Friday, December 6, 2013

FAVORITE ALBUMS: 2013 Edition

I know the following didn't come out so pretty, but now that I am writing a blog for the new record store my wife and I opened this past spring 2013, I have less time to devote to my own writing here.  Blogger is being painfully difficult and does not want to let me change the backgrounds here, so sorry...I hope you can still read it, as I did not want to type everything twice.  Here are my favorite albums, 2013 edition.  There are some extremely good records here this year!  I found it very difficult placing some of my most favorite artists a bit lower in the list at times due to the incredible number of great releases making their presence known here.  Happy reading!




1) PRIMAL SCREAM--More Light
Bobby Gillespie and co. return with the best album of their 20+ year career, mixing the best of their past with dashes of Bowie, Can, Sun Ra, Stones, Zeppelin, dub reggae...and making it all their own.  This is the sound of a great rock & roll band effortlessly blending their best qualities, and what a feat it can be making something so difficult sound so easy to do. 






2) WOODKID--The Golden Age
A conceptual album of the highest artistic order, Yoann Lemoine aka Woodkid, released one of the most startling debuts of the year with an album detailing the tale of a young boy fighting against all odds and ultimately losing his tragic battle.  Mixing a little of Nick Cave, Antony Hegarty, and Marc Almond, Lemoine's baritone flexes against the pounding and tribal rhythms in the upbeat songs, while gently smoothing out the ballads with heartfelt tenderness.  While it's seriously difficult to believe this is his first album, one can only wonder where on earth he goes from here.  Brilliant.






3) JOHN GRANT--Pale Green Ghosts
Reading like pages of his diary, Grant's fearlessness comes full force on this album, his followup to 2010's Queen of Denmark (chosen by Mojo Magazine as it's 2010 album of the year).  Both humorous and heartbreaking, Grant's dark and brooding voice is set against downbeat folk rock and stark electronic textures courtesy of Iceland's Gus Gus.  While there is a fair amount of soapboxing going on here, funny songs like "GMF" and "Sensitive New Age Guy" lighten the mood.  Simultaneously, the closing "Glacier" is one of the most transcendent songs in recent memory.  






4) MOONFACE--Julia With Blue Jeans On
Just a guy and his piano, Spencer Krug (Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown) shows off some amazing talent on an album extolling the virtues of an ex-girlfriend in this modern song cycle.  Recalling a mixture of Nick Drake and Nick Cave, these highly personal songs were recorded live and feature no studio overdubs.  This was Krug's first album from all of his projects to be so stripped down, and it's all the better as the songs get the chance to breathe in direct ways.  An astonishing piece of work.







5) PET SHOP BOYS--Electric
Coming a mere 10 months after their previous album, the muted Elysium, this British duo have continued to create fantastic pop music for the past 30 years.  Their latest, Electric, is the first on their own record label (x2), and features production from master electronic producer Stuart Price (Madonna, The Killers).  Expanding some of their songs in a looser format than usual, Electricultimately continues the trajectory of Tennant-Lowe's history of witty and emotional songwriting that, with such a rich career, should place them in the category with other past luminaries like Lennon and McCartney.






6) DAVID BOWIE--The Next Day
An album most of us never thought would be made, Bowie shocked and surprised at the beginning of the year with his first release in a decade, and what a release it was.  The Next Day is invigorating with a sound that recalls some of his best past work like Heroes or Scary Monsters(Tony Visconti returns as producer), but lyrically stares down the end of a life that sees the number of days ahead shrinking.  Fire and brimstone are the word of the day here, yet the cover belies a flippant reaction to this weighty subject.  In a year that lost Lou Reed, the return of Bowie was almost like a resurrection. 







7) THE KNIFE--Shaking the Habitual
Certainly one of the most dividing records of the year, the Swedish brother-sister duo that make up The Knife returned with their first album of new material in seven years (Fever Ray came in-between).  Most of the songs clock in around the 8-minute mark, as this record stretches over two CDs or three LPs.  There's even an ambient track in the middle running nearly 20 minutes.  Still, the grinding industrial rhythms clash against sounds that seem as though they were created at the bottom of an Asian sea, as these tracks don't always function as songs, more often as sound collages.  Not for the faint of heart.







8) JAGWAR MA--Howlin
A liberating mix of British Oasis-style psychedelic rock mixed with late-80's rave culture, Australia's Jagwar Ma manage to find a sound that sits somewhere between the Stone Roses' debut and Primal Scream's Screamadelica.  These are not shabby reference points, to be sure.  Guitars weave in and out as dubby drums smash against walls of sequencers and trippy looped vocals.  With their debut, JM have managed to create something that references specific sounds of the past while retaining a fair amount of indivuality and originality.  Plus, it's damned catchy.







9) TEGAN & SARA--Heartthrob
Twin sisters Tegan & Sara have been making music for a decade, but it took producer Greg Kurstin (Kylie Minogue, Bird & the Bee) to really turn them on to the poppier side of their sound.  They are all the better for it, making the best pop record of the year (the similar Haim was close, but there's room for both). Recalling 80's Fleetwood Mac at their most melodic (again, see Haim), Tegan & Sara took a chance on alienating their audience, but have found a larger new one in the process, and have shown growth potential while also showing their fans another side of themselves.  This was an album that kept giving all year.







