Pun-based name pending...: December 2013

Monday 30 December 2013

Inevitably, The Albums of the Year: 2013

This is definitely not a complete list, since I didn't really bother to check what actually came out in 2013 that I really liked, BUT those below were definitely among the highlights.

They are in no order apart from my 'album of the year'

ALBUM OF THE YEAR:

IHSAHN - DAS SEELENBRECHEN

Metal acts are all too often praised for bringing any kind of non-metal musical influence into their work (tentative, seriously out of date bits of techno or hip-hop are probably the least daring way to 'innovate'); but with Das Seelenbrechen, Ihsahn made an album that wasn't just 'extreme metal with (whatever) elements'. The electronic, gentle and improvised parts of the album are no less natural than the heavy riffs, raw vocals and Nietzschean philosophy. Clever, extreme (in lots of different ways) but accessible, because at its heart are great songs which don't necessarily belong to any particular genre.

DAVID BOWIE - The Next Day

A great album (if not a 'return to form' since his form has been pretty dubious for a long, long time), with a few lesser moments (the 90's-ish indie-ish attempts at being modern grate a bit) which don't however spoil the whole.

ANCIENT VVISDOM: Deathlike

Okay, I marginally prefer the band's debut, but the sparse-but-atmospheric backwoodsy bluesy occult folk/rock worked just as well the second time around, with the bowed bass adding lovely texture to the band's addictive semi-acoustic sound.

OCTOBER FALLS - The Plague of a Coming Age

2013 was another good year for atmospheric post-black metal (although the genre is surely on the verge of oversaturation) and this was probably the Finns' finest and most mature work to date.

BOARDS OF CANADA - Tomorrow's Harvest

A return to a more ambient-ish sound and fewer of the more conventional song-structures of The Campfire Headphones made this a 'grower' but ultimately one of the duo's strongest works to date.

SANGRE DE MUERDAGO - Deixademe Morrer No Bosque

Moody, windswept and mysterious Galician folk music; beautiful, desolate and organic.

MANIERISME - フローリア

This 6-track demo has the same mix of peculiar sepia-toned nostalgia, atonal noise and ferocious black metal as the two Manierisme albums The Past and Sorrow and Everyone Has Two Sides. One of the greatest BM acts of recent times.

SKÁLMÖLD - Börn Loka

Spirited Icelandic Viking/folk metal concept album where the songs are more than strong enough to stand on their own. A great, intelligent and heroic metal album with tons of atmosphere for those who like such things.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE - m b v

After the dust had settled, m b v was inevitably just a little bit disappointing. The Loveless-like first half was underwhelmingly familiar and the less predictable second half slightly unmemorable; but while it's playing it sounds like a masterpiece; which it is, by the standards of most bands.

ALTAR OF PLAGUES - Teethed Glory and Injury

Somewhat overlooked now that the band have split, this was a divisive swansong. Whereas many would have been happy with an extension of the excellent but water-treading Mammal, Teethed Glory... was a ferociously different take on black metal, replacing the almost standard 'post-BM' atmospherics with something hypnotic and abrasive.

ORANSSI PAZUZU - Valonielu

Space-rock meets black metal; psychedelic, expansive but never meandering. Definitely not just for metal fans.

ELENI & SOUZANA VOUGIOUKLI - To Be Safe

Blues and jazz influences collide with the sisters' unique take on ancient and traditional world music on this beautiful album.

FALKENBACH - Asa

It seemed as though Falkenbach had never faltered, but this is such a strong return to form that it revealed predecessor Tiurida to have been more run of the mill than it seemed at the time.

CLANDESTINE BLAZE - Harmony of Struggle

Not post-anything, not BM/anything, just bleak, obscure, mysterious black metal (albeit really 'grey metal'). Therefore pretty nasty but cloaked in a kind of tattered majesty.

BEASTMILK - Climax

Okay, all a bit retro, but can the world have too many catchy, gripping songs with a Joy Division-meets-The Cure-meets-Bauhaus flavour? Well, yes, obviously. But at the moment it doesn't, so this is great.

VÀLI - Skoglandskap

Lovely instrumental Norwegian folk (or at least acoustic) music; mellow, autumnal and evocative.

NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS - Push The Sky Away

Probably the 5th or 6th best Nick Cave/Bad Seeds album; therefore pretty good.

Honorable mentions:

Blue Öyster Cult - The Complete Columbia Albums Collection

technically the music is not new, and with 16 discs DEFINITELY not all good, but plenty of excellent stuff therein

Blizaro - Strange Doorways

again, not new music, but this vast compendium of creepy 70s-ish horror-movie rock is absorbingly great

Venusian Death Cell - Halloween V: Halloween Horror (couldn't find a pic of the cover)

Fragile outsider-metal. Really not like anything else.

Sistar - Give It To Me

Smooth & soulful Kpop/R&B, not quite as good as their debut, but still pretty classy.

Monday 23 December 2013

The Year (some of the people who made some of) The Music Died (Part 2)

As mentioned before, LOTS of remarkable people in the world of music died in 2013, the following are tributes to a few more of them...

