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BEST OF 2016

I've done my favourite 30 albums/50 tracks/some EPs of 2016. I think it's become quite popular to say "2016 was a trash fire of a year…but the music was good!" Which is half the story; more than any other year, my reactions to the music I loved were coloured by a backdrop of near-constant political anxiety. So shout out in particular Helena Hauff's Mixmag mix that got me through the post-Brexit week when I needed both focused, wordless anger and a connection to Europe; and to the Solange album and Lōtic's remix of her sister for the depression of the post-US election week. Other than that I mostly listened to lots of afrobeats and country. Here's a Spotify playlist of the tracks - http://open.spotify.com/…/l…/playlist/68J2ERjwbKLbyQBOw0PY29 - and here's one of the albums http://open.spotify.com/…/l…/playlist/0UciWoULLacWIqNHpBqRKs ALBUMS 1. Dawn Richard, Redemption 2. King, We Are King 3. Beyoncé, Lemonade 4. Miranda Lambert, The Weight Of These Wings 5. Ariana Grande, Dangerous Woman 6. Cardi B, Gangsta Bitch Music, Vol. 1 7. Brandy Clark, Big Day In A Small Town 8. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Ears 9. K. Michelle, More Issues Than Vogue 10. Hannah Peel, Awake But Always Dreaming 11. Solange, A Seat At The Table 12. Britney Spears, Glory 13. Brothers Osborne, Pawn Shop 14. Anohni, Hopelessness 15. Maren Morris, Hero 16. Raime, Tooth 17. Rae Sremmurd, SremmLife 2 18. Nina Kraviz, Fabric 91 19. Jamila Woods, Heavn 20. P Money, Live And Direct 21. Tweet, Charlene 22. Leonard Cohen, You Want It Darker 23. Maxwell, blackSUMMERS'night 24. Trim, 1-800 Dinosaur Presents: Trim 25. Kyle Hall, From Joy 26. Róisín Murphy, Take Her Up To Monto 27. Ricky Blaze, Conquer The Moment 28. Corinne Bailey Rae, The Heart Speaks In Whispers 29. Kevin Gates, Islah 30. Floorplan, Victorious TRAX 1. Beyoncé, "Formation" / Lōtic, "Formation (Election Anxiety/America Is Over Edit)" 2. Avalon Emerson, "The Frontier" 3. Dreezy ft. Jeremih, "Body" 4. Mazi Chukz ft. Maleek Berry, "Dem Hail" 5. Yemi Alade, "Koffi Anan" 6. Charly Black, "Gyal You A Party Animal" 7. Rihanna, "Needed Me" 8. Kiss Daniel, "Mama" 9. Young M.A, "Ooouuu" 10. Fantasia, "Ugly" 11. Krishane ft. Patoranking, "Inconsiderate" 12. Tory Lanez, "Luv" 13. Tekno, "Pana" 14. Èbony, "Real Truth" 15. Miguel ft. Kacey Musgraves, "Waves (Remix)" 16. Dexta Daps, "Trigger Finger" 17. Carrie Underwood, "Church Bells" 18. Alkaline, "One More Time" 19. Dawn Richard, "Not Above That" 20. Konshens, "Bruk Off Mi Cock" 21. Zara Larsson, "Ain't My Fault" 22. ShiiKane, "Loke" 23. Kwamz & Flava, "Take Over" 24. Kehlani, "24/7" 25. Double S ft. JME, "Style & Flows" 26. Shay, "PMW" 27. Fifth Harmony, "Big Bad Wolf" 28. Nadia Rose, "Skwod" 29. Karen Gwyer, "Prophase Metaphase Anaphase" 30. Eva Alordiah ft. Phyno & Reminisce, "Kanayo" 31. Sevyn Streeter ft. Gucci Mane, "Prolly" 32. Sir Spyro ft. Teddy Bruckshot, Lady Chann & Killa P, "Topper Top" 33. GBM Nutron ft. Fay-Ann Lyons, "Scene" 34. Paul Woolford, "Heaven & Earth Part 2" 35. Tinie Tempah ft. Zara Larsson, "Girls Like" 36. Spice, "Indicator" 37. Babes Wodumo ft. Mampintsha, "Wololo" 38. Alicia Keys, "In Common (Black Coffee Remix)" 39. Young John ft. Lil Kesh, "Bend Down Select" 40. Mella ft. P-Square, "Ginger" 41. Serge Beynaud, "Remanbélé" 42. AY ft. Diamond Platnumz, "Zigo (Remix)" 43. Stunnah Gee ft. Davido, "Dengeme" 44. Equiknoxx ft. Devin Di Dakta, "Bubble" 45. Bjarki, "Bæpolar" 46. No Lay, "Gotta Love It" 47. Reniss, "La Sauce" 48. Keke Palmer ft. Jeremih, "Enemiez" 49. Fat Joe & Remy Ma ft. French Montana, "All The Way Up" 50. Lil Uzi Vert, "Money Longer" EPs 1. Melanie De Biasio, Blackened Cities 2. Abra, Princess 3. Willow, Workshop 23 4. AJ Tracey, Lil Tracey 5. Jammz, Warrior

Diplo, Kaytranada, D Double E, Geeneus, and the U.K. artist herself on how her third album became her most ambitious yet.

