Showing posts with label Drinker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Drinker. Show all posts

Saturday, December 14, 2019

Best Of 2019: The Top 25


“Where there is doubt, there can be no doubt,” Robert De Niro said in Ronin and that becomes my guiding principle around this time of the year as I confront the conundrum of what ends up on this list that wasn’t on the mid-year Top 25 - and what drops off. Much of it comes down to what I listened to the most, usually a sure sign that it belongs here. But there were a couple of things I played over and over, hoping they would connect fully, eventually admitting they were mostly excellent, even life-giving, but they had a moment or two that caused doubt. And where there is doubt there can be no doubt.

 Looking back, I’m somewhat surprised to see three-fifths of the list coming out of the realms of rock, folk, pop, etc.,  but I just have to accept that that’s what I needed to get through. There's also a clue in the fact that 305 of the 812 tracks - nearly 40% - I put into my general Of Note playlist were sorted into the Rock, Folk, Etc. playlist. To anyone affronted by what dropped from that July list, I will firmly say, It’s not them, it’s me. And don’t forget, there are many "Best Of" lists yet to come as I try to pay homage to another great year for music. 

Listen to selections from each album here or below. As usual, if I’ve previously written about a record, click the link to learn more about why it’s here. 











9. Angel Olsen - All Mirrors Funny how you can still be surprised by how much an artist can surprise you, even when they have traveled as far from their roots as Olsen did between Burn Your Fire For No Witness (2014, #15/20) and My Woman (2016, #17/20). But that was the case when I first heard the audacity of All Mirrors, still a jaw-dropping experience these many listens later. Connecting with two composer/arrangers, Jherek Bischoff and Ben Babbitt, who both straddle the worlds of classical, rock, and soundtracks, was a genius move as they contribute wildly creative string arrangements that dominate a number of songs. Babbitt co-wrote all the music with Olsen, which is the first time she has collaborated to that extent, and played a good number of instruments on the album. Producer John Congleton does a fantastic job of blending all the organic and synthetic sounds. 

 Olsen doubles down on her retro-futurist torch singer persona, coming on like Julee Cruise’s cyborg progeny, hyper-emotional, and with a superhuman power. She has found new dimensions to her voice as well, wielding each tone, texture, and timbre with astonishing control. Like all of her albums, All Mirrors  touches on elemental subjects of love, friendship, and self-actualization, making for a richly immersive song-cycle that seems to only expand as it grows more familiar. A triumph for Angel Olsen and a wonderful addition to what is already one of the most rewarding discographies of the decade. 


11. Starcrawler - Devour You That part of the thrill provided by the short, sharp, shriek of their debut was untapped potential is firmly proven by Devour You, which succeeds even beyond my wildest expectations. The LA quartet were no doubt helped by producer Nick Launay (Bad Seeds, Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, etc.), far more skilled in the studio than Ryan Adams. Time on the road has lent both solidity and swing to the rhythm section of Austin Smith (drums) and Tim Franco (bass) - listen to them groove on “You Dig Yours” - while wunderkind guitarist Henri Cash now has the most exciting riffing hand in the business. But he also has developed the musicality to create layered parts full of fine detail and raw power. Then there is Arrow de Wilde, who shows herself equally at home fearlessly snarling out sarcasm as she is sending a soaring ballad(!) like “Born Asleep” into the stratosphere. The variety in the songwriting shows not only ambition but a deep engagement with the history of rock. Unlike an earlier generation of punked out rockers, they don’t want to burn it all down - but they do want to light a little fire under a genre where introspection may be easier to find than instigation and inspiration. But don’t get it twisted. While Starcrawler may be showing signs of maturity and nuance in concert they’re still the same filth-peddling, blood-spewing circus they’ve always been. On Devour You, the combination of those primal urges with a bit more sophistication is nothing short of intoxicating. 













