Kind of shocked to discover that I haven’t done any of my once-regular Play for Today roundups since 2019! Last time around, rather than doing a proper playlist, I just mentioned some interesting things that had come my way (that I didn’t review for any magazines or websites), so I’ll do that again, possibly interspersed with things I’ve been playing a lot (in fact not; maybe later). These are all from the past few months and I haven’t necessarily given them the time they deserve, but I think they’re all worth a listen…
I loved Nechochwen’s Heart of Akamon and was quite shocked to find it’s now a decade old. They’ve released good music since then, notably a split album with Panopticon, but spelewithiipi (catchy name!) really reminded me of just how much I loved Heart of Akamon. For those who haven’t come across them, Nechochwen are an acoustic dark folk band (sometimes including metal elements, I kind of prefer when they don’t but it’s all good) that explores (as they put it) ‘the indigenous roots and history of the Upper Ohio River Valley.’ Their music is autumnal and haunting, and I love the imagery too. spelewithiipi is a beautiful album, and it’ll sound even better later in the year.
Ghost World have made some of my favourite albums; I was immediately smitten with their 2017 debut album, which was my album of the year that year and at first the 2018 follow-up, Spin was disappointing to me, but ultimately went on to be one of my all-time (so far) favourite albums, so there’s some kind of lesson there. Anyway, Armadillo Café is an odd, whimsical but lovely concept album that so far is taking longer for me to absorb, but it’s full of good tunes and I’m confident that I’ll end up loving it without even noticing again.
Hmm. I gave this a go because, despite the fact that industrial metal is one of my least favourite genres of music in the world, Swiss black metal has a special place in my heart and LADLO is a very dependable label. And..? Well, not exactly my cup of tea, but it’s good, there’s a nice chaotic, noisy atmosphere and it reminded me at times of Abigor (who I do like) and Blacklodge (who I occasionally like). The atmospheres and the choral bits are really cool and the noisy stuff with sirens etc is impressively alarming, though not nice if you have a headache.
Kati Rán – LYS (10 Year Anniversary) (Svart Records)
More ‘dark folk’ (“Nordic/Pagan” this time, though Kati herself is Dutch I think) – LYS is an album that I very much enjoyed when it came out and then pretty much forgot about, so it’s nice to hear it again and find that it really is lovely. She’s an amazing multi-instrumentalist and even though I have no idea if the music would sound at all familiar to the Nordic peoples of centuries ago, I feel like it evokes those ancient times and cultures perfectly for a modern audience (i.e. me). The follow-up, ‘SÁLA’ came out last year and I still didn’t get around to hearing it, but now that I’ve had this reminder I will
BOOTSY COLLINS – Album of the Year #1 Funkateer (Bootzilla/Roc Nation)
I reviewed this for Spectrum Culture so won’t say much about it here, but in these tense and miserable times, Bootsy’s indefatigable enthusiasm and uplifting silliness are more welcome than ever. Plus it’s just a really good album. The man’s a genius.
It’s been a few years since I did an ‘album of the year’ post here, because in general I have to write them for other places and get a bit bored with the process, but this year I thought I’d do something a little different.
But first: albums of the year 2022
My album of the year, by a big margin was Diamanda Galás’s extraordinary Broken Gargoyles. I’ve written about it at length here and here, and had the privilege of discussing it with Diamanda herself here, so won’t say too much about it, except for one observation. People usually use the phrase ‘life-affirming’ to describe records that are joyous, uplifting or leave you with feelings of positivity and contentment. All good things, but Broken Gargoyles is not that album. Instead, it’s life-affirming in the sense that it heightens the sense of being alive and even interrogates the idea of what it really means and how it feels, to be human. It’s thrilling and sometimes beautiful, but also harrowing; and how many musicians even attempt anything like that?
My other favourites this year included Shiki by the Japanese avant-garde black metal band Sigh. It follows in the eclectic footsteps of their past few albums but whereas they blended bits of black metal, prog rock, jazz and so on with sometimes great, sometimes patchy results, Shiki blends them in a far more cohesive and successful way where every song is everything and not this genre-with-a-bit-of-that.
