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theworstbob · 8 years ago

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the thing journal, 6.18.2017 - 6.24.2017

the things i watched or listened to last week. in this post: i’ll keep you in mind, from time to time; the bridge; henri; under your spell; the last man on earth; beautiful thugger girls; into the maelstrom; makes me sick; truth is a beautiful thing; blind; the taking of pelham one two three; big fish theory; wolves

1) I'll Keep You in Mind, from Time to Time, by Moose Blood: One day I'll remember to write down what I think about an album when I listen to it on my computer and I literally have WordPad open in another visible window. It was a great time, it's a dope emo album and I'm the sort of person that will listen to emo in 2017 and describe it as "dope," and I apologize we're starting this off with me forgetting how I reacted to something.

2) The Bridge, dir. Eric Steel: a wonderful documentary about the golden gate bridge and the people who use it! you and your family will never look at the full house credits the same way again! This is a difficult film to review because it's a difficult film to watch. There is footage of people jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, there are interviews with people who either knew someone who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge or, in one instance, are someone who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, the throughline of the film is someone pacing back and forth along the bridge, struggling with the decision, not sure what they want to do. It's a brutal watch. And it has to be, it would have been irresponsible if this film tried to romanticize suicide, if it tried to present the jumpers as heroes flying to freedom. The people being interviewed say the jumpers were trapped in the prisons of their own heads, never quite found stability in this world, but those people are also clearly affected by the choice the jumpers made, are left wondering or, worse, knowing what they could have done better.

3) Henri, dir. Yolande Moreau: gpsh this movie took forever to get where it needed to go, and then when it got there, it didn't really do anything. i dunno, i guess i just never got on its level. i never quite figured out if the dude's relationship with the butterfly was condescending or creepy or if i was meant to think it was adorable that this mess of a man kept hanging out with the poor young woman, i could never tell if the film was sympathetic to its characters or if i was meant to laugh at those pitiful souls (it's a french film, so probably "laugh at" more than “laugh with”), and it didn't seem to take any of its characters problems seriously. i dunno, it just didn't seem like a film that needed to be made, it didn't seem to be saying anything about friendship or society or whatever, it just presented some idiots and said "make of this what you will." maybe i'm missing something, but i don't think i am? (also i signed up for Mubi. this is worth mentioning, that i signed up for a service that will present me with various foreign films and documentaries, so. look out for that, i guess.)

4) Under Your Spell, by The Birthday Massacre: shout outs to everyone who listened to this band because of game grumps There are moments on this album I can only describe as nu-metally; there are instrumental breaks on "Counterpane" that sound directly lifted from mainstream rock radio in 2003, straight-up Chevelle vibes in 2017. What The Birthday Massacre understands, though, is that 2003 has a place in 2017, and that's as color to the 1980s, and they somehow use buttrock to make their Depeche Mode-y song more interesting, feel different than it had on Superstition. The Birthday Massacre know how to make great rock songs, and it's so nice to know music like this is still being made in 2017. (Words used in this review include "nice" and "interesting." I swear I'm trying.)

5) The Last Man on Earth s2, cr. Will Forte: Binging this show may be a mistake, since the main character is so misanthropic and gross and none of the characters are good people. (Except Carol, who is trying her best all the time to just be as darn nice as possible, Kristen Schaal kinda carries this show.) It's not that I'm not impressed by this show, it's a really solid show, I just question whether I'm enjoying it. Or maybe I'm just not paying attention, I dunno, we've been over how bad I am at watching things. I loved the integration of Jason Sudeikis into the group and thought he and Will Forte played well as a successful younger brother and fuck-up older brother, like the perfect use of Jason Sudeikis is as a handsome and charming foil to a Will Forte type, and I liked Todd's slow evolution into a legit jerk, it's good! I like it! I shouldn't be consuming this in one gulp.

6) Beautiful Thugger Girls, by Young Thug: The Young Thug brand of trap is my preferred brand, for two reasons. One, Young Thug has an insane voice, and I don't mean that his songs are written from the vantage point of a crazy person, I mean that Young Thug makes these fucking mouthnoises that I was unaware a human could make. Every Young Thug song is an exploration of what his vocal chords can create. Two, Young Thug doesn't just make trap. There's a strong sense of artistic identity on his records, and that lets him play around in other genres, like, there's legit country influence on this record. It's not as towering a work as Jeffery, but few things in this world are; this is Young Thug taking some time to figure out the places he can take himself, and it is a thrill to listen to him explore his abilities.

7) Into the Maelstrom, by Bigelf: There comes a time when you need to set aside ego, forget whatever goals you've set, and admit that something is beyond your ken. I stopped listening to this halfway through. It's a prog album that didn't even have an incredible opener, just an okay one, and the rest I found interminable. I thought we were compatable. Y'know? I usually like prog. I usually like albums that start with a song called "Incredible Time Machine" and follow that up with "Hypersleep." But, like, I dunno, this just wasn't fun to listen to, like, there's no acknowledgement that "Incredible Time Machine" is a silly thing to name a song. My favorite prog bands are aware of how nonsense prog is and embrace it, but this took itself a tad too seriously for my liking. Which isn't to say it wasn't good, just that I didn't want to spend more time in this space, like by the time you get to the third six+-minute-long song of the album, you realize this is time you could've spent listening to "Style" on repeat, or something.

