Remember when Fleetwood Mac were derided, the pariah of our precious underground?

And then remember when everyone just thought nothing of them at all?

Of course you don’t, and neither does Sophia Knapp. Be thankful for the capricious mistress of our recent histories.

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Sophia Knapp – “Close To Me”

(Photo: Wipe Your Face)

via

Iceage and Sexdrome throw a jagged curveball in the face of those who thought they had the latter pegged.

The sound of a glass held to a squat wall, the terror and ecstasy of the other side filtering through with barely suppressed desire.

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War – “Brodermordet”

(Photo)

Get me a hotline to indie Hollywood.

There’s a Noah Baumbach film missing a song.

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Weird Rivers – “Something Of A Secret”

(Photo: Cool Hand Luke)

Black Dice barge back into view with some Liars-inflected weirdo-disco skronk.

You can dance to it, but you’ve probably not enough limbs. Or you’ve too many. Either way, best of luck to you.

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Black Dice – “Pigs”

(Photo)

Four things to note here, in no particular order:

1. Mac DeMarco is Canadian and is signed to Captured Tracks.

2. The Canadian government’s art funding policies are a kiss on the face, right around the ears, to the World. The World thanks the Canadian government for the never-ending golden rivers of beautiful MP3s it harvests.

3. The accelerated interior history of Captured Tracks is starting to read like a condensed retelling of the history of independent music. In every sense, a perfectly curated label. A certain kind of kid will be wearing their T shirts forever.

4. People have been falling in lust to the sentiment of “Baby’s Wearin’ Blue Jeans” since sometime around the mid 1950s. That instinct shows no sign of abating.

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Mac DeMarco – “Baby’s Wearin’ Blue Jeans”

(Photo: Cheridan Chard)

No-one who knows anything about Destroyer will be surprised with his intoxicating version of New Order’s “Leave Me Alone”.

Dan Bejar has spent the best part of his career spitting out ever-broadening variations of the 80s pop he ingested in bulk in his youth, cryptically revealing his hand in the oblique references that bleed throughout his own poetry. While Destroyer has always been a cultural cannibal, he’s never a copyist, remaining distinctly singular even when drawing so heavily on his love affair with certain music. And “Leave Me Alone” is no different, the point where he meets his heroes head on, teeth out, but ready to love. Always ready to love.

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Destroyer – “Leave Me Alone”

(Photo: Barry Falk)

The last installment in this year’s scurrilous act of revisionism.

Now, where’s the Future?

1. Ice Age – “You’re Blessed”

I get the Death In June references and the flirtations with dubious imagery and the icey intensity spilling over into ramshackle chaos. But how Ice Age ended up sounding like Futureheads by accident and it being the most gratifying and sophisticated moment on New Brigade makes me think hardcore just found exit velocity for creative entrophy. All it takes is geographic isolation and a strong sense of self.

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Ice Age – “You’re Blessed”

2. A$AP Rocky – “Palace”

$3m chong and rising.

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A$AP Rocky – “Palace”

3. Death Grips – “Takyon (Death Yon)”*

Rap zombie fists your dick with a brain

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Death Grips – “Takyon (Death Yon)”

4. EMA – “California”

Still now, even after a thousand listens or more, I can’t quite place EMA’s version of “California”, so oblique were its targets. Which despite its title, probably means it really is about dislocation. And yet for all the mystery, you don’t want to know what I would do to have been the ‘Stephen’ in this song…whatever being that ‘Stephen’ might have meant…

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EMA – “California”

5. Katy Perry – “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)”

While it’s impressive that Katy Perry did make the video of the year without having to make her tits explode (again), her real crowning achievement is that she’s not a cunt, when, really, that’s exactly what she should be. All things considered, that’s quite remarkable.

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Katy Perry – “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)”

6. Kindness – “Cyan”

From atop a Brixton tower block, amidst the sulfurous pulse of London in ocherous light, Kindness embraces the deep sigh of night.

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Kindness – “Cyan”

7. Milk Music – “Beyond living”

What did bored kids do before 1977? Must have been rubbish. Or maybe better? Is it the punk that makes the feelings, or the feelings that make the punk?

