best of 2019 (lol)
so i started making this list in the fall i’m p sure and have been terrible about finishing it. i knew i wanted to share my favs from 2019, but i didn’t know the best way: a spotify playlist? a numbered list? include write-ups of some records on the list? all the records? none of em?
so i decided to just fuckin go for it and include a little blurb for each entry on the list. the order is approximate and mostly meaningless. all these albums are great and i don’t have the energy at age 31 to nitpick about how they all compare. they’re all great and well worth your time.
john roberts – can thought exist without the body?
bandcamp /// spotify
this album came completely out of nowhere. i sorta kinda barely remember john roberts releasing a techno record in 2010 that got some buzz, but i couldn’t tell ya what it was called or what it sounded like. i heard about this album by reading a very middle of the road review from resident advisor that made it sound like something i would be into. sure enough, i loved it. and still love it. it’s an ambient record with movement, built from a beautiful palette of piano, strings, synths and trumpet. just incredibly sweet, pleasant, breezy ambient that i kept returning to over and over again.
american football – lp 3
bandcamp /// spotify
this album’s place on this list is confounding to me. i’ve always liked american football, ever since i was like 14 or some shit. but i never loved american football (sorry dan!) then i listened to this record and was totally smitten. it sounds like american football, but it more sounds like current-era slowdive or something. very pretty, sad and surprisingly catchy: “uncomfortably numb,” which features hayley williams from paramore, is a perfect pop song. best song of 2019 imo.
default genders – main pop girl 2019
bandcamp
default genders is the solo project of jaime brooks (ex-elite gymnastics, ex-partner of grimes lol). while elite gymnastics received some blog hype for their breakbeat-heavy electronic pop in the first part of the decade, i’m willing to bet they slipped under most folks’ radars. anyway, jaime dropped a fantastic record in 2014 called magical pessimism 2014 that i got super obsessed with. for a long time, it appeared jaime had basically stopped making music: a handful of demos cropped up on her soundcloud stream over the course of like 3-4 years, then silence. then out of nowhere she announced this thing and released it like a week later. it features a lot of the hallmarks of jaime’s music to date: racing breakbeats, pitched vocals, brilliant samples, and lyrical themes of queerness, poverty, addiction/drug use, and relationships. however, this album is a big step forward for jaime in terms of songwriting ability. characters from her past records return on here, and new ones are introduced; the heartbreaking millennial romance of “checking in with the old gang” feels especially alive and relatable. jaime’s work is bright, bold, beautiful and moving, and it pulls from such a wide range of influences that most folks are bound to find something to love in all these songs.
big brave – a gaze among them
bandcamp /// spotify
speaking of big steps forward, this latest record from canadian droners big brave sees the band simultaneously tighten up AND expand their sound. how does that happen? is that possible? why am i here? who are you? recorded at machines with magnets, the same studio as one of my very favs from last year (you won’t get what you want by daughters), the record sounds incredibly raw and in your face. the drums are pushed very high in the mix and the guitars are earth-leveling. i legitimately think this record fucked up my car stereo from playing it too loud with the windows down this summer. it’s just kinda impossible to hear a song like “holding pattern” and not just keep turning it up louder and louder. robin wattie deserves to be recognized as one of the great women in rock right now. seeing her small figure on stage, just belting out these incredibly powerful songs about femininity and humanity, is one of the most striking and moving things. fortunately, that power and strength translate brilliantly from the stage to tape.
barker – utility
bandcamp /// spotify
i’m pretty sure every review of this album just says the same thing: gorgeous techno with the drums taken out. it’s a very accurate descriptor of this record but is also a very reductive reading imo. on utility, barker has created an entire universe that’s as strange and brightly colored as the hallucinatory cover art. i’ll admit, it took me kinda a long time to get into this record fully, but i’m glad i kept coming back to it. the brilliance of barker’s compositions doesn’t reveal itself quickly. however, the closing track “die-hards of the darwinian order” displays that brilliance prominently, resulting in a clanging, string-hewn, slowburning banger that makes nine minutes feel like four. plus it’s got drums!
greet death – new hell
bandcamp /// spotify
so cool story: there was this heavy shoegaze band called pines that stepdad played with at hell’s half mile festival in bay city in 2014. i was super into them and tried to get coffin problem to play a show with them, but it never happened. flash forward to a couple years ago and pines, whom hail from flint, changed their name to greet death and kinda took off. jump to this year and they appear to have taken off .2 further. jk but this record is really good. the two best songs are the longest: “do you feel nothing?” and “new hell.” both found me right when i really needed them and i ended up playing the rest of the record a whole bunch too. i still wish coffin problem would play a fucking show with them.
