fuss; there are no extended jams, as we’re mercifully past the point where bands feel that they have to make a 70-minute album because that’s how much music we can fit on a cd. There is something almost opioid about the way the experience sucks you in and makes you comfortable, anesthetizes you with pleasure, and then makes you want to do it all over again. When I’m in this space, I just don’t want to leave it, because I’m hermetically sealed in an unidentifiable time and place, nodding out in the best possible way. This is a perfectly satisfying musical experience, and I still like it more and more every time I play it.

Have You in My Wilderness – Julia Holter

I am now at the age (don’t ask, and I won’t tell) where I’m no longer sure if I’m going soft in my musical taste and allowing myself to enjoy things I would, ten or fifteen years ago, have dismissed as pretentious arty nonsense (see: Kate Bush and my feelings about her when I was in college and cf. how I feel about Kate Bush’s music now, which is borderline adoration, although I want to reassure you that I’m still definitely *not* one of *those* people, i.e. they refer to her sotto voce as just “Kate” – that’s absolutely NOT who I am, let’s not get it twisted). Anyway, Julia Holter. This is neither fish nor fowl in some ways. It’s not “pop” music – Taylor Swift and her legion wouldn’t understand it at all. But neither are these quite in the category of “Lieder,” or any other form of “art music.” Holter seems to be standing with one foot on either side of the line between popular and highbrow, but as time goes by I get the feeling that she’s edging closer and closer to the popular end of the spectrum. I found myself having to “try” to listen to 2013’s Loud City Song, and I didn’t appreciate the effort that it took, even though her cover of “Hello Stranger” was a miracle all by itself. Have You in My Wilderness is an unmitigated delight, from the opening “Feel You” (and check out the video for the footage of the best dog ever) through the baroque chamber music that follows. This is music of great sophistication that somehow manages not to topple over into pretension, and I still don’t know quite how she does it. “How Long,” for example, sounds like Ute Lemper or Nico or something, but even that didn’t make me mad at it. I guess this is what people were talking about when they used to mention “aesthetics” back in the days when I was nominally a political animal. It makes me wonder what I’ve been missing out on all these years, because this is genuinely beautiful music, from start to finish.

Mutant – Arca

I may have said this before (who cares, though, if no one’s listening anyway?), but Arca is *important.* He makes sounds that it takes the mainstream a while to catch up to, and then in a couple of years, those sounds *are* the mainstream. His last album, Xen, was huge for me, partly because it was challenging and accessible at the same time. The new one is still sinking in, but there are moments of sublime beauty, punctuated by glitch-glitch-glitchiness, or perhaps it’s the other way around. Either way, it’s a joy both cerebral and cardiac to behold. I like to think he’s too weird to turn into David Guetta. I pray, to the extent that I pray, that I’m right. But if he becomes that successful, then it will mean that dance music will have become that much stranger, and it will be better for it. Fair fucks to him.

Art Angels – Grimes

Sometimes I don’t know what to do with Grimes. I was several months late to Visions, her last masterpiece, and so I felt like a bit of a loser having to admit that I actually loved it, well after the deadline for list submission had passed back in 2012. The first time I heard Art Angels, I thought to myself, “This is all Taylor Swift’s fault.” And it might be. And “California” annoys the piss and the shit out of me, at the same time. But the longer I live with this album, the more it infects me, and more impressed I am with its vicissitudes. It’s actually kind of fun, and I find myself wondering, is Grimes coming to the middle, or is the middle coming to Grimes? “Artangel” itself sounds like what Madonna would do if Madonna knew where it was at anymore, for example. Also, for the most part, Claire Boucher (aka Grimes) writes all her own songs. Take *that* and shake *it* off, Taylor, Max Fucking Martin and the dancing horses you pranced in on. If she wanted to (and I hope she doesn’t) Grimes could stake a significant claim on the pop real estate market. In fact, my dream pop world is ruled by Grimes and FKA Twigs, but no one else would probably want to live there.