24. Kanye West - Jesus Is King Back In 2004, I put one foot in front of the other to Jesus Walks. The fact that I got to work ready to do my job every day I owe at least in part to the strength I got from West's classic track and the album it came from. Then, in 2010, after a string of good albums (interrupted by 808's and Heartbreaks), he gave us My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, in the running for album of the century. It pulled me through a long winter and, while I can't remember what was stressing me at the time, I know MBDTF helped the situation. The point is, when you connect with the work of an artist on these levels, you give them the benefit of the doubt. Yeezus was another stunner, angry shards of glass aimed at every target in sight, including himself. The Life Of Pablo, scattered as it was, gave us hints of strength among the sorrows and lousy laugh lines. Then came Ye, undoubtedly the worst project West ever put his name to, only partially redeemed by Kids See Ghosts, his collaboration with Kid Cudi from the same year. Despite all the self-instigated click-bait madness that accompanies West everywhere, I still go back to those old records and get what I need. Now we have converted Kanye, not an automatic deal-breaker even if there are references to “prosperity gospel” that rub this atheist/socialist the wrong way. After all, I have included gospel music in my listening since I was hooked by a Mahalia Jackson LP I pulled out of the stacks at my local library almost 40 years ago. 

I don’t feel I have to defend what I like to anyone, so I’ll just say that I get some of the old West fire on Jesus Is King combined with the inspiring energy of the African American gospel tradition. While this is not a straight-up masterpiece like Dylan's Slow Train Coming, the listening experience - for a West fan, anyway - is not dissimilar. Part of the energy comes from what seems to be a disordered mind, like the way the first song, Every Hour, starts just a tad in progress, as if someone un-paused the tape recorder after the song began. There are other weirdnesses (“Chick-Fil-A”??) and hints of the under-cooked quality that has become an unfortunate signature of West’s work since Pablo. On the other hand, Jesus Is King contains some of West’s finest vocal work ever, whether rapping tight to the groove of Follow God or emoting soulfully on God Is. As for guests, the most impressive is the team-up of a reunited Clipse with Kenny G. on Use This Gospel, the kind of left-field combo that is the glory of the best hip hop since the Bronx schoolyard days. I am drinking deep from this cup, taking the bitter with the sweet, and wondering where the journey goes next. 


If I’ve introduced you to something you didn’t know you needed, let me know! Don’t see your favorite here? Tell me all about that, too. It just may be on an upcoming genre-specific list. Stay tuned for the whole series, encompassing:
But not necessarily in that order, which will only add to the fun. This is supposed to be fun, right?!?




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Saturday, July 13, 2019

Best Of 2019 (So Far)


These lists are hard because I feel that everything I’ve written about this year is among the best music of our times. And there are also some things I’m sure are excellent but haven’t had the chance to really listen to. To all the composers, musicians, bands, ensembles and labels who have shared their creativity I say, paraphrasing Pusha T and Rick Ross: I got you - hold on. Still, it is undeniably interesting to take stock at the year's halfway point and note either what I’ve listened to a lot but haven’t yet covered or to acknowledge a few very recent releases that have quickly muscled their way into being essential. You’ll see some of both below in a list of the 25 albums that have helped get me through 2019 so far. Enough of my yakking - on with the show!

Note: If I’ve covered the album in a previous post, just click the link to read my thoughts. 









I haven’t yet watched the film Yorke made with Paul Thomas Anderson to accompany this album, but such is the intimacy and intrigue of these tracks that I get the sense that Yorke knows the biggest screen of all is on the interior of our foreheads. While using many of the same lushly minimalist textures as his first two solo albums, there is a warmth and emotional generosity to these songs that feels new, even if rooted in the more plain spoken parts of A Moon Shaped Pool. I would hesitate to call any work by this consummate artist “revealing” but I will say that he’s letting us in on another aspect of his talent and that is more than enough. 

Seeing this young Philly band live at Pioneer Works last month only served to solidify my feelings about how great they are. While their music, full of distorted guitars, shiny synths and driving rhythms can be brainy and fractured, witnessing their utter joy as they bounced around the stage was a minor miracle and helped me connect to that lightness of being on the album. While there are no left turns from their previous releases, there’s also a greater focus on craft when it comes both to the song-like parts and the sparkly excursions into ambience. Right here is the sound of a group hitting its potential across all metrics. Grab on to the album and catch them in concert ASAP. 





