Top 25 Records of 2015

25. A City Sorrow Built – Ai

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24. Neck Deep – Life’s Not Out to Get You

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23. Cloakroom – Further Out

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22. Titus Andronicus – The Most Lamentable Tragedy

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21. Black Wing – …is Doomed

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20. Seems Like Yesterday – The Length Between

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19. Sannhet – Revisionist

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18. Chelsea Wolfe – Abyss

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17. Car Seat Headrest – Teens of Style

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16. Bosse-de-Nage – All Fours

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15. Rustie – EVENIFUDONTBELIEVE

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14. Adventures – Supersonic Home

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13. A$AP Rocky – At. Long. Last. ASAP

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12. Pusha T – King Push – Darkest Before Dawn: The Prelude

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11. Travis Scott – Rodeo

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10. Majical Cloudz – Are You Alone?

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9. Turnover – Peripheral Vision

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8. Algiers – S/T

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7. Protomartyr – The Agent Intellect

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6. Loma Prieta – Self Portrait

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5. Beach Slang – The Things We Do to Find People Who Feel Like Us

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4. Death Grips – The Powers That B

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3. Prurient – Frozen Niagara Falls

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2. Sufjan Stevens – Carrie & Lowell

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1. Deafheaven – New Bermuda

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Top 25 Records of 2014 (2/2)

Continuing from the last post, we are now entering top 12 territory where I will try to give a more detailed piece on each record and, of course, recommend them more persuasively (which isn’t to say that I won’t deviate from recommendation every once in a while and write an off-topic piece on anything I may think about). Another thing I failed to mention is that the entirety of this list is mine, not yours, not hers, and definitely not pitchfork’s, so voicing your disagreements with it will not only result in you embarrassing yourself but also a time wasted for everybody else. K? K.

12. Run the Jewels – Run the Jewels 2

What can I say about Run the Jewels that hasn’t already been said since they broke out last year? Countless outlets, in their own words, have described them as the group to look up to and surpass in the foreseeable future of not just hip hop but also collaborative music in general, an assessment you might find difficult to attack since both members of the group are indeed, for lack of better words, made for each other; EL-P, the master producer and lyricist whose knack for complexity has led me to rapgenius more times than I could remember and Killer Mike, the infamous southern emcee with a strong political concern who offers more personality than the average bang-bang-shoot-dem-niggas-up-cuz rapper, what? You don’t find the connection? That’s because you just gotta see it in action.

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11. BADBADNOTGOOD – III

Being born in the mid to late 90s, my early exposure to jazz was limited to occasionally hearing bits of smooth, dumbed-down saxophone pieces that were in heavy rotation at almost every bookstore within driving distance, so I don’t have the experience nor the credibility to assess this record based on how it measures against seminal musicians’ and that’s not necessarily a blasphemy unless you’re an old jazzhead whose admiration for Giant Steps or Bitches Brew borders on the obsessive, additionally, BBNG have never been one to glorify their predecessors, if anything they’re in the forefront of what I feel is the recurrence of that widely celebrated era during which the prospect of boundless innovation presided over those who embraced it and that sentiment really rings true throughout III’s solid 10 tracks as BBNG give us a glimpse at what jazz could, should, and will become.

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10. Whirr – Sway

Hard as it is to believe, nothing of monumental significance bearing the shoegaze genre has been released since that stretch between the late 80s and the early 90s where you couldn’t browse through a record store’s collection without stumbling across music that would influence so many artists down the road it’s almost preposterous to argue otherwise. Unfortunately, like many a musical movement before it, the original shoegaze scene faded into the background of time as its groups either disbanded or lost relevance to the very generation they had helped define. What came after was somewhat of a resurgence, or should I say reincarnation? Groups like A Place to Bury Strangers, Weekend, and, hold on to your hats- Whirr, take everything identifiable with shoegaze, present it in 21st century hd-glory and stuck with it, sometimes to a fault, like every concern they had going in about being labeled as unnecessary revivalist bullshit had left the room long before the first note was reverbed. In the case of Sway, this approach strangely succeeds in making it sound fresh yet nostalgic at the same time, the only analogy for it I can think of despite not having drunk a single drop of alcohol for 18 years is how the aging of a bottle of wine heightens its taste; you know it’s been around forever but that doesn’t diminish your enjoyment of it because you also know that it’s good.

