best of 2016
Fat White Family - Songs For Our Mothers [Fat Possum,2016]
David Bowie - Blackstar (2016)
Kevin Morby - Signing Saw (Dead Oceans,2016)
Woods – City Sun Eater in the River of Light (Woodsist,2016)
Damien Jurado - Visions Of Us On The Land (Secretly Canadian,2016)
Soft Hair - Soft Hair (Weird World,2016)
Jim James - Eternally Even (2016)
Methyl Ethel - Oh Inhuman Spectacle (4AD,2016)
Warpaint - Heads Up (Rough Trade,2016)
Savages - Adore Life (2016)
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds -Skeleton Tree (2016)
Alex Cameron - Jumping the Shark (Secretly Canadian,2016)
Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool (2016)
David West - Peace or Love [Tough Love, 2016]
Hope Sandoval And The Warm Inventions - Until The Hunter (2016)
Jenny Hval - Blood Bitch (Sacred Bones,2016)
Daniel Romano - Mosey (New West,2016)
Ian William Craig - Centres (130701,2016)
Library Tapes - Escapism (2016)
nonkeen - the gamble (2016)
Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker (2016)
Tindersticks - The Waiting Room (City Slang,2016)
Marissa Nadler - Strangers (Sacred Bones,2016)
Exploded View - Exploded View (Sacred Bones,2016)
Douglas Dare - Aforger (Erased Tapes,2016)
Preoccupations - Preoccupations (Jagjaguwar,2016)
The Strokes - Future Present Past EP (2016)
Massive Attack - Ritual Spirit (EP) (2016)
Thee Oh Sees - A Weird Exits (2016)
Grumbling Fur - Furfour (Thrill Jockey,2016)
Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Denial
Michael Kiwanuka - Love And Hate (2016)
Liima - ii (4AD,2016)
Promise and the Monster - Feed the Fire (Bella Union,2016)
Peter Broderick - Partners (2016)
Ólafur Arnalds & Nils Frahm - Trance Frendz (Erased Tapes,2016)
F.S. Blumm & Nils Frahm - Tag Eins Tag Zwei (2016)
Dec 25, 2016
Dec 11, 2016
Nov 13, 2016
Nedelja popodne...
Hope Sandoval And The Warm Inventions - Until The Hunter (2016)
Lead single from Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions featuring Kurt Vile
Nov 7, 2016
Jim James - Eternally Even (2016)
My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James’ solo
With "Eternally Even," his second solo album, Jim James has created a world that's equal parts organic and electronic, with a sonic landscape built on layers of modest keyboards that are elevated by the considerable quality of the material and arrangements. What ultimately emerges is a grand bedroom soul orchestra that sounds alternately charming and disquieting.
James' solo debut, 2013's "Regions of Light and Sound of God," was more ambitious in scale and drew from a broader palate but also felt a bit distant. "Eternally Even" is smaller but feels more genuine and less self-conscious as James approaches divisive issues from a place of warmth and positivity. Personal and world politics are consistent themes that he tackles with humanity rather than vitriol as the music artfully echoes the message.
Below the prowling keyboards, which sometimes take on a prog-like quality, is a soul album. "Here in Spirit" and its message of speaking out against intolerance sounds like a classic Curtis Mayfield gambit without aping Mayfield's style. The more confrontational "Hide in Plain Sight" has a muted hip-hop feel with psychedelic elements, a trait shared with "Same Old Lie" and its outro that sounds like world music as reimagined by an all-girl Casio band.
"Eternally Even" sometimes has a homemade vibe but that's deceptive; this is a subtle, complex record that perfectly merges James' political philosophies with his personal obsessions.
Nov 5, 2016
Oct 26, 2016
Oct 20, 2016
Oct 16, 2016
Oct 15, 2016
Douglas Dare - Aforger (Erased Tapes,2016)
Following his debut Whelm, London-based singer-songwriter and pianist Douglas Dare returns with his new album Aforger.
"In a digital age where memories are mimicked by pixels and identity is as malleable as static, Douglas Dare’s new album Aforger questions the boundaries between reality and fiction. Inspired by recent events and revelations encountered in his life these songs depict Dare at his most vulnerable, whilst simultaneously reflecting our own obsession with reality and technology back at us.
Vanishing Twin - Choose Your Own Adventure (Soundway,2016)
London ensemble Vanishing Twin release their debut album 'Choose Your Own Adventure' via Soundway Records.