I also loved Beth Orton’s Weather Alive, which I wrote about here, and a very late entry in the AOTY stakes (I literally heard it this week for the first time) is Hjartastjakiby Isafjørd. One genre I have very rarely liked or understood the appeal of is post-rock, but this – a collaboration between Addi of Sólstafir (who I do like – they played one of the best sets I’ve ever seen by anyone at Eistnaflug Festival in 2011) and Ragnar Zolberg – gripped me from the first listen and I currently can’t get enough of it. Even though it’s not at all like it in any way, something about it – maybe just the epically mournful atmosphere – reminds me of Disintegration by The Cure, which is never a bad thing.
So much for 2022. But how much importance should one place on the album of any given year? Albums, like movies, books or any other form of entertainment stay with you if they are any good, and your feelings about them change over time. And some of my favourite albums of all time were released before I was even born, so their context presumably doesn’t necessarily contribute to their impact, on a personal level at least. I’ve been writing for myself since I first started my old blog in 2012 so for a kind of half-assed ten-year anniversary I thought I’d revisit my older albums of the year and see which ones had staying power for me. I’ll limit it to a few from each year so it doesn’t get out of hand.
Strangely I didn’t do one for my own site in 2012 and I don’t have the list I did for Zero Tolerance magazine that year to hand so let’s go from 2013 to 2019, since 2020 is only two years ago and ‘the test of time’ hasn’t completely been passed or failed yet…
2013
My favourite album of that year was Ihsahn’s Das Seelenbrechen, and it’s still one of my favourite albums. I rarely listen to it all the way through at the moment, but various tracks, such as Pulse, Regen and NaCL are still in regular rotation
Others: David Bowie – The Next Day: I loved this at the time and it felt like a return to form of some sort, but now, though there are some great tracks, it feels a middling Bowie record Ancient VVisdom: Deathlike – good kind of pastoral black doom/blues (!?) album but haven’t listened to it probably for years at this point October Falls – The Plague of a Coming Age – very nice, interchangeable with any other October Falls record. They are all nice, I don’t listen to them very often Sangre de Muerdago – Deixademe Morrer No Bosque: I still play bits of this dark Galician folk album from time to time. It’s great but I’ve never got around to listening to any of their other stuff Manierisme – フローリア I LOVED Manierisme, and the atmosphere and noise of it still really isn’t like much else. But it’s so harsh in its peculiar way that I rarely listen to it now Beastmilk – Climax: worth mentioning this because Finnish post-punks Beastmilk (who changed their name to Grave Pleasures and lost their appeal for me pretty quickly) were a much-hyped band that year. It still sounds like a pretty good gothy post-punk type of record, but I had to check it out to remind myself of that
2014
My favourite album of 2014 wasMondegreenby the avant-garde string quartet Collectress and I still love it and listen to bits of it quite often Most of 2014’s list are just names to me now, though I’m sure they are pretty good: I quite liked Scott Walker & Sun O)))’s Soused but have never revisited it. I thought Mirel Wagner’s When the Cellar Children See the Light of Day was great but don’t really remember it – must check it out again. Nebelung’s Palingenesis has some really nice songs on it that I listen to occasionally.
2015
My album of 2015 was Life is a Struggle, Give Up by Oblivionized. Putting it on again for the first time in ages, it’s still an invigorating, unique semi-grindcore album. Also kind of harsh and draining, so not a frequent listen, but an album worthy of rediscovery nonetheless.
Much easier to listen to but at the time outside of my top ten is the great Hustler’s Row by
surprise sleeper – Hustler’s Row by Gentlemens Pistols
Gentlemens Pistols. I would not have predicted that this would be one of the records that I’d keep returning to but it is: people who love 70s hard rock of the Deep Purple/Rainbow type who haven’t checked it out are missing a treat.