Katy B's excellent new album Honey is out today; I talked to her and most of her collaborators about making it for The Fader. This piece went up a few months ago, when the album was originally going to drop; a ton of extra quotes got cut for length, and I'm just going to put them here. I also reviewed the album for The National: http://www.thenational.ae/arts-life/the-review/album-review-life-is-sweet-for-katy-b. HONEY KATY B: I wanted to do something in the vein of the Danger EP, so it started off like that - I wrote a long, long list of the artists I wanted to work with, we put the feelers out - and loads of people got back! So it was growing and growing and we realised we had enough tunes to make a mixtape - but then we thought, we're doing it an injustice calling it a mixtape. GEENEUS: Pretty soon after Little Red, we decided to go down this road. The last album was more complicated than we'd wanted. I'd done a lot of the work but we'd worked with pop producers like Guy Chambers, and she'd done a lot of sessions over that time where she wasn't really connecting musically with people. So, it was like...we started her whole career doing club stuff, so why don't we just go round and get all the producers from that scene and celebrate them as well? Show that the underground stuff can stand up. You don't need a big pop producer to make a big pop record - that's something we've come across on our own. KATY B: I wanted the producers to have a lot of the limelight as well. I definitely wanted to make it as wide-ranging as possible - that's kind of how I started off, going from house to dubstep to drum'n'bass. I don't think I have a specific sound as Katy B - I just like to sing on what I like! We did about 40 to 50 songs in total, and there were loads I was gutted we couldn't use. GEENEUS: What I find is that generally people have goodwill towards Katy when you ask them to do something for her, because she comes across as a genuinely nice person and they know she always gravitates towards music that's actually good. People tend to want to give their best. 1. Katy B x Kaytranada - "Honey" KATY B: I started listening to Kaytranada a lot on my last tour before going on stage - I get so nervous before performing and I like to have soothing music, but I need something to hype me up as well. And in the dance sessions I do with my choreographer a couple of times a week, he's our favourite to dance to. 2. Katy B x Craig David x Major Lazer - "Who Am I?" KATY B: I recorded a few songs with Craig about a year and a half ago, before any of his comeback stuff happened - I remember we did some ballads, but then I was like, the people want to hear you do garage again. You need to get back on that tip. We wrote a song where the setting was definitely a garage club, everyone acting a bit bougie. And he came back not long ago to add his bit to "Who Am I?" - I wanted a man on it. When he got in the studio it was like old times - those riffs, those harmonies. Everyone's rooting for him now. 4. Katy B x Sasha Keable x JD Reid - "Chase Me" KATY B: You think we sound like a girl group? I'd absolutely love to be in a girl group with Sasha! She's so talented, her voice is one of the best around. Years ago my friend showed me her music and I thought she was really amazing, and then she supported me on tour last year, and now she lives with one of my friends. When I decided I wanted a girl on this track, it was like, definitely Sash. SASHA KEABLE: It's not just a ~work relationship~, she's my girl. We're both from South London - I'm from Eltham, then I moved to Wandsworth - so we share the same values, we grew up in the same way around the same type of music, went through the same cringey trends. Music was the main thing we bonded over - well, and our love of drinking and partying, haha. 5. Katy B x J Hus x D Double E x HeavyTrackerz - "Lose Your Head" D DOUBLE E: I always see Katy around when we perform and she always says that she's been feeling my vibe and the work I've been doing since back in the day. At Outlook festival in Croatia [in 2014] we were chilling out talking about the scene - it wasn't, like, we have to work together, it was a normal conversation. She was telling me she was in school when she heard certain lyrics of mine, I was telling her how I came up. Probably nine, ten months later it happened - she had the idea and the track. KATY B: I can't believe I've got D Double on one of my songs. Growing up and listening to him - being 15, watching Channel U, especially The Streets' "Get Out Of My House (Remix)" and Newham Generals' "Hard". G.TANK (HEAVYTRACKERZ): Rinse were really selective when they approached us - Katy was looking for real hardcore tunes to sing over. I didn't think she was gonna pick that beat but when I found out I kind of had an idea of how it would work - we've heard the funky house and the dubstep, but we hadn't heard her do anything like it before. When we made the beat originally it was more MC-orientated, we had the Section Boyz on it but ended up doing something else with them, and she picked it up. We hadn't looked at the beat like that, that's where the surprise came from. She sings with a real swagger on it. D DOUBLE E: I knew she was versatile, a lot more than people think. When we performed the track at Ministry of Sound on Boxing Day, it was live on Rinse and someone asked me who was singing, they didn't even recognise her voice. KATY B: I feel so gassed when I hear myself singing in the third person! But I got so embarrassed recording it. I was like, "Don't judge me!" to my engineer. I had to turn all the lights off. RASEYE (HEAVYTRACKERZ): The beat wasn't specific for Katy, the criteria just fitted with what we were making. Trying to adjust to artists isn't really our style - we give it to you and you see what you can do with it. KATY B: For a lot of the album, I took a lot of the pressure of going into the studio with producers off myself, and I realised how much I enjoy writing that way. It's really awkward sometimes going into a studio with someone you don't know that well - you're being overly polite, or if you're not you might offend someone. And in the past producers have told me what to do vocally, which is really annoying. I really relish the opportunity for someone to make something exactly how they want it and for me to be, yeah, I'll have that, and to make my own vocal, do my own thing. KATY B: R&G was such a massive influence on me, and it was really inspiring - like, this is something I could do. I knew DaVinChe lived in Sydenham on my friend's road, I put all my demos on a CD for her to give to him. She put it through his letterbox but he never got back to me. When I first started working with Rinse they gave me Scratcha's Voice of Grime CD as inspiration for the first album, I completely rinsed it. We've got to bring R&G back, man. 8. Katy B x Mr Mitch - "Heavy" KATY B: The pre-chorus has my favourite lyric on the album: "You manipulate my mind 'til it's twisted, but my body, you stay jolly cuz I'm granting all your wishes." And I refer to "The Cure And The Cause" deliberately - I remember looking at the lyrics for it and having a real moment, I learned how to write from songs like that. I sing about being lonely in the city - some of my friends will complain about their boyfriends to me and say, he's a dickhead, he's a prick. I'm like, why are you still with him? It's because no one wants to be alone. Especially in grey London. What else have I got? To go and watch fucking EastEnders or something on my own? Which is even greyer than everything else? I'd rather have a flirt. 10. Katy B x Kate Simko x Jamie Jones - "Dark Delirium" KATY B: I knew of Jamie through all those house tunes back in the day that absolutely smashed it, so I was fangirling a bit when he said he'd work with me. When I went to the studio, Kate was there as well - I wasn't prepared for that. But it's funny because she put on a show at Shoreditch House with live strings (http://www.thevinylfactory.com/vinyl-factory-films/watch-electronic-composer-kate-simkos-symphonic-performance-in-east-london/) maybe two weeks previously - I remember looking her up and listening to all her music on Spotify. KATE SIMKO: Jamie and I had just done a track together with the London Electronic Orchestra,"One Time Game", and we had already decided to get in the studio together with the orchestra and make another. We wanted a really strong vocalist, and the opportunity to work with Katy came about. When I learned we were going to be working with her, Jamie sent me a couple of tracks he liked and I ended up listening to On A Mission a lot - I was really nerdy, I wanted the sheet music so I could see what chords they used, how she structured her songs. But yeah, she didn't know, it was a surprise to her, but it was really cool. She came up with all the lyrics on the spot. We filled in a lot of the percussion later - it was just a temporary beat with a lot of orchestral stuff, just a sketch, but she nailed it right away. JAMIE JONES: I really liked the darkness of the lyrics - it fit in with our vibe a bit more. I mainly worked on the drums and the bass - we wrote a bassline which she wrote lyrics to, but going back I felt it needed to be even darker to fit the lyrics. Originally it was a funky, deep house kind of bassline and afterwards it changed to a more sustained bass. 12. Katy B x Hannah Wants - "Dreamerz" KATY B: I remember seeing her at Outlook in 2014 and loving her set so much, I thought she was so sick. Then I was out in Birmingham during Gay Pride last year at a place called Chic, it's one of my favourite clubs, and she was in there with all her friends. I remember being nervous - oh my god, that's Hannah Wants over there - and not knowing what to do. Shit, should I say hello? Or not say hello? And then someone was taking a photo of her and wanted a photo of me and we were talking, and she was really lovely. She got up on the decks and started playing and all her friends were around, and I loved the way she walked around with loads of girls. Me and my friends were going to go on to another club and her manager was like, can we come with you? And we ended up having this really sick night out. It was one of the best nights out I had last year. I was telling her about this project and saying we had to work together - she sent me this beat and I loved it straight away. HANNAH WANTS: Hahaha, that was such a crazy and amazing night! We bumped into each other randomly in Chic and just hit it off straight away. She’s honestly one of the nicest, most genuine people I’ve ever met. We had a very long (haha!) and very amazing night partying and chatting. We went to about three different clubs and just bonded over literally everything! Life, music, we just connected. KATY B: I wanted to write something about being with my core group of friends. I've got a really strong group of friends, we are ride or die for each other, and if we ever have a problem there's such a supportive group of people. Especially with what I do, I know I can go there and feel completely rooted. This song is for them - and for Hannah and her friends, too. I had such a lovely time with them and they were such wicked people, and I just felt that we were the dreamers. Going out to clubs, we're not trying to impress anyone else. That's all I want from life - to have good people around me who love me. To feel stronger as a unit. That's what we feel life is about. To want the best for everyone. HANNAH WANTS: A small and strong friendship circle is absolutely key in this industry. In fact mine’s not a circle, it’s a triangle. There are three of us and I’m honestly happy about that. In a crazy industry - and world, in fact - where true friendship and loyalty are rare, you’ve gotta learn what’s real and what’s not. Spend and enjoy your time with people who will invest as much good into your life as you will them. With "Dreamerz", I just wanted to create a slightly different vibe from my usual kinda dancefloor-directed music. This track’s a little slower and has that happy, summery vibe - Katy complemented it perfectly with her vocal. KATY B: Geeneus hated the line about sixty days of summer. He said it's too cheesy, take it out. So I did, but then I missed it, I just wanted to sing it! One of my friends did a season in Ibiza and she was talking about how coming back to London and reality was hard after being in a world where nothing mattered and it was always sunny. It made me think of how we get this one summer every year, we save up all our money to be carefree. How can we make that last? Of course, in Britain we don't even have sixty days. Three weeks, that's it. 13. Katy B x Novelist x Geeneus - "Honey Outro" GEENEUS: Katy really does care about club music - she's not one of these artists that jump on a club song to get a bit of attention as a feature, then jump off and go and do something else. You see that a lot in this country - let's get a singer on the current-sounding music, launch their career and when they've taken off put them on something dry. It's so boring. And a lot of them don't even succeed. They think you have to get out of this - what we are - to get to bigger things, but it's not true. But if Katy didn't chart again I don't think she'd care, she just wants to do the music she likes. In the poem she explains she's grown up raving, she still raves, she comes from the small clubs, she's seen it when there was no connection between underground and mainstream. KATY B: The original version used a Ruff Sqwad sample, "Together". I'm really gutted we couldn't use it, but we had a deadline of, like, one day. GEENEUS: I thought about it quite a lot because of the Ruff Sqwad thing, and the "Message In A Bottle" connection about communication, it was all great - but there was an issue with the sample. It was a bit upsetting but we had to adjust. I found it really difficult - when I make something I'm really bad with the detail. That's why I did all the additional production. It took me a minute to get my head around having to change it, but we did it.