Vanishing Twin is made up of singer Cathy Lucas (Fanfarlo, The Oscillation) drummer Valentina Magaletti (Raime, Tomaga, Uuuu, Neon Neon), bassist Susumu Mukai (Zongamin, Floating Points), library music head Phil M.F.U. (Man From Uranus, Broadcast) on strange sounds, and film maker and visual artist Elliott Arndt on flute and percussion."
Drawing on sounds outside of the usual pop vocabulary, the group used forgotten drum machines, home-made electronics, vibraphones, tablas, and harp to invoke the esoteric psychedelia of lost soundtracks, radiophonic experiments and minimal music orchestras. In a studio that Catto built for maximum atmosphere and minimum interfere, and crammed with obscure vintage equipment, he brought his own distinctive sonics to the table, informed by outsider jazz, Italian library music and ethnographic field recordings.
S U R V I V E - RR7349 (Relapse,2016)
Landing in the slipstream of their Stranger Things soundtrack, S U R V I V E commit their sophomore LP of tempered synthetic ecstasy and space cadet emotions. The spectres of ‘80s sci-fi and horror scores looms large and seeps from every pore of RR7349
“Experimental synth quartet S U R V I V E ' s sophomore full-length and Relapse debut is a dark, sweeping exercise in analog synth mastery. The pulsating, 9-song instrumental release showcases immense diversity between tracks - RR7349's compositions range from grim tom-tom thunder to space-age epics, pairing tense plodding grooves with meditative ambience and driving, rhythmic beats. Inspired by IDM and horror scores alike, RR7349 is simultaneously ominous and hopeful; tense and relaxed; percussive and melodic. Additionally, two of the group’s members recently scored the soundtrack for the hit new sci-fi / horror show Stranger Things on Netflix. RR7349 is a unique addition to the Relapse discography, and unquestionably S U R V I V E ' s best work to date.”
C Duncan - The Midnight Sun (Fatcat,2016)
It’s an album that barely raises its head from its surreal slumber, but there’s not a second of its 43 minutes in which the soundscape created by C Duncan feels sluggish. The Glaswegian composer, multi-instrumentalist and graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland creates his artwork and produces his music in his own studio; an insular creative process that results in a contained universe of ambience and eerie euphoria.
The follow-up to his Mercury-nominated album Architect is inspired by the lurching intensity of The Twilight Zone but also shares the melancholy indie atmospherics of Cocteau Twins, Stereolab, Broadcast and Air. Do I Hear? certainly has all the rose-tinted romance of the French duo’s cinematic single Playground Love. There is also an innocence to these songs, a spirituality that, in a year of bold musical statements and political upheaval, provides a soothing tonic; an escapist episode of spectacular beauty.
D.D Dumbo - Utopia Defeated (4AD,2016)
"Led by the spooky strut of the title-track, the lo-fi four song-set of blues-laced, deconstructed pop announced Perry as an exciting newcomer fluent in a language all his own. People took notice and soon he was performing solo with a 12-string electric guitar, two drums and a bunch of effect pedals and on tour with the likes of Daughter, Iron & Wine, Jungle, St Vincent, Tame Impala, tUnE-yArDs and Warpaint.
‘Utopia Defeated’ is his debut album, an epic, sprawling opus sprung from Oliver’s imagination, written and performed almost entirely by him. Based in the 4AD Studios in London, the album was recorded, engineered and produced by Perry and 4AD’s resident engineer Fabian Prynn. Featuring the singles ‘Satan’ and ‘Walrus’, the ten track album hurdles effortlessly over the expectations set by his intriguing debut EP."
Blonde Redhead - Masculin Feminin (4AD,2016)
Before they made intricate, transporting pop for labels like 4AD, Blonde Redhead took inspiration from ’70s no wave and released singles and albums on Smells Like Records, the label of Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley. This connection between the bands led some to call Blonde Redhead derivative, but in hindsight — and especially on this collection — the elements that endured in their music and made it special are what stand out.
Another installment in Numero Group’s 200 Line reissue series, Masculin Feminin gathers the band’s first two albums, Blonde Redhead and La Mia Vita Violenta, which arrived in a prolific burst of creativity in 1995, as well as a generous amount of singles, rarities, and radio performances. The set presents this bonus material alongside each…album instead of isolating it, giving a more organic picture of the band’s music during this era.
Helado Negro - Private Energy (Asthmatic Kitty,2016)
Young, Latin and proud, the Brooklyn-based musician writes about insecurity and self-discovery – an oasis of contemplation amid anti-immigrant rhetoric
Roberto Carlos Lange – known as Helado Negro – is an Ecuadorian American artist with an unprecedented sound. His music is a soothing, dreamlike collage of live and unorthodox instruments, and the 36-year-old musician uses his voice in so many absorbing ways, it almost feels as if you’re not listening to a person. “I like to utilize my voice as a new instrument,” says Lange, who is based in Brooklyn. “And when you hear songs in Spanish, for example, there are so many beautiful, flowery and exaggerated words that you can really mess with and they end up sounding like something else.”