The Original Faces – Helen

Helen is the lo-fi band iteration of Liz Harris, whom you may know, but may well not, from her organic/ambient/electronic/acoustic/pastoral miracle outfit called Grouper. If you didn’t know that they were connected, you would have no idea they were connected. Parts of this tantalizingly short album sound like they were left over from some C86 sessions, before shoegazing was even a twinkle in some sad English loser’s eye. And some of it sounds like someone took those same sessions and re-recorded them underwater. It’s delightfully off-kilter, and I love it to little bits and pieces. Also, I have no idea who Helen is.

The Conduct of Jazz – Matthew Shipp

It was a good year for new jazz (and old jazz – Coltrane and Miles had significant reissues/official bootlegs). Matthew Shipp is a marvel. The man doesn’t even own a fucking piano. Let that sink in for a minute. One of the finest contemporary jazz improvisers does not own a piano. He nomads around the city, practicing where he can, this studio, that studio, wherever, whenever. The fact that he somehow manages to compose some incredibly intricate and extended originals is even more miraculous. There is something of Monk about his style, for me at least, although he’s perhaps not quite as out there. It’s delightfully angular, though, if that’s even a thing one can reasonably say about a piece of music.

Ten Years Solo Live – Brad Mehldau

Brad Mehldau is doing what I’ve been enjoining jazz musicians to do for years and years, which is to find new standards as the basis for their improvisation. We can’t keep hearing My Favorite Things or Surrey With the Fringe on Top ad nauseam. Sure, we had The Bad Plus, but they’re almost a novelty act. Brad Mehldau gets it when it comes to contemporary music and its potential to form the raw material for new jazz. He seems to have taken the Radiohead oeuvre as his key text, and I am deeply grateful to him for that, although he has yet to take my advice and turn King of Limbs into the jazz classic it is certainly destined to be (mark my words, gentle reader – whom am I trying to kid, we both know there’s only one of you). The only quibble or caveat I might have with him is that he really, and I mean really, doesn’t swing at all. He’s so buttoned down that he makes Bill Evans seem like Kurt Cobain. This makes the “jazz” more like “chamber music,” but that’s ok. It’s still beautiful, and he has exquisite taste in material. Plus, the liner notes are a delight. He’s a treasure. We should recognize him as such.

The Wild Animals in My Life – Flesh World

I have to say that Flesh World’s The Wild Animals in My Life is one of my favorite albums of the year, and I don’t even know what to say about it. There’s always one of those. Just listen to it.

The New Mainstream

Fading Frontier – Deerhunter Return to the Moon – El Vy

It feels strange to be putting these two albums together, and it also feels strange that I’m starting to think of both Deerhunter and Matt Berninger as part of any so-called “old guard,” since they’re both clearly still vital and dynamic and making some of the most original music of my lifetime. But in my weird world these two albums are now part of some kind of establishment against which others might soon start to kick out. Once again, both albums are thoroughly enjoyable but there is something if not quite rote about them, then perhaps a little bit routine after all. Deerhunter have always contained an element of terror for me – perhaps it’s been Bradford Cox’s odd appearance and tales of their live shows that have instilled such a feeling, but this album seems the most “normal” of their recorded output to date. It’s gorgeous, don’t get me wrong, but it’s also almost certainly the least “punk rock” of their oeuvre. There is a polish to Fading Frontier that we might perhaps have seen coming with Lockett Pundt’s contribution to Monomania back in 2013, “The Missing,” a rich confection that showed Deerhunter’s potential to make luxury car music in a way that was perhaps previously unimaginable. Perhaps what these two albums share in addition to what I’ve previously mentioned is a certain white-boy slink in the groove that is often created here. “Living My Life” on Fading Frontier is actually danceable, as of course is “Snakeskin.” Matt Berninger’s collaboration with Brent Knopf of Menomena contains many moments of recognition for those of us who remain hopelessly in love with The National, but an almost equal number of surprises, because make no mistake, this is not a National album. Matt Berninger is literally letting his hair down here (have you seen pictures of him lately?). I never thought I would hear him making music that one could actually imagine dancing to, but they pull that off here on more than one occasion. Of course there is a heartbreaker (or two) fit to grace any National album, for example “No Time to Crank the Sun,” and “It’s a Game,” and you have to wonder if these weren’t songs the rest of the band passed on at some point and Matt just wasn’t ready to give up on them yet. All in all, neither of these albums can be considered major statements, but even a slightly under-par version of these artists’ work is better than the dreck that most people put out. I like to think that one day, Bradford and Matt will team up on some weird, wild, middle-aged Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music tribute/interpolation, because I have to have something to look forward to in my dotage, which comes on apace. For now, they seem to be in the process of gaining entry to the Banana Republic/J. Crew Playlist Club, which might (might?) be a rather mixed blessing. But I guess there are worse things to listen to while trying on Bowery pants.

