Best Of The Rest Of 14: Synths & Who's New (To Me)

Synthesized But Not Synthetic

Thank god Matt Taibbi is back, because Rolling Stone had the worst Best Albums of the Year list of, well, the year. U2, Bruce Springsteen? Only Jan Wenner thought those albums were among the best of 2014. And Taylor Swift at #10? I heard Wenner broke his sacroiliac contorting himself to pander to so many audiences. But one big thing they did get right was putting Thom Yorke's Tomorrow's Modern Boxes on there. Much coverage focused on his method of releasing it as a BitTorrent file, but after you've downloaded the thing (you can also get it from Bandcamp) the music is what matters. And the music is very good, with Yorke's angelic tenor sounding better than ever over slightly off-kilter electronic grooves. Perhaps the only thing keeping TMB off my Top 20 was a slight sense of over-familiarity - as if this is pretty much the album we would expect him to make. But if Yorke is content to tread water, I'm happy to paddle next to him in his rarified ocean.

Fans of Washed Out and M83 should also delve into the soundscapes of Michael Hammond, composer, sound-designer, and singer, released under the name No Lands. An arty and ambient take on synth pop (think Talk Talk's Spirit Of Eden), debut album Negative Space is gorgeous and never ceases to be intriguing. 

Although some reviews seemed to expect dance music from Patten's Estoile Naiant, it was really a series of electronic collages that kept moving forward without resorting to cheap rhythmic techniques. Mouse On Mars is in his DNA, just as Kraftwerk and Neu are in the DNA of Finland's Siinai. Their album Supermarket was expertly executed and focused on telling the story of a trip to, yes, the supermarket. Delightful and eerie in equal measures. When I think of Siinai, I often think of Seekae (something about the vowels), who released two albums in 2014. The Worry, the more song-based of the two, finds him working out some personal stuff over moody and colorful backgrounds. I like his plainspoken voice better than James Blake's and find him less pretentious overall. Find Seekae.

It could be coincidence or it could be the ripple effect of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's Oscar-winning soundtrack to The Social Network, but either way three of the year's most striking electronic albums were also soundtracks. Mica Levi's score to sci-fi art film Under The Skin creates a chilling mental movie using very simple elements. I wouldn't have expected such bleak rigor from the leader of the irritating Micachu & The Shapes, and I hope her dark night of the soul continues. Cliff Martinez of Drive fame is always worth listening to and kudos to the producers of The Knick for going with his anachronistic electronics instead of a period score. As always, Martinez's work is as slippery as a murderous icicle and just as cold. Son Lux has long been a favorite of mine and a nice end-of-year surprise was having his Original Music From And Inspired By: The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby drop on Spotify. Beautiful stuff, on the more ethereal side for him but with that signature feeling of consequence throughout.

I was on the Twigs tip before she was FKA and eagerly awaited her first full-length. As much as I tried, however, I did not swoon for LP1, finding it static and over-thought, although I did like Video Girl. At first I thought part of the problem with her album was that Alejandro Ghersi, better known as Arca, didn't produce the whole thing. His &&&&& EP was so stunning, as was his work on FKA Twigs early EP2 (not to mention the stuff he did for Kanye West on Yeezus), that I thought he could have saved LP1. But then his own album, Xen, came out and it was just as stiff, seeming to wither on the vine while I listened to it. The one highlight was Thievery, which burst from the general torpor with a beat straight from the dancehall. Hopefully Arca and FKA Twigs will get over themselves and serve up something more tasty in the future - they've both got the talent to do it.

Feels Like The Very First Time

Here's a quick rundown of some folks I heard for the first time in 2014 and who I now consider in the club, so to speak. They weren't all new artists but they were new to me.

I loved Courtney Barnett's draggy sound, witty lyrics, dynamite guitar and pure rock'n'roll attitude, all of which suffused the catchy, heartfelt songs on The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas. After seeing her rip the Bowery Ballroom apart by turning all those qualities up to 11, I know she has an even better record in her. Can't wait.