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9. Ratking – So It Goes

While the theme of home is hardly a novelty in hip hop, there’s a peculiar poignancy to it, one only the best storytellers can properly convey. Wiki and Hak of Ratking may not have a wealth of hip hop experience on them like those emcees you’ve heard people call legends for years do, but when it comes to describing the grittiest, most intimate corners of modern day New York, they are second to none and coupled with the cluttered, harrowing production of elusive third member Sporting Life, they still have much to offer beyond that. The logical thing to write now would be a clichéd comparison between So It Goes and Illmatic, i.e. “Nas would be proud.”, but nah, I never really liked that record anyway.

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8. Interpol – El Pintor

Having successfully maintained a momentum of success post- Turn on the Bright Lights with 2004’s Antics, Interpol were starting to show symptoms of decline on 2007’s Our Love to Admire. A record that some (including I) thought was decent enough while others thought was just too bland to be given a second listen. Then 2010’s Interpol came along and the line separating the former from the latter was simply no more; “Well, I guess Interpol did peak at TOTBL, moving on.” Little did we know that they were on the cusp of something evolutionary when they came through with El Pintor almost four years later. Clocking at around forty minutes, it’s filled to the brim with all the great Interpol-isms we love; elegant guitar melodies, sensual basslines, intense yet subdued drumming, Paul Banks’ pained vocals and massive, m a s s i v e choruses, each feeding off of one another creating this hazy, dreamlike vibe which is where Interpol work best as has been evidenced by the glorious nocturnal murk of Turn on the Bright Lights. In fact, you could say El Pintor is its sister album and I wouldn’t correct you.

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7. Braid – No Coast

“In terms of the new album, I’m not really sure (if) we’re really striving to achieve anything other than to make the best record that Braid could make right now and to make a record that we’re capable of making.” Braid frontman / guitarist Bob Nanna said regarding No Coast, their followup to 1998’s seminal Frame & Canvas. I single that statement out because it pretty much sums up what makes No Coast such a rewarding listen. There’s an emphasis on the now that really puts things into perspective; here you have BraId who are returning to the scene they were once a part of only to find that nothing has changed except for the people and then you have this trend going on where it seems like originality is long dead and everyone’s coming to grips with it by creating a vacuum in which the past exists as much as the present, enabling Braid to talk about the same shit they were talking about sixteen years ago without sounding irrelevant, which they could’ve done on No Coast but chose not to. Instead, they highlighted this irrelevancy to tackle themes of mortality, nostalgia, contentedness and whatever else you start to view differently at 35 in a playfully bitter way that exudes a kind of wisdom only they can convey.

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6. How to Dress Well – “What is This Heart?”

5. Behemoth – The Satanist

4. Freddie Gibbs & Madlib – Piñata

3. Have a Nice Life – The Unnatural World

2. Sun Kil Moon – Benji

1. Iceage – Plowing into the Field of Love

Honorable Mentions:

1. Swans – To Be Kind

2. clipping.  – CLPPNG

3. Old Man Gloom – The Ape of God

4. A Sunny Day in Glasgow – Sea When Absent

5. Flying Lotus – You’re Dead!

6. Sharon Van Etten – Are We There

7. Alcest – Shelter

8. Baths – Ocean Death

9. Ariel Pink – Pom Pom

10. Architects (UK) – Lost Forever // Lost Together

Top 25 Records of 2014 (1/2)

Holy fucking shit. 2014 is almost over. Gimme a second to stare into space and momentarily clear my head of this realization.

Ok, now let’s see. This year has been chock-full of ups and downs for me, from graduating high school to entering my dream university by a stroke of luck not even Nostradamus would’ve predicted, because looking back on what kind of a student I was, there’s little to no evidence suggesting I deserved to be admitted into anywhere with a highly competitive passing grade, let alone the “top” ones. Kinda makes me wonder whether this is bad karma at work, preparing me for some great tribulation as I live my undergraduate life completely unaware of what’s coming. But until then, I see no harm in sharing my favorite music of the year, after all there’s only so much you could distract yourself with around here, so yeah:

(before you point it out, yes, some of these may have been released in late 2013)

25. An Autumn for Crippled Children – Try Not to Destroy Everything You Love

Think Sunbather played through a broken amp with the distortion maxed out and the bass nullified, now have a string quartet jam over the noise; it might seem off-putting at first but once you’ve listened to it long enough and developed an appreciation for its aesthetic, you’ll find the experience breathtaking.