Otherwise, loved Jarboe and Helen Money’s self-titled album, but it’s not very strong in my memory now. The Zombi Anthology by Zombi still sounds great but I rarely listen to it. Ratatat’s Magnifique still gets an outing every now and then, but SUN by Secrets of the Moon and Syner by Grift, both of which I really loved and still think are great, seem kind of hard going to me now. I went through a phase of really loving Venusian Death Cell (and still do, but don’t listen much) and Honey Girl, “released” that year may be my favourite of his albums. Tribulation’s Children of the Night is fun too, in a very different and probably more accessible way
2016
I wouldn’t necessarily say I was aware of it at the time, but 2016 was a great year for music. My album of the year was Wyatt at the Coyote Palace by Kristin Hersh (which I enthused about here) and it became, as I thought it might, one of those albums I can still listen to at any time, pretty much: it’s great. Otherwise, Zeal & Ardor’s Devil is Fine still sounds great (and is still my favourite Z&A release). I liked Komada by Alcest but now think it’s pretty dull. I was excited by some EPs by Naia Izumi too, but haven’t really checked out their work since then. I am, outrageously, still the ONLY person I know who likes Extended Play by Debz, and it’s still a unique little record and I love it. I still think Das Ram by Rachel Mason – my other contender for AOTY that year – is great, but as with a few other things, it slipped off of my listening list at some point and I had to remind myself of it
surprise sleeper – Kaada/Patton’s Bacteria Cult
Kaada/Patton’s Bacteria Cult (Ipecac Recordings) is the Hustler’s Row of 2016, only in the sense that it entered my forever playlist without me expecting it to. I’m not sure a week has gone by since then that I haven’t listened to a song or two from this masterpiece
Honorable mentions
David Bowie – Blackstar Leonard Cohen – You Want It Darker Iggy Pop – Post Pop Depression Jozef van Wissem – When Shall This Bright Day Begin Japanese Breakfast – Psychopomp Schammasch – Triangle De La Soul – …and the Anonymous Nobody… Kate Carr – I Had Myself a Nuclear Spring Jeff Parker – The New Breed
2017
2017 had fewer standouts for me but my album of the year, the self-titled debut by Finnish alt-rock band Ghost World, which I wrote enthusiastically about here, still sounds fantastic. That said, though I was less enthused by the 2018 follow up, Spin at the time, that album is the one I listen to more now. But the best songs from Ghost World are still energised grunge-pop classics.
Otherwise, I liked Quinta – The Quick Of The Heart and a few of its songs are still played quite regularly. I gave Invocation And Ritual Dance Of My Demon Twin by Julie’s Haircut a great review at the time but don’t remember it now, whereas I didn’t think Tarrantulla by Islaja would have much staying power, but bits of it still pop into my head and therefore onto my stereo every now and then.
2018
I was hugely surprised in 2018 to find that my album of the year was an electronic one, Swim, by Phantoms vs Fire, a cinematic masterpiece full of woozy retro-futuristic sounds and melancholy atmospheres. Even more unexpectedly, it’s gone on to be one of my favourite albums of all time and something that I regularly listen to. All of the other Phantoms vs Fire stuff is fine, but for me at least, this is the one.
I was much taken with As Árvores Estão Secas e Não Têm Folhas by the Portuguese dark folk band Urze de Lume at the time but though I could still happily listen to it, I haven’t for a while. By contrast, songs from all of these have unexpectedly been in regular rotation over the past few years: Ghost World – Spin Just Like This – Faceless Orion’s Belte – Mint Oh, and Burn My Letters by William Carlos Whitten has been revisited far more than I expected and I expect his “Poor Thing” will remain in rotation for the foreseeable future
2019
In 2019, I loved another Collectress album, Different Geographies but it didn’t replace or match Mondegreen in my affections. I can’t seem to find my album of the year strangely, but it might well have been Youth in Ribbons by Revenant Marquis, still my favourite of that prolific artist’s releases. I also loved but rarely if ever listen to Cryfemal’s Eterna oscuridad, Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou’s May Our Chambers… and Ulver’s Flowers of Evil, but the sleeper of the year was Henrik Palm’s Poverty Metal which I liked fine, but didn’t expect to still be listening to as regularly as I am.
surprise sleeper – Henrik Palm’s Poverty Metal
On the whole it seems to have been a year of songs rather than albums for me – I like the title track of Viviankrist’s Morgenrøde probably as much as anything from that year and bits of Cellista’s Transfigurations still sound great. But lots of the most-praised stuff of the year, albums by Alcest, Cult of Luna and so forth just don’t register with me now: still, can’t like everything.
