Exit...Van Left

Sharing music and occasional thoughts. Trying to act coolly detached.

[exitvanleft]

Top Albums of 2014, #5-3

Second-to-last post of this list - the final two will be up by year's end, along with some sort of top songs post. Maybe a mixtape?

5. FKA twigs, LP1

I reviewed this article in full here, and what I said still stands about it, with one exception: I implied that twigs could have pop crossover potential. As my brother put it when he listened to her, “It’s just too weird.” Fair enough. When I conjure my memories of LP1, I think of the Air Supply-referencing bridge of “Two Weeks”, the release of tension when the chorus resolves on “Pendulum”, and the show-stopping, tender plea of “Closer”.

But when I actually listen to the album, there are so many booby traps meant to ward off casual listeners that I understand what my brother was saying. The intro track, “Preface”, is like a church hymn, but twisted and creepy. Immediately following that, “Lights On” begins with a dissonant, backwards guitar lead. Choices like this are throughout the album, seemingly intent on obscuring great R&B hooks and generally great songwriting. For those who take their listening experiences seriously, though, those rough edges only enhance the experience. The subject matter of lots of these songs is dark and challenging, and the production fits the mood perfectly.

4. Todd Terje, It’s Album Time

Along with Duck Sauce’s Quack, this is the album with the biggest, goofiest grin of any made this year. Even though only one track has any vocals (“Johnny and Mary”, a heartache-inducing beauty of a Robert Palmer cover sung by Bryan Ferry), every other song has so much personality and is sequenced in such a lively fashion that it will keep even non-dance music geeks interested.

Todd Terje is one of the absolute best dance producers in the world right now, and while everyone else seems to be going bigger and bigger (Hudson Mohawke, Rustie, Skrillex, etc.), Terje’s music comes off as downright humble in comparison. No drops to be had here; all of his “big” moments come after journeys to get there, and taken out of context, they might seem like nothing special. If you took the absolutely silky disco guitar riff in the back half of standout track “Delorean Dynamite” and stuck it in the beginning, you’d have a good vibe, but not much else. It’s Terje’s patience and trust in his listeners to take the journey with him that provides the big rewards here.

Take penultimate track “Oh Joy”. It’s perhaps Terje’s biggest piece on the album (definitely the longest), and immediately establishes with those first three notes the essential figure of the piece. It even has a big crescendo fairly early in the piece. But throughout this space-disco odyssey, Terje pulls back and exhales, only to build back up, bigger and brighter than before. By the time the track reaches its final, ecstatic climax, you will feel as if you have been taken on a glorious ride. And you will be right.

Oh, and the final track, “Inspector Norse”, is Todd’s best-known track and was a big single before the album was even announced. It’s also, I believe, one of the best pieces of wordless electronic music ever created and a testament to the power of one simple groove, masterfully deployed.

  3. Flying Lotus, You’re Dead!

Of all of the albums that I’ve struggled to describe on this list, You’re Dead! is the toughest. It’s an album of jazz, hip hop, and electro swirling together in a kaleidoscopic array of shapes and colors. Kendrick Lamar and Snoop Dogg show up. Herbie Hancock plays keyboards on a couple of songs. It’s all crazy.

“Turkey Dog Coma” is crazy. But “Turtles” (that's a crappy live version, but instructive in just how trippy FlyLo is) is just a tranquil hip hop beat, and its beauty is magnified by its presence among such craziness. The same goes for the heavenly “Coronus, The Terminator”.

Flying Lotus stated he wanted to make an album to explore the moment of death, and the emotions and thoughts of the dying. I’m not qualified to evaluate whether or not he succeeded at that goal. I do know that there are several tracks that could be plausible soundtracks to a classic “go towards the light” cinematic death sequence (“Siren Song”, “Obligatory Cadence”, “Your Potential//The Beyond”, none of which have easy links - just trust me). So at the very least, he created music that could score death’s approach as a psychedelic experience, not a frightful one. In that way, he succeeded.

Depending on your mood when you give You’re Dead! a shot, the album might seem overly dense, or like a blast of jazz noise, or simply too all-over-the-place. But if it catches you at the right moment, I guarantee it will be the most transcendent listening experience you’ll have had all year.

Happy holidays! Bother your family with all of these songs as you listen to them.

[exitvanleft]

Top Albums of 2014, #10-6

10. Freddie Gibbs & Madlib, Piñata

I reviewed this album in full here, so I’ll give you the short version here. Piñata is a solid, straightforward hip hop album. Madlib is an all-time great producer, and his beats are kind of traditionalist here, but they are so full of wonderful soul samples and quirky surprises that no one will ever mind. Freddie Gibbs has a flow so reliable and malleable that it can fit any beat, so why not give him some of the best? The only thing that held Piñata back this year was that its two creators are so reliably good that when they came together, no one was surprised when they made something great. One last thing: If you can’t bounce to “Harold’s”, I don’t want to know you.