In which the boys from Brazil go further down the studio rabbit hole, constructing collage-like tracks that go some distance from their jammed out stage show. But the tunes are still there, maybe a bit buried but characteristically sweet. Following the development of this band has been a true delight and I hope to see how they work with this material live when they hit the rooftop at Industry City on September 4th with Mdou Moctar - a killer bill to end the summer!

Gibbs made hay with Madlib on Piñata in 2014 and nothing he’s done since has hit the same heights  - until now. Something about working with one of the great producers of all time brings out the best in Gibbs, who, instead of deferring to a legend tries to meet him halfway. As Gibbs himself noted: "I feel like you gotta bring your 'A’ game to really shine on his beats, or his beat is going to outshine you. It’s definitely a challenge. You can’t just come any kind of way on these beats, you gotta really make a marriage to ‘em and live with 'em." So, instead of coasting on his grittiness, Gibbs dazzles with a flow that hits a variety of tempos and mixes up the content with political observations and street lit. He shines when he gets personal, too, as in Situations: "1989, I seen a ni**a bleed/Uncle stabbed him in the neck and hit his knees/Turned the arcade to a stampede/I was playin' Pac-Man, Centipede/Put me on some shit I never should've seen." He also has the guts to share the mic on Palmolive with Killer Mike and Pusha-T, who both come loaded for bear, making it one of the great posse cuts of recent memory. I don't know the logistics of the hook-up between Gibbs and Madlib, but I sure hope it happens again because Bandana is a classic.

17. Mark de Clive-Lowe - Heritage and Heritage II 
I will admit to following the career of MdCL for years with admiration for his skills as a keyboard player and producer without being entirely sure exactly what he does. Sure, he was always in the hippest place at the hippest time, but who was he? It all comes into focus on these two extraordinary albums of expansive jazz-funk. The “heritage” referred to is MdCL’s Japanese roots, with each track’s title drawn from cultural reference of importance in his life. Hence we get tracks like Memories of Nanzenji, inspired by a 13th Century temple in Kyoto, and Akatombo (Red Dragonfly), based on a popular folk melody his mother used to sing to him. The music is sometimes spacey and drifting, at other times knotty and propulsive, often building up a head of steam after a moody start. The minor key melodies and overall gloss can't help but remind me of Steely Dan, in a welcome if distant echo. Everything is driven by the sensitive and powerful drumming of Brandon Combs, with strong contributions also coming from Josh Johnson (sax/flute), Teodross Avery (sax), Brandon Eugene Owens (bass), and Carlos Nino (percussion). But MdCL is the star, doing stellar work on all manner of keyboards and composing all the tracks, in a triumph of imagination and sheer musicianship. Now I know exactly who he is and what he does and I can't get enough of it.

 18. Elsa Hewitt - Citrus Paradisi

 19. Baroness - Gold & Gray
In the four years since the release of their last album, Purple, which found the metal band incorporating a new rhythm section after their bus accident, they have had yet more personnel changes. Peter Adams, who had been their lead guitarist since 2008, left to concentrate on his other band Valkyrie (among other things) and was replaced by Gina Gleason. She's had a checkered career, from Cirque du Soleil to bands that covered Metallica (Misstallica!) and King Diamond. As worrisome as that may sound, she has more than enough grit in her glamour to complement the playing of leader John Baizley while engaging in furious interaction with bassist Nick Jost and drummer Sebastian Thomson. She may have also helped push the group to further diversify their already broad palette of sound, adding a cleaner vocal dimension to the harmonies in the process. Whatever the reason, Gold & Gray is the most high-contrast album of their career, with glassy vignettes like Crooked Mile smash-cut into absolutely scorching cuts like Broken Halo. It's a head-spinning journey that feels somehow cleansing, with their most beautiful textures constantly being obliterated by some of their nastiest. While the emotions are always strong, the heart of the album is probably three songs near the middle: Anchor's Lament, Throw Me An Anchor, and I'd Do Anything. Given that the chorus of the last is "I'd do anything to feel alive again," it's obvious the near-death experience of the accident is woven into the core of Baizley's artistic expression forevermore. Whatever he needs to do to work out his grief, he's surrounded by stalwart companions and giving so much of himself to us listeners that it's easy to be humbled and grateful as you stand in awe of Baroness's rock majesty. Long may they reign.

