1. CARIBOU Our Love
I've been aware of Dan Snaith's Caribou project for years and occassionally would grab tracks or hear snippets and find it all pleasing, pretty, but a bit dull. So the announcement of another Caribou album left me with a case of the shrugs. I was wrong. This grabbed me from the first second I heard it and held me. Warm, sunny, shimmery, dancey, poppy, soft, mysterious, quiet and loud, romantic, brilliant. Love it.
2. FKA TWIGS LP1
Although she had released two under-the radar EP releases, this debut album seemingly comes out of nowhere...to slay. Modernized trip-hop, R'n'B put through the slow/churning/shadowy filter is on display here and it sounds fresh. Although the new genre of quiet, slow, "Blog-Hop/Blog'n'B" (look, I created a shitty music media genre name) has a reigning queen. You don't need to scream, oversing, and melisma to out-queen Snoreyonce. Twigs has more interesting ideas in her fingertip than most American divas do in their fame-hungry clutches.
3. DAMON ALBARN Everyday Robots
Even though his career has spanned nearly 25 years of releasing music, Blur/Gorillaz/etc. frontman Albarn had never released a solo album before. What a wonderfully subtle, quiet but steady LP. Acoustic guitar strums, plaintive piano chords, sputtering drum programming; it's like all of Blur's best ballads on one album. It's "Tender" meets "No Distance Left to Run" warm melancholic ache that Damon does best with his wounded vocals.
4. ROBYN & ROYKSOPP Do It Again / ROYKSOPP The Inevitable End
Not one but two Royksopp releases greet us this year, along with the news that the band, although not splitting, will not release "albums" anymore; the new paradigm? Robyn is back in equal force on the EP and "Monument" may be one of her best tracks. After a teaser of an EP, Royksopp also unleashed what amounts to a double album of new material; the highlights feature The Irrepressibles' Jamie on a lion's share of vocal duties with his delicate croon.
5. APHEX TWIN Syro
It was one of those Bowie-esque returns after a decade off, Richard D. James is back and it's like the '90s never disappeared. Not to say that all of these tracks were sitting on a shelf during a drum n' bass flurry of work; there is still plenty of dateless electronic squelching, squirming and slithering from James' master hands.
BIGGEST "SURPRISED THAT I LIKED IT" OF THE YEAR
PERFUME GENIUS Too Bright - Neither of his previous albums did anything for me; quite the opposite, I found them grating. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that I really dug his third album. He's embraced a fuller band sound, electronics, and not too many fluttery, breathy, gaspy piano and vocal ballads.
TOP FIVE HOUSEY/POP MOMENTS
1. HERCULES AND LOVE AFFAIR The Feast of the Broken Heart - A great return after the lackluster 2nd LP. Fun, sexy and pure '90s house. John Grant oddly makes a great house vocalist
2. THE 2 BEARS The Night is Young - Needs trimming and not as good as their debut, but the good songs are actually great songs
3. MICROFILM Chemical Robotics EP - Yeah, it's us but it's good; download for free here: https://microfilm.bandcamp.com/album/chemical-robotics and Is This It? https://soundcloud.com/microfilmmusic/is-this-it-full-version
4. JESSIE WARE Tough Love (Cyril Hahn remix) - Best track on the pretty good new LP; hoping the album would have a few house bangers like "Imagine It Was Us"
5. AZALEIA BANKS Broke With Expensive Taste - Apart from being a turd of a person, the housey tracks on here are fun
TOP FIVE UNDER THE RADAR RELEASES
1. ARCA Xen - Happy to know that this South American gay electronic adventurer will be working with Bjork on her new LP; Xen is a sprawling spiky but pretty journey of an album
2. LEON VYNHALL Music for the Uninvited - melancholic art house music; house music for headphone listening; lovely
3. THROWING SNOW Mosaic - I always new trip-hop would come back in vogue, albeit modernized for this century
4. EAST INDIA YOUTH Total Strife Forever - An odd mix of instrumental synthscapes, techno, dark synth(not)pop
5. GAZELLE TWIN Unflesh - Don't be worried The Knife has called it quits this year, you have Gazelle Twin, a one-woman electro stark and dark soundscape
HONORABLE MENTION: OVERDUE WELCOME RETURNS
1. MORRISSEY World Peace is None of Your Business - So happy he still had something left in him; arguably his best work in 20 years
2. VASHTI BUNYAN Heartleap - This is the year I really discovered her; suppposedly her last album, so what a way to go
3. SOFT PINK TRUTH Why Do the Heathens Rage? - Bizarre high concept album that oddly and noisily works. Funny and scary and cool
4. NENEH CHERRY The Blank Project - Not your '80s Neneh. Stripped down and loose and darkly pop. Cool
5. CIBO MATTO Hotel Valentine - The lovely sense of fun and inventiveness is back
FIVE RELEASES THAT ARE GOOD, BUT TREADING WATER; I NEED MORE FROM THEM
1.WILD BEASTS Present Tense - A slight improvement over Smother, but more of the edges are being sanded off
2. THE HORRORS Luminous - A poppier, slicker version of 'Skying'; pretty and spot-the-references fun, but I want a bit of the angularity back
3. LANA DEL RAY Ultraviolence - A nice twist to not repeat the trip-hop influence, I just wonder how much gas she has left in her
4. THOM YORKE Tomorrow's Modern Boxes - A pleasant listen but evaporates right after.The Eraser-lite
5. ZOLA JESUS Taiga - She wanted this to be her big "pop" album, but it was too dark, grand, and same-same to make it
DISAPPOINTMENTS
1. ERLEND OYE Legao - I don't know where to begin with my disappointment; reggae-lite? Snoozy, boring, bland, and aimless. His first solo studio album in...11 years is this? And he currently thinks electronic music is "boring"? Try this instead: https://microfilm.bandcamp.com/track/johnny-x-lost-his-girl-to-erlend-oye-the-world
2. LA ROUX Trouble in Paradise - Tinnier than the debut, even though it has slicker production. A long wait to be unimpressed.
3. LYKKE LI I Never Learn - Her last LP was one of my faves of that year so a bit disappointed how blah this all sounds as a whole.
4. JJ V - I forgot I was listening to it as I went on. I wonder if the magic has faded with these guys?
5. SINEAD O'CONNOR I'm Not Bossy... - The lead single "Take Me to Church" was amazing, the best song's she's done in decades easily, but I was not as thrilled by the rest, sadly.
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