9. Duck Sauce, Quack

Armand Van Helden is a great dance producer, and he’s half of Duck Sauce, but let’s talk about the other half for a second: A-Trak.

He co-founded, and still co-manages, Fool’s Gold records, who have given us Danny Brown, Run The Jewels, and countless fantastic dance singles. He is a world-class turntableist and has been since his teenage years. He partnered with Cam’ron for one of the best songs of 2014, “Dipshits”. He is, by all accounts, a fantastically nice person, and one of the most popular figures in dance music worldwide.

Duck Sauce is his side project. It is what he does with his buddy Armand for kicks. As a result, their album Quack - their first, and who knows if it’ll be their last, with how busy they are - is unencumbered by ambition, a quest to leave a mark, or be considered great. All those urges are in these artists, but they’re exercised in other venues. Quack is for fun. And it is as fun as it could possibly be.

All of Duck Sauce’s big singles are on here (updated slightly) - “aNYway” from 2009 (with one of the most fun music videos ever), “Barbra Streisand”, the one everyone knows from 2010, and others - but the newest one, “NRG”, is the standout. It’s a mad scientist’s concoction of Motown, 80’s heavy metal (the bright and shiny kind), and disco with a BPM higher than all of them. Again, click on the track to see a fantastic video.

Every track is followed by a short sketch, like many hip hop albums, only the majority of these are actually funny. My favorite is the prank call after “Ring Me”. At points, that can dull the momentum slightly - that’s why it’s not higher on this list - but overall, it just heightens the silliness of the whole affair. None of the tracks are all that complicated, but they all have hooks, and they’re all catchy. Put this on at a party (keep an eye on it so you can skip some of the sketches, or buy the DJ version), and no one will be mad at you.

  8. Spoon, They Want My Soul

Man, Spoon have been around forever. Like the National, they never overhaul their formula, and you’d be forgiven for forgetting which of your favorite songs comes from which album. Spoon have been doing it for even longer than the National, however, and they may have released their best album this year. It’s impossible to pin down what prevents this band from getting boring, even though they still sound pretty much the same as they did 12 years ago - crunchy guitars, Britt Daniel’s raspy voice, reliably uncomplicated hooks, British Invasion-by-way-of-Texas rock. Part of their appeal has to come from the fact that they’re so obviously unconcerned with being or remaining “cool” - which, as everyone knows, is the key ingredient in actually being cool.

In truth, there is something different about They Want My Soul. It’s always a tricky game giving producers credit, but Dave Fridmann is a different kind of producer. He is normally associated with more psychedelic outfits like The Flaming Lips, Tame Impala and MGMT, so a lot of his studio flourishes that fit perfectly within those bands’ aesthetics jump out at longtime Spoon fans. Early Spoon records were almost defined by their dry production, showcasing their gritty guitar sound and percussive style. They Want My Soul doesn’t have any revolutionary leaps forward in style, but Fridmann’s production lends more drama to the proceedings, so that a listener takes more note of the difference between the slow songs ("Inside Out") and the fast ones ("Rainy Taxi"), the (relatively) soft songs ("Knock Knock Knock") and the loud ones ("Do You", the best song of the album, and possibly, of all of 2014).

Normally, when a veteran frontman like Britt Daniel says things like, "We felt, to some degree, like we were getting back to the essence of Spoon; just having fun playing together, and [...] figuring out new ways of doing what we've always done," I tend to scoff. Everyone says that. It’s damn refreshing that Spoon actually fucking did it.

7. A Sunny Day In Glasgow, Sea When Absent

A quick rundown of how this album was made (skip this paragraph if you know): Ben Daniels, chief songwriter, had a few song ideas. He emailed his ideas to the rest of his band, scattered among Philadelphia, New York and Australia. They emailed back their thoughts, some audio fragments, and over a long email chain, they created Sea When Absent, finally coming together in Philadelphia to record finished versions of the songs together.

Amazingly, with all that disconnection, Sea When Absent is put together a lot more simply than ASDIG’s previous album, Ashes Grammar. If you’ve never heard this band before, then a song like “In Love With Useless (The Timeless Geometry in the Tradition of Passing)” must be disorienting - yes, there are some great pop melodies in this song, but they’re all jumbled up, overlapping and interrupting each other. Yet for fans of the band, Sea When Absent is a cleaning up of their act. The hooks are more accessible, the tracks (only 12 of them this time) are better defined, and it’s an album you can pick up and put down, as opposed to the tome that was Ashes Grammar.

There are the shoegaze tendencies that everyone mentions in describing this band, starting immediately. The fuzzy guitar riffs that start “The End (Bye Bye Big Ocean)” and “The Body, It Bends” are straight out of My Bloody Valentine, for example, and the introspective quality of the music, enhanced by the female singers’ whispery, barely intelligible lyrics, feeds that image as well. But there are too many moments when the cobwebs clear and beautiful pop music, with some electro (and even hip hop) influences, shines through to confine ASDIG as a shoegaze band.

