1. Owen Pallett – In
Conflict (Secret City)
(Excerpted from Exclaim’s year-end list, where In Conflict placed #3). Every one of
Pallett’s records is better than the last; it goes without saying that this is
his best. It’s supposedly his most personal; the only way you would know that
would be if he told you so. Because other than silly love songs, what more
universal themes could there be than control and chaos, fertility and faith,
memory and motion, drinking and depression, and the “terror of the infinite”?
Pallett not only transforms philosophy and poetry into pop songs, he’s
increasingly deft at balancing beautiful abstraction with a visceral punch,
never more so than on the thunderous “Riverbed.” Bringing his old Les Mouches
bandmates Matt Smith and Rob Gordon into the fold brings a live energy to half
the tracks here; elsewhere, Pallett plunges into whirlpools of synth arpeggios
just as often as he wields his trusty violin. (Read full blurb here)
Read my Maclean’s story about Pallett here. My original review and interview with him is here. My conversation with Nico Muhly about him is here. My conversation with our mutual friend Carl Wilson is here. My conversation with Pallett about Toronto now and then is here.
2. Rosanne Cash – The
River and the Thread (Blue Note)
I’ve heard and admired Rosanne Cash
in the past, but from a distance. Nothing until now has made me want to dive in
deep. Either The River and the Thread
just happened to hit me at a certain time in my life (42, dad, formerly huge
roots music fan who left the flock long ago and got hooked on the TV series Nashville last year), or Cash is getting
even better with age and this is her masterpiece. It is, I’m told, her most
personal, based on southern travels she took to her father’s home state, where
she reconnected with generations of family stories that were largely alien to a
songwriter raised in comfort in California and New York City. The storytelling
and lyrics are unquestionably part of this album’s strengths, but the music
overshadows all: killer melodies (co-written with husband John Leventhal),
meticulously tasteful arrangements that still have plenty of soul, and,
obviously, top-notch players and singers all around. The middle of the road
rarely ever sounds this good. Yes, it’s too clean and pat for those who like
their music a bit messy, but I can’t fault perfection. Post-script: After
falling in love with this record, I highly recommend you read Cash’s memoir, Composed, from a couple of years back;
it’s just as delicious and beautiful.
Also for your viewing pleasure: "A Feather is Not a Bird"
3. Perfume Genius – Too
Bright (Matador)
(Excerpt from October review) Few musicians, if any, have used
their art to suggest just how subversive queer culture was and is, how
dangerous it is to embrace supposed “flamboyance,” the marginalization that
exists outside of mainstream assimilation. Then along comes a guy who calls
himself Perfume Genius, with a song called “Queen,” with a chorus that baits:
“No family is safe / when I sashay.” This man does not want a peaceful life in
the suburbs and settling for tolerance rather than acceptance. He’s a queer
Stagger Lee, a homophobe’s worst nightmare, “casing the barracks / for an ass
to break and harness / into the fold / marry.” And he does so with a voice that
struts and seethes, staring down death and disease and contempt, backed by a
sparse and gutsy rhythm section that crafts majesty out of a bare minimum of
notes. (Read full review here.)
4. Tanya Tagaq – Animism
(Six Shooter)
There is nothing more I can say that
Geoff Berner didn’t already say when he introduced her performance at the
Polaris Music Prize gala. Here is an excerpt from that speech:
“Animism
is a masterpiece because it transcends opposites. Dizzyingly complex and sophisticated
in structure, it also completely hits you in your guts, in your soul. It takes
traditions that are tens of thousands of years old, and makes truly innovative
music … If you listen, you will careen through a panorama of the contradictions
of existence. You can hear the living land, and the land under assault. You can
hear children being born—and conceived. You can hear the torture of the
innocent, and the glory of the tenacious, unstoppable force of life. If you
listen you can actually hear the sound of a people defying genocide to rise,
wounded but alive, strong, and ready to fight. There is no artist working today
more emphatically herself, more incomparable than Tagaq. There is no musician
in this world more powerful. Animism
is the album that finally translates her unique power to the recording studio.”
(Read Berner’s full text here.)
