I’ll admit that this is the first time Hot Chip has been anything but neutral sound to my ears. It’s hard to say whether they’ve changed or I have, but my money’s on the latter.
In Our Heads has impeccable melody and light, bouncy electronic rhythms. Like new wave without the darkness, or disco without the coke. It’s an extremely nuanced form of dance music that is at once dancefloor ready and late night headphone chillout music.
Standout tracks: “Look At Where We Are,” “Don’t Deny Your Heart”
Opaque lyrics and an overwhelming feeling that the only constant is change. That’s Alt-J for you. An Awesome Wave won the group the 2012 Mercury Prize and, despite very little media attention stateside, they have a quickly growing fanbase.
Taking influences from electronic, alternative and world music (and, perhaps, some alien species), An Awesome Wave shows off an infinitely deep well of creative energy. They tap into it by changing gears every 30 seconds and experimenting with different ways to present rhythm and vocals, all while keeping a firm grasp on pop song structure.
You may not ever know quite what they’re singing about, but it’s a sure bet you’ll still enjoy Alt-J for whatever the hell it is.
Standout tracks: “Tessellate,” “Breezeblocks”
— Oliver Sacks: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/12/seeing-god-in-the-third-millenium/266134/
If independent, stream-of-consciousness hip-hop is your thing, Aesop Rock is your man. His flow is impeccable, his wordplay is second to none. It’s the kind of music where you find yourself rewinding and replaying verses to dig out the meaning, which is always one or two levels deeper than expected. It’s like a rapper/philosopher bait and switch.
Skelethon has Aesop at his most cutting and sarcastic, but also as introspective as they come. “Gopher Guts” closes the album with a stream of confessions that pull the whole album up to greater heights:
I have been completely unable to maintain
Any semblance of relationship on any level
I have been a bastard to the people who have
Actively attempted to deliver me from peril
I have been acutely undeserving of the ear that listen up
And lip that kissed me on the temple
I have been accustomed to a stubborn disposition
That admits it wish it’s history disassembled
I have been a hypocrite in sermonizing tolerance
While skimming for a ministry to pretzel
Standout tracks: “Gopher Guts,” “Cycles to Gehenna”
Because it’s Christmas and it’s the Polyphonic Spree. Come on, now.
Standout tracks: “Happy Xmas (War is Over),” “Let It Snow”
In many ways, Hammock’s music has presented itself as an unintentional instrumental soundtrack to the lives of many who have heard the music or not. Their last LP, Chasing After Shadows, had a dark, watery theme both musically and in its artwork, and was coincidentally released within days of their Nashville hometown being flooded.
Departure Songs sees the band becoming more cinematic and emotional than they already were, exploding and melting between noise and minimal background ambience. Being their first double album, it gives them more space than ever to stretch your mind, enhance your calm and introspect a little bit.
On the spectrum of ambient music, this swings way toward the peaceful side. As these are songs about leaving, death and saying goodbye, there is certainly a place for it. Also recommended as background for a winter holiday like today.
Standout tracks: “Cold Front,” “(Let’s Kiss) While All the Stars Are Falling Down”
Not much needs to be said here. Sweet Sour taps into the American rock and roll tradition, at least as much as a trio of Brits can. There’s a long history of the English adopting American rhythm and blues and often doing it better than we do.
Band of Skulls honed their craft on this, their sophomore LP. Clearly they’ve had their heads down, focusing on self-improvement on an already proven formula. Beyond balls-to-the-wall rock and roll, they slyly inject polyrhythms into places that are normally reserved for for-on-the-floor jams. The guitars have a distinct Jack White production value, a la Dead Weather, or the White Stripes at their bluesiest.
Sweet Sour is guaranteed to satisfy the urges of any long-time headbanger.
Standout tracks: “Sweet Sour,” “Wanderluster”
Another submission for the PBR&B file. Trilogy is exactly what it says on the tin: a long-awaited physical release of the three free, digital albums The Weeknd released in 2011. When combined they make for a post-modern R&B album of epic proportions.
While House of Balloons was the first and best release of the three, there are plenty of gems to be found throughout. Abel Tesfaye turns hip-hop and R&B on their heads, showing us the ugly side effects of that world’s often-portrayed party lifestyle. Not that there’s anything wrong with a good popping bottles pop song for a time, but leaving it at that leaves a lot of rocks unturned. Tesfaye is willing and able to turn over the remainder.
Beyond subject matter, the production and melodies are as hooky as they come. The sad, regretful kind of hooky, if such a thing exists.
Standout tracks: “High For This,” “The Knowing”
Patrick Stickles may be the most intelligent, well-read and curious character contributing to the current punk rock scene. His past work with his rotating cast of bandmates in Titus Andronicus includes countless references to Shakespeare (naturally), Seinfeld, Camus and ancient mythology and a concept album about the American Civil War.
So, Local Business was destined to be a noise punk masterpiece in one way or another, and so it was. Stickles wrote what is perhaps his most personal work yet. He talks about his rare eating disorder, his smoking habit, witnessing a terrible accident in Oregon. And, somehow, they manage to tie a theme of supporting local business around the whole thing, true to the album’s name.
This is also both the most fun and stripped-down work the band has released. While noise punk has a tendency to stick to simple production anyway, this goes a step beyond, to the point of almost sounding like almost-finished demos. It gives Local Business the excitement and energy of being on the cusp of something big, but without taking one’s self too seriously.
Standout tracks: “Food Fight / My Eating Disorder,” “Still Life with Hot Deuce and Silver Platter”
As if Nathan Williams didn’t have it good enough with the popularity of his buzzy California noise project Wavves, he decided to change gears entirely and form Sweet Valley with his brother Kynan.
Stay Calm is laid back and ADD-inducing all at once. It feels sort of like a mashup album, but one in which all the samples come from sources you’ve never heard of. All their sample choices melt together so well that it truly creates a new experience of laid back, druggy, shuffling electronic music. Mixing everything from doo wop to trap beats, it’s not like anything else you’ll hear.
Eternal Champ followed within a couple months, and saw Sweet Valley evolved and mature as if overnight. If nothing else, it’s impressive to experience creative growth in almost real time. This album, while sonically similar to the first, cleans things up a bit, and washes everything in a Merriweather-era-Animal-Collective-esque bliss. And, somehow, they’ve managed to pull in influences from both reggae and 8-bit video game music.
Like I said, listening to Sweet Valley is an exercise in focus given how quickly the landscape changes from minute to minute, but it’s also a lesson in creativity and artistic growth.
Standout tracks: “One,” “Suzuka 9 Hours”