Richie Havens (died 22nd April)

Why you should* feel sad
Because another unique human being no longer exists

Contribution to music
Unique and intense, plaintive and jittery acoustic folk-ish, soul-ish, blues-ish type stuff

Outstanding Example:
'Freedom' (Live at Woodstock, 1969)
Kind of a cliché since it is by far his most famous performance but his opening set ensured that in all the mud and euphoria the serious, peace-activism at the heart of the festival.

*

Ray Manzarek (died 20th May)

Why you should* feel sad
Because another unique human being no longer exists

Contribution to music
Jim Morrison may have been the face/voice of The Doors, but Ray Manzarek's organ really set the sound of the band apart from their blues/rock/psych peers

Outstanding Example:
Where to start? 'Light My Fire' is maybe the most classic bit of Doors organ but Manzarek's playing is everywhere in their sound. I would go for 'The Changeling' as a masterpiece of his funkier style.

*

Trevor Bolder (died 4th February)

Why you should* feel sad
Because another unique human being no longer exists

Contribution to music
Played bass on some of David Bowie's finest albums as well as with Uriah Heep

Outstanding Example:
LOTS! If you take Bolder's descending bass part out of Bowie's 'Changes' it loses half of its goodness. And his bass gives the rock riff of 'Ziggy Stardust' its impact.

*

Jeff Hanneman (died 2nd May)

Why you should* feel sad
Because another unique human being no longer exists

Contribution to music
Some of the most inventive riffs and solos in metal; one of the key architects of thrash/death metal.

Outstanding Example:
Again, so many. But I LOVE Hanneman's 'Spill The Blood' from South of Heaven (1988), a song that went against the prevailing faster-than-thou trend (which admittedly Slayer had helped to create with Reign in Blood) to show that clean guitars and slower tempos need not mean less heavy music.

*

Alan Myers (died 24th June)

Why you should* feel sad
Because another unique human being no longer exists

Contribution to music
One of the great robotic drummers of the New Wave period

Outstanding Example:
The whole of Q: Are We Not Men? A: We are Devo. His precise, hard-hitting style gives maximum tension to their tightly controlled sound, especially on songs like their idiosyncratic cover of the Rolling Stones' 'Satisfaction'.

*

George Duke (died 5th August)

Why you should* feel sad
Because another unique human being no longer exists

Contribution to music
Like all of Frank Zappa's collaborators, George Duke was a first class musician; both in solo recordings and as a band member his keyboard playing was complex, innovative, but never unlistenable.

Outstanding Example:
Having not heard as much of his solo stuff as I should have I kind of have to judge by his Zappa work, but listen to Roxy & Elsewhere - he was great.

* You shouldn't of course feel sad, unless you want to.

Sunday 22 December 2013

The Year (some of the people who made some of) The Music Died (Part 1)

Sadly, LOTS of remarkable people in the world of music died in 2013, the following are tributes to just a few of them...

Reg Presley (died 4th February)

Why you should* feel sad
Because another unique human being no longer exists

Contribution to music
Some great, fun, catchy, kind of stupid garage-rock hits, which despite the perceived silliness of The Troggs (rural accents, 'the Troggs Tape', crop circles etc) are up there with the greats of 60s pop.

Outstanding Example:
The Troggs: With A Girl Like You (1966)
The three or four best-known Troggs songs (Wild Thing, I Can't Control Myself, Any Way That You Want Me) are all great but this is particularly rough-yet-ebullient, silly but great basic three chord rock.

*

Donald Byrd (died 4th February)

Why you should* feel sad
Because another unique human being no longer exists

Contribution to music:
In short, one of the all-time jazz greats. From the cool Blue Note albums of the 50s to the great funk of the late 60s and 70s, Donald Byrd was inventive, hard-hitting and a master of mood.

Outstanding Example:
Almost impossible to choose, whole albums are essential; Blackjack, Black Byrd, Kofi, Fancy Free, Street Lady, a long, long list. 'The Dude' from Electric Byrd (1970) is a great mix of Miles Davis-esque jazz with great, percussive funk.

*

Patty Andrews (of the Andrews Sisters) (died 30th January)

Why you should* feel sad
Because another unique human being no longer exists

Contribution to music
As well as helping define the often-overlooked female side of the swing era, the Andrews Sisters' harmonies were superbly musical and complex, despite the apparent ease with which they performed

Outstanding Example:
The Jumpin' Jive - cool, jazzy and the definition of close-harmony singing.

*

Clive Burr (died 12th March)

Why you should* feel sad
Because another unique human being no longer exists

Contribution to music
Played drums on Iron Maiden's first three albums, helping define the sound of heavy metal (as opposed to hard rock) forever

Outstanding Example:
'Run to the Hills' is the most obvious example, but I would choose 'Another Life' from Killers, a criminally underrated song with a definitive Clive Burr performance at its heart.

George 'Shadow' Morton (died 14th February)

Why you should* feel sad
Because another unique human being no longer exists

Contribution to music
Forever (ahem) 'overshadowed' by Phil Spector, Shadow Morton's tougher, but no less tender or innovative work with the Shangri-Las will stand for as long as people care about such things as towering achievements in pop music.

Outstanding Example:
EVERYTHING he recorded with the Shangri-Las (his Grant Green and New York Dolls work isn't too shabby either) but how about 'Past, Present & Future': perfect.

* You shouldn't of course feel sad, unless you want to.