Eddie Dixon's Bump Key, which I might have found on Bandcamp myself if he hadn't contacted me first, was full of fractured Americana. I've also been having a ball discovering his earlier albums.

I had a wonderful night in Nashville thanks to Wild Ponies and Catherine Ashby and I've really enjoyed reliving it through their recent releases, Things That Used To Shine and Tennessee Tracks. Both records are filled with great music and great potential.

I've long enjoyed Sylvie Simmons writing in Mojo Magazine and elsewhere - who knew that she was hiding her quirky light as a singer-songwriter under a bushel? Her debut album, Sylvie, was beyond charming.

Ian William Craig is an operatically-trained Canadian tenor who knows his way around the studio, seeming to construct the spooky, layered pieces that make up A Turn Of Breath out of scraps of half-remembered sound. Striking stuff.

Richard Dawson has one of the weirdest takes on British folk I've ever heard, torturing an out-of-tune guitar till it bleeds. It's hard to tell if he knows exactly what he's doing on Nothing Important but I can assure you it sounds like nothing else.

Ben Howard's cinematic folk is far more conventional, touching on Coldplay at times, but there is a passionate heart beating underneath it all, and the tracks on his second album, I Forget Where We Were, often build to a real intensity. 

When Nick Mulvey was a member of the Portico Quartet, they were nominated for a Mercury Prize. He was nominated again for his solo debut, First Mind, which draws on folk, jazz and latin rhythms some of the same nubby-sweater warmth of classic Cat Stevens. His voice is a reassuring burr and he packs a lot of incident, melody and intelligence into his well-arranged songs.

Lastly, TV Girl's French Exit was a fun trip on the lighter side. These guys know their sixties pop and their St. Etienne and put it all together into shiny, smart packages with a faint sense of amusement. Don't let them have all the fun - join in.

What new discoveries did you make this year?



Still to come: Classical & Composed and Out Of The Past.

P.S. Since Thom Yorke hates Spotify as much as Taylor Swift (although perhaps for different reasons (and they're both dead wrong)), he is not represented on the playlist above - don't let that stop you from hearing Tomorrow's Modern Boxes.