My original review is here. My piece for Maclean’s
about her Polaris performance is here. My piece about what her Polaris win means—or doesn’t—is here.
Also for your viewing pleasure: her legendary Polaris performance
5. EMA – The Future’s Void
(Matador)
Among the
many things to love about The Future’s Void, it has the best song ever written
with word “interweb” in it. Erika Anderson is 27 years old, which makes her
skepticism of tech utopians much more interesting than a 70-year-old grandpa
with an acoustic guitar. EMA doesn’t shy from technology in her synth-heavy
music or her art—this album was accompanied by a visually provocative webzine—but
she is suspicious of social media’s societal effects. She flips between harsh
and industrial noises and pretty piano-based art rock, with a full-on ’90s
grunge throwback single (“So Blonde”) and a breezy Fleetwood Mac-ish acoustic
pop song (“When She Comes”) as red herrings; it’s telling that she can play to
mass appeal if she wants, she chose to play the considerably more aggressive
and jarring “Neuromancer” for her network TV debut on Letterman. Her howl is a
glorious thing: not since PJ Harvey in her prime or the early days of Karen O
has a female rock singer managed to snarl and scream while maintaining full
control of her pitch. No tracks here sound particularly alike; this woman is
not likely to run out of ideas in the near future.
6. Mary J. Blige – The
London Sessions (Universal)
Didn’t Blige once promise “No More
Drama”? It’s always a life-and-death struggle in song for this icon, but there are few
singers today who can convince you that they’ve hit bottom and crawled back up
and still fear slipping back every day. The
London Sessions is not a resurrection story, exactly: Blige’s career was
doing just fine before this. It is, however, a relocation and a revelation,
placing her largely in in stripped-down situations where her raw voice reveals
her to be the true queen she is. But five of the 12 songs here are also club
bangers, with shades of ’90s acid jazz, rave culture and modern EDM—except with
a significant dose of serious soul usually lacking in those genres. And if the
12 months of headlines that comprised 2014 left you feeling punched in the
stomach, then there’s no better remedy than “Whole Damn Year.”
Also for your listening pleasure: "Therapy," "Pick Me Up"
7. 36? – Where Do We Go
From Here? (independent)
I wrote this for Exclaim, where they placed this album #10 on their Underrated Records of 2014 list:
Calgary's Taylor Cochrane is at once a snotty punk, an ambient balladeer, a
swaggering falsetto singer and a folkie delivering soaring anthems — and that's
all on the first five songs. He's backed up from brilliant work by drummer Ryan
Kusz and two multi-instrumentalists who make sense of Cochrane's mayhem. Most
bands who try to do everything fail miserably; this one succeeds brilliantly,
despite an ungooglable name.
My original review is here.
Listen to the whole thing here.
8. Meridian Brothers – Salvadora
Robot (Soundway)
My review from June: Your summer should sound like this:
drunk, demented, delirious—and South American. This is what your World Cup
party feels like after your underdog team beats all odds and you find yourself
using a vuvuzela to imbibe multi-coloured sugary drinks you’ve never seen
before, kissing people in the street and waking up in a strange part of town.
Elbis Alvarrez is the one-man
operation from Bogota calling himself Meridian Brothers. On his third
international release—not counting his side projects, including the
mind-melting Los Piranas—he mashes together every equatorial genre of music
(cumbia, calypso, reggae, samba) and escorts you through a funhouse of mirrors.
Whether you dance or just sit there dazed is up to you.
Alvarrez has a simple methodology:
set up a killer percussion track, employ minimal rhythm guitar, and then wig
out on either processed lead guitar or fuzzy organs that sound like bees—all
while cackling maniacally like a Latin American Jean-Pierre
Massiera. Evil genius, or just plain genius? Maybe just the album
of the summer.
Timing is everything. Some acts peak
with their first album, only to become popular later. Some acts get major hype
right out of the gate, and then no one is still paying attention when they
start making far superior music 10 years into their career. Afie Jurvanen, on
the other hand, gets better with every record, and was starting to sell out
major theatres even before we got to hear this, his third, on which his soft
sell is seductive and soothing. He’s a killer guitarist who directs his energy
into crafting arrangements rather than soloing, and the female voices and
strings with which he surrounds himself sweeten the pot even more.