Oct 9, 2016
Nedelja popodne...
Various – Britxotica Goes East - Persian Pop & Casbah Jazz From The Wild British Isles!
Label:Trunk Records (2016)
A breathtaking follow-up to the successful Britxotica! LP takes us on a magic carpet ride to a place where the Sphinx, sheiks, sand dances and caravans of camels are the magical, musical norm. But this is music made by post war jazz musicians and show girls from London - blimey! Yes, this is perfect Persian pop and killer Casbah jazz made by Eastenders! It's also British music as rare and as beautiful as Tutankhamun's treasure. You may never come across a more exotic British LP ever again…you'll be cursed if you miss it.
Oct 8, 2016
Yves Tumor
Yves Tumor - Serpent Music [PAN; 2016]
Yves Tumor’s debut for the PAN label offers a perfect distillation of everything the label stands for, filling another as-yet-unnamed niche between the eyes of hypermodern styles. It’s an album that takes you from the most beautifully produced earworm one moment, to the depths of sonic experimentation the next - making for easily one of the most impressive and memorable albums of the year.
Alongside the likes of Dean Blunt or Klein, Yves Tumor is patently rewiring the conventions of soul music and psychedelia according to his own, twisted schematic and modernist insight, making this album feel vital at a point where conservative sensibilities seem to have permeated the spirit of so many “independently" minded creators.
Grumbling Fur
"Heavy Days" is from Grumbling Fur's "Furfour," out September 16 on Thrill Jockey.
Somewhere, in the still-remaining quiet places of London, Grumbling Fur is at work. This being is the joint manifestation of Alexander Tucker and Daniel O’Sullivan which, since 2011, has birthed a series of increasingly focussed albums of psychedelic pop. Their new album, Furfour, is a record that’s the sum of a dizzying array of creative projects by two key figures in an esoteric underground still thriving despite the pressures and pains of modern London.
Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker
If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game
If you are the healer, it means I'm broken and lame
If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame
You want it darker We kill the flame
Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the help that never came
You want it darker
Hineni, hineni
I'm ready, my lord
There's a lover in the story
But the story's still the same
There's a lullaby for suffering
And a paradox to blame
But it's written in the scriptures
And it's not some idle claim
You want it darker We kill the flame
They're lining up the prisoners
And the guards are taking aim
I struggled with some demons
They were middle class and tame
I didn't know I had permission to murder and to maim
You want it darker
Hineni, hineni
I'm ready, my lord
Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the love that never came
You want it darker We kill the flame
If you are the dealer, let me out of the game
If you are the healer, I'm broken and lame
If thine is the glory, mine must be the shame
You want it darker
Hineni, hineni
Hineni,
hineni I'm ready, my lord
Oct 2, 2016
Nedelja popodne...
'Constreaux No. 2' by Dustin O'Halloran from the LP/Digital Album 'Eleven Into Fifteen: A 130701 Compilation' available on 130701 / Fat Cat Records.
Sep 28, 2016
Sep 21, 2016
Sep 18, 2016
Sep 8, 2016
Sep 5, 2016
Methyl Ethel - Oh Inhuman Spectacle (4AD,2016)
Australian trio Methyl Ethel are the latest addition to the 4AD roster. Singer songwriter Jake Webb's voice glides through the album with a haunting fragility and powerful vocal range, that at times sounds delicately effeminate. His voice changes so vastly that is sounds like the album features two lead vocalists, transitioning from sweet and painful crooning, to a more masculine, rock-pop tone similar to that of Arcade Fire.
Morgan Delt
Morgan Delt - Phase Zero (Sub Pop,2016)
The invocation of classic west coast psychedelia that permeates Morgan Delt’s Sub Pop debut LP feels like a continuous sunrise, never concealing its influences yet perfectly putting its songs through a gauzy lens that blurs and obscures.
Sep 4, 2016
Connan Mockasin and LA PRIEST introduce Soft Hair
Soft Hair - Lying Has To Stop taken from Soft Hairs debut album available 28 Oct 2016.
Aug 29, 2016
Ian William Craig
Ian William Craig from the album 'Centres' available on 130701 / Fat Cat Records.