Sunday Night's All Right At Baby's

The last time I was at Baby's All Right, the bar-restaurant-music venue in south Williamsburg, it was packed to the gills for The Clientele's show back in July. This past Sunday found far fewer people there for a show headlined by DJ/rupture and celebrating the release of the debut album by No Lands on New Amsterdam Records. But a smaller audience is to be expected if you skitter along the cutting edge, as Rupture does, not to mention competing for eyes and ears with the VMA's and the Afro-Punk Festival.
When my friend and I entered the performance space, Lorna Dune was already on stage, engrossed in her keyboards as people looked on, standing in rows almost exactly one person apart from each other, like trees in a nursery. The last time I encountered Dune was as a member of Victoire, Missy Mazzoli's indie-classical chamber ensemble. She was playing keyboards in that context as well, while also doing some very cool live remixing of Mazzoli's work. Her own music is less challenging yet expertly assembled. Warm layers of fat synth chords and arpeggiated melodies overlap atop pulsing rhythms, shifting and changing. Crescendos are approached but never quite arrive. Lorna Dune's music is not really retro but has strong referents to Krautrock and 90's IDM from artists on the Warp label. In the end, it's a bit static - she was the only one dancing. Right now she might be devoting her more outré impulses to her collaborations, which is fine, but I'll be curious to see what she does next.
DJ/rupture had been standing next to me for most of the set, but I couldn't get a word in. As soon they started breaking down Dune's gear, he dashed to the front of the room, stepping behind his impressive set-up at the left of the stage. He launched in without buildup and quickly had people dancing. He was supposed to headline so at first I thought this was a quick mix while No Lands set up their stuff. However, a night at Baby's doesn't always go as advertised and I soon realized that this was Rupture's set. Perhaps he had magnanimously offered to let No Lands finish the night.
Either way, his work was magnificent, similar to the mesmerizing Mudd Up shows he used to do on WFMU, but somehow both more layered and more seamless. This is the art of the DJ as fine art - but in no way effete. The groove was relentless, spanning electronica, Algerian pop, reggae, hip hop, West African sounds and more.
Watching Rupture work was fascinating. His kit consisted of five cases lined up: a laptop, a turntable, a mixing board, another turntable and a CD controller. "Where's the wax cylinder?" joked my friend. Rupture's level of engagement and control of these devices was virtuosic. His left hand would gently pull back on the turntable, finding the perfect spot on the vinyl, while his right hand was busy doing something on the board.
A high point for me was when he began dropping fragments of vocals from a Rai song and interleaving it with something that sounded South Asian. It was pure hypnotism as the two streams of sound abutted and began to blend. That assemblage cross-faded into some heavy digital dub, complete with air horn, bringing the tempo down before moving into other areas. After about an hour the deeply involving set was over - just like that. He humbly accepted our applause and walked off.
I wasn't sure what to expect from No Lands in the live context. Negative Space came out in July and is essentially a solo project by sound designer and electronic musician Michael Hammond. You might call it a synth-art-almost-pop record, hinting at 80's hit-makers without actually going there. Even with the Linn drums, there's nothing ironic going on in these lush, warmly produced pieces.
The album opens with Icefisher, a gorgeous overture in which sweet chords dialogue with perfectly calibrated distortion before blending into the bobbing rhythm of City, the first song proper. Synths chatter and there's a big, melodic chorus, with Hammond's soft tenor mixed down to join the track as another texture. There's a diffuse quality to Hammond's music, as if he listened to the radio through the wall, half-remembered what he heard, and then tried to play it back using different instruments. This makes Negative Space all the more tantalizing as your mind works to resolve the blurred soundscapes. It's no surprise that he lists I Believe In You from Talk Talk's Spirit Of Eden as one of his favorite songs ever. That song is included in the Mixtape he put together for Q2, along with everything from Eno to Grieg and from Feldman to Scott Walker, providing a fascinating glimpse of his influences.
Pretender has a pulsing beat and, in the corner of the mix, chiming Simple Minds guitar. On Sleep Atlas, he treats his voice heavily, crafting it into a sound not unlike Jon Hassel's cosmic trumpet. Eyesore broods along, with dramatic guitar flourishes, more Hassel-like vocals, and a chorus that opens up like the sun streaming through clouds. Firebride is half-song, half ambiance, like David Sylvian used to do, and there's even biting guitar and a touch of Popul Vuh's pastoralism - sheer beauty. The album ends with the even more ambient Seawall and the blissful meditation of Outside Of You. Negative Space is a great album, an extremely assured debut, and one which should make some noise on those lists at the end of the year.

But here we had a full band taking the stage, with Hammond joined by his brother on guitars, a bassist, and two more members on keyboards and electronic percussion. Their stage presence was appealing and affable if not quite displaying the confidence demonstrated by the album. The diffusion was there, but some of the forward motion was lacking and I could see a listener feeling slightly lost if not already familiar with the songs. But, heck, from what I can tell, this was their ninth show together and it was a great opportunity to observe how the songs were put together. For example, there were a lot more guitars involved than I thought, although they were rarely played straight. Harmony vocals also came into play, with Hammond's brother chiming in on most of the songs.

The set was also a chance to shower some acclaim on Hammond for making such a great record, something the audience did without hesitation. After they finished, I checked in with Rupture as he broke down his gear. His Julius Eastman record from last year (released under his given name, Jace Clayton) was his first foray into the classical avant garde and a complete success, so I asked him if there was anything else in the works. Not in the way of recording, he told me, but he will be performing his work Enkutatash on September 11th in Washington, DC, which will feature the Homeland Security threat level system sung by a chorus using the Ethiopian scale and mixed with an East African harvest song. It sounds like it will be very intriguing, connecting the cerebral and the emotional in a powerful way, just like much of the music that filled the room at Baby's All Right on one of the last Sundays of summer.