The Antipodes of the Mind

Range Anxiety – Twerps Melbourne, Florida – Dick Diver No Song, No Spell, No Madrigal – The Apartments Silver Bullets – The Chills

It’s clearly not fair to lump all of these bands together just because they’re all from Australia and New Zealand, except that they do tend to share a certain magical sound, which may in turn suggest a genius of place. The dividing line here is between the new guard and the old guard, Twerps and Dick Diver belonging to the former and The Apartments and The Chills to the latter, and yet all of these albums feel like they are coming at us from the same time, even if that time is not necessarily now. Twerps and Dick Diver are clearly in debt to their forebears, and you can trace the line from them all the way back to the old Flying Nun (and other) bands of yore (Twerps’ “Simple Feelings,” for example, recalls nothing less than early Go-Betweens, among others), and there’s nothing at all wrong with that pedigree. I’ve long contended that, pound for pound and per capita, Australia and New Zealand put out the best rock and roll music in the world, and that’s been true for a long time now. The Apartments and Chills albums are the product of eighteen and nineteen-year gestation periods, respectively, both due in large part to the tragic hand of fate in the lives of their progenitors and their own loved ones. It’s facile to say that these albums were “worth the wait,” but they really were worth the wait. The quality control exercised by Peter Walsh and Martin Phillipps is quite remarkable. I can’t wait another twenty years, though, just F their I, because the tragic hand of fate can strike anywhere, and at any time, and I can’t be waiting until I’m that old to hear another album from them. So get on with it already. I played all of these albums to death over the course of the year and they still sound delightful. The first three came out relatively early in the year, and they have stood the test of time. Some albums pale over the passing months and when I revisited a few things I liked from the winter they just didn’t sound as good anymore (e.g. Viet Cong). That’s not the case with this clutch of music. And of the two newer bands, while I have high hopes for both of them, I am rooting particularly hard, as it were, for Dick Diver. They seem to be doing something very exciting, and they know their way around a song that inspires great confidence (see, for example, “Year in Pictures,” “Private Number,” and “Boomer Class”). Melbourne, Florida (get it?) was an especially strong album, I thought.

Ivy Tripp – Waxahatchee

Waxahatchee is basically Katie Crutchfield, and I’ve been keeping my eye on her progress since the beautiful Cerulean Salt came out in 2013. This album seems more muscular and robust, which is neither good nor bad, but it does seem that she is growing in confidence. The growling and distorted bass part of the opener “Breathless” on Ivy Tripp, accompanied by her multi-layered vocals announce an artist who is fully comfortable with her vision, and who doesn’t need to sound like anyone else at all. This stands in stark comparison to the new album Sprinter from Torres (in other words Mackenzie Scott), who put out her last, self-titled album also in 2013. At that time I remember telling myself to keep track of them both with an equal amount of attention because they both seemed like equally promising talents to watch for. The new Torres album, though, seems rather routinely in thrall to PJ Harvey, going so far as to enlist erstwhile PJ bandmate Rob Ellis as producer and collaborator. So while Waxahatchee is most definitely throwing away the training wheels, Torres seems a little less self-assured, which makes me sad, because I think Scott can afford to do her thing and have it stand alone. Waxahatchee has grown in leaps in bounds from the first album, American Weekend, which was a much more folky, acoustic kind of affair, and perfectly fine in its own right. Ivy Tripp really opens the whole thing up, though, and there’s no telling where it all might lead. Katie Crutchfield seems to have started a whole number of threads here, any of which she could choose to pick up and pursue in a lot of different directions. As a listening experience what this means is that you get a very nicely paced album of fuzzy, rocky stuff, interspersed with beautiful, quieter songs, driven by keyboards and vocal harmonies. What this is, is heartening, is what it is.