FAVOURITE MUSIC OF 2015 (plus bonus bile)

I've said this repeatedly, but it was a damn good year for music, the best in living memory. Artists I already expected great things from managed to blow me away in ways I hadn't expected (Dawn Richard, Miguel); artists I approached with scepticism ended up wholly converting me (Years & Years, Lana Del Rey); various debutant(e)s killed it on their first full-length album statements (Vince Staples, Kehlani, Levon Vincent, Helena Hauff). ALBUMS (spotify) 1. Dawn Richard - Blackheart 2. Angel Haze - Back To The Woods 3. Susanne Sundfør - Ten Love Songs 4. Jazmine Sullivan - Reality Show 5. Years & Years - Communion 6. Ashley Monroe - The Blade 7. Vince Staples - Summertime '06 8. Levon Vincent - Levon Vincent 9. Rae Sremmurd - SremmLife 10. Abra - Rose 11. Helena Hauff - Discreet Desires 12. Miguel - Wildheart 13. Honey Cocaine - The Gift Rap EP 14. Nozinja - Nozinja Lodge 15. Kehlani - You Should Be Here 16. Future - DS2 17. Lana Del Rey - Honeymoon 18. Cam - Untamed 19. Holly Herndon - Platform 20. Gretchen Peters - Blackbirds 21. Jam City - Dream A Garden 22. Teedra Moses - Cognac & Conversation 23. Sasha Go Hard - Nutty World 2 24. Natasha Mosley - Rose Hall 25. Laura Marling - Short Movie 26. Flava D - More Love 27. Jeremih - Late Nights 28. Jlin - Dark Energy 29. Sleater-Kinney - No Cities To Love 30. Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly 31. Dumblonde - Dumblonde 32. Björk - Vulnicura 33. Torres - Sprinter 34. DJ Richard - Grind TRACKS (spotify) 1. Demi Lovato - Cool For The Summer 2. Stormzy - Know Me From 3. Rihanna - Bitch Better Have My Money 4. Skepta - Shutdown 5. Fetty Wap - Trap Queen 6. Sunkanmi - Singale 7. Heavy-K ft. Tresor - #GiveMeLuv 8. J Hus - Dem Boy Paigon 9. Honey Cocaine - Sundae 10. Justin Bieber - Sorry 11. Dbn Nyts ft. Zinhle Ngidi & Trademark - Shumaya 12. Nicki Minaj ft. Beyoncé - Feeling Myself 13. Presh ft. Davido - Say Dem Say 14. Fatima Yamaha - What's A Girl To Do (DJ Haus 4/4 Edit) 15. Geko - Baba 16. Lady Leshurr - Queen's Speech 4 17. Sevyn Streeter ft. Chris Brown - Don't Kill The Fun 18. JME ft. Skepta, Shorty & Frisco - Don't @ Me 19. Dotorado Pro - African Scream 20. Cam - Burning House 21. Tinashe ft. Young Thug - Party Favors 22. DJ Kent ft. Mo T - Don't Let Go 23. Rush - Attention 24. Tchami ft. Stacy Barthe - After Life 25. Paul Woolford - MDMA 26. Janet Jackson - Promise Of You 27. t q d - Day & Night 28. J Balvin - Ginza 29. Dawn Richard - James Dean 30. Angela Hunte & Machel Montano - Party Done 31. Kiss Daniel - Good Time 32. Young Thug - Pacifier 33. Eric Prydz - Opus (Four Tet Remix) 34. DJ Sprinkles & Mark Fell - Fresh 35. Kendrick Lamar - King Kunta 36. Maliibu N Helene - Figure 8 37. Natalie La Rose ft. Jeremih - Somebody 38. Dexta Daps - 7Eleven 39. Rima ft. Tekno - Feeling You 40. Cam & China - Run Up 41. M.I.A. - Borders 42. Patoranking ft. Wande Coal - My Woman, My Everything 43. Reniss ft. Jovi - Michael Jackson 44. PrinceBoom ft. Reekado Bankz & Tekno - Give Them 45. Kalenna - Space And Time 46. Arandel - Section 6 47. Miley Cyrus - 1 Sun 48. Anohni - 4 Degrees 49. Frankey & Sandrino - Acamar 50. Creta Kano - Skyway Motel 51. Carrie Underwood - Choctaw County Affair 52. Vybz Kartel ft. Konshens, Spice & Gaza Tussan - Dancehall (Remix) 53. Selena Gomez ft. A$AP Rocky - Good For You 54. Uhuru ft. DJ Tira, Trademark & Mashabela - Saka Nana (Ashule) 55. PVC - Levitate 56. Higher Self ft. Lauren Mason - Ghosts 57. School Of Seven Bells - Open Your Eyes BONUS BILE I went in on Future Brown and my only regret is that I didn't do it to PC Music as well (the difference: I couldn't remotely bear to listen to any given PC Music song all the way through even for research). Adele's career and pedestrian, plodding music remain the most tedious embodiment of white privilege in pop (by rights her success should be swapped with Jazmine Sullivan's). Sure she seems like a great person in interviews but that's not the fucking point; I know plenty of people who are cool to go down the pub with but I don't want to hear them all sing. Everything about Jamie xx's music is feeble but his steel pans might be the most offensively so. Grimes is yappy and irritating. Drake is a pathetic manchild and his emotions are trash (and identifying with them is a red flag). I don't actively dislike Arca and Kelela but the critical praise is baffling. Unfinished-sounding sketches of cool sounds and R&B with awkwardly clanking beats instead of anything memorable? OK then. I'm not angry, I'm disappointed: Kacey Musgraves. Same Trailer Different Park was so sharp, nuanced and emotionally complex; Pageant Material was trite, pandering bullshit peopled by cardboard cut-outs instead of real lives. Trend that most needs to die is ARTISTS WHO SPELL THEIR NAMES IN ALL CAPS FOR NO REASON other than desperation to stand out typographically in an era when everyone's clamouring for attention. It makes me feel like my iTunes is shouting at me and gets our relationship off on the wrong foot immediately. Fans who painstakingly give into this can stop it too.