‘Centres’ is the stunning new album from Vancouver-based vocalist / composer Ian William Craig, and his first release for FatCat’s pioneering 130701 imprint (Max Richter, Hauschka, Dustin O’Halloran, Jóhann Jóhannsson, etc). Arriving on CD, digital and gatefold double vinyl editions, ‘Centres’ is actually Ian’s ninth full length album, the majority of which were self-released digitally or in limited cassette editions. His last two full lengths (‘A Turn of Breath’, 2014; and ‘Cradle for the Wanting’, 2015) were issued physically on the excellent Californian label, Recital Program and received glowing press and placements in numerous critics’ end of year lists (including Mojo / NY Times / Rolling Stone). The Guardian marvelled how “to be both wildly experimental and fantastically listenable is a skill that precious few people possess, but Craig has it … truly brilliant,” whilst Mojo remarked on "a blissfully disquieting choral suite, moving from the corroded cries of counter-tenor ghosts to a kind of abstract Buckleyesque hearbreak, as if some lovelorn romantic troubadour had been summoned forth from the recording of séances on old shellac 78s."
The Mystery Lights
From the debut self-titled album by The Mystery Lights, out on June 24th via Daptone Records.
Alex Cameron
“Take Care of Business” from ‘Jumping the Shark’ by Alex Cameron, out August 19th on Secretly Canadian
Aug 21, 2016
Nedelja popodne...
David West - Peace Or Love (Though Love,2016)
On 5th August, Tough Love will release Peace or Love, the second album to be issued under his own name. That can be either your starting point, or your continuation down a road.
The facts: Peace or Love is the follow-up to USA/Australia-based musical artist David West’s 2015 cassette release, Drop Out Of Collage. Peace or Love is a collection of songs stemming from wild and free bedroom four-track cassette recordings and personal hard drive sample raiding, with contributions from various musical friends in Perth, Western Australia and SF/LA, California. West draws inspiration from free-thinking artists of the past and present on this polyphonic platter, from soft indie strumming and free soundscapes, to disco and soul-pop. West currently plays in the guitar pop band Rat Columns, synth-pop project Liberation and post-punk trio Rank/Xerox, and has been in varied acts such as Lace Curtain, Burning Sensation, Total Control and Whalehammer.
Aug 20, 2016
Ryley Walker
'Golden Sings That Have Been Sung' by Ryley Walker, out August 19th, 2016 on Dead Oceans
Exploded View
'Exploded View' out August 19 (Sacred Bones)
New band from Berlin & Mexico City fronted by Anika.
Aug 11, 2016
Aug 7, 2016
Jul 17, 2016
Jul 10, 2016
Jul 3, 2016
Jun 26, 2016
Jun 24, 2016
Jun 21, 2016
Jun 19, 2016
Jun 12, 2016
Jun 7, 2016
Whitney - Light Upon The Lake (Secretly Canadian,2016)
Chicago's Whitney arrive as a fully formed gang of outsiders, their album rich in the musical history of the classic bands of the 60s and 70s. "I'm searching for those golden days." sings Ehrlich, with a subtle ripple of something that sounds like hope, on the track "Golden Days". It's a song that defines Whitney as a band. "There's a lot of true feeling behind these songs," says Ehrlich. "We wanted them to have a part of our personalities in them. We wanted the songs to have soul."
Classic and modern at the same time, they revel in concrete details, evocative turns of phrase, and thorny emotions that don't have exact names. These ten songs on Light Upon the Lake sound like they could have been written at any time in the last fifty years.
May 29, 2016
Nedelja popodne...
Let’s Eat Grandma, the most unique and fascinating duo to have come out of the UK for some time.
Best friends since the age of four, multi-instrumentalists Rosa and Jenny (aged 16 and 17) create imaginative and original music that crosses the worlds of experimental pop and progressive weirdness.
Daniel Romano - Mosey (New West,2016)
Daniel Romano originally played in punk and indie bands growing up in his hometown of Welland, Ontario. He shifted away from punk to a folksy sound in his earlier albums Come Cry With Me and 2015’s If I’ve Only One Time Askin’ but is back to genre-bending on the upcoming Mosey, which releases today on New West Records. Romano writes about a song a day and often records them in his home studio. He self-produced and played nearly every instrument but horns and strings on Mosey. The record is influenced by everything and everyone from Rolling Thunder Revue-era Bob Dylan to Serge Gainsbourg to Lee Hazlewood and Ennio Morricone to Randy Newman and Leonard Cohen.
May 27, 2016
Fat White Family - Tinfoil Deathstar
The Fat White Family have unveiled the stunning video to their forthcoming single, Tinfoil Deathstar, which is released on Friday 27th May 2016 via their own Without Consent label. The single is taken from their second album, Songs For Our Mothers, which was released in January 2016.