10. Reigning Sound – Shattered
(Merge)
This one is personal. I’m 43 years young.
Lemme tell ya, kids, life gets rougher as you get older; some days it’s tough
to see the love in the world and in each other. This summer, my ladyfriend and I drove down to Merge Records’ 25th anniversary party
week in Carrboro, N.C.; we fell in love there at the label’s 15th
anniversary. This album had just come out. Driving around the back roads of
“North Cackalacky,” these garage rock geezers told me everything I wanted to
hear: that it’s never too late to start again, to start working on new dreams,
to rediscover the sparkle and shine in a lover’s eye. (It takes work, of
course. See: “I’m Trying (To Be the Man You Need.”) Staying up late, talking
all night, and dancing at rock’n’roll shows is not the exclusive domain of the
young; indeed, it’s what keeps one young. Greg Cartwright, formerly of the
Oblivians and the Deadly Snakes, has been around a few blocks, so he should
know. The romantic lyrics aren’t the only sign of mellowing: the rich organ and
string sections bring out his deep love of Memphis soul. Is Shattered one of
the best records of 2014? Objectively, I’m not sure. But it meant the world to
me.
Also for your listening pleasure: "North Cackalacky Girl"
11. Kevin Drew – Darlings
(Arts and Crafts)
Kevin Drew deserves credit for many
things: for co-founding Broken Social Scene and keeping it together, for being
Toronto’s best ambassador pre-Drake, for at least two great BSS albums, and
co-founding the Arts and Crafts label. On this, his second solo album, Drew
truly emerges as a songwriter who doesn’t need a small army behind him; his
production is also top-notch, warm and inviting, rich in atmosphere even in its
loudest moments.
12. Death Vessel – Island
Intervals (Sub Pop)
I saw this band open for Shearwater
in the spring, and they drove me nuts. My ladyfriend bought the record,
however, and I slowly realized how lovely these songs actually are. They
soundtracked many late evenings for the rest of the year. Lesson learned—yet
again—about books, covers, and all that. My review from May:
Joel Thibodeau, a eunuch-voiced
singer/songwriter from New England, sums up the ever-elusive and mysterious
creative process better than most: “I don’t know what to do when the universe
is in my room.” Clearly, however, he figured it out on this, his third album,
for which he travelled to Iceland. Sure enough, Jonsi from Sigur Ros—a man with
an almost identical range and timbre as Thibodeau—shows up. Arrangements of
Thibodeau’s wonderfully wistful, melodic folk songs are adorned with marimbas,
glockenspiels, fuzzed-out bass, pump organs, accordions and other instruments
that seem to be always lying around Icelandic studios (see also: Bjork, Mum,
Nico Muhly). On first impression, Thibodeau is too fey by half, with lines
like, “I have an unbridled ideation / jumping over every moon
with indignation.” He also enjoys employing words like “derring-do” and “looky-loo” with a straight face. He’s nothing if
not earnest, and it wouldn’t be surprising to discover that he spent the six
years since his last album in a seaside cabin with a library of pre-Victorian
literature. (He didn’t—to my knowledge, anyway.) No matter your take on the
lyrics, however, the melodies and arrangements are consistently and almost undeniably
gorgeous.
13. Robert Plant – Lullaby
and the Ceaseless Roar (Nonesuch)
No one would ever accuse Robert Plant
of having a more successful career outside of Led Zeppelin than when he was in
one of the biggest rock bands in the known universe. But judging by his last
three records, that may yet be the case. The lessons he learned from singing
with Alison Krauss have served him immensely: when a voice with such power
chooses to focus with such restraint, it’s chilling and gorgeous—never more so
than on “Stolen Kiss,” which must surely stand with his greatest vocal
performances in his 45-year career. West African and Arabic influences abound
here, as do those of his British Isles old and new: folk music and Bristol
beats. With an ace band surrounding him dealing in textures and rhythms, this
new Robert Plant we’ve come to know and love continues to surprise. My original
review is here.