10) NINE INCH NAILS--Hesitation Marks
Nine Inch Nails is no longer the new band it once was--Trent Reznor's project has been active off and on for nearly 25 years now, yet Hesitation Marks is one of his freshest releases to date.  Reznor has shaken some of the shackles of the expectations of what an industrial album must sound like in 2013, with his work on soundtracks like The Social Network and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo an influence.  He doesn't seem to be trying so hard to please here, finding more space in between the sounds, allowing for more creative textural nuances.  It's a slow-burning album with much of the anger tucked under the surface rather than being thrown in your face, and because of that, rewards on repeated listenings.  After a long break, this was another welcome return.


11) NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS--Push the Sky Away
12) CUT COPY--Free Your Mind
13) M.I.A.--Matangi
14) VAMPIRE WEEKEND--Modern Vampires of the City
15) JANELLE MONAE--The Electric Lady
16) CHVRCHES--The Bones of What You Believe
17) EMPIRE OF THE SUN--Ice on the Dune
18) SUEDE--Bloodsports
19) PREFAB SPROUT--Crimson/Red
20) ARCADE FIRE--Reflektor
21) YEAH YEAH YEAHS--Mosquito
22) SHOUT OUT LOUDS--Optica
23) NEKO CASE--The Worse Things Get, the Harder I Fight, the Harder I Fight...
24) GOLDFRAPP--Tales of Us
25) OMD--English Electric
26) ALISON MOYET--The Minutes
27) HOLY GHOST!--Dynamics
28) OH LAND--Wishbone
29) HAIM--Days Are Gone
30) VV BROWN--Samson & Delilah
31) ARCTIC MONKEYS--AM
32) JULIA HOLTER--Loud City Song
33) SIGUR ROS--Kveikur
34) THE VEILS--Time Stays, We Go
35) LAURA MARLING--Once I Was an Eagle
36) RHYE--Open
37) DAFT PUNK--Random Access Memories
38) ST. LUCIA--When the Night
39) ELVIS COSTELLO & THE ROOTS--Wise Up Ghost
40) SAVAGES--Silence Yourself
41) FUTURE BIBLE HEROES--Partygoing
42) LORDE--Pure Heroine
43) LITTLE BOOTS--Nocturnes
44) LADY GAGA--Artpop
45) YOUNG GALAXY--Ultramarine
46) MARY ONETTES--Hit the Waves
47) DEPECHE MODE--Delta Machine
48) JOSEPH ARTHUR--Ballad of Boogie Christ
49) CAMERA OBSCURA--Desire Lines
50) IAMX--Unified Field

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Here we are at the Halfway Point...

The year 2013 is closing in on Half Over(!) and we always like to pause and reflect on what were our favorite releases of the previous six months.  This year was rather bizarre for us due to the fact that we opened a store late after closing a store and sitting in limbo for nearly three months.  However, that doesn't mean we were inactive listeners, and if anything, we were MORE active due to our reflection time.

Lists are a funny thing.  They seem to have gotten more and more popular over the past few years as the internet has exploded with social media.  They are also completely subjective as everyone has their own idea of what their list would or should look like, and they are not really indicative of what is the best work from a musical or marketing point of view.  The reason we stress over these lists is to share our discoveries with others in the hope that they will also seek out some of these things and help the store and the artists financially through purchase of their work.  This work makes us, in effect, facilitators.

So here you go, our favorites of 2013 as of now:

40) GOLD FIELDS--Black Sun
39) JOHNNY MARR--The Messenger
38) THE NATIONAL--Trouble Will Find Me
37) RHYE--Woman
36) SMITH WESTERNS--Soft Will
35) EMIPRE OF THE SUN--Ice on the Dune
34) FLAMING LIPS--The Terror
33) FOXYGEN--We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic
32) CAMERA OBSCURA--Desire Lines
31) VISAGE--Hearts & Knives
30) PHOENIX--Bankrupt!
29) ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER--Personal Record
28) SAVAGES--Silence Yourself
27) NEW ORDER--Lost Sirens
26) OCEAN BLUE--Ultramarine
25) LAURA MARLING--Once I Was an Eagle
24) CLUB 8--Above the City
23) YOUNG GALAXY--Ultramarine
22) DEPECHE MODE--Delta Machine
21) MARY ONETTES--Hit the Waves
20) JOSEPH ARTHUR--Ballad of Boogie Christ
19) IAMX--Unified Field
18) LITTLE BOOTS--Nocturnes
17) DAFT PUNK--Random Access Memories
16) SIGUR ROS--Kveikur
15) VAMPIRE WEEKEND--Modern Vampires of the City
14) TEGAN & SARA--Heartthrob
13) FUTURE BIBLE HEROES--Partygoing
12) THE VEILS--Time Stays, We Go
11) YEAH YEAH YEAHS--Mosquito
10) OMD--English Electric
9) SHOUT OUT LOUDS--Optica
8) SUEDE--Bloodsports
7) NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS--Push the Sky Away
6) ALISON MOYET--The Minutes
5) THE KNIFE--Shaking the Habitual
4) WOODKID--Golden Age
3) JOHN GRANT--Pale Green Ghosts
2) DAVID BOWIE--The Next Day
1) PRIMAL SCREAM--More Light

What were your favorites?  Let us know, and look for our big year end list in another six months.  More entries are going to shake up this list by then, likely including Franz Ferdinand, Arctic Monkeys, Nine Inch Nails, Pet Shop Boys, and Goldfrapp.  Spaces are getting tight already...

Thanks for reading!
--Jason@Electric Avenue