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24. Nils Frahm – Spaces

I see “classical” music as something that has evolved beyond its former esteem and turned into something utterly pretentious; you know what I’m talking about, parents encouraging their children to play the piano at an early age so that their right and left hemispheres will be in “perfect balance” or some shit. Ultimately all they’ve accomplished is raise a generation of snobs with egos the size of a supermassive black hole. Anyway, sorry for the tangent, Spaces is not pretentious and a great live album, period.

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23. Death Grips – Niggas on the Moon

While not as focused and powerful as their previous work, the first half of Death Grips’ “posthumous” album, The Powers That B, is a much preferred change in direction compared to 2013’s alienating Government Plates.

have a sad cum, bb

22. Open Mike Eagle – Dark Comedy

“Indie” rap (or “cloud” rap?) has produced some of the most interesting emcees I’ve known since I started taking hip hop seriously; from the philosophical, pop culture-savvy types like Milo to the arizona iced tea sippin’ Yung Lean, there truly is an exciting sense of originality to these guys and it’s not just because they’re far removed from the mainstream but rather because they’re the only bunch that actually have a lane of their own in which to create. With a winning set of beats and a penchant for cleverly funny rhymes, Open Mike Eagle is undoubtedly ahead of that lane.

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21. Bladee – GLUEE

BLADEE BLADEE AAAAHH :”'(

20. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu – Pika Pika Fantajin

If I was held at gunpoint and told to name an album that’s sweeter, cuter, more colorful and catchier than Pika Pika Fantajin, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t escape with my life. Simply one of the most addictive, instantly-gratifying pieces of music ever made by Man.

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19. Joyce Manor – Never Hungover Again

As I was listening to this on the drive home from the airport after visiting my dad’s hometown for lebaran, the nostalgic part of my brain was triggered and I sat there, looking out the window feeling like I was 10, jamming a Blink-182 compilation on my way to school. If a record does that you gotta put it on your year-end list.

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18. Cloud Nothings – Here and Nowhere Else

I actually wrote a review for this one but it was never finished due to me being the uber-procrastinator that I always am. But basically I ended up talking about how great Attack on Memory was to the point where all the adjectives I could’ve used to describe Here and Nowhere Else had been, well, used. Speaks to the qualities of both albums, really.

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17. Seahaven – Reverie Lagoon: Music for Escapism Only

“The wave” as coined by Jeremy Bolm of Touché Amoré (I believe? Correct me if I’m wrong) is essentially an independent scene that revolves around celebrating and applying a modern twist on the sounds popularized by seminal post-hardcore groups from the 90s (hashtag emorevival). It is, however, somewhat ill-defined in a larger context where groups that are only associated with the wave, like Seahaven, are concerned; instead of playing aggressive, angsty-to-a-fault songs, they indulge in subtlety and a singer-songwriter-esque passion.

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16. Rosetta – Flies to Flame

2013’s The Anaesthete saw Rosetta embark further away from their post-metal roots while sticking firm to the fast + loud dynamics of 2010’s A Determinism of Morality, resulting in a sound that’s equal captivating and intense but lacking in emotional payoff which makes their earlier work such classics. Gone was the epic, mind-numbing nature of the interplay between the delay-laden guitars and the raw-sounding bass, the spacious drum fills and frontman Mike Armine’s distant yet in-your-face screams. Despite being only an EP, Flies to Flame manages to make me happy by having all the above-mentioned qualities and then some.

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15. Timber Timbre – Hot Dreams

A scene that pops into my head whenever I put this on is of a young American couple from the 70s, speeding along an empty desert road with the top down in the early hours of dawn, the stench of a cheap night club still on them, the lights of a far-off landscape receding into darkness. Conjuring such a vivid image is no easy task but Timber Timbre seems to have succeeded in creating the perfect album for it by pairing “dated” songwriting with modern ears.

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14. Vince Staples – Hell Can Wait

Vince Staples piqued my interest last year with his excellent guest spots on Earl Sweatshirt’s Doris, spitting bar after bar of dismal rhymes that paint a not-so-pretty picture of growing up in a hostile neighborhood only to become one with it. On Hell Can Wait these themes are brought up again, sounding as authentic and realized as a first-person retelling of a drive-by shooting.

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13. La Dispute – Rooms of the House

You can probably think up a metaphor to illustrate how your life has changed from point A to B in less than five minutes but others might find it unrelatable since each has their own way of perceiving change. La Dispute understand this and, instead of describing change through subjective impressions, choose to retreat into the background of it all as observers in the form of a house filled with furniture, experiencing firsthand the loss and tragedy that come with transition.

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(thus concludes the first part of my year-end list, not promising anything but I plan to have the second part up some time next week, or the week after that)