Maybe the relative isolation of the band members allowed lots of different ideas to make it into the finished product, without any overriding vision cutting out tangents. Maybe it didn’t matter, and that’s just how A Sunny Day in Glasgow rolls. Either way, Sea When Absent is an album for eyes-closed listening, for stretching your arms out and trying to catch all the pretty things flowing past you.

6. The War On Drugs, Lost In The Dream

Yes, The War On Drugs kinda sound like Springsteen, or the more coked-out versions of Tom Petty (that one’s more a vocal comparison). Lots of my friends dislike the Boss (I know, right?), and they dislike this band. That’s fine. 

If you are not the sort of person who would give The War On Drugs a shot, that’s also fine. This is not one of those bands (and there are plenty) for whom overt cajoling is a valid method of winning fans. The appeal of Lost In The Dream is immediate - familiar-feeling guitar solos, draped in reverb but not distortion, propulsive percussion, an exquisite sense of dynamics and timing, to name a few. This is a fussed-over record, with basic and unassuming rock skeletons being coaxed and prodded into sounding classic and meaningful. Lead single “Red Eyes” is the exemplar - checking the referents named above, sounding familiar and exciting, with a world-beating climax and the best use of “WOOO” in a song this year.

Lost In A Dream is so brilliantly produced, it transforms a song like “Eyes to the Wind” - a slowish, pedal-steel ballad straight out of late-period Tom Petty - into a stunner. If you just took the acoustic guitar, pedal steel, drums and vocals, you’d have a basic dad-rock song. But there are dozens of lush sounds that take The War On Drugs’ sound into the stratosphere time after time. For God’s sake, it makes the saxophone vamp near the end of the song sound earned. It’s dark wizardry.

Of all the beautiful music made this year, Lost In A Dream was definitely the album that had to work the hardest to sound beautiful. And its success in doing so justifies its lofty placement on all year-end lists.

  Thanks for reading. Once again, click on all the songs to give them a listen, and let me know if you're curious about any of these artists. The top five are coming soon.

[exitvanleft]

Top Albums of 2014, #15-11

All of the links in this post take you to the albums or tracks, so you can listen while you read. Enjoy.

15. Azealia Banks, Broke With Expensive Taste

Azealia Banks can do whatever the fuck she wants. She’s got a classic, knotty NYC flow (Harlem stand up), but she also has a silky voice, at home as a diva on a house track. She’s got indie cred thanks to a ludicrous Ariel Pink collab (“Nude Beach a Go-Go”). Some might say she shouldn’t put it ALL in one album, and this record does come off as exceedingly random. And yet, Azealia is so damn talented and gives no fucks, two qualities that shine so brightly that I can’t help but be charmed.

Her stone-classic “212” is still on this album, even though it’s old. After that, the run of “Heavy Metal And Reflective”, “Bbd” and “Ice Princess” (with an AraabMuzik beat that could definitely be considered a trap Christmas carol) are all sneering rap over gigantic electro beats and possibly the strongest section of the album. Surrounding that are all manner of mixed-up rap-pop-dance tracks that sometimes come brilliantly together, and sometimes struggle to make sense. But Broke With Expensive Taste is a worthwhile showcase of an obscenely talented artist trying to figure out if there’s anything she can’t do.

14. Shamir, Northtown EP

He’s 19, and his voice is a countertenor, in technical terms (that means it’s a really high voice). When he sings in his upper range, his voice pierces the air like a piccolo. His debut EP has two disco tracks with some ‘90s house sounds thrown in - “If It Wasn’t True” and “Sometimes A Man” - and they’re both fantastic. It also has two ballads, one R&B and one country(?) - “I’ll Never Be Able To Love” and “Lived And Died Alone” (a Lindi Ortega cover). They’re both emotional and affecting. All four of those tracks are anchored by Shamir’s one-of-a-kind, showstopping voice.

But “I Know It’s A Good Thing”, a sparse track with only a thumping, low piano and minimalist beat, is the stunner. Without Shamir’s voice, the track is a boring skeleton. With his voice, the song becomes a midtempo diva wailer a la “I Will Survive” - not as direct a message, but just as thrilling a vocal performance. Even though the character of the piano may recall Feist to some, make no mistake: this track will make you move, and Shamir’s world-beating voice is its heart, just like it is for the rest of this exhilarating debut.

13. Aphex Twin, Syro

I feel brutally under-qualified to talk about Syro. Aphex Twin - a man in the absolutely highest echelon of renown for electronic producers - has been making music since 1987, hadn’t released an album since 2002, and came back as if absolutely nothing had changed, except he remains ahead of the curve in terms of both making his music (he designed and built many of the instruments he used on the album) and marketing it (google this one, trust me). Aphex - birth name Richard D. James - is in the rarefied air of artists who got famous making music in the 90’s, when everything was a little more ubiquitous, and are still vital. Now these artists have the power to make and release music however, and whenever, they want (see: Radiohead, Daft Punk).