Also for your listening pleasure: "Little Maggie"
14. Adrian Raso and Fanfare Ciocarlia – The Devil’s Tale (Asphalt Tango)
My February review: This Guelph guitarist is noted for
his wailing heavy metal leads in his rock band the Big Idea,
where he has collaborated with Prince percussionist Sheila E. and members of
the Stray Cats and Extreme. But he has a whole other acoustic side of him that
revered Django Reinhardt’s style of gypsy jazz. It’s that pursuit that led to this
collaboration with arguably the best Balkan brass band in the world, the
12-piece Fanfare Ciocarlia, who hail from a remote region of Romania. They
specialize in a blistering, relentless tempos and virtuosic display. It’s hard
to imagine them taking a back seat to anyone, never mind a Guelph guitar
teacher. It’s just as hard to imagine Raso carving out a space for himself
amidst Fanfare Ciocarlia, who have played together for decades. And yet: both camps meet here as
complementary equals. Neither is here to upstage the other. Even though Raso’s
fingerwork can match the brass players 16th note for 16th
note, more importance is placed here on the actual songs and group dynamic. We
know these people are all incredible; they don’t feel they have to prove it in
every phrase. On “Spiritissimo,” Raso even makes room for another guitar hero,
Rodrigo Sanchez, of Rodrigo y Gabriela, with whom he shares a similar love of
metal shredding and flamenco.
15. Leonard Cohen – Popular
Problems (Sony)
This octogenarian doesn’t need Lady
Gaga’s starpower to help him deliver a bestselling album (though there are
plenty of lady voices throughout, of course). His previous record, Old Ideas,
is far superior, but Popular Problems shows that it wasn’t a fluke: this
creative comeback is going to last as long as he wants it to. My original
review is here. And let's not talk about that album cover.
16. St. Vincent – s/t (Universal)
Excerpted from my February review: Annie Clark, a.k.a. St. Vincent, has
always been smart. Too smart, as if she’s approaching her music like an
algebraic equation rather than creative expression. She’s always been talented.
Too talented. She’s an operatic singer and a shredder on the guitar and loves
to immerse herself in distorted electronics, and often she liked to flex all
those muscles at once. Such is the folly of youth. She’s now 31. This is her
fifth album, if you include her full-length collaboration with David Byrne, on
which she began to leave her head and loosen up her body. (Byrne knows more
than a few things about that divide. See: Stop Making Sense.) St.
Vincent, the album, is a bold new statement of purpose. (Could you tell
from her new look?) Clark has always had the confidence, the swagger, the
chutzpah to go for the gold and hope her technical prowess would carry the day.
This time, she’s also got guts and heart and grooves and songs to complete the
package. Read the full review here.
17. The Roots – And Then
You Shoot Your Cousin (Universal)
What the hell is going on here? Exactly. Questlove describes this as the
Roots’ first opera; the most ambitious hip-hop band in history has dealt in
concept albums before, with mixed success, but this definitely sounds
theatrical, with classical and jazz and noise interludes, operatic vocals,
crooning, soul claps, ’70s soundtracks and full orchestration. Ever since they
took the Jimmy Fallon gig—which no doubt pays a few bills—the Roots’ albums
have taken increasingly left-field turns, and this is the wildest of them all.
Conversely, it also has some of their best pop hooks. Now that their day job
has imbued them with unlimited mainstream visibility, it’s easy to take this
band for granted. Don’t. They never would. My original review is here.
18. Jack White – Lazaretto
(Third Man)
It’s not enough that White already
embodies everything I love in a great rock’n’roller (he’s one of the only
interesting rock guitarists alive) or that his move to Nashville has brought
welcome country elements into the mix, but with the title track to Lazaretto he
even manages to borrow from hip-hop: specifically, the Beastie Boys circa Check
Your Head. White’s talent is so sickening that there are times when Lazaretto
feels a bit contrived, a bit too precious, a bit of an Americana museum piece.