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Milk Music – “Beyond Living”

8. Eddy Current Suppresion Ring – “Walking In Unison”*

Flamin’ drongos find transcendence in repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition.

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Eddy Current Suppression Ring – “Walking in Unison”

9. AraabMUZIK – “Streetz Tonight”

Imagine. Craft. Dream. Master your art. Conceive brand identity. Package and present. Then when the time comes, take it to the streets and let the people vote with their feet.

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AraabMUZIK – “Streetz Tonight”

10. The Rapture – “How Deep Is Your Love?”

Rarely has there been a more appropriately named band than The Rapture. And with “How Deep Is Your Love?” they were overtaken more than ever by a truly religious hysteria.

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The Rapture – “How Deep Is Your Love”

* Liam P. Manley

(Photo: Philippe Reichert)

Measure your taste in lists.

And yet, still no The Weeknd…

1. Zomby – “Labyrinth”

“A uniquely British lament for the soulful dance music of our past.”

And there it is in a nutshell.

As with Zomby’s music, everything else feels superfluous by comparison.

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Zomby – “Labyrinth”

2. Lykke Li – “Sadness Is A Blessing”

Young, gifted and sad. Aint we all, honey. Aint we all.

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Lykke Li – “Sadness Is A Blessing”

3. Gang Gang Dance – “MindKilla”

Downtownshipfunk shoulder-barging hippie maximalist motherfuckers, staring at you square in the third eye. Don’t you dare eyeball them, son!

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Gang Gang Dance – “MindKilla”

4. Liturgy – “Generation”*

Corpse paint is blasé, time for hypnogogic White Metal

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Liturgy – “Generation”

5. Retox – “Thirty Cents Shy Of A Quarter”*

Dead Deer and Locust hybrid surfs out and screams “GEE!-TAR!-SO!-LO!”

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Retox – “Thirty Cents Shy Of A Quarter”

6. Purity Ring – “Ungirthed”^

A sonic bubble bath to dip your genitals in and the filthiest word of the year. Lit up and human stained.

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Purity Ring – “Ungirthed”

7. Thee Oh Sees – “Corrupted Coffin”*

Why do Nigel Sportsmen (and it’s always Nigel Sportsmen) use the term ‘Muppet’ as an insult? For me, there’s no higher calling.

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Thee Oh Sees – “Corrupted Coffin”

8. Women – “Bullfight”*

Whenever I hear a new Women song I say “that’s my favourite”. And I’m always right.

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Women – “Bullfight”

9. Ford & Lopatin – “Too Much MIDI (Please Forgive Me)”*

Following Camus’ concept of the artist’s journey, I can only assume that the second-half of this song’s eyes were first opened by level 4 of After Burner. Or maybe it was Ridge Racer.

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Ford and Loptain – “Too Much MIDI (Please Forgive Me)”

10. UV Race – “Burn That Cat”*

Who’s having all the good dreams? Who’s even getting sleep?

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UV Race – “Burn That Cat”

* Liam P. Manley
^ Liam P. Manley and Stephen Pietrzykowski

(Photo: Lux Lumen)

No order, nor real rules. Just what our year sounded like when we took ourselves out of it.

1. Frank Ocean – “Novacane”

Pussy as predator, drugs as vice, life one horrificially brilliant will-she/wont-she – take note Drake, this is the real sound of emotional hardcore.

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Frank Ocean – “Novacane”

2. King Krule – “Out Getting Ribs”

Late-night and always doleful, King Krule (ne Zoo Kid – a bizarre change, all in all) was a striking dulcet tone and turn of phrase that crafted poetry from the mundane and gray of loving and hating the world simultaneously. In essence, the sound of every (im)perfect teenhood.