Even though this album is largely wordless, it still feels like it’s in another language. It’s electronic music, but it’s certainly not dance music. There are tracks that are hopelessly complicated, with more strands of sound than I can count, and there’s closing track “Aisatsana”, which is one piano figure and some atmospheric sounds - and that’s it (great story about its creation here). Opening track “minipops 67 [120.2][source field mix]” - yes, most track titles are this confusing, as he named them after some of the equipment used to make the songs - is a perfect mission statement for the rest of the album. The beat is shifty, the melodies are catchy but slightly, menacingly off-kilter, and the track never sits still or falls into a real pattern. This is brain music, challenging and engaging.

12. Hundred Waters, The Moon Rang Like A Bell

  Please tell me this is where indie music is headed in the future. Hundred Waters checks so many boxes of that world - wispy female vocalist (Nicole Miglis, who does have range, but not in terms of loud and soft), big and inclusive tunes with vocal harmonies destined for movie trailers - indie movie trailers, of course - and to be licensed in commercials (“Murmurs”), slow and plaintive songs a little too creepy to be a ballad (“Broken Blue”). But Hundred Waters brings something genuinely new to the table.

No, they’re not the first band (not by a long shot) to mix electronic and “organic” elements, but there’s more going on here than some synth drones underscoring a guitar. On The Moon Rang Like A Bell, synths and pianos, drum machines and drum kits, all of them are used and blended together with genius-level production to create an atmosphere in which songs can sound incredibly different (compare the drugged-out “Down From The Rafters” with its immediate follower, the gently jogging “[Animal]”) and yet still of a piece.

Even though there are plenty of quiet moments in the album, there are so much texture blanketing every song that it almost feels like there’s a low-level hum around the album that never lets up - not interference, but a reassuring presence, like a night light barely illuminating an otherwise pitch black hallway. If that sounds nonsensical, it's only because it's so damn hard to put into words how this album really feels to listen to. The Moon Rang Like A Bell may be the most immersive album experience of the year.

11. Cyril Hahn, Voices EP

Here I’ll reveal a little bias I have: I am an absolute sucker for pitch-corrected or otherwise fucked-with vocal samples. There is something so evocative about dehumanizing the most human part of music, and Cyril Hahn has exploded onto the scene in the past couple of years largely due to his skill in this very area. Check out the first thing anyone heard from this guy: his remix of Destiny’s Child’s “Say My Name”, which re-imagines the track as a house-ier Burial track. It’s brilliant.

Voices is Cyril Hahn’s debut EP; it’s only four tracks long, and yet carried more impact than all but two dance music releases this year for me (both of which you’ll read about here soon). The first song, “Slow (feat. Rochelle Jordan)”, lives in that sweet spot between R&B and deep house, and even though the lyrics ask for a patient relationship based on mutual trust and not lust, it still sounds seductive for all its tenderness. In fact, the entire EP, especially second track “Open (feat. Ryan Ashley)” has a tender, emotional feel to it. For “Open”, that feeling comes from the, you guessed it, vocal sampling technique Hahn employs expertly. “Breaking (feat. Javeon)” is a tender, plaintive call for reconciliation over a bit of a slinky, nighttime beat.

At this point, not too many unexpected things can happen in house music. Synths sound like synths here, 4/4 is the tempo, yada yada yada. So rather than try to impress people, Cyril Hahn uses well-worn (and well-loved) sounds to try to connect emotionally to listeners, to get them to feel something more than just the urge to dance. It’s a laudable pursuit, and it’s one that is a lot tougher to pull off than just making a good dance track. Hahn’s success in that goal is driven by the thing for which he named the EP - Voices, and all the different things they can do - and is the reason why he’s on this list.

  Again, just hit me up if you'd like to get a DL of any of these albums. #10-6 should be out on Friday. Thanks for reading, and for listening.

[exitvanleft]

Top Albums of 2014, Honorable Mentions: Top Dawg Division

ScHoolboy Q, Oxymoron

After Q’s buddy Kendrick Lamar released one of the greatest hip hop albums of all time, the next proper album out of Black Hippy and Top Dawg was always going to be a relative disappointment. Because of that, I think Oxymoron didn't get its proper due. ScHoolboy’s persona is darker, so any album that he made to tell a story (like he said he wanted to do) was going to be darker, and some of the darkest moments (“Hoover Street”, “Prescription/Oxymoron”) are some of the best.