But that’s all in the mind of an academic, emotionally constipated listener; on
a gut level, Lazaretto is fantastic,
with White surrounding himself with ladies—lots of ladies—and gentlemen who
bring out the best in him. Songs take detours and cross genres on a whim and
White is the squealing ringmaster conducting it all. Spreading himself thin hasn’t
hurt him a bit.
Also for your viewing pleasure: "Would You Fight For My Love"
19. Aphex Twin – Syro
(Warp)
Excerpt from my October review: I’ve never cared for Aphex Twin in
the past. Yet I love this album. Has he changed—or have I? (We’re the same
age.) It’s natural for an innovator to sound benign two decades after first
turning tables (or turntables). It’s entirely possible that Aphex Twin’s
influence—digitally deconstructed beats and tones that can sound randomly
generated to the untrained ear—is so far-reaching that we now take it for
granted. Squiggly bass, spasmodic rhythms, melodies as fleeting as
jazz improvisations, played on alternately soft and distorted
synthesizers—Aphex Twin weaves various discombobulated layers together to make
something dense yet danceable, distant yet strangely seductive. Syro
displays a maturity, a confidence in which James doesn’t feel like he has to
prove anything to anyone or even himself. There’s no need to be oppositional
for the sake of it; there’s no envelope to consciously push against. Left on
his own, in that small Scottish village, the mad musical mind of Richard D.
James doesn’t have to compete with the noise of the world. He’s already changed
the face of music; now he can sit back and enjoy it. So can we—some of us, for
the first time.
20. Timber Timbre – Hot
Dreams (Arts and Crafts)
This band has been working a
noir-ish, twangy shtick for years now, but it’s not getting tired—it’s getting
even better. The grooves, the textures, the melodies, the overall balance
between spooky seduction and downright discomfort is struck perfectly. It’s
been a good year for them: a spot on the Polaris shortlist, an unforgettable
debut headlining slot at Massey Hall (where the carefully chosen, celebratory
exit music over the P.A. was Yello’s “Oh Yeah”), and an acclaimed side project
(Last Ex). Sure, all the songs sound the same. Carolyn Mark once asked, “Is it
a groove, or is it a rut?” This is most definitely a groove. My original review
is here.
Also for your viewing pleasure: "Curtains"
20 more for good measure, in
alphabetical order:
BadBadNotGood – III (Arts and Crafts)
Neneh Cherry – Blank Project (Smalltown Supersound)
Amelia Curran – They Promised You Mercy (Six Shooter)
Lynne Hanson – River of Tears (independent)
Hidden Cameras – Age (Outside)
Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings – Give the People What They Want (Daptone)
Daniel Lanois – Flesh and Machine (Red Floor/Anti)
Shane Abram Nelken – Your War is at Home (independent)
New Pornographers – Brill Bruisers (Last Gang)
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers – Hypnotic Eye (Warner)
Rodrigo y Gabriela – 9 Dead Alive (ATO)
Sagot – Valse 333 (Simone)
Shabazz Palaces – Lese Majesty (Sub Pop)
Slakah the Beatchild – Soul Movement Vol. 2 (BBE)
The Touré-Raichel Collective – The Paris Session (Cumbancha)
Tricky – Adrian Thaws (Arts and Crafts)
Tycho – Awake (Ghostly International)
Mirel Wagner – When the Cellar Children See the Light of Day (Sub Pop)
Scott Walker and Sunn 0))) – Soused (4AD)
Pharrell Williams – G I R L (Sony)
Reissues:
Native North America: Aboriginal Folk, Rock and Country
1966-1985 (Light in the Attic). Reviewed here. Q&A with curator Kevin Howes here.
Lavender Country – s/t (Paradise of
Bachelors). Reviewed here. An appreciation of the fantastic liner notes here.
Best of 2013—albums I totally slept on until this year:
Brandy Clark - 12 Stories (Slate Creek)
John Grant - Pale Green Ghosts (Nevado)
Nick Buzz - A Quiet Evening at Home (Six Shooter)
1 comment:
Hmm. You want to call out your 'mutual friend' Wilson anytime soon? Or are we (the 'liberal left'/lit crowd/whatever you want to call it) just not going there at all? Thought so. What a farce.
Post a Comment