MY FAVOURITE MUSIC OF Q2 (AND A BIT) 2015

this was going to be a Q2 follow-up to my Q1 report but Wimbledon happened and I didn't do any music writing for a bit and punctuality is not my forte and I refuse to be bound by the constricts of the calendar year and its arbitrary subdivisions; seems convenient to post it just before I fuck off on holiday though ALBUMS 1. Susanne Sundfør, Ten Love Songs the transition between the 10-minute orchestral epic of "Memorial" and the thunderous disco of "Delirious" is vertiginous and explosive 2. Miguel, Wildheart the bareness and pureness of the incredible closing pair is magnified by the sordid-twisted-glamour that precedes it, all roleplay and shifting idealised romantic scenarios 3. Ashley Monroe, The Blade even more than before, it feels like you could wring feeling from her voice. starts with her leaving - an anthem; ends with her leaving - a shrug; in between, all the reasons why 4. Abra, Rose so much snap to the beats, so much space, such judicious use of piano. "everyone's talkin bout their fallback game, game, game, but I ain't got no chill cuz love is like a drug to me" 5. Honey Cocaine, The Gift Rap EP shout-out to any Cambodian-Canadian rapper who can be hard as fuck and candyfloss-soft at the same time, and also call one of her songs "Honeydick" 6. Vince Staples, Summertime '06 tense and humid like Mezzanine-era Massive Attack. "that and all the featuring birds being of the topley variety" - rtc on ilx 7. Nozinja, Nozinja Lodge maybe the most fun, danceable album ever released on warp 8. Kehlani, You Should Be Here the confidence to be completely matter-of-fact and unshowy 9. Sasha Go Hard, Nutty World 2 "my daughter will eat - for her I will dead 'em." the hunger, the focus, the absolute impatience with fuckbois - it all seems to have Sasha's motherhood as its subtext 10. Torres, Sprinter it's been over a decade since I heard a voice in alt/indie that captured the blood-and-guts catharsis of '90s female singer-songwriters like this 11. Skales, Man Of The Year afrobeats isn't really meant to be an ~album genre obv but this has a ton of bangers on it 12. Flava D, More Love initially thought this was less an album, more a collection of r&b garage refixes given how much it's carried by some very obvious samples, but in terms of enjoyability and repeat plays that's only ended up a positive 13. Carly Rae Jepsen, E·MO·TION I don't quite get the projected fascination for CRJ-as-perfect-popstar but there are definitely some excellent pop songs here even if it does sputter out towards the end - "Run Away With Me" should be the triumphant closer goddamnit 14. Hunee, Hunch Music long run out of words to describe house and techno but you'll like this if you liked Leon Vynehall last year 15. Years & Years, Communion Savage Garden reincarnated as gay 2015 romantics; or, Hot Chip with actual massive pop choruses and a slightly - but only slightly - less weedy singer 16. Future, DS2 I enjoy post-break-up bitter cold unpleasant Future way more than warbly romantic Future, it feels more…honest 17. Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment, Surf love how this feels so organic, like a band jamming in a room with unexpected guests wandering in and out to say their piece 18. Natasha Mosley, Rose Hall singer-songwriterly r&b; a good companion piece to the Kehlani album, more dark and vulnerable - not every artist has to be an ultra-confident boss 19. Holly Herndon, Platform not sure I get the rhetoric around this and no idea what ASMR is but this is a very pretty-sounding album 20. Creta Kano, Skyway Motel EP yet another brilliant house 12" discovered through a Shanti Celeste mix 21. Blondes, Rein a 50-minute track made in a weekend studio binge yes please 22. JME, Integrity> vegan jokes: yes; music industry shop talk: no 23. Prurient, Frozen Niagara Falls some of the most beautiful music I've heard this year (the pretty instrumental tracks) interspersed with some of the most unlistenable (the growling metal vox) unfortunate disappointments from Kacey Musgraves (where oh where has the nuance in her songwriting gone, the album is peopled by cardboard cut-outs and sung by someone fitting herself into a reductive box) and Ciara (a decade of stanning fruitlessly for her and the minute she finally gets a degree of shine she releases the most characterless album of her career) though :( TRAX 1. Demi Lovato, "Cool For The Summer" 2. Tchami ft. Stacy Barthe, "After Life" 3. Dotorado Pro, "African Scream" 4. JME ft. Skepta, Shorty & Frisco, "Don't @ Me" 5. Young Thug, "Pacifier" 6. Paul Woolford, "MDMA" 7. PVC, "Levitate" 8. JoJo, "Far From Heaven" 9. Vybz Kartel ft. Konshens, Spice & Gaza Tussan, "Dancehall (Remix)" 10. T Q D, "Day & Night" 11. Dexta Daps, "7Eleven" 12. Uhuru ft. Wizkid, "Duze" 13. Janet Jackson, "No Sleeep" 14. Spice, "Back Bend" 15. YG, "Twist My Fingaz" 16. Sevyn Streeter, "4th Street" 17. Tifa, "Tip Fi Di Strip" 18. Camelphat ft. A*M*E, "Paradigm (Amtrac's Temptation Mix)" 19. Gee ft. Wizkid & Wally Seck, "Yallah Bahna" 20. DeJ Loaf ft. Big Sean, "Back Up" 21. Dawn Richard, "James Dean" 22. Lil Mama, "Sausage" 23. Lido & Canblaster, "Superspeed" 24. Jack J, "Thirstin'" 25. Gazza ft. Uhuru & DJ Buckz, "Shuna" 26. Stush ft. Frisco, "The Return" 27. Davido ft. Uhuru & DJ Buckz, "The Sound" 28. Kehlani ft. Iamsu!, G-Eazy & Lil B, "Champion" 29. Kid Ink ft. DeJ Loaf, "Be Real" 30. TRC & Princess Nyah, "Butterflies" 31. Lana Del Rey, "Honeymoon" 32. Meek Mill, "Monster" 33. FKA Twigs, "Glass & Patron" 34. Tazer ft. Tink, "Wet Dollars (Remix)" Spotify playlist, as irritatingly incomplete as ever. Is anyone still using Spotify or has everyone moved to Apple Music? I have almost no interest in it because why would I want a corporation or algorithms to make my playlists when I can do that better myself?