The tone isn’t quite consistent, with obvious radio grabs like “Studio” and “What They Want” (though in the case of the latter, I am not mad 2 Chainz showed up) breaking the mood. But ScHoolboy is just so good of a rapper and carries so much charisma that every release of his is going to be compelling. Besides that, TDE’s production crew (with their secret weapon, engineer MixedByAli, who makes every single TDE release sound crisp and unique) always shows out. There isn’t a bad beat on this album. Also, closer “Man of the Year”, despite being happier than every other song on the album, is one of THE tracks of the year. It’s a spiritual successor to “There He Go” and “Hands on the Wheel”, and everyone you know can bounce to it.

Isaiah Rashad, Cilvia Demo

Rashad is TDE’s new guy, hailing from Tennessee and sharing nothing but a label with the Black Hippy folk. But he’s got a strong voice - both artistically and melodically, and his mixtape is the most contemplative release from the best label in hip hop. For his best vocal performance, check out "Heavenly Father", where his sing-rapping resembles a more-chill J Cole.

And speaking of MixedByAli, if you are an audiophile, you owe it to yourself to check this tape out, if only to hear all the different drum effects on this tape. It lends the record a completely unique feel, and combines well with a lot more soulful piano than we’ve heard on any previous TDE releases. There are no bangers on this mixtape, but it’s all the better for it.

  Ab-Soul, These Days...

Ab-Soul is without a doubt the trippiest member of Black Hippy, in terms of both production and lyrical content. The first four tracks of These Days…, from “God’s Reign” through “Dub Sac”, promise the best hip hop album of the year. Then “World Runners” comes on, and oh god is that Lupe Fiasco? What is this chorus?

The album has a hard time recovering from such a garbage track, remaining good-not-great for most of its running time after that. Two notable exceptions: the back half of “Just Have Fun” is actually the title track, and it’s fantastic. Soulful and funky in a way that Ab-Soul has never been before. “Stigmata” is of a piece with the first four tracks - dramatic, trippy and full of fantastic rapping. Soulo’s been called Black Hippy’s human thesaurus, and if you keep your ears pricked, you’ll hear some of the silliest and sharpest wordplay in hip hop today.

The Top 15 starts tomorrow. Tell your friends. And hit me up if you want to hear any of these albums.

[exitvanleft]

Matt's Top Albums of 2014: Honorable Mention, Hipster Death Spiral Division

TV On The Radio, Seeds

Anyone who’s talked to me about music for any length of time knows that TVOTR are my favorite band, really and truly. It’s an emotional, visceral connection that can’t be quantified, though I tried desperately to do so for years. So what I’m about to say, I say with a heavy heart and with full knowledge of how I’m about to go full-hipster: This is officially the moment when TV On The Radio ceased to be interesting and became something resembling popular. I read more words about TVOTR this year than I can ever remember, and it fills me with joy that more people can potentially share the love I have for this band. But please, if you are discovering this band, go back.

Go back to Dear Science, go back to Return to Cookie Mountain and go all the way back to Young Liars. Those are steps forward, fascinating music made passionately and idiosyncratically by voices that didn’t resemble anything else happening at the time. They were chaotic swirls of funk, rock, distortion, over hooks and with two powerhouse lead singers railing against the world they saw around them and saw coming in the distance. Then they moved from Brooklyn to L.A., their bassist died, and they were never going to be the same. Seeds is an album of straightforward rock songs coated in very pretty, very modern production. It is a very good album, made well. But, holy crap, does it make me sad. I will always love this band, but I will never love this album.

[exitvanleft]

FKA Twigs - LP1

After two promising EPs, FKA twigs has fully arrived with her debut full-length LP1. She stands ready to be a cultural force in R&B, a unifying voice behind which lie the fingerprints of producers and composers who have begun to define music today, at least the portion that lies in the current sweet spot between radio play and critical attention.

In the richly innovative field of alternative R&B, there has always been a key theme: reconciling the organic (the voice) with the inorganic (the production). The use of synthesizers and programs rather than live instrumentation has been a relentless force both on the pop charts and on the outskirts of what some might call forward-thinking, or even futuristic. FKA twigs not only features the necessary human-machine dynamic, she heightens it somehow. The interplay between her intensely personal, almost confessional lyrics and the crystalline synth background brings to mind a sci-fi movie in which people struggle to maintain their humanity in an overly computerized world – say, Blade Runner or Minority Report.

FKA twigs brings to bear a musical palette that lies somewhere between Grimes and Medulla-era Björk, and a voice with a power level between those two to boot. The word “ethereal” has been ground into dirt when describing twigs, applied to the breathy quality of both her voice and much of the production surrounding her, but that undersells how twigs is able to go big, especially on “Numbers,” which one might call a standout on another album with less front-to-back quality.

Grimes and Björk are important signposts for twigs, because in addition to the musical similarities, she seems to occupy a similar cultural space, as a favored pop-feminist scion. Perhaps it's no coincidence that some artists with the strongest artistic voices tend to have strong political voices as well. But FKA twigs has an advantage over both of them – a deeper and more intuitive connection with pop music, especially the kind of pop that seems destined to be more than disposable chart fodder.

