'nuff blah blah
Here’s my list of favorite releases for this past year, presented in alphabetical order:
Lucrecia Dalt – Ou
This is filmic, cinematic music. Sounds creep in and out of view with the seamless rhythm of the best film editors. Texture and grit are key ingredients but harmonies do sometimes emerge to lend a familiar emotional anchor to the abstraction. There’s a radiophonic wooziness that bathes the whole affair in nostalgia.
There were so many interesting album releases in 2014 I felt I could barely keep up. In fact, I was still adding titles to my Best of 2014 contenders list late into December. Here are some of my favorites, in alphabetical order:
The Bug – Angels & Devils
Kevin Martin returns to his The Bug alias for a full length LP and several EPs worth of mutant bass music in 2014. More than any other electronic music producer, Kevin understands the equal importance of mass/weight and texture. Both aspects are deployed extremely effectively whether the track is an atmospheric snarling dub-wise bass mantra or a neck-snapping mutant-dancehall-cum-grime firestarter.
Time, once again, to review some of my favorite music releases from the past year (pretty much the only regular feature of this “blog”). 2013 was a very fruitful year for alt-R&B/future-R&B as well as for Chicago-London bass hybrids. All the usual caveats apply. There is always too much music to hear all the great releases in a year but these grabbed me more than the rest. I look forward to reading all the other lists to catch up on what I missed.
Chants – I Feel Like I Feel It
If memory serves, I heard about this release via dj /rupture’s Mudd Up blog. The most obvious signposts are Shlohmo or Origami Sound’s post-Burial soundscapes but Chants manages to make an electronic music album that sounds extremely personal and expressive. There is a strong enough identity to shrug off easy comparisons.
There are still some great albums and singles being released mid-December, including a new 12-inch from Burial, which could easily be included here if I had had more time with them before compiling this year’s list. As always, this is my small contribution to the mass of music nerd list-making that happens at the end of each calendar year. I’m sure I’ve missed some of your favorites and I will likely read a lot of other lists to satisfy my curiosity over missed items and unjust dismissals. I hope you find something to enjoy!
Hyperdub have released two 12-inch records from Burial in 2012. If you like Burial you likely know what to expect. No surprises here: crackly atmosphere, meta-rave sonic vocabulary, skittery percussion… All the things I always love about Burial, no matter how same-y it’s starting to get. The only surprise, then, could be that I’m still not tired of Burial music.
2011 has been a remarkable year. It has seen volcanic eruptions disrupt global travel, political uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, an official end to the US occupation of Iraq, the emergence of a genuine political protest movement in Occupy Wall Street, incredible flooding in South Asia and Southeast Asia, the end of the second Steve Jobs era at Apple, the return of The Muppets and a continuing effort in the US to dismantle due process and replace the “will of the people” with the profit motives of corporations.
It has also been full of interesting musical activity — intriguing new releases practically every week of the year. So much music that it would be impossible to spend the time to give each a fair shake. So here I have gathered my favorite releases of 2011 which had attracted my continued or repeated attention. There are many omissions, to be sure, but that is why I read others’ lists.
Burial returned this year with a stellar 12-inch and several choice collaborations. Expanding on his strengths as a producer of atmospheric and emotional sound design, Burial also played with some different tempos on Street Halo.
Continue reading “Best Music of 2011”
I am happy to announce that two of my beats have been selected for inclusion on The Beat Tape, Volume #1.
Big thanks to Ivan for putting the effort into soliciting and compiling the material from his readership. And thanks, especially, for picking my stuff for volume one. Congratulation to all the other producers, too.
More info and download:
http://www.hiphopisread.com/2010/06/beat-tape-volume-1.html
It seems that 2009 is the year when I shifted my attention back to rock and pop music. Dubstep still holds my attention but not to the extent that it did back in 2006 when it took over my brain. Here are the things I enjoyed most in 2009, in no particular order.
The XX – XX
Thanks to my friend, Tony, who first mentioned this band to me. The XX are a young bunch who make lean pop music consisting of boy/girl vocals, hand-played drum machines and perfectly placed guitar lines. This album quickly became a habit.
The XX – Islands:
I love when I find something that I forgot that I was looking for…
I used to search for this song at every record store I visited from around 1996-2000. It was not a new song at the time, but I really wanted it on 7-inch. Amoeba Records in San Francisco had a corner filled with shelves which were filled with long boxes of Jamaican singles and I would flip blindly through those records, not really knowing much about most of them.
I never found the record.
But today I stumbled on the song again in mp3 form! An old old itch has finally been scratched.
Simpleton – Coca Cola Shape
Starting this Sunday, I will be hosting a radio show on KANM – “the college station of College Station.” It is an AM station, as well as cable FM on Suddenlink Communications. There is a stream available at http://kanm.tamu.edu, which seems like the most normal way to access the show (what is cable FM?).
The show will be free-form.
I will be sharing music I like, and maybe some stuff the station makes me include. The majority of programming on the station is indie rock-centered, so if I do pull from their library I should be able to find some good music. My focus will be dubstep, roots/dub reggae and other musics of the Jamaican diaspora, hip-hop, possibly grime, Bollywood/filmi songs and maybe even some experimental/modern classical music.
Mumblings
Sundays 12-2pm
KANM, College Station
1580 AM
campus cable TV channel 88
kanm.tamu.edu
Here’s another band who I successfully ignored for a long time. Now I can’t get this song out of my head…
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