Screaming

my favourite music of Q1, 2015

ALBUMS 1. Dawn Richard, Blackheart 2. Jazmine Sullivan, Reality Show 3. Rae Sremmurd, SremmLife 4. Levon Vincent, Levon Vincent 5. Sleater-Kinney, No Cities To Love 6. Björk, Vulnicura 7. Kendrick Lamar, To Pimp A Butterfly 8. Estelle, True Romance 9. Jam City, Dream A Garden 10. Laura Marling, Short Movie 11. Vakula, A Voyage To Arcturus 12. Nidia Minaj, Danger 13. Father, Who's Gonna Get Fucked First? 14. Romare, Projections 15. Madonna, Rebel Heart TRAX 1. Fetty Wap, "Trap Queen" 2. Ashley Monroe, "On To Something Good" 3. Higher Self ft. Lauren Mason, "Ghosts" 4. Sevyn Streeter ft. Chris Brown, "Don't Kill The Fun" 5. Busiswa ft. DJ Buckz & Uhuru, "Lahla" 6. Nicki Minaj ft. Drake & Lil Wayne, "Truffle Butter" 7. Skepta, "Shutdown" 8. Maliibu N Helene, "Figure 8" 9. Presh ft. Davido, "Say Dem Say" 10. Róisín Murphy, "Jealousy" 11. Rihanna, "Bitch Better Have My Money" 12. Natalie La Rose ft. Jeremih, "Somebody" 13. Heavy-K ft. Tresor, "#GiveMeLuv" 14. DJ Sprinkles & Mark Fell, "Fresh" 15. Jidenna ft. Roman GianArthur, "Classic Man" 16. Luke James, "Bad News" 17. Bobby Brackins ft. Zendaya & Jeremih, "My Jam" 18. Mutya Keisha Siobhan, "Back In The Day" 19. Stormzy, "Know Me From" 20. Honey Cocaine, "Sundae" 21. Krystal Klear ft. Yasmin, "One Night Only" 22. Maya Vik, "Y.M.D. (Young Michael Douglas)" 23. V. Bozeman, "Race Jones" 24. Braiden, "Apex Of The Sun's Way" 25. Kassem Mosse & Simone White, "Flowers In May" 26. Lindstrøm & Grace Hall, "Home Tonight" 27. Shift K3Y, "Name And Number" 28. Tamia, "Sandwich And A Soda" 29. Brookes Brothers ft. Camille, "Anthem (Scales Remix)" 30. Davido, "Owo Ni Koko" Woefully incomplete Spotify playlist if you must; my position on all streaming services remains "fuck these useless platforms that only provide half of what I want to listen to".

while I'm here, a link-dump

My Tumblr has long been dormant - I don't log in let alone use it these days - but while I'm here I may as well ~curate some of what I've written since, er, last July. Gazelle Twin interview for Wondering Sound. Body horror, puberty, ill health and her terrifying, brilliant album Unflesh, which I also reviewed for The Quietus. 20 years of Rinse FM for The Guardian. Basically a journey to respectability for the former pirate station - and why that shouldn't be conflated with losing the station's edge. Sarah Soulja and Geeneus were amazing interviewees, and this piece could have been three times the length. Mirel Wagner interview for Wondering Sound. The monstrosity of humanity, sung comfortingly on her incredible (and way underrated) album When The Cellar Children See The Light Of Day and spoken calmly over a cup of tea to me. Azealia Banks album review for The Guardian. It grew on me more after I wrote this but has had diminishing returns this year. Nicki Minaj first-listen album track-by-track for The Guardian. This mostly terrible album has not grown on me in the slightest. She's so clearly pop's MVP at her best - of which there were so many examples throughout 2014 - but it's not the fact that she made a drizzly feelings album that's disappointing, but that her mode of confessionalism sounds rigid and uninvolving. K. Michelle interview for The Fader. SHE'S SO AMAZING. My favourite album of 2014, my favourite interviewee of 2014 and someone who should be being unanimously heralded as one of the most important artists around right now. Blog for the Guardian about Dawn Richard being criminally underrated. Where is the critical traction for her astounding new album? Why do so many critics apparently only get their music through PR channels? Why do we have to talk about boring, irrelevant shit like the Grammys? I also reviewed Blackheart for FACT. It is mind-blowingly good.