She retains the requisite sexiness that R&B requires to be chart-viable, but with a hardened, aggressive edge, with lyrics such as “How would you like it if I suck before I bite but it wasn't too hard so it felt alright?” from “Hours.” Still, she explores the theme of alienation common to music with such a metallic tang and a futuristic lean, with lines like “Now I yearn to follow you in everything I do/All those years in isolation helped me want for you” in the jaw-dropping “Closer.” But the lyrics are secondary to the composition and production, which is as fresh on LP1 as anywhere in music this year. She has managed to find herself among one of the most vital groups of artists on the globe, and is poised to take over as their figurehead to pop superstardom.

Although twigs, born Tahliah Barnett, wrote and composed every song, the list of production credits on the album is telling: Clams Casino, Arca, Dev Hynes, Sampha, Paul Epworth, and Emile Haynie – recent hit- and buzz-makers all. Other production credits to their resumés include: Kanye West, Drake, Florence and the Machine, Sky Ferreira, A$AP Rocky, Lana Del Rey, Adele, and countless other stars who sit in elevated positions among the public consciousness – as not just singers or rappers, but artists. FKA twigs deserves to sit among the names on that list, as she gets each of her collaborators' best work, bringing together sounds that ooze “future.” Whether coolly precise or slightly damaged and decayed, it will inevitably sound like music made by machines and computers, and if your imagination permits, it sounds as if made for them as well. There is tangible space in this music, most notably in single “Pendulum,” where reflections of reverb bounce off backwards until everything sounds as if it's hanging in place like some sort of mobile, gently spinning around itself.

The hype machine has been running for months for FKA twigs, but it's only getting started – and FKA twigs is the rare artist with an artistic statement to back up all of the attention, and stand up to all the scrutiny.

[exitvanleft]

Prins Thomas - III

Prins Thomas and his space-disco contemporaries have always wanted to take listeners on journeys, but on his simply-titled third album, Thomas is content to stay in second gear, gently gliding through familiar sounds of his genre without seeming all that concerned with making people dance.

On his previous album, appropriately titled II, Thomas did move a little quicker. On III, his sound palette is much prettier, without any rough edges whatsoever, and as if he is slowing down to take in a beautiful countryside, Prins takes his foot off the gas pedal. The results are slightly mixed – while the album indeed sounds gorgeous, at times it lacks an added element to make it memorable.

Thomas, like frequent collaborator Lindstrøm, is a patient producer who creates landscapes of synthesizers and soft guitars, then patiently explores them. On “Arabisk Natt (Dub)”, he takes the rhythmic arpeggio that forms the spine of the track and octaves it up and down, drapes it in reverb and strips it bare once again. All the while, other synth and guitar lines drift in and out, gradually building and releasing tension without hitting any major peaks or valleys. The effect can be hypnotic when the listener gives her full attention.

That's not to say that Prins Thomas' approach is innovative – it is a well-worn formula in dance music to keep bodies on the floor by changing minor elements of a track over its running time. However, Thomas' III sits at a bpm just slow enough to divorce that approach from the dance floor, which risks losing listeners over the course of a full-length album.

Thomas has a few more tricks than that, thankfully. The final minute of “Kameleon” morphs the track completely, as if a car driving through the desert suddenly reached an oasis – at midnight, all lit up in neon, as if Las Vegas was hidden behind a mountain. The low, pulsating guitar in “2000 Lysår Fra Morallveien” recalls Pink Floyd's “Another Brick In The Wall (Part 1),” expertly maintaining the tension of the original while re-envisioning it as an extended jam – exactly the indulgent move late-70's Pink Floyd might have tried live if they were more like The Grateful Dead than their bombastic, stadium-sized selves.

That comparison is not as out of left field as one might imagine. Space disco owes a lot to the prog-rock that Pink Floyd had a hand in creating, only the galactic journeys of Prins Thomas are implied rather than sung, and they have a good deal less drama. For example, the bright guitar chords of “Kavaler”wouldn't sound out of place in a quiet moment of a Yes or Rush album, but Thomas uses that element as the center of his piece, around which he builds atmosphere.

However, the biggest problem with III could be the discarded elements of the genres from which Thomas draws. The easy answer would be to say that if he just made the whole album go a little bit faster, it would make more sense. However, his obvious eye for composition suggests that with some more drama or ambition, he could have made a fascinating record that harkened more to the operatic nature of prog-rock. Instead, listeners are left with a gorgeous record that is content to fade into the background.

[exitvanleft]

Freddie Gibbs & Madlib - Piñata

It's not too uncommon for a rapper to release an album or mixtape containing only beats from one producer (see Eddie B's tape Horsepower, produced by Harry Fraud).  Less common, however, is when a producer gets his name on the marquee right next to the rapper.  Few producers justify taking center stage like that - and if they do, their beats come under extra scrutiny as more than just a backdrop for the rhymes themselves.