Painted Shut – Hop Along

Hop Along, unlike Speedy Ortiz (see below and file under: disappointment), seem to know how to deploy their 90s influences to their advantage rather than remain in thrall to them. Frances Quinlan’s devastating rasp works perfectly with the rhythm section led by her drummer-brother Mark (the drumming on “Horseshoe Crabs” is rocksteady, and the flailing guitar part that ends the beginning of the song fits perfectly – this is an album of excellent textures), and there’s something simultaneously free, loose, taut and tight about the whole exercise. It’s a bracing experience for the listener, and if I went to live shows anymore I can imagine that it would be great to hear these songs performed at their maximum volume and freedom. I might even have a couple of beers and sing along. I might. I’d probably also buy a t-shirt from the merch table. I’m not above that either. I may be way off here, but there’s something about Hop Along that make me think back to a small but wonderful band named Versus whose peak came somewhere in the mid-90s. If Versus became unhinged (and they never really did, they were remarkably restrained), they might sound a bit like Hop Along. Or maybe not.

St. Catherine – Ducktails Many Moons – Martin Courtney Green Lanes – Ultimate Painting

If you like Real Estate (the band, not buying houses), you doubled your money this year, since both of their mainstays issued side-project albums, and they were both terrific. It’s not easy to see where Real Estate ends and the side projects begin, honestly. Matt Mondanile’s St Catherine and Martin Courtney’s Many Moons both sound just like the last Real Estate album, but I’m not complaining. I can’t get enough of the jingly-jangly sound that they make. And in the same jingly-jangly vein, we are also lucky to have Ultimate Painting, a collaboration between Jack Cooper of Mazes and James Hoare of Veronica Falls. Green Lanes is their second album, and it more or less picks up where the first one left off, in other words it continues in the footsteps and in the giant shadow of the frequently aforementioned Velvet Underground. Almost everyone who attempts to emulate VU plays it pretty safe and Ultimate Painting are no exception, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a joy to listen to those meandering guitar lines taken straight from the third VU album and parts of Loaded. This is some pretty music, but it never cloys. That’s an important distinction.

Time to Go Home – Chastity Belt Dream All Over – Gun Outfit Feels Like – Bully

If I were any kind of literalist I would not even have given any of these albums a single hearing, because bands with names like Chastity Belt, Gun Outfit, and Bully do not give you any reason to believe that they will be any kind of laughing party. But because I am a highly sophisticated and ultra-modern ironist, I was able to see past these initially off-putting band names and allow myself to enjoy the music that these mischievous young people were laying down for my listening pleasure. See? More irony. It never stops. Chastity Belt’s first album was called “No Regerts,” so you can kind of tell where they’re coming from with the chastity belt thing. The music and lyrics, though, situate themselves somewhere between light and heavy, in a little area of the emotional spectrum I like to call jaded. But it’s a very elegant kind of jaded (“I did not want to be there/So I got a drunk out of boredom/Is it cool not to care?” from IDC, which means “I Don’t Care” for those of you who are old enough to vote and don’t speak the language of the kids), and often seems to take pretty good aim at a broad range of invidious gender political phenomena (“He was just another man, tryn'a teach me something,” for example, from the album-opening “Drone” – take that, mansplaining). But not all of their songs are jaded. Sometimes they’re just sad and real (“Lydia” is particularly poignant in this regard). If you didn’t know better, and if you were given a blindfolded taste-test (?), you might assume that Gun Outfit were one of those Antipodean bands I went on about earlier. They have that timbre to them. But they’re actually from Olympia, Washington, and recently relocated to Los Angeles. There is an occasional Dream Syndicate note on this, their fourth album (so it’s probably a bit misleading to call them up-and-comers, because you’d think they might already have arrived by now if they were going to). It’s certainly true to say that they’re not near as threatening as their name might suggest, but perhaps they were meaning to suggest a sartorial demeanor rather than strike a criminal pose. Either way, who cares. They make some pretty music which is hard to pin down precisely. There’s something at once rural and urbane about them, the common thread being the mostly laconic way in which the songs are delivered, either by Carrie Keith or Dylan Sharp. This band is beautifully balanced in almost every way.