nivhek – after its own death/walking in a spiral towards the house
bandcamp /// spotify
this one was a pleasant surprise. nivhek is a new project from liz harris a.k.a. grouper aka my favorite ever. under this alias, liz takes the omnipresent muddy ambience found in her work as grouper and makes it the focal point. the result is a dank work of hypnotic beauty. liz’s voice is the first thing we hear, but after it drops out, it doesn’t come back for a good 20 minutes. the way the layers of her dense sound fold into one another is what makes those 20 minutes so striking.
andy stott – it should be us
spotify
andy is a fucking mad man. dude just casually drops this nearly 50-minute ep (?) out of the blue while simultaneously teasing a full length due sometime this year. and then there’s the music: shit will twist your melon, man! he takes club music, picks it apart, drags all the pieces through the mud, then puts it back together all wrong. but it works! and can still be incredibly fun! the song “promises” sinks its hooks into you with its drum beat that just can’t quite fit into time…until it finally does and the track kicks into gear properly. the feeling of resolution and propulsion in that moment is hugely gratifying.
angel olsen – all mirrors
bandcamp /// spotify
i honestly don’t think there’s anything i can say about this record that hasn’t been said by a lot of other people. i will say though that i STILL don’t feel like i’ve truly sunk my teeth into this record, but the show i saw of her’s in royal oak in november completely sealed the deal for me. i’m looking forward to returning to this one when i’m ready!
jefre cantu-ledesma – tracing back the radiance
bandcamp /// spotify
this past summer, i drove out to grand haven on a whim. i was feelin a lil bummed and lonesome and a little bit sorry for myself. that classic summertime sadness. i laid on my back next to the little channel that all the boats go in and out of and watched couples and families as they passed by. i played this record while out there that day and it kinda pinned that feeling to my chest for good. this record finds jefre lifting off the heavy layer of grime and distortion that contributed to the charm of past records. in its place is lush, lilting, more traditional instrumentation. on the 21-minute “palace of time,” fragments of piano seem to reflect as if in a hall of mirrors, as a skittering brushed snare drum occasionally passes through the mix like tumbleweed. this record is definitely a highlight in jefre’s remarkably consistent discography.
a winged victory for the sullen – the undivided five
bandcamp /// spotify
in the fall of 2013, i heard a winged victory for the sullen’s debut self-titled album for the first time. i was just about to embark on a six week long tour when i first heard it and i was immediately taken with its grace, beauty and melancholy. i started listening to it obsessively while on tour because it offered me this beautiful sense of solace. for the entire 45 minute runtime, i was transported somewhere much more tranquil than a shitty, smelly van in the middle of nowhere. the undivided five is the first album of original, non-commissioned work since their debut and it feels like a very natural progression from that record. their sound has gotten bigger, more complex and slightly less predictable, but still possesses the power to transport you somewhere tranquil and beguiling.
leafar legov – never ending beginnings
side a /// side b
i decided to add this one at the very last minute because i found that i kept coming back to it. never ending beginnings is a cassette release from the great electronic musician, leafar legov. while legov’s work has always existed somewhere between danceable and drifting, never ending beginnings finds legov venturing a little closer to the drifting side of things. clouds of weightless synth chords float by slowly, gradually shifting shape and flowing into one another. it’s 10-minutes into side a when we finally hear a beat for the first time, though it’s function here is less propulsive and driving than it is a glue that helps hold some of these tracks together. never ending beginnings is the type of record you put on and get lost in for its entire length, as the line between the ending and beginning of these compositions is consistently obscured. this one helped me not lose my shit while grocery shopping stoned.
lol beslutning – destina & destine
spotify
i just heard this record for the first time last night and was so taken with it that i feel like i have to include it. information about lol beslutning is frustratingly sparse. it seems they hail from copenhagen, denmark, and share members with/is born from the ashes of the danish punk band, synd og skams. destina and destine is described by their label as “a mythical teenage opera,” which seems to be accurate, though i don’t understand danish so i don’t know what these songs are about. if this is indeed an opera, it’s not the kind you can expect to see played out in concert halls: lol beslutning’s approach is far more diy and homemade than anything you’re likely to encounter in any space like that. this is fragile, beautiful, experimental music, driven by the power of harmony and vulnerability. an incredibly hard to describe record that i’m excited to continue to explore. listen to the very catchy, gorgeous piece “choices” to get a good idea of what you’re in for.
i suppose that’s all for now. hopefully more later now that i’ve finally got this blog in a consistently stable state.