Madlib is one of the few producers with the (relative) star power to pull off such a feat.  More than any other beatsmith, he carries the mantle of J Dilla - elevating beats themselves to an art form, such as in his Beat Konducta series.  When he digs deep to make an album's worth of beats for one rapper, it demands hip hop fans' attention (such as the classic Madvillainy, with MF DOOM).  

And now he has teamed up with Freddie Gibbs, who has developed a well-deserved reputation for fitting his style to any sort of beat.  His Midwestern flow always seems to find the beat, no matter how weird the instrumental sounds.  In theory, this is a match made in heaven, with both artists being able to flex their muscles.

In practice, it comes very close to delivering on the promise. Madlib's beats aren't as weird as they often are, favoring a more classical approach to structure and featuring soul and funk samples dug from his legendary collection of crates.  More power to you if you can recognize the sources.  And Freddie Gibbs continues to be as reliable as it gets, rapping too quickly to bore anyone and never delivering groaner lines that many of the most popular rappers let slip.

Standout tracks like "Deeper" and "Harold's" (which were released together as a single last year), along with "High", featuring an on-point Danny Brown, are wonderful mixes of rock-solid rapping and luscious beats that could stand on their own.  At their best, Gibbs and Madlib deliver some of the best rap tracks in years.

The only issue is that Piñata sometimes suffers from a lack of hooks, with the notable exception of BJ The Chicago Kid's turn on "Shame" - and is there any crooner more in demand for rap hooks than BJ right now? - and the effect can be that the tracks tend to blend together and fade to the background.  As a result, the album stops short of adding up to more than the sum of its parts to become a masterpiece.  

Still, when two heavyweights from different circles team up, results as good as this are the exception, not the rule.  Piñata will be a record to return to as the weather warms and the windows roll down, and hopefully will get the recognition it deserves at the end of the year.

[exitvanleft]

2013 Top Dance Singles

Probably gonna do a couple year-end posts here, though I haven't used this forum in a while. Truth be told, been itchin' to write something about music, so I think I'm gonna make a quick list of my favorite dance tracks. Mostly taken from my soundcloud.  Playing them in order should make a pretty boss mixtape.  I've done you the favor of putting them all in one place - 2013 TOP DANCE SINGLES are right there for you.

Sky Ferreira - Everything Is Embarrassing (Unicorn Kid Remix)

Let's start it off with my biggest rave fantasy track from early in the year. Unicorn Kid's always good for massive laser synths and big drum levels, and he takes an already solid pop tune as a spine and goes apeshit with it - blissed out and ecstatic, with all the big-room drops and breakdowns you need.   Best enjoyed jumping wildly around in a crowd of sweaty people (I'm sure).

Lindstrom & Todd Terje - Lanzarote

These two...I'm an unashamed nu-disco fan.  Nu disco really just requires a tempo a little slower than rave or house, and a lot of synths.  But these two producers, even on their own, embody the genre in a way words cannot explain.  Here, they're working together and obviously having the time of their lives - as the ridiculous refrain of the back half of the track hammers home.  Just a great, big, goofy grin of a song.  The song's central arpeggio is as bright and as saturated as it gets, and hasn't gotten old for the hours of playtime I've given it this year.

Justin Timberlake - Suit & Tie (Aeroplane Remix)

The main benefit of this track is that it removes a horrible Jay-Z verse from an otherwise incredible pop track from JT(who is essentially the Calvin Johnson of pop music - who has a bad thing to say about him?). Seriously, it sounds like the whole song takes a shit when he starts rapping.  But it's Aeroplane, another all-time Nu Disco god, which means Vito brings more bright synths and keeps brass as an integral element. Better suited to the dance floor than the original. Fun as hell.

Lxury - J.A.W.S.

Sorry, but these big, bright synths are what I gravitated towards this year (like many other years). Trying to make a year-end mix here. Disclosure co-produced this track, and I'm inclined to believe they contributed heavily to the beat, which skitters and bounces, and starts out with a sweet polyrhythmic sample (what a tough word to spell).  But that chord is the star.

The Preatures - Is This How You Feel? (Classixx Remix)

Let's slow it down for a minute, because it's time to get sexy.  Part of me wanted to leave this for the end, but it's okay to have a slow jam in the middle sometimes, if it's this god-DAMN funky.  Classixx had a great full-length this year, Hanging Gardens, but this is the best thing they did all year.  The original Preatures track is a fun, uptempo rock tune as well.  But this is the dance track of the pair.

Du Tonc - Darkness

This is close to a pop song, but anyone can dance to a guitar riff like that. And the bridge is a killer slice of old-school disco.  No idea who Du Tonc is, and I haven't heard a single second of anything else they've done so far.  But I wouldn't be too mad if more of their stuff was exactly the same as this.