Bully aren’t laconic. Bully come out of the gate like peak-era Courtney Love and it’s a breath of fresh air. I don’t really think there’s anything else to say about it. Just open the windows and breathe them in.

Individ – Dodos

While I recognize that this a very good album, and while I enjoyed it heartily, there’s a part of me that is starting to weary of music made by people who my dearly departed mother once identified as being likely to iron their jeans. Dodos’ latest pristine work seems to be cut from the same cloth as more or less recent albums from Grizzly Bear, Local Natives, and Dirty Projectors. It’s really really good, really really worthy, and occasionally actually thrilling, but there’s ultimately something about its fussy preciousness that can irritate me on the wrong day. On the right day, however, it’s a glorious sound – listen to “The Bubble” or “Competition” and try to contain your exuberance. You won’t be able to. I guarantee it.

The State of (Post-)Punk

Sun Coming Down – Ought The Agent Intellect – Protomartyr Viet Cong – Viet Cong Wavves/Cloud Nothings – No Life for Me No Cities to Love – Sleater-Kinney Wire – Wire It’s interesting how we mine the past for musical ideas. And it’s also interesting how bands from that same past manage either to mine their own past or very deliberately refuse to do so when they themselves reconvene.

Ought, Protomartyr, and Viet Cong should tour together and depress the shit out of every post-industrial city in America. Let’s call it the Live Rust Belt Revue. All of these albums are good (and by “good” I mean tight, accomplished, disciplined, well-crafted without being overwrought (mostly), but none of them exactly increases the sum of human happiness or my own personal will to live, and God knows I need some of that. It may be unfair to call them joyless, because there is a good deal of fighting spirit here (Protomartyr make by far the sparkliest sound of the three bands – their guitar sound is a pleasure to behold) , but it may not be unfair to call them dour – Viet Cong are so serious that they aren’t even called Viet Cong anymore because they upset some people by calling themselves Viet Cong, and then there was a whole lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth about the possible offensiveness of saying “Viet Cong” in 2015. Sample Viet Cong lyric: Writhing violence essentially without distortion/Wire silent, vanishing into boredom/Deliberately made to disintegrate/Difficult existence/Underestimated alienation.” Oh, Ian Curtis, where are you now that we really need you and love truly has torn us apart (again)? It is tempting to try to blame all of this on Fugazi, but the heart of the matter obviously lies farther back in time than that (looking mostly in your direction, Gang of Four), and in any event one of them would probably just tell me to sit down and be quiet and eat my ice cream, or something. Here’s a jolly idea: let’s ask Jamie xx to remix them for the dancefloor. We could call it the Viet Conga EP.

Wavves and Cloud Nothings are not quite like the aforementioned others in the sense that they’re coming at this from more of a punk perspective, and also because there is a more devil-may-care exuberance about the sound they make in this surprising and refreshing collaboration. I think I still prefer Cloud Nothings on their own, but this will certainly tide me over until that happens again.

All of which brings us to Wire and Sleater-Kinney. They don’t give a shit, nor should they. They just keep producing strong-willed, fierce music with backbone, on their own terms. You can’t ask for more than that. And, what’s more, they don’t sound in any way out of touch or out of time. They still sound relevant. Imagine that.