I wrote about Future Brown last week. When the piece was published on the Red Bull website last week, a couple of people groused about the apparent disjoint between its content and the platform. This was a dumb criticism on a few levels. Firstly, the dominance of Red Bull Music Academy as curator, taste-maker, platform and benefactor in "underground" electronic music: there are positives and negatives to corporate patronage, but let's not pretend any of us isn't complicit. Secondly, what even is an ethical platform these days? Are outlets funded by advertising or hidden wealth - which is all of them - any better? If you dig deep and follow the money propping up any given publication, label or artist, you'll probably find worse. Thirdly, as a freelancer one writes for whoever commissions you, a fact of the industry that - like "writers don't write the standfirsts" - we are all sick of pointing out. To cut a long story short it turns out that it wasn't the right platform after all, though not for any of the implied reasons. It's been taken down because Red Bull have concerns that it represents their official point of view - and inevitably, they're working with Future Brown, which seems to be incompatible with criticism of them. So I'm putting it up here instead. Is Future Brown's Shtick 4Real? 17 Feb 2015, originally for redbull.com If the breathless press about them is to be believed, Future Brown's approach to club music is the daring, relevant and real sound of now. They're a US supergroup comprised of four acclaimed underground DJs and producers, Fatima Al Qadiri, J-Cush and Nguzunguzu duo Daniel Pineda and Asma Maroof, who blend their love of global club genres with a sharply defined visual aesthetic and art-school theories about internet connections and commodification. Their music "defies linear narratives", gasped Pitchfork; it's "music for the world we live in", declared The Fader. Really, it’s music that appeals to the worst habits of generation Tumblr, by scattering rappers and vocalists such as Jamaican dancehall queen Timberlee, London grime MC Riko Dan and Chicago rising star Tink inconsequently over otherworldly, future-hood beats. The effect is that of style over substance: great in theory but too reliant on theory to be great. Or even good. Seriously, most of the tunes are just dull. It shouldn't have ended up like this, so what happened? Most of the artists involved in Future Brown have a tantalising track record, as anyone who's witnessed a DJ set by Nguzunguzu or Fatima Al Qadiri can attest. Listen to the former's gorgeous 2011 mix The Perfect Lullaby, on which the duo skilfully blended R&B samples with their own dreamy beats, and the latter's Genre-Specific Xperience EP from the same year, and bear witness not only to their superb taste but their ability to fold it into their own aesthetic without seeming forced or jarring. It can't be denied that the individual legacies of the parties involved have given Future Brown massive benefit of the doubt. As a foursome, however, they can’t seem to pull off the same feat. Their stated aim is one of cultural hybridity, to make, so says their press release, "connections between global street sounds". Articles about them tend to reel off the names of these global genres in an awed tone – footwork, cumbia, reggaeton and grime, among them – and proclaim this magpieism to be "forward-looking". But Future Brown’s album's major flaw is that it sounds curatorial rather than creative: less the soundtrack to an imagined global dancefloor than to an art installation about exoticised street music. Dour synths loom and awkward rhythms clank oppressively on every track; the effect is almost to negate the energy that the guests bring, whether 3D Na'Tee's anger or Timberlee's sexuality, by placing them in such a cold, sterile setting. Like Sonic Youth in the 80s, Future Brown have risen out of the avant-garde New York art scene. Not necessarily a bad thing. A Guardian interview last year casually referred to Future Brown’s "well-connected friends" in the art and fashion worlds; in a Pitchfork interview, meanwhile, Al Qadiri namedropped the Hood By Air and Telfar fashion houses as "old friends", as well as the Shanzhai Biennial art trio. Al Qadiri is also part of the GCC art collective, whose first exhibition centred around the idea of "Gulf futurism", was shown last year at New York's MoMA PS1. It’s the gallery where Future Brown had, a year earlier, played a set accompanied by choreographed basketball drills. The "post-internet lifestyle project" DIS Magazine is a crucial hub, too: not only did it host The Perfect Lullaby, the mix that catapulted Nguzunguzu to prominence, but its co-founder Solomon Chase was responsible for coining the Future Brown moniker while high on mushrooms. This art scene from which Future Brown emerged is one centred around its belief in cultural accelerationism – a kitsch sub-branch of Marxist philosophy that says "the only way to get over capital is through capital". In other words, speeding capitalism to its logical end (and actual end) by exaggerating its most alienating elements. Similarly linked to this scene is the London-based PC Music label, whose shtick is to justify their amateur takes on happy hardcore with derisory grad student blather about deconstructing pop with supposedly exaggeratedly synthetic effects. It encapsulates the blinkered, masturbatory thinking behind a philosophical dead-end, and even ruins the potential value in its frivolity with earnest smugness. In short, the theory amounts to little, the tunes are forgettable, and the protagonists are people who use terms such as "avant streetwear" without a trace of shame. Sound like a genuine blueprint for the future? Guyz? Are Future Brown accelerationists? The group have described the video for their most recent single Vernáculo as "an exercise in capitalist surrealism", in the sense that mimicking and reusing the imagery of advertising ends up looking like a demo version of an advert - only with Future Brown's logo dominating the screen instead of L'Oréal's. Al Qadiri's work with GCC, meanwhile, drew on a similarly whimsical approach to pastiche, mocking the surreal wealth present in the Gulf region. In an acidly pointed criticism of GCC, arts writer Mostafa Heddaya wrote: "Consider two futurisms: future-schlock, which ironically surfs the bewildering commercial and political discourse of change while staking no claim against it, and future-shock, which finds in the future imaginary a radical break from an unjust present." Future Brown are more future-schlock than future-shock. They appropriate styles, from cumbia on Vernáculo to grime on Asbestos, and both times it comes off as a weirdly detached, uncanny-valley version of the genre, as though they are applying the same principles to street music as to the capitalist signifiers the accelerationist scene mocks. Their relationship to both these genres and the guest appearances brought into the fold is a top-down one rather than ground-level; no wonder these beats sound so pristinely lofty juxtaposed with their vocals. It all rather befits a group whose name, bestowed on them by a wealthy white man, echoes ideas of Afrofuturism but implies that their innovation comes from from the digital, “post-internet” ether above localised subcultures. If the language of the art school permeates the Future Brown project, it's also what has made them palatable to a largely middle-class music press in a way that, for example, the solo careers of Shawnna, 3D Na'Tee and Timberlee have not been. This is both telling with regards to issues of class and privilege, and also an immense shame. If what cultural accelerationists such as PC Music have gotten wrong about mainstream commercial pop is that it already comments on, exaggerates and deconstructs itself on a regular basis, the discourse around Future Brown has failed to recognise their collaborators as innovators of long standing in their own right. Take Shawnna, for example, whose career has largely remained in low-key stasis since a brief flirtation with commercial success in the mid-'00s. Despite an acrimonious departure from Ludacris's Disturbing Tha Peace label four years ago, the Chicago rapper has released a number of tracks over the years that confirm her criminally overlooked talent: Nappy Boy, in which she flexes her voice against a fairground beat in a hundred different shapes; Biddy Bye Bye, the soundtrack to a non-existent pulpy western; or last year's Gettin' To It, on which she conveyed uncomfortably accurately the hardened weariness that fighting for so little reward over a decade had engendered. None of these tracks received a thousandth of the attention that her single with Future Brown, Talkin' Bandz, did. Much of the theorising around "internet artists" has been that the internet has been a great leveller, a means of connecting disparate but like-minded artists with each other. What's gone undiscussed is the ease with which artists from priviledged backgrounds, fluent in the promotional use of art-speak, can wrap existing real scenes up in a vague concept, whack on a theoretical layer, then sell it back to us, even though most of the tunes are dud. At the heart of the Future Brown project is a co-option of "hood" artists into a thoroughly bourgeois milieu for the sake of street credibility. It's an old story, so maybe it is music for the world we live in – but it's not such a futuristic concept, after all.