Compuphonic - Sunset (Ft. Marques Toliver)[Aeroplane Remix]

Compuphonic is study house for me, mostly - great background music with some cool hooks, and melodic enough to keep your head bobbing.  But Aeroplane works his magic again, heaping on some dramatic strings and flourish after flourish to make this an epic track.  The original track is brooding and grooving thanks to the hook by Marques Toliver, but this is a big, ambitious track that hits all of its marks.

Disclosure - White Noise (Ft. AlunaGeorge)

It was without a doubt, the year of Disclosure.  They were everywhere, and this (combined with the buzz of AlunaGeorge, another breakout) was a big reason why.  Aluna's star turn in the vocals still doesn't match that muscular bass for body-moving potential.  Disclosure are just dance scientists - measuring elements for maximum impact.

Wretch 32 - Blackout (Ft. Shakka)[AMTRAC Remix] 

Don't know who Wretch 32 is, but this is about AMTRAC.  I have a small bit of personal bias for him because he pitches down vocals to a range where I can sing comfortably in the car, thanks to my luscious deep baritone.  My falsetto just needs work, is all.  But make no mistake, he is a serious house producer.  His songs tend to morph more often than most in his field, which means you can't fast forward to the two minute mark in his song, listen for 30 seconds and decide if you like it or not, as you can for run-of-the-mill producers.  Check this out from 2012 for another side (or eight) of his skills.

Ms Mr - Hurricane (Chvrches Remix)

Another pop-ish track - all right, it's straight pop - but Chvrches has quickly become a favorite of mine because those bright synths I love are brought in force.  The huge late 80's/early 90's snare hits make me think of neon-painted music videos with incredibly tight acid-washed jeans.  But they are always dancing their asses off, so I rest my case.

Disclosure - Latch (DJ Premier Remix)

This one came out of nowhere in the past week - I mean nowhere, this original track was released in 2012.  But it only got huge this year anyway, and for as left-field a producer as you can imagine - THE DJ PREMIER, not exactly a contemporary or dance-oriented name, but what a name - to completely break the song down into the perfect end-of-night jam.  The absolute monster of the hook by Sam Smith is still the heart of the song, but the spare piano and deep drum hits make it such a raw, carnal song that I can't keep it off the list.  

Duck Sauce - Duck Tape

Try as I might to make a memorable mixtape, I am but an amateur. A-Trak and Armand Van Helden, who collaborate as Duck Sauce, are the pros.  They are proven hitmakers in their own right, but they are DJs first (A-Trak especially.  He might be the best DJ in the world, all things considered), and this is their crowning achievement.  Full of tons of personality, with sampling on a level you don't see in dance music (A-Trak has a legit hip hop background as Kanye's tour DJ), it is the one thing that has never failed to make me dance no matter where I am hearing it - in the car, on the bus, walking on the street etc.  I even spontaneously worked out to it in my house a few times. From a crazy-kinetic first third, to a more relaxed middle, finishing with a groove-tastic last third.  It is the apex.  

See you later with the best Hip Hop albums/mixtapes of the year.  Those might be ranked, or they might be mixtape-style as well.

[thatsoundmakesmehigh-deactivate]

Onra: “So Sure” - Stream

- Track from Supreme Sound From Paris by SkullCandy

[exitvanleft]

Have some really good nu disco.  This is Lovelock with "Maybe Tonight (Morgan Geist Instrumental Edit))".  Really liking how much this song transforms over its running time.

[exitvanleft]

Getting ready for the Star Slinger/The Hood Internet concert tonight in Pittsburgh.  Posting some house.  Say hi, Lincoln.

[Sup]

[exitvanleft]

It's funny, Azealia Banks' "212" was such an out-of-nowhere banger that it seems like the universe is trying to will her to be something more than an east-coast rapper, but that seems to be all she is right now - albeit with a great singing voice and great beatmakers.  Love her rhyming style, straight out of the NYC internal-rhyme school.  This is called "Jumanji" and Hudson Mohawke did the beat.  

Download it here.

[exitvanleft]

Animal Collective's got a new single coming out; always cause for a celebration.  No one does a better job of having such an easily identifiable sound while still keeping each song unique.  The new songs are called "Honeycomb" and "Gotham".

[exitvanleft]

So this is Shady Blaze, produced by Beautiful Lou, a track called "Don't Worry".  Good beat.

[exitvanleft]

This is the Amtrac remix of Chromatics' "Birds of Paradise".  I don't understand the big deal about the Chromatics - mostly because I really dislike their singer - but this is really nice.  My favorite part is the organic backbeat, which you normally don't hear matched up with these kind of neon synths.  Favorite soundcloud comment: "Love rollerblading to this song".

[exitvanleft]

Saint Etienne has been making good music for decades now, and it all seems to fall under "indie dance".  Let's not rock the boat, but this seems slower and more dramatic.  Click the title to listen; it's DAMN good.