If You’re Having a Dinner Party, and You Want to Impress Your Guests With Your Sophistication While Not Alienating Them With The Obscurity of Your Taste, Play Them These Albums

Diana – Birkwin & Vienna Water – Rainer Slowness – Outfit Breakage – Sea Change

All of these albums, without exception, are gorgeous, moving, poignant, and exquisitely tasteful. This is one part of the phase of musical taste I seem to be moving into. This might make me something of a yuppie, for which I apologize. But then again, no I don’t, because at the same time I’m also moving into a phase of much darker and weirder stuff (see Arca above and all of the electronic stuff below). If you want to have a smashing evening with friends, put these albums on playlist and shuffle the hell out of it. Nothing will go wrong. Unless you run out of wine. Or someone speaks approvingly of a Presidential candidate who gets your goat and there’s an awkward silence. Then you can just say, “Did you know that Birkwin and Vienna” are from Brighton (and that the album is a free download from Bandcamp)? Or that Sea Change are from Norway? Or that Rainer recorded their beautiful album Water in Elephant and Castle? Or that Outfit are from Liverpool but that they don’t sound remotely like they’re from Liverpool?” All talk of politics will evaporate, like magic.

Krautrock’s Not Dead

Shadow of the Sun – Moon Duo Remix Album – Hundred Waters To Where the Wild Things Are – Death and Vanilla The Expanding Flower Planet – Deradoorian

If you’re so disposed, these albums could be just the ticket. Perhaps there is more psychedelia at work here than Krautrock per se. But they create a nice vibe. Death and Vanilla remind me a little bit of the estimable and sorely missed Broadcast. Deradoorian got her parole from Dirty Projectors and made a full-on hippy album. Good for her. Moon Duo and Hundred Waters appear to have started their own new civilization somewhere in the desert, and while I wouldn’t want to join it, I’d like to go visit and have them play me their crazy music for a spell. Those cats are mental, but in the best possible way.

Some Good, But Not Yet Very Good, Albums

Escape From Evil – Lower Dens Hairless Toys – Roisin Murphy Multi-Love – Unknown Mortal Orchestra Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance – Belle and Sebastian West Kirby County Primary – Bill Ryder-Jones Eternal Return – Sarah Blasko Before We Forgot How to Dream – SOAK Everybody’s Coming Down – The Good Life Magnetic Bodies/Maps of Bones – Maritime Pain – Deaf Wish Blast – Love of Diagrams Sunshine Redux – Jackson Scott Mourn – Mourn Dying – Spectres Parlay – Galcher Lustwerk Dumb Flesh – Blanck Mass Making Time – Jamie Woon

Part of the reason that these albums are grouped together as not *yet* very good is not necessarily because they aren’t *that* good, but in some cases because I haven’t spent enough time with them, and in other cases because I’m still not sure how I feel about them, even though I’ve spent a good deal of time with them. I mean, they’re all fine, but none of them has broken through in a way that they’ve stuck with me in a deep and meaningful way. Some of them, though, will be keepers, and I think I know which ones. I’m just not ready to commit yet. So get off my back about it already. Jesus.

Albums I Don’t Really Know What To Do With, Because Beach House Are Now Like The Fall In The Sense That Their Albums Are Both Always Different And Always The Same

Depression Cherry/Thank Your Lucky Stars – Beach House

I just don’t know what to make of Beach House anymore. They make impeccable music. There’s absolutely not a flaw to be found in it. We got two albums from them this year. I should be grateful. I am grateful. But at a certain point, what am I getting out of a “new” Beach House album, really? How many do I need? Are they growing? Am I growing? Are any of us growing? There are a couple of songs here and there that sound like they went through the My Bloody Valentine sound machine, and I kind of wish they’d do more of it – make some more noise, be a little less polite, generate a little friction, something like that. But I feel extremely churlish for picking at them and finding these quibbles, even though they’re real. I will say this about the two albums, though: I really liked the cover of Depression Cherry. It was tactile.

Electronic Albums, Alone, and Without Commentary, Because I Don’t Know How To Compare Them To Other Albums Fairly, or Really How to Talk About Them At All

A Year with 13 Moons – Jefre Cantu Ledesma Slow Meadow – Slow Meadow Garden of Delete – Oneohtrix Point Never Claustrophobia – Scuba Ghost Culture – Ghost Culture The Future Will Be Repeated – Eye Heterocetera – Lotic Depth Charged – Terrence Fixmer Company – Slime

Some Pretty Good Albums, I Guess

It’s Decided – Andy Kim Vestiges and Claws – Jose Gonzalez Fresh Blood – Matthew E. White Gold and Stone – Eternal Summers

Nothing much to say about these. They were pleasant, more or less.