2014 ALBUMS AND SONGS

40 albums, 68 tracks, links to stuff I wrote where relevant, Spotify playlist and bonus bile at the end. ALBUMS 1. K. Michelle, Anybody Wanna Buy A Heart? 2. Miranda Lambert, Platinum 3. Tinashe, Aquarius 4. Mirel Wagner, When The Cellar Children See The Light Of Day 5. Taylor Swift, 1989 6. Angaleena Presley, American Middle Class 7. YG, My Krazy Life 8. Gangsta Boo & La Chat, Witch 9. Francis Harris, Minutes Of Sleep 10. Toni Braxton & Babyface, Love, Marriage & Divorce 11. Cher Lloyd, Sorry I'm Late 12. Gazelle Twin, Unflesh 13. D'Angelo & The Vanguard, Black Messiah 14. Khia Shamone, LoveLocs 15. Call Super, Suzi Ecto 16. Lee Ann Womack, The Way I'm Livin' 17. The Juan Maclean, In A Dream 18. Katie Pearl, Make It Official 19. Fatima, Yellow Memories 20. Mariah Carey, Me. I Am Mariah…The Elusive Chanteuse 21. Tori Amos, Unrepentant Geraldines 22. Kelis, Food 23. Kassem Mosse, Workshop 19 24. Theo Parrish, American Intelligence 25. Leon Vynehall, Music For The Uninvited 26. Mark Barrott, Sketches From An Island 27. Azealia Banks, Broke With Expensive Taste 28. Meshell Ndegéocello, Comet, Come To Me 29. FKA Twigs, LP1 30. Katy B, Little Red 31. Gangsta Boo & Beatking, Underground Cassette Tape Music 32. Danity Kane, DK3 33. Nick Jonas, Nick Jonas 34. Cooly G, Wait 'Til Night 35. Junglepussy, Satisfaction Guaranteed 36. DJ Q, Ineffable 37. DJ Mustard, 10 Summers 38. Frank & Tony, You Go Girl 39. Lord Of The Isles, 301c Symphony 40. Young Marco, Biology TRAX 1. Nicki Minaj, "Lookin' Ass" 2. Kira Isabella, "Quarterback" 3. Mila J, "Smoke, Drink, Break Up" 4. Hodgson, "Babylon System" 5. Rae Sremmurd, "No Flex Zone" 6. Meridian Dan ft. Big H & JME, "German Whip" 7. Jessie Ware, "Tough Love" 8. Kiesza, "Hideaway" (Gorgon City Remix) 9. Jay Baptiste ft. Troy Hudson, "Real Shifters (Get Down)" 10. Davido ft. Mafikizolo, "Tchelete (Good Life)" 11. Neon Jungle, "Braveheart" 12. Trae Tha Truth ft. Young Thug, "Try Me" 13. Kalenna, "Murder" 14. Skepta ft. JME, "That's Not Me" 15. Bobby Shmurda, "Hot Nigga" 16. Runtown ft. Davido, "Gallardo" 17. K. Michelle, "Loyal (Remix)" 18. Katy B, "Vulnerable/Drunk In Love" 19. Cam & China, "Do Dat" 20. Lauryn Hill, "Black Rage (Sketch)" 21. Teyana Taylor ft. Pusha T & Yo Gotti, "Maybe" 22. Beep Dee, "From Above" 23. Oliver $ & Jimi Jules, "Pushing On" 24. DJ Pioneer & TJ ft. Dana McKeon, "Circles" 25. Henry Knight, "Olopa" 26. Yemi Alade, "Johnny" 27. Tifa, "Back It Up" 28. Beyoncé, "7/11" 29. Tamar Braxton ft. Future, "Let Me Know" 30. Netta Brielle, "3xKrazy" 31. Shawnna, "Gettin' To It" 32. Mary J. Blige, "Whole Damn Year" 33. Yemi Marie ft. DLow, "Love Bop" 34. J Capri, "Reverse It" 35. Shanti Celeste, "Days Like This" 36. Ondo Fudd, "There Will Be A Time" 37. Lana Del Rey, "West Coast" (MK Remix) 38. Indiana, "Solo Dancing" (Chris Lake Remix) 39. Calle Lebraun ft. Abbee, "Sometimes I (Fantasize)" 40. Dawn Richard, "Physical" 41. Snootie Wild ft. K. Camp, "Made Me" 42. 2NYO, "Roll With Me" 43. Shackleton, "Freezing Opening Thawing" 44. Professor ft. Speedy, "Baphi" 45. Fuse ODG ft. Sean Paul, "Dangerous Love" 46. DJ Khaled ft. Remy Ma, "They Don't Love You No More (Remix)" 47. Syap, "Your Hate" 48. Le1f, "Sup" 49. Shanell, "Stay Down" 50. Shiba San, "Okay" 51. Sinead Harnett, "High Wire" 52. QQ, "Mosquito Net" 53. Jordin Sparks, "It Ain't You" 54. Latifa Tee, "Games" 55. Baauer ft. AlunaGeorge & Rae Sremmurd, "One Touch" 56. Floating Points, "Nuits Sonores" 57. Vybz Kartel ft. Denyque, "Revenge" 58. Toyboy & Robin ft. Alex Adams, "Better Places" 59. Galcher Lustwerk, "Chillin' In The Booth" 60. Marquis Hawkes, "Can't Find A Reason" 61. Ten Walls, "Walking With Elephants" 62. Lafawndah, "Butter" 63. Maddie & Tae, "Girl In A Country Song" 64. YT Triz ft. Bobby Shmurda, "How Can I Lose" 65. Honey Cocaine, "Icey Bitch" (Syap Edit) 66. RS4 ft. Kadey James, "Gladiator" 67. Annie ft. Bjarne Melgaard, "Russian Kiss" 68. Iggy Azalea ft. Charli XCX, "Fancy" Spotify playlist of all possible songs and selected cuts off the albums. Youtube playlist of the rest. BONUS BILE Every time I heard "Happy" the thought crossed my mind that it might be the worst song ever written: it's certainly the song that's most evocative of joyless corporate convention singalongs. I found the critical lionisation of Tink and her non-voice that carries two inches baffling. I thought Fatima Al Qadiri's chintzy pastiche of a non-existent genre redundant and the art school concept unconvincing, and her Future Brown project is offensive both for its co-option of "hood" artists into a bourgeois milieu and for how bloody dry it is. It was fitting that Meghan Trainor should rise to prominence in a year when "basic" as an insult was ubiquitous. Ariel Pink remains the worst cunt in music. I hadn't heard of indie dullards War On Drugs or Sun Kil Moon before their dominance of year-end lists and now I wish I could rewind time. Rap needs to get over Autotune vomit as a signifier of euphoria (or people vomiting at parties? idk) and also as a signifier of ~feelings. Actually, any artist who isn't going to put some blood and guts into their ~feelings should probably get over them. But for the absolute worst music had to offer in 2014 it's impossible to see beyond PC Music: a contemptuous, moronic joke with no punchline except that every generation is beset by people who claim a fascination with pop but seem to have missed that it already satirises, refracts and comments on itself every day, and doing this so clunkily and awkwardly is the most obvious kind of anti-pop move there is, and we've seen it before so fuck you and fuck off.

Tumblr is only a repository for my work these days but I've somehow still not even logged in for a month. Lots to update when I can be bothered but here is a piece on Sia's songwriting career and new album. Spoiler: I think she's a massive hack and generally an awful thing for pop.

#sia

unforcederrani-blog

Ana Konjuh (CRO) d. Stephanie Vogt (LIE) 75 63

Made a beeline for this immediately to find both totally dominant on serve - the vast majority of points were aces, unreturned serves or one-two punches. Konjuh’s serve is massive, Vogt’s less so but well-placed, and Konjuh’s timing on both returns...

unforcederrani-blog

Ana Konjuh (CRO) d. (14) Estrella Cabeza Candela (ESP) 60 61

Konjuh is the player I most wanted to see in qualifying, but I took the risk that she’d win today. Rocked up late, caught the last couple of games in which Cabeza Candela played the role of fly, and Konjuh the fly swat.

Eri Hozumi...

katherinestasaph

Mary Hopkin meets Emily Bronte, Laura Nyro discovers reggae, Joan Armatrading masquerades as Joni Mitchell — comparisons with other vocalists are inevitable, but Kate Bush won’t be stuck with them for long.