 20. Cass McCombs - Tip Of The Sphere

 21. Crumb - Jinx
This Brooklyn via Boston band amassed a rabid following (including me) on the basis of two EP's of wobbly psych-funk so anticipation has been running high for their debut album. Jinx continues to deliver on their addictive style; if anything it finds their grooves ever more precise and their melodies more engagingly serpentine, adding up to a series of transporting tunes. At under 30 minutes, the trip may still be too short, but it's one you'll want to take often. Also, they stretch out in concert - catch them for free on August 8th in NYC.

 22. Car Seat Headrest - Commit Yourself Completely
I've been yammering on about what a great live band this is since I saw them in 2017 and now here's recorded proof! Even though these nine songs were recorded in seven different spaces, it feels like a coherent document of their dramatically dynamic approach to Will Toledo's conception of post-alternative indie rock. Even the shorter songs are full of epic vibes and their mastery of the slow build only adds to the cathartic feels when they hit full throttle. All of the songs save one come from Teens Of Denial (2016) and Twin Fantasy (2011/2018), which means they're drawn from Toledo's strongest material. One could quibble about the omission of Unforgiving Girl (She's Not An), which was one highlight of the show I saw. The one cover, of Frank Ocean's Ivy, is great but maybe not as revelatory as their take on Bowie's Teenage Wildlife, an interpretation that blew me away in concert. Minor details. This is a fantastic album that will have you jumping up and down as you play it at maximum volume. Your  neighbors might complain - or knock on your door to join you. P.S. Keep an eye out for a tour date near you.

 23. C. Duncan - Health

 24. Michel Chapman True North

 25. Edwyn Collins - Badbea

 Listen to a track from all of these albums in this playlist or below. Any of these on your list?



You may also enjoy:
The Best Of 2018 (So Far)
Best Of 2017 (So Far)
Best Of 2016 (So Far), Pt. 1
Best Of 2016 (So Far), Pt. 2
The Best Of 2015 (So Far)
2014: Mid-Year Report
The Best Of 2013 (So Far)



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Saturday, May 18, 2019

Record Roundup: Electro-Humanism



Early works for prerecorded tape
I can still connect to the feeling of holding the future in my hand when my father handed me a record featuring Helices, a work composed by his old friend Manny Ghent for violin, piano and prerecorded tape. “Of course!" I thought, "Putting acoustic and electronic instruments together is not just for rock music!” Hey, I was young. One thing I didn’t consider, however, was the inequality between instruments that had been developed and perfected over centuries and ones that were only a few decades old.

But I think we can safely say that rapid innovation has fairly well erased any level of sophistication between something made of wood and activated by air or vibration and something that needs software or recorded sound to work. Or at least that’s what these three records would have me believe, all electroacoustic masterpieces that should make a believer out of you as well. 

Rand Steiger/International Contemporary Ensemble - Coalescence Cycle Volume 1: Music for Soloists and Electronics That long title gives you the basics. I could add that there are five pieces here, all except one featuring a single player in combination with audio signal processing. I could throw around terms from Steiger’s liner notes like “virtuosity” and the “intersection of tempered and just intonation,” but in the end, it’s all about sensation and emotion. For the first, there’s the almost tactile nature of the electronic sounds, rich and rounded clouds surrounding clarinet, flute, cello, piano and bassoon, all so perfectly played and recorded that you will feel their physical presence. Miller Puckett, Steiger’s longtime collaborator who writes the software, deserves special mention here, as do the musicians of ICE: Joshua Rubin (clarinet), Claire Chase (flute), Kivie Cahn-Lipman (cello), Jacob Greenberg (piano), and Rebekah Heller (bassoon). 

As for the emotion, Steiger’s command of harmony and melody is so finely calibrated that it seems to have a direct connection to my inner state, allowing me to engage on a visceral level. Translation: these five pieces sound fantastic and make me feel all kinds of ways. Regardless if your experience of processed sound comes from Brian Eno or autotune, I think you will agree. And the best news is that Volume 2, featuring the same techniques applied to larger ensembles, is already in the works. If you can’t wait, make sure to revisit A Menacing Plume, Steiger’s superb album with Talea Ensemble from 2014. 