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King Krule – “Out Getting Ribs”

3. The Caretaker – “Tiny Gradiations of Loss”

“Tiny Gradiations of Loss” stands as the defining moment from The Caretaker’s An Empty Bliss Beyond This World, an album constructed from samples of 78s of pre-war parlour room music and inspired by a study suggesting that music assists memory retention in Alzheimer’s patients. And that’s not least because the record’s concept is so perfectly captured in the pathos of that track title – time, and our lives along with it, disappear not in sudden lurches, but in gradual iterations of decay. Evoking the languid sound of antiquated records spiralling into the transience of their own dust-filled grooves, where the entropy of memory mirrors the entropy of vinyl. And strangely, the most pressing question it conjured was not how or what we choose to remember, but instead asks; are some things meant to be forgotten? In a culture that endeavours to exhume, collect, collate and record all, what is lost becomes less and less. The Caretaker wasn’t holding on to the past, but commenting on the curation of its very construction.

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The Caretaker – “Tiny Gradiations Of Loss”

4. Cold Cave – “Pacing Around The Church”

And so remained unchanged was Cold Cave’s continued forgoing of L.A.’s washed-out heat for the psychic rain of mid-80s northern Britain. Angst and self-hatred loomed large. Cold Cave are the Human League in aesthetic, but The Smiths in spirit – if ever a better summary is written for frontman Wes Eisold’s muse than “I Want The One I Can’t Have”, then I’d like to hear it. This was empty love and American nightmares turned up to way beyond in the red, that ultimately said we’d rather be anywhere but here today. Which is probably why they found themselves pacing around the church, begging for rapturous release. It’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re rapt.

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Cold Cave – “Pacing Around The Church”

5. Destroyer – “Kaputt”

Destroyer’s music has always been a tissue of pop quotations and this was pop criticism to the soundtrack of the sentimental raconteur. “Kaputt” was an insider comment on the very things musicians often shun – self-awareness – representing the high point of Dan Bejar’s constant pursuit of the art of self-consciousness.

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Destroyer – “Kaputt”

6. Panda Bear – “Surfer’s Hymn”

On Noah Lennox’s new album Tomboy – his fourth solo effort in total – there was a progression of sorts. And progression feels like the correct term, because here we saw the organic decaying elements of his past work chemically fused to a more electronic pulse.  I’d be loathe to suggest that someone who’s been in Animal Collective for over a decade had just discovered drugs, but it was no surprise that the album’s best track, “Surfer’s Hymn”, ended up being released as a single on Kompakt (backed by an Actress remix, no less). But while there was a noticeably more metallic finish to Tomboy than on its predecessor Person Pitch, it was Lennox’s vocal that grounded it, that pushed the feet with one hand and tugged on the heart with the other. With “Surfer’s Hymn”, Panda Bear was posthuman in form, but in intention, he’s never made us feel more alive.

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Panda Bear – “Surfer’s Hymn”

7. Burial – “Stolen Dog”

Always skirting somewhere on the edge of consciousness, just outside the M25, is the ineffable sadness of a shattered window McDonalds at 4am on a Sunday, it’s back turned against the world, face perpetually blurred.

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Burial – “Stolen Dog”

8. Jay Z & Kanye West – “No Church In The Wild (feat. Frank Ocean)”

The Year of Cocaine Ambition and more of doing just whatever the fuck you wanted.

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Jay Z & Kanye West – “No Church In The Wild”

9. Gil Scott Heron Vs Jamie XX – “I’ll Take Care Of U”

Whether or not you’re convinced of Jamie XX’s credentials as a producer – dance has not yet quite relinquished its notions of authenticity, rightly or wrongly  – he didn’t sound like a tourist here, buoyed along by that none-more-heavy Scott Heron vocal and Romy’s effortless ability to conjure melancholy as vivid as prime-era New Order trapped in infinite stasis. Embrace their benevolence. You’re going to need it.

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Gil Scott Heron & Jamie XX – “I’ll Take Care Of U”

10. Balam Acab – “Oh, Why”

Music is the silence coming true.

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Balam Acab – “Oh, Why”

(Photo: Philippe Bourgoin)

Sunshine and light, you have been ill-judged and over-spent.

For is there not something infinitely sad about a beautiful summer’s day?

Even if Adam were allowed to stay in the Garden, would paradise be seen as such?

Better to stay in the blackened shit and be like everyone else. 

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Palimistry – “Dios Cut”

(Photo: Toru Ukai)