MIDYEAR JAM
AT THE MIDPOINT, WE CHECK OUT THE NATIONAL MUSIC SCENE
As we round the corner on the midway point of 2015, let’s take a moment to reflflect on the year’s national releases. It’s been a great year for hip-hop, with a wide range of artists stepping outside the booty club to tackle difficult themes and raise the banner for important causes. After years mired in formulaic song structures and auto-tuned hooks, R& B and neo-soul are soaring back with real singers pushing the genre in fascinating directions. Following the shimmery synth overload that nearly blinded us by the end of 2014, electronic artists have begun to explore darker avenues. Rock ’n’ roll is enamored with the ’90s, with fuzzed out distortion and grungelike guitars cropping up everywhere, and country music seems caught in a transitional moment, polarized between the bro-country movement that still dominates mainstream radio and a new generation of artists like Kacey Musgraves and Sturgill Simpson who are willing to take risks and break the template. Best-of lists are always an exercise in subjectivity. While it’s possible to objectively judge vocal and instrumental prowess, musical magnificence is harder to quantify. How we connect with music is influenced by personal taste, where you are in your life and even your mood on any given day. With that understanding, we present our favorite albums of the year, plus a handful of notable releases.
DEBORAH SENGUPTA STITH’S PICKS (In no particular order.)
Kendrick Lamar, “To Pimp a Butterfly.” As America wrestles with fraught racial tensions, polarized politics and explosive discontent that spills into the streets, Lamar bursts in with this breathtaking piece of work, an album that aims to save the soul of hip-hop and, by proxy, the nation. He fiercely tackles institutionalized racism, police brutality and his own struggles with depression while bringing down a mothership of funky complicated beats. Hiatus Kaiyote, “Choose Your Weapon.” Vocalist Nai Palm’s voice scales complex chord structures and cascades over bewildering time signatures as the Australian quartet creates jazzy, soulful songs that are as intellectually challenging as they are viscerally appealing. Miguel, “Wildheart.” Miguel skips obvious constructs to create deeply stirring, musically challenging love songs ready to disrupt the bedroom music industry. For good measure, he also mixes in life-affirming pop anthems and politically charged
statements about black power.
■ Donnie Trumpet & the Social Experiment, “Surf.” Chance the Rapper’s new project pulls his longtime homies and members of his touring band into a vibrant ensemble. Together they create an expansive work, rich with musical textures and buoyed by exuberant spirit.
■ Jamie xx, “In Colour.” This is electronic music at its best, a lush sampler of aural soundscapes. Snippets of vocal melodies float among synthesizer swells evoking a profound ache of nostalgia tempered by astonishing beauty.
■ Ibeyi, “Ibeyi.” The French Cuban twin sister duo fuses futuristic electronics with primal tradition, raising their voices in tightly woven harmonies. It has an ethereal quality, but the music is deeply rooted in the Earth-based Yoruban religion that’s part of their ancestral culture.
■ Young Fathers, “White Men Are Black Men Too.” The Scottish trio slams together garage soul and electro punk, then slips in hints of hip-hop for a thoroughly exhilarating mix.
■ Wolf Alice, “My Love Is Cool.” The most impressive aspect of the debut full-length from the London four-piece is its range and depth. The album shifts seamlessly from dreamy shoegaze and swirly pop into edgy post-Riot Grrrl rock.
■ Leon Bridges, “Coming Home.” So many artists are doing retro soul these days, but while most of them go for James Brown-era flamboyance, the overnight superstar from Fort Worth tacks in the opposite direction, creating emotional gems that spin quiet beauty from simplicity.
■ Alabama Shakes, “Sound & Color.” Building on the base of powerful blues rock they laid with their 2012 debut, this album finds the band exploring more sonic avenues, capitalizing on singer Brittany Howard’s ability to wring gut-wrench- ing emotion out of any groove.
■ Shamir, “Ratchet.” The Vegas-based singer with the distinctive, high-pitched countertenor voice throws down a fierce collection of dance floor bangers loaded with slinky, snappy grooves to make you move.
Honorable Mentions
Joey Bada$$, “B4. Da.$$”; Courtney Barnett, “Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit”; Ghostface Killah and Badbadnotgood, “Sour Soul”; Kehlani, “You Should Be Here”; Vince Staples, “Summertime ’06”; Sharon van Etten, “I Don’t Want to Let You Down” (EP) and Panda Bear, “Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper.”
ERIC WEBB’S PICKS
(In no particular order.)
■ Sufjan Stevens, “Carrie & Lowell.” Ever a priest to the starry-eyed, spiritual sad kids, Stevens abandoned maximalist flourishes and skittering electronics for a gutting and graceful elegy to his recently deceased mother. Sonically stripped down to the point of captivation, “Carrie & Lowell’s” stars are the lyrics, from dry witticisms to naked anguish of the soul. Stevens’ words are the most potent they’ve been since “Casimir Pulaski Day” on the whispered, acoustic “No Shade In the Shadow of the Cross”: “There’s blood on that blade/(Expletive) me, I’m falling apart.”
■ Title Fight, “Hyperview.” Take some melodic hardcore punks, run them through the current shoegaze revival, and you get the most gorgeous, frayed-around-the-edges rock with which to drive down a nocturnal highway. For all the silvery noise, there’s still enough screaming to soothe your mosh-pit nerves.
■ Father John Misty, “I Love You, Honeybear.” J. Tillman’s mad prophet alter ego releases the misanthrope in all of us with lines about the soulful affectations “white girls put on” and about “President Jesus.” Algonquin Round Table by way of Haight-Ashbury, all wrapped up in folksy earworms.
■ Wavves and Cloud Nothings, “No Life For Me.” The sum of these two bands is equal to its equally awesome parts on this surprise release, yoking the big-hearted garage scuzz of Cloud Nothings to the bad-trip stoner swagger of Wavves in perfect tandem.
■ Tove Styrke, “Kiddo.” Watch out, Tove Lo. Styrke watches Robyn’s Swedish pop throne with a blend of shoulder-shak- ing, futuristic dance tunes and frothy summer fun.
■ Shamir, “Ratchet.” We really did need more gender-nonconforming, barely-not-teenage countertenors making funky minimalist dancefloor bangers.
■ Laura Marling, “Short Movie.” There’s nothing short about it, but the British folk singer followed up her 2013 concept album with a sampler pack of eclectic, idiosyncratic diary entries that would make Joni Mitchell smile ear to ear.
■ Joey Bada$$, “B4. DA.$$.” I was not allowed to listen to “Illmatic” when it came out (something about being in kindergarten), but I hope that listening to it was as exciting as this New York rapper’s debut, which owes Nas at least a “thank you” note.
■ Belle & Sebastian, “Girls In Peacetime
Want To Dance.” Skeptics be darned. The Scottish twee lords go synthpop, and there’s not a song on the album that doesn’t perfectly translate their liberal arts charm to the discotheque.
■ The Story So Far, “The Story So Far.” The pop-punk renaissance continues apace at full gallop thanks to the California band’s raw-throated, “Let’s punch each other for fun” melodies.
■ No Joy, “More Faithful.” Starting off with a crackling, speaker-blown energy that reminds me of White Lung, the Canadian noisepop band is best on swoony, spaced-out songs like “Hollywood Teeth.”
Honorable Mentions
Kendrick Lamar, “To Pimp a Butterfly”; Courtney Barnett, “Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit”; Speedy Ortiz, “Foil Deer”; Sleater-Kinney, “No Cities to Love”; Kacey Musgraves, “Pageant Material”; Best Coast, “California Nights” and Waxahatchee, “Ivy Tripp.”