The video was directed by acclaimed Canadian film & TV director Chris Grismer, who has previously directed videos for the likes of Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene and Death From Above 1979.
Additionally, the legendary Black Lips have been added to the bill as main support at the band’s forthcoming show at Brixton Academy on Saturday 17th September 2016.
May 22, 2016
May 8, 2016
May 6, 2016
Apr 25, 2016
Apr 24, 2016
Apr 19, 2016
Apr 17, 2016
Apr 14, 2016
Woods – City Sun Eater in the River of Light (Woodsist,2016)
It seems that since the last album, the band have become……big fans of Ethiopian Jazz, like that of the great Mulatu Astatke. Maybe one of the guys watched Broken Flowers, or maybe it was some crate digging that led to their epiphany.
Apr 13, 2016
Apr 10, 2016
Apr 3, 2016
Mar 31, 2016
Kevin Morby - Signing Saw (Dead Oceans,2016)
Singing Saw is a record written simply and realized orchestrally. In it, Kevin Morby faces the reality that true beauty – deep and earned – demands a whole-world balance that includes our darker sides. It is a record of duality, one that marks another stage of growth for this young, gifted songwriter with a kind face and a complicated mind.
Mar 27, 2016
Mar 21, 2016
Unloved - Guilty of Love (Rough Trade,2016)
Unloved Guilty of Love, the debut album by Los Angeles collective Unloved, could be the soundtrack to everyone’s favorite B movie or the sequel to Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. It shouldn’t be surprising that this record has a cinematic vibe, as two of Unloved’s principal partners are immensely accomplished individuals within Hollywood’s TV and film industry. Composer Keefus Ciancia‘s credits are lengthy, having contributed to the compositions for True Detective and The Fall while DJ/producer David Holmes has composed the soundtrack for several Steven Soderbergh films. The third member of the group is singer-songwriter and vocalist Jade Vincent, who is best known for her work with the The Jade Vincent Experiment. It is her haunting and enthralling voice, though, that turns Guilty of Love from just another score to a piece of brilliantly cinematic music.
Mar 13, 2016
Mar 6, 2016
Mar 3, 2016
Savages - live for Arte TV, 16.02.2016
"Watch us perform 5 tracks on this film directed by Antoine Carlier, for Arte TV"
1. Dead Nature 00:14
2. Mechanics 02:12
3. I Need Something New 08:43
4. The Answer 13:53
5. Hit Me 17:27
6. Adore 22:18
Mar 2, 2016
The Kills
Doing It To Death (Official Video) Taken from “Ash & Ice” — the brand new album from The Kills, out June 3rd 2016
Mar 1, 2016
nonkeen
nonkeen
The Gamble
Release date: 05 February 2016
Label: R&S Record
Nonkeen are childhood friends Nils Frahm, Frederic Gmeiner and Sebastian Singwald.
Feb 28, 2016
Nedelja popodne..
Saul Williams "The Noise Came From Here"
From the album MartyrLoserKing - Out Now on Fader
Feb 27, 2016
Feb 25, 2016
LNZNDRF
Self-Titled Debut Out 19th February on 4AD
Debut album From LNZNDRF, the trio of Ben Lanz (Beirut, The National, and Sufjan Stevens) and Scott and Bryan Devendorf (The National). LNZNDRF's debut is rock minimalism meets sonic maximalism. Recorded in a church in Cincinnati over two and a half days, the eight songs on the album were improvised with a vital spirit harking back to the reason the members became musicians in the first place. The songs, which were edited from 30+ minute jams, evoke the essence of their expansive, largely improvised live shows.
Liima: 'ii'
Liima is a new band formed by Finnish percussionist Tatu Rönkkö plus Mads Brauer, Casper Clausen and Rasmus Stolberg of Danish act Efterklang.
Their debut album ii features songs written in Finland, Berlin, Istanbul and Madeira during four week-long residencies, each place influencing the sound, sometimes literally through field recording and sampling. Every residency ended with a live concert, performing the freshly written songs in front of an audience.
album 'ii' which is released on 18th March on 4AD.
Feb 7, 2016
Feb 2, 2016
Jan 30, 2016
Tindersticks - The Waiting Room (2016)
Jan 29, 2016
Savages - Adore Life (2016)
Adore Life is a step up in maturity and songcraft, yet still delivers plenty of jagged ferocity. There aren’t any highs on par with the best moments of Silence Yourself, but it is nonetheless consistently strong, and may be more of a grower.
Jan 24, 2016
Jan 17, 2016
Jan 11, 2016
Jan 10, 2016
Jan 7, 2016
DIIV – Is the Is Are (2016)
Jan 3, 2016
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