"THE BEST THING I'VE HEARD ALL YEAR"
Our 2018 heroes’ recent epiphanies, as related to Danny Eccleston.
ELVIS COSTELLO The Man is a fan
“By the far the best thing I’ve heard all year is the music from Pawel Pawlikowski’s movie, Cold War, which follows the relationship of a couple who meet in a state-sponsored folk music troupe in post-War Poland and sometime later in 1950s Paris. Marcin Masecki’s arrangements may well be of Polish folk melodies or his own compositions but they are perfectly judged in every scene, themes travelling from vérité recordings captured in the bleak, snowy country villages to a haunting performance by Joanna Kulig in a Parisian jazz club. There doesn’t seem to be a soundtrack album at present. Write to your MP, Senator or Congressman – or woman – to demand one or dial up the Zimna Wojna original movie trailer to see and hear what I mean.”
TRACEY THORN Bedsit disco discernment
“Two tracks that knocked me sideways this year were Django Jane by Janelle Monáe – which is packed full of killer lyrics, from the opening swagger of ‘Yeah, yeah this is my palace/ Champagne in my chalice’ through to the stop-youin-your-tracks line ‘Hit the mute button/Let the vagina have a monologue’ – and Girlfriend by Christine And The Queens, which sounded like a gorgeous Jam & Lewis production fast-forwarded into the 21st century. I think I liked the French version even more. And then an album I discovered unexpectedly this year was Frank Sinatra’s Watertown from 1970, an amazing concept album produced and co-written by Bob Gaudio of The 4 Seasons. A flop at the time, it didn’t even make the Billboard Top 100. Maybe because it’s a collection of weary-sounding songs documenting a man left broken by a divorce, and people preferred Frank when he sounded triumphant. It’s beautiful though. No idea how I hadn’t heard it before.”
NILE RODGERS C’est Chic, n’est-ce pas
“What’s consumed me like alien DNA crawling under my skin and continuously pulsing through my veins is Childish Gambino’s This Is America, because his message is so damn strong. It stimulates all my senses, like when I first heard D’Angelo. Then there’s Anderson.Paak – Tints [from the Oxnard album]. He’s my brother. We did a week’s worth of writing together at Abbey Road with other folks popping in and out to jam, like Bruno Mars and Anais. One of those songs eventually became Till The World Falls on the new Chic album. I’m listening constantly for what’s next but a lot of my time is spent in my jazz head listening to everything from Coltrane’s Giant Steps, which changed my musical outlook forever, to amazing compositions that for whatever reason have now become almost obscure in the R&B landscape and I can only find on You Tube, like Faze-O’s Riding High.”
KIM DEAL Breeding brilliant
“There were a couple of songs I couldn’t get enough of. Road Trip by 180dB – they’re the rhythm section from Savages, with Meredith Graves [ex-Perfect Pussy] singing and Nick Zinner on guitar. The track’s just really exciting, plus it has laugh-outloud funny lyrics. I can’t not mention Courtney Barnett’s City Looks Pretty. ‘The city looks pretty when you’ve been indoors’: I often feel like that when I come home, after having been away. And I love songs that are sweet and sad at the same time.”
LAWRENCE Felt and Go-Kart Mozart grand fromage
“The Lemon Twigs’ Go To School was my album of the year. It’s got lots of elements that I like: bits of Broadway/West End, amazing songwriting, proper musicianship – professional, y’know? Mind you, I didn’t dig the cover at all – it looks like some kid’s drawn it in 10 seconds! The other thing I liked was the Insecure Men album. I love that guy Saul [Adamczewski] – what a character. I’d missed the Fat White Family thing; I’d got the completely the wrong impression from the name – I thought they were a kind of American country band. My reissues of the year were all Doris Norton – three of her albums from the early ’80s came out on vinyl [Norton Computer For Peace (1983), Personal Computer (1984), Artificial Intelligence (1985)]. They’re all incredible experimental electronic records. The year’s big disappointment was that there were new tracks by my favourite artist – Charli XCX – with one of my favourite producers – Sophie – but they were only online, and I don’t have a computer.”
SHABAKA HUTCHINGS UK jazz’s ubiquitous sax machine
“I’ve just discovered Moor Mother – she has this EP, Spa 700 [as 700 Bliss, with DJ Haram] that I really like. She’s a performance poet with this kind of DIY noise aesthetic and her voice has this deep, dark timbre – really powerful. It’s like Bad Brains meets industrial noise meets Saul Williams. Also, I really, really liked the Kojey Radical album, In God’s Body – it’s got this really amazing thematic arc, a complicated narrative that I’m not sure I could quite summarise here, but the more you listen to the album the more you get glimmers of it. The albums the [Sons Of] Kemet boys have had on repeat the last couple of weeks are the D Double E album Jackuum! and Ghetts’ Ghetto Gospel: The New Testament. A lot of grime albums, they have the bangers but you have some fodder. I feel like there’s a ground-breaking grime album to come – grime’s To Pimp A Butterfly moment – and these two albums are suggesting that that’s possible. It’s gonna happen. I can feel it.”