A review of The Kick Inside, 1978. IF ONLY THE WRITER KNEW. (via katherinestasaph)

TAKING STOCK, MARCH 2014

These are the tracks I've been obsessing about this year. Katy B, "Vulnerable/Drunk In Love" I'm enjoying Little Red more than I initially thought I would - every ingredient for a botch job is here, from Guy Chambers collaborations to terrible, single-frontloading sequencing to baffling bonus track choices, but somehow within it all lurks a very decent album. But the most revelatory Katy B work of 2014 are these live covers, in which she takes one unremarkable original and one (rightly) ubiquitous original, and turns them inside out. Finding the dark side of a pop song is a cliché, but Katy sells the unrequited neediness hard. The lurch into "I've been drinking, I've been drinking" is one of dread; "how the hell did this shit happen?" is pure hungover doom. Katy recasts Beyoncé's anthem of long-term monogamy back to uncertain singledom and wasted one-night stands. Tinashe ft. Schoolboy Q, "2 On" I'd dutifully listened to three Tinashe mixtapes before this year, one of which contained the original "Vulnerable", and she really seemed like yet another frail-voiced post-Cassie waif being colourless over sub-Drake subaquatic beats. Whatever. But hooking up with DJ Mustard is such a good look for her - his snaps and bass give Tinashe the oomph she lacks on her own, and her dry ice approach to singing works so much better when it's juxtaposed with a beat with actual physicality to it. And though I was sold on the song long before it happened, that glacially enunciated interpolation of Sean Paul towards the end is a stroke of recontextualising genius. Mariah Carey, "You're Mine (Eternal)" It's such a lovingly crafted, delicate crystal vase of a song - the kind of time-stopping reverie Mariah's done many times before, but lavishes care and embellishments (the piano motif! the way the percussion rattles!) on like the massive audio nerd she is. The sound is so beautiful that it takes a couple of listens to realise she's using words like "suffered" and "suffocating": like her finest ever song, "Breakdown", she's in a state of emotional collapse, but perfectly comfortable there. DJ Pioneer & TJ ft. Dana McKeon, "Circles" The imperial period of UK vocal house, part one. An oddly similar reverie to the Mariah single, except this takes place drifting away on the dancefloor rather than reclining on a chaise longue. Everything about the ebbs and flows of the beat and Dana McKeon's abstracted performance is worthy of getting lost in. Kiesza, "Hideaway (Gorgon City Remix)" The imperial period of UK vocal house, part two. I love Kiesza's use of the word "just" in this song: you may take her higher than before and keep her breathing, but that's nothing... Redlight ft. Lotti, "36" The imperial period of UK vocal house, part three: if Kiesza was qualified euphoria, this is unbridled euphoria. Love the "woo!"s. Neon Jungle, "Braveheart" It's been slightly confusing to see US pop critics get on board the Little Mix bandwagon in a big way recently. As much as I approve of what they're going for stylistically, Writing's On The Wall-era Destiny's Child retreads just show up how little they've transcended their X Factor amateurishness (lest we forget, they impressed a grand total of once on the show). And their persona is still stuck on that desperate "likeability" that this country's Saturday evening light entertainment culture tries to reduce everyone to - fearful of offending a bigoted audience quick to punish any celebrity, especially female ones, for putting a foot out of line. I don't want to set up a false dichotomy, but this single from fellow UK girl group Neon Jungle presses all my buttons immediately. They're a long way from having the kind of clearly defined aesthetic that Girls Aloud and Sugababes nailed off the bat, but "Braveheart" is sharp-elbowed and rambunctious, has a rap that disdains bougie bitches and hipster chicks, and about as terrific a use of THE DROP in a pop song as you'll hear in 2014. In other words, there's an element of that don't-give-a-fuck fierceness that I always crave in a girl group. QQ, "Mosquito Net" I can't wait for carnival, part one. All about QQ's ad libs - the hmphs, the brrrs, the gal!s - and I love that his cadence mirrors the relentless energy of Lady Saw and Ce'Cile's all-time classic "Loser". J Capri, "Reverse It" Vybz Kartel ft. J Capri, "Mamacita" I can't wait for carnival, parts two and three. I want to crown J Capri the female dancehall MVP of 2014 on the basis of these alone. Aggressive sexuality over martial beats and digital steel pans forever, basically. Kalado, "Pree Money & Gyal" I can't wait for carnival, part four. One of those hooks that's been stuck indelibly and defiantly in my head for a while now, I'm happy with that. Yemi Alade, "Johnny" I can't wait for carnival, part five: afrobeats version. I love the low-key nomadic monomania of this. Shawnna, "Gettin' To It" Shawnna Singles Of The '10s That No One Else Cares About is easily one of my favourite genres of this decade - I still find the reeling acrobatics of 2010's "Nappy Boy" and 2011's sinister spaghetti western "Biddy Bye Bye" astonishing. Lately, a certain ragged weariness has crept into her rapping and bragging - perhaps the weariness that comes after over a decade in the game, having repeatedly proven your incredible talent (on, for example, the GOAT rap performance of the '00s) and still being ignored by the misogynistic rap internet and still having to hustle and grind ("waking from nightmares and not being rich"). It doesn't make Shawnna sound tired, though - it just magnifies the comic book villainness characters she takes on, slithering her way through the beat with laser focus, still confident in her ability to kill her rivals, resigned to her destiny in doing just that: "Fucked with the game, now I married the prick." Nicki Minaj, "Lookin' Ass Nigga" Brilliant misandry from the best rapper of our era. Que, "OG Bobby Johnson" When the DJ dropped this before Future's debut London show a couple of weeks ago, the entire venue went nuts: like "Bugatti" or "Versace" last year, it's one of those songs from an unknown or undistinguished name that feels like it's taken on a life of its own through sheer force of charisma, despite ostensibly sounding exactly like a thousand other mixtape trap cuts. Que really sells it, from the POW! attention-seizing opening lyric to the half-barked, half-muttered title to the flashes of emotion in lines like "Free my niggas locked behind bars"; he performs as though there's a lot at stake, and those lines reveal what it is. Big Von ft. Keak Da Sneak, The Jacka & Mickey Shiloh, "Windows" Big Von's stuttery growl, like E-40 with a sore throat, is the perfect foil for that beat. And yassss when it goes all Latin freestyle. Annie ft. Bjarne Melgaard, "Russian Kiss" I really appreciate how Annie brought out the bassiest, hardest dance track she's ever done in service of a well-executed and timely protest video. Ondo Fudd, Coup d'État EP The switch-up to Kompakty prettiness and bird noises midway through "There Will Be A Time" is next-level. Techno with so many little details to get lost in. Lord Of The Isles, 301c Symphony EP, Kurve EP Epic, beautiful techno - the string-drenched climax of the full-length version of "CO2O" on 301c Symphony goes on for what feels like forever, in the best way. ALBUMS: LOVE Kelis, Food Toni Braxton & Babyface, Love, Marriage & Divorce Kassem Mosse, Workshop 19 Neneh Cherry, Blank Project ALBUMS: LIKE VERY MUCH Katy B, Little Red DJ Q, Ineffable Hauschka, Abandoned City Schoolboy Q, Oxymoron Algebra Blessett, Recovery K. Michelle, Still No Fucks Given Skrillex, Recess Todd Terje, It's Album Time v/a, Acid Arab Collections ALBUMS: ADMIRE, WILL NEVER LISTEN Untold, Black Light Spiral ALBUMS: HAVE THEIR MOMENTS, BUT DISAPPOINTING Angel Haze, Dirty Gold Fatima Al Qadiri, Asiatisch ALBUMS: HATE, PLEASE GO AWAY Pharrell Williams, G I R L St. Vincent, St. Vincent Actress, Ghettoville Planningtorock, All Love's Legal

Kelis's new album is amazing, as was her show last night at Metropolis Studios (which was less a "room" and more "a small strip of space in front of a stage"). Five stars!

#kelis

I wrote about Nicki Minaj's brilliant misandry for Electronic Beats. I am SO HYPED for what she's going to do this year.

#nicki minaj

I interviewed Toni Braxton and Babyface for the Guardian. She's one of the most amusing divas I've talked to - but it's hard-won and super-interesting given she was at rock bottom a year ago. And their new album is really wonderful.

#toni braxton #babyface

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