It’s that time of year again; I’ve had to make some end-of-year lists for various places, so this will be a short-ish version. 2018, like most years, has been a year full of terrible and excellent music and mostly there’s no difference between the two except for the ears hearing it.
But anyway, because I’ve decided to limit my own list here to things I haven’t seen represented on as many other peoples’ lists as I feel I should have so far. Here are a few…
If you’re a regular reader you may remember that Ghost World’s self-titled album was one of my albums of the year last year. That album was a completely unexpected neo-grunge masterpiece – all the more unexpected as I don’t look back especially fondly on grunge in general; but the combination of great tunes, punky energy and the heartbreaking teenage melancholy of singer/guitarist Liisa’s performances make the comparison to 90s grunge kind of pointless; this wasn’t nostalgic pastiche, it was a vital, new band playing their hearts out. Spin, is a great, but very different album. This time Liisa & co aren’t playing grungy music at all, although the album still stylistically indebted to earlier eras. In their publicity, Svart Records claim – not wrongly – that Spin looks back to the guitar pop of The Byrds and Big Star, but to my ears, it has more of the feel of the 80s/90s UK indie bands who were themselves indebted to those bands; either way, it’s an album full of the same kind of catchy, melancholy pop songs as the debut, only without the frazzled guitars. At its best – like the beautifully miserable earworm ‘Nightgown‘ (which brings back my teenage years vividly, if that’s a good thing) its every part the equal of its predecessor, even if it’s less of a bolt from the blue.
I don’t remember how I first came across Rorex Records, a Japanese label run by Eifonen, an experimental musician who has a hand in many or most of the label’s extremely eclectic releases. When going through the label’s releases it feels like overall there’s a focus on experimental electronica and drone, but then something completely random and different – bizarre lo-fi rap, noise rock or mutated jazz. Just Like This is different again; minimalist, clean piano and vocals exercises – sometimes beautifully melodic, sometimes awkward, but always clean, clear and beautiful, even at its most alien. Can’t vouch for the lyrics (they are in Japanese) but I think it’s lovely.
Back in August when it was released, I didn’t really expect this dusty, gloomy, antediluvian Peruvian death metal album to be in this kind of list, but it stayed with me.
It’s the whole package; there’s something about the crude, hewn-from-rock quality of the monolithic riffs, the majestically rust-encrusted bass tone and frontwoman/drummer Kultarr’s brutal roar, plus the perfectly apt artwork that makes it satisfying long after many ‘better’ albums have worn out their welcome.
I wrote about this at length here, so will try not to repeat myself. I first heard Swim back in January and am still listening to it in December. Slightly woozy electronica, often with a lo-fi Ryuichi Sakamoto-meets-Vangelis feel, it’s ‘retro’ without being nostalgic, full of wistful, poignant atmospheres and familiar-but-elusive tunes that feel half-remember from childhood. I really love it; in fact if I had to choose (but I don’t) this might be my favourite album of the year.
There’s an extended version of Swim which I was initially slightly dismissive of (hate it when people mess with albums I think are perfect already), but actually it’s the version I listen to now.
There was lots of good, but not lots of great black metal around in 2018, but the spirit-sapping second album by Ireland/Iceland’s Slidhr was one of the great ones.
Best heard as a whole, the album is a relentless blast through furious, cavernous darkness, melodic enough to to be memorable and affecting, but with a distinctive, bitter taste that doesn’t exactly leave one wanting more; an odd recommendation but there it is.