Daniel Wohl - Etat In 2013, I called Corps Exquis, Wohl’s debut, “jewel-textured and compulsively listenable” while including it in my Top 20. But I was left cold by the follow-up, Holographic, which was accomplished but lacked a certain spark. Not so for Etat, which maybe as close to a pop album as we get from this furiously inventive sonic architect. Y Music and the Calder Quartet are here to expertly actualize the acoustic elements, but Wohl’s most important collaborator this time around might be Ryan Lott, who co-produced Etat with Sae Heum Han, an electronic composer who works under the name mmph. Lott, whose art-rock project, Son Lux, is occasionally radio-adjacent, is wise in the ways of shaping both songs and sounds.

Corps Exquis had already proved that Wohl could combine the organic and synthetic seamlessly, finding a perfect realization for his emotion-laden compositions. Etat finds him delving deeper into modern production techniques and at the same time becoming yet more soulful. Concision is a factor here, too, as each piece is short and self-contained, reminiscent of the classic work of Wohl’s countryman, Erik Satie. There's also some of the epic feel of Vangelis's work for the original Blade Runner - if they make another sequel, Wohl might be the man for the soundtrack. There’s even a "single" in the form of Angel, which features Channy Leaneagh, the vocalist for indie-pop group Poliça. But a track like Melt proves Wohl doesn't need words to get under your skin, which this remarkable album will do immediately when it comes out May 31st. 

Drinker - Fragments The main organic ingredients on this moody song cycle are Aaron Mendelsohn's voice and guitar, which are surrounded by all manner of rich electronic textures, from percussion and handclaps to sleek keyboards and bass. If you've been following closely, you'll note that I've been tracing Mendelsohn's muse since 2013 when I discovered his band Isadora, who were for a time one of NYC's best live bands. While Mendelsohn moved to California after Isadora dissolved, he had already begun collaborating with Ariel Loh, a New York-based electronic composer and producer (Yoke Lore is one of his projects), and they soon formed the group Drinker. Singles have been coming out since 2017, including the excellent Which Way Is South?, but Fragments is their first album.

While California is often associated with sun and sand, Mendelsohn's songwriting is more attuned to its moonlit alter-ego, the LA of Riders On The Storm rather than Good Vibrations. Massive Attack's slightly bruised majesty is also in the mix along with a subtlety that seems drawn from bossa nova. Just watching Mendelsohn's restraint as he sang some of these songs at the album release party a few weeks ago had me thinking of Frank Sinatra's work on the Sinatra/Jobim album, where he had to tone down his brassy quality - and that of the band - in order to find a new mode of expression. Sinatra's imprecations to the trombone player to soften his attack had the musician complaining "If I played any softer, I'd be blowing out the back of my neck." Mendelsohn seems to have achieved that on some of these songs, with Follow, in which he finds new falsetto contours in his voice, a perfect example.

The link between Drinker and Isadora is Mendelsohn's innate melodic talent, an ability to create songs where the music pulls you through the narrative as much as the words. In Loh he has found an ideal collaborator, someone who can push songs into unexpected directions that, after a few listens, seem inevitable. He and Mendelsohn also know when to layer sounds and when to strip everything back to a single instrument, techniques from dub and remix culture that keep the songs feeling fresh even as they become familiar. While Fragments is somewhat austere, it's also suffused with a deep humanity, delivering on electronic pop's promise to combine man (or woman) and machine in a way that adds new dimensions to both. A remarkable debut.

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Sunday, January 07, 2018

Best Of 2017: Electronic


My Top 25 was nearly one-fifth electronic, including great music by Goldfrapp, Noveller, Elsa Hewitt and Novelty Daughter. Just taking those four records into account, you can get an idea of the sheer variety of sonic experiences to be had in this category. I covered a few other albums in a recent roundup, which were also among the year's best. Those are listed below along with more plugged-in excitements from 2017.