Some Kind of Disappointing Albums

Currents – Tame Impala Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit – Courtney Barnett Foil Deer – Speedy Ortiz MCIII – Mikal Cronin B’lieve I’m Goin Down – Kurt Vile Sprinter – Torres

I was looking forward to all of these albums before they came out, and then they came out, and I tried to like them. I really did, but in the end I had to admit to myself that I was kind of let down by them, for varying reasons. I’m starting to wonder if Tame Impala and Kurt Vile only had one good album in them (Lonerism and Smoke Ring For My Halo respectively). Currents feels like it was made to be licensed for commercials and sporting events. The ridiculously named Vile album just feels mailed in, which is odd, not to say ironic, not to say somewhat paradoxical, for someone who is working really hard to pretend to be a stoner. I had very high hopes for the Courtney Barnett album, but in the end it feels like she put too much pressure on herself to live up to the promise of those early EPs. I’ll just trust that she can trust herself next time and let loose a little more, because the title of this album really should have been, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, and Then Sometimes I Sit and Really Really Overthink.

Speedy Ortiz seem to have disappeared into the netherworld of trying to sound exactly like Alternative Rock in College in 1994, and it’s not something I have any particular interest in revisiting, or listening to someone else recreate. I think they have enough talent to be their own band now, without leaning on the stuff they really really like, and which I never much cared for to begin with anyway.

Mikal Cronin would have had a hard time living up to MCII no matter what he did, and sure enough, he doesn’t. Perhaps he only had one good album, too, because his first one was a pale shadow compared to the follow-up. Some people only have one good album in them, and that’s ok.

I’ve already talked about Torres elsewhere. I’m sorry that she chose to make a PJ Harvey pastiche album rather than capitalize on the great promise of her last one. That was a wasted opportunity.

Albums I Can’t Listen To Because They Make Me Too Sad

Carrie & Lowell – Sufjan Stevens Beat the Champ – Mountain Goats Natalie Prass – Natalie Prass If I Was – The Staves Loyalty – The Weather Station Vulnicura – Bjork

One of my friends has a list of songs and albums that are “banned” in his house because they are quite simply too emotionally resonant to be borne. This is not to say that they aren’t good, but rather that they are just too much. All the albums in this section fit that bill, particularly Sufjan Stevens’ paean to his mother. I don’t have too much else to say about that here, except that Stevens’ “Fourth of July” lies at the very heart of Carrie & Lowell, and it epitomizes the heartbreaking experience of trying to listen to the album as a whole, and these particular albums as a group. There came a point while I was listening to one of these albums and I realized that I might actually be trying to make myself sad on purpose, and that’s when I took it off. I can’t be doing with that. There’s enough stuff waiting to make us sad without us seeking it out deliberately. That’s just stupid. Having said that, if you are constitutionally stronger than I, by all means enjoy the shit out of these beautiful and damaged albums. Natalie Prass is doing some things that have had her mentioned in the same breath with Dusty Springfield’s masterpiece Dusty in Memphis, although her voice is not in the same league as Dusty’s. The songs, and the production, though, definitely bear that sort of comparison.

Album From Last Year That Was Reissued This Year With an Extra Disc, and I Love It So I’m Pretending That it Came Out This Year

The Silver Globe – Jane Weaver

I have rather a lot to say about Jane Weaver, but I don’t have the time to say it here, and you probably have things to do. But she’s doing some interesting things with Krautrock also. This was a beautiful album, and I regret that I didn’t get on board with it in a more timely manner. But better later than never. “I Need a Connection” is a perfect song.

Albums by Other Artists I Discovered This Year, But Their Albums Aren’t New Either

Still Life – Kevin Morby Harlem River – Kevin Morby What the Sea Wants, the Sea Will Have - Sarah Blasko

Kevin Morby used to be in Woods. Sarah Blasko comes recommended by Robert Forster (she’s Australian). I have nothing else to say. Out of steam. Done. Enjoy.