RICHARD THOMPSON Sophisto folk-rock’s guitar great
“I loved the Wolf EP by Katherine Priddy, an artist I was previously unfamiliar with. She has a really pretty, expressive voice, and her songs are engaging – borderline poetry in the lyrics, so it isn’t all revealed at once. Really nice arrangements in what could loosely be called a folk-rock style, and I love the echoes of the British tradition, and indeed the folk rock tradition.” ➢
DJ MUGGS Cypress Hill’s beats warlock
“One of my favourite records this year was RR2: The Bitter Dose, by a hip hop artist called Roc Marciano. He’s from Hempstead, New York, and every line is like a motion picture or a painting. Line for line, no one’s better. It opens portals in your brain – the kind of shit that inspires me to keep doin’ what I do. The other shit I got into this year – you’ll probably think I’m crazy – was H.R. Giger, the painter. I’m a super fucking huge fan. And the director Alejandro Jodorowsky. I’ve been studying him, how his brain works, his philosophy on art – he was a huge influence on the Cypress Hill album: Giger, Jodorowsky and Dali, they were the big inspirations. Plus some old Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne, man! Sweet Leaf, War Pigs, Iron Man – fucking mind-blowing groove and simplicity.”
STEPHEN MALKMUS The Jick with the licks
“I know this was out last year, but I really liked Moonshine Freeze by This Is The Kit – spooky folk, great playing… almost, dare I say, sophisticated. Also, I enjoyed recent singles by [frenetic female-fronted punkers] CCTV, outta Bloomington, Indiana: lo-fi pandemonium, it feels real! I’m into Daytona by Pusha T: short and sweet with Authority Earned. Also dug We Are Ill by none other than [all-female Mancunian post-punk roughnecks] Ill. Dig the crazy vibes this group emits – come play the West Coast please!”
JOE TALBOT Idles’ dissenter-in-chief
“The best thing I heard all year was easily Bambara and their album Shadow On Everything. [Singer/ lyricist] Reid Bateh brings this savage MOJO realism but the noir-ish depth of the music takes you away on Birthday Party-type vibes. I just love everything they do – and I think they’re one of the best live acts I’ve ever seen. They’re from Atlanta, Georgia but based in Brooklyn. They’re violent and passionate, interested and interesting and good-looking, and they’re much cooler than we are.”
PETER BREWIS Field Music’s big brother is listening to you
“Despite being a bit more of a record-type person, the things I’ve really enjoyed this year have been live performances. I went to see Sarah [Hayes – Brewis’s partner in You Tell Me] singing and playing with Inge Thomson and Jenny Sturgeon’s Northern Flyway production, which looks at the lives of birds, their environment and their relationships with people. It’s a beautifully put-together mix of music, song, field recordings, interviews and film. I found it a very immersive and moving experience. I also really enjoyed seeing John Carpenter’s live show. I grew up with his late ’70s/’80s films in the VHS era and it was great to be reminded that film scores can be atmospheric and dynamic without gloopy orchestral bombast.”
KAYUS BANKOLE Young Fathers’ cosmic R&B energy flash
“It’s from a couple of years ago, but City by [Scottish indie R&B singer] Law Holt is absolutely wonderful. The range and humanity of this woman’s voice is phenomenal. Another singer I love is [punky Anglo-Zimbabwean] Farai. She had a song called Vagabond on her Kisswell EP. There’s so much power and honesty – no fucking shiny glitter! – a sense of being unshackled. Then there’s an [LA rapper] YG album called Stay Dangerous I stumbled across. Dare I say, it’s a plain-out rap record, but this guy’s delivery is weird. Weird in a beautiful way. Complex, but reality is complex. I really want to talk about [Edinburgh singer-songwriter] Callum Easter. I’m still listening to his album Delete Forever, especially a song called Silhouette. The contrast in his music, between harsh and soft, it’s like the perfect marriage, like one part completes the other. Finally, I’m enjoying [Leytonstone-born rapper] Murkage Dave – his album Murkage Dave Changed My Life just came out, and you can check out his Magic Mission Deja Rinse on Soundcloud. He finds poetry in the everyday.”
GARY NUMAN Synth-goth geezer goes Anatolian
“I was very recently, as in last week, pointed in the direction of a Turkish musician and inventor called Görkem Sen. He is not only incredibly creative as a player but has invented an entirely new instrument, called a yaybahar. It’s one of the most beautiful and haunting things I’ve ever heard. It can veer from small and eerie to a full-blown rhythmic onslaught. I search constantly for new sounds, things that I’ve never heard before, and this is a huge leap forward. If there is even the slightest chance of working with him on my next album I will do whatever I can to try and make that happen.”
RYLEY WALKER He’s a “lucky douche”
“The only new record I really dug into this year was [Chicago experimental jazz/ electronica/pop mage] Ben LaMar Gay’s Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun. Outside of that, I listened to Genesis and Dave Matthews Band bootlegs, or didn’t listen at all. Seeing Beachwood Sparks in Big Sur was a big live music highlight. I loved them dearly back in the day and seeing the tunes in person opened up a lot of great memories. Touring in general rules. I’m a lucky douche.”