 Record Roundup: Eclectic Electronics
Summer Like The Season - Thin Today
Jonti - Tokorats
Suzi Analogue - Zonez V.3: The World Unwinds But The Sound Holds Me Tight

 Brian Eno - Reflection This dropped on the first day of 2017 and it was a calming start to the year - which we needed, god knows - and something I returned to when I wanted to sink into an undemanding bed of sound, although I can't guarantee I was always all there for the full 65 minutes. Eno has always had a self-effacing side and his generative music, where he sets the balls in motion (so to speak) and lets them roll where they will, is a natural extension of that quality. Here it results in meditative ripples that are very beautiful and tonally similar to various vintage keyboards. While it reminds me of Ambient 4: On Land, Eno's classic album from 1982, it doesn't quite rise to that level of greatness, which makes me admire his abilities as editor and architect of sound even more, roles that he somewhat abdicates on Reflection. But if anyone has earned the right to switch on a laptop and walk offstage, it's Eno.

Brian Eno & Tom Rogerson - Finding Shore This collaboration represents the other pole of Eno’s methods: treatments. This is where he processes sound, either as it’s being made, after the fact, or both, as is the case here. So, Rogerson recorded short, sparkling pieces on a piano fitted with The Piano Bar, which converts the sounds to MIDI signals, which Eno then transformed. The final product retains varying percentages of the original piano, as Eno applies different techniques, ranging from spacey to serrated. I think Rogerson’s style is a bit too dependent on Eno’s handiwork, which does most of the work of keeping things interesting, But Finding Shore is a great listen, often bright and pretty with just enough edge. 

 Brian Eno & Kevin Shields - Only Once Away My Son Eno was busy last year! On this entry in the Adult Swim Singles collection for 2017, he works with Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine to create nine dreamy minutes of enhanced guitar-scapes that leave me breathless for more. Album?

 Visible Cloaks - Reassemblage While they occasionally use chance operations, for their second album the Portland duo of Spencer Doran and Ryan Carlile have strengthened their own editing and architecture skills to arrive at 11 (or 15, if you include bonus tracks) tightly constructed short pieces that are instantly satisfying without ever fully giving up their mystery. They have also developed their sonics further and there is not one sound on Reassemblage that isn't addictively lush and colorful. In fact, the first 30 seconds of Screen may just be the most sheerly beautiful thing in this whole category. They use vocals on a few tracks, most effectively on Valve when they put Japanese pop singer Miyako Koda through a digital wringer - subtly - lending a vibe that is both futuristic and quotidian, as if you're hearing a public address system in a spaceport. Will they have the TSA in the 23rd century? Not sure, but the music of Visible Cloaks is unlikely to sound dated even then. If you need more of their unique soundscapes (I know I do) there are six additional tracks to be found on the recently released Lex EP.

 Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - The Kid On her third outing, a concept album describing "the emotional realities and spiritual epiphanies of a lifeform through its infancy, societal assimilation, and eventual self-remembrance," Smith continues to pursue her electro-pop chamber eclecticism to wonderful effect - and with a lot more finesse than that description! Some songs feel more like little keyboard improvisations while others have her combining her voice with collage-like backgrounds and still others feel tightly composed. Her voice is almost always treated, making it just another texture, but its organic quality keeps the songs down to earth. And like all good concept albums, you don't have to pay any attention to the "big idea" if you don't want to. Either way, your experience will be your own and, in the case of Smith's music, very rich and rewarding.

 Juana Molina - Halo Like Björk, Molina has sometimes struggled to maintain the inspiration of her earlier albums, but Halo is the Argentinian's most connected album since Son over a decade ago. One thing she has done in that time is work on her stage show, incorporating more musicians into her performances, some of whom are collaborators here, adding some spontaneity to her hypnotic, Möbius strip-like songs. A perfect example is Cosoco, which is full of repeating phrases on bass and drums with her voice(s) soaring alongside. Electric guitars cut in, adding a texture you didn't even notice was lacking, but then you can't get enough. Welcome back, Juana!

 Moebius - Musik für Metropolis As a member of both Cluster and Harmonia, Dieter Moebius was a key shaper of Krautrock and behind some of the greatest electronic music of all time. Though he died in 2015, it took until 2017 to release these four long tracks, composed to accompany a screening of Fritz Lang's classic film, Metropolis. While I think Lang would appreciate the dark, unnerving nature of Moebius's conception, and it is fun to imagine the various indelible scenes with his test-lab textures as opposed to the usual herky-jerky 1920's music, the album exists perfectly outside of the film. This is a fitting capstone to a legendary career and if you need a refresher, Bureau B has reissued several of his solo albums, all of which are worth investigating.

 Kara-Lis Coverdale - Grafts A church organist in Canada, where she also has collaborated with Tim Hecker, Coverdale is really coming into her own as a creator of special sonic landscapes. Grafts consists of one 22-minute piece that combines acoustic and electronic keyboards in shifting patterns that refer to both ambient and minimalist traditions. While there may be less textural variety than on her previous album, Aftertouches, there seems to be more character on Grafts. You can drift off if you want, but I find it quite riveting and eagerly await more from her.

 Lost Souls Of Saturn Vs. Mashrou' Leila - Bint Al Khandaq This new project features DJs Seth Troxler and Phil Moffa conspiring to remix a track by Lebanese band Mashrou' Leila. Listen to the original and then hear it transformed into a haunting, pitch-black meditation. I'm not sure where the Lost Souls will go next, but it should be interesting - and powerful.

Floating Points - Reflections-Mojave Desert While there’s as much organic instrumentation (guitars, bass, and drums), as electronic on this second album by Sam Shepherd, the overall effect and attitude locates it firmly in this genre. There are some ambient textures here, along with a bit of Krautrock throb and some Jonathan Wilson-style expansiveness, making for a slow-burn intensity that is consistently involving. Pink Floyd circa Meddle also came to mind, especially the famous Pompeii concert - and that was even before I learned the album was also recorded outside, in this case among the rocks near Joshua Tree! You can choose to listen to the individual tracks or the 25-minute “Continuous Mix,” which combines them all seamlessly, but playing all of that at once can feel somewhat redundant. Shepherd remains an exciting talent, however, and I am sure there is more to come from him. 

Scott Gilmore - Subtle Vertigo Gilmore has a full arsenal of goofy retro synths and drum machines, which he uses to cobble together charming ditties that will not only take your cares away, but make you forget you had them in in the first place. This short album would make a perfect double-feature with Morgan Delt’s last album of sunstruck California psych. Relax, float downstream, you know the drill. 

Drinker - Happy Accident When a beloved band breaks up, as Isadora did about a year ago, the only consolation is the promise of new music from one or more of the players. That’s what we have here, as Drinker is the project of Aaron Mendelsohn, Isadora's main man, and Ariel Loh, known for his work with Yoke Lore, who have been getting some buzz this year. Thanks to both Mendelsohn’s sure songwriting and his beautiful high tenor, Drinker is as infused with his wistful and sincere melodicism as his former band. The context, spare electro-pop, couldn’t be more different, but he and Loh develop settings that serve the songs very well. The haunting Which Way Is South?, which should be on the radar of all Hollywood music supervisors, is my favorite track, but my only real complaint is that four songs is not enough! How about putting out that unreleased Isadora album while we await more Drinker?

Post-Breton
The fade out of Breton, London’s brilliant electro-dance-pop-post-punk overlords, after their second album, was at least as traumatic as Isadora’s demise. But for those keeping a careful eye, 2017 had more signs of life than any year since they fragmented. Lead singer Roman Rappak was heard in Live Alone by Yuksek, which was introduced with a very cool outer space video and found him in great voice. Not only did Rappak elevate Yuksek’s somewhat rote electronica far above its station, just hearing his voice on a new track was like a homecoming. We also heard from Daniel Alexander, who played bass and other instruments in Breton and released the Unfree EP late in 2017, cementing his emergence as a melancholy electro-acoustic balladeer. Fans of James Blake and King Krule shouldn't miss it, but I think he's better than both of them thanks to his intimate and immediate lyricism and lack of self-consciousness. Who knows what we will see from the ex-Bretons in 2018?

 Listen to tracks from all of the above in the playlist below and find even more electronic sounds in 2017 Archive (Electronic). To keep an eye on what's to come in the next 12 months, follow Of Note In 2018: Electronic. 

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