8) Makes Me Sick, by New Found Glory: Yes hello hi welcome to The Thing Journal, where we review French cinema and New Found Glory albums like they're the same thing. For me, current New Found Glory is like finding a sweater I haven't worn in months, putting it on, feeling insanely good about how I look in that sweater, and then not wearing that sweater for another year.It's a comfortable and uncomplicated album, like hell yeah, I'm here for a song about staying indoors during the summer, you made this song just for me!

9) Truth Is a Beautiful Thing, by London Grammar: Early frontrunner for The Hotelier Award for "Album I Don't Completely Understand But Am Aware Moved Me Deeply." Like, you know that Parks & Rec episode, where Tom commissions an abstract art piece, and as he stares at $20 of art, he realizes he's deeply affected by the way the shapes interact and flow, but can't describe what he's feeling or what he's looking at? That's how I feel listening to this album. I don't know what it is about this particular brand of ethereal dream-like pop that left me floored on the bus ride home, I don't know what I actually felt as the woman crooned over the simple-but-expansive soundscapes, but here I am, trying to figure out what I listened to ("simple-but-expansive soundscapes" is the fifth draft of that phrase) and what emotion was stirred within me. This was so cool. How is it so cool? Ugh I hate that I keep complaining about how I'm bad at describing music but Criticism Santa never ever visits MY TREE'S UP, DUDE. I'M WAITING. WE CAN MAKE THIS HAPPEN AT ANY POINT.

10) Blind, by Eskil Vogt: I think I got half an hour deep into this film when I realized I wanted to see this again. The way this film plays with the reality of blindness, how it gives you the sense of the main character's read of the situation before she hears a noise and realizes there's something different entirely, it's just so fucking cool. It reminded me a lot of Charlie Kaufman, and while I can't be 100% sure it's a warranted comparison and not a comparison I'm making because I have a limited frame of reference, but just the way it explored the blind woman's mind, how the story she was writing changed as she felt worse about her blindness, how she got crueler and crueler to the blind character as she felt worse and worse about herself, the way this film dissected loneliness, it's all these things I've come to associate with Kaufman and all these things I love to see in film. It's such a quality film, legit my only gripe is that everyone talked so low and softly, I honestly couldn't tell if the film was going for a low-key vibe or if the Norwegian language is just people muttering at and somehow understading each other. So it's entirely possible my main problem with this film is the Norwegian language, which honestly sounds like a mess, what's up Norway, how come none of y'all enunciate.

11) The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, dir. Joseph Sargent: I don't usually like things about New York City because 50% of all things are set in New York City and it's really hard to use New York City in a unique way. Everything is set in New York City, y'know? I more than understand that New York City is the greatest city in the world. The other 7000 TV shows I have seen about New York City have made this abundantly clear, I don't necessarily need you to chime in on this front. This film, though, this film is awesome. This was like the thing I kept wanting Brooklyn Nine Nine to be, a thriller with incredible comedy, like this is straight-up the funniest film I've seen in weeks (Bob we know what you've been watching you haven't seen a comedy in weeks we don't think) shhhhhhhAnd the comedy is mostly derived from the way the film uses New York. At the outset, no one is as concerned about the people on the train than about how the trains aren't running on time, like it's way more important that the subway runs on schedule than it is that the train not get hijacked. Like, so many people in this film treat this like just another day of New York's bullshit, the research department taking as long as they usually do to create the list of names, traffic impeding the delivery of money to the train. I loved it so so much.

12) Big Fish Theory, by Vince Staples: Vince Staples is a rapper whose projects demand attentive listening, multiple listens to grasp everything that he's going for, so of course I listened to this once on a walk and am throwing it in between a 40-year-old movie and an okay punk album. I have no doubt that the second listen will be rewarding, that I'll unlock what's great about this album and connect to it, and it's not like I didn't enjoy my first listen, Vince Staples is great at what he does and makes music that can be enjoyed even when being skimmed through, but there's so much going on, abrasive dark production and meticulously crafted lyrics, that I know I didn't catch everything. I caught a lot -- imagine not immediately understanding like "BagBak" is going for -- but Vince Staples is on that Kendrick/Danny Brown/RTJ level where he makes work that demands its audience's full attention while still being something the audience can enjoy.

13) Wolves, by Rise Against: The album opens with "Light all the torches and wake up the King/The smoke you've ignored is a flame you can't contain," which is a predictable way for Rise Against to say "I told you so," but, as previously discussed, Rise Against has as much of a right as anyone to say "I told you so" a thousand times. The main problem I have with this album is that it doesn't feel markedly different from the rest of their catalogue. There isn't any acknowledgement that there's more of a sense of urgency in these times than there was previously -- things were still bad in the last few years, but it wasn't "let's elect a monster" bad -- but Rise Against is putting out the same album they've always put out, fire and brimstone here, glossy pop-influenced single material there, the only difference being that they'll now acknowledge that they've always been right. Like, it might have been worth exploring the space they glimpsed on "Bullshit," which is a song where they are 100% excoriating their listener base for not doing enough ("Oh no, please don't life a finger, don't get up, just sit right there/Don't worry about the thoughts inside your pretty little head"), try to analyze the current situation so that, when Rise Against says it's time to fight, there's actual strategy involved? But this is fine, standard Rise Against is usually fine. Ugh, the Trump administration isn't even leading to better punk music, THEY SAID THE MUSIC WOULD BE BETTER. WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO MY SILVER LINING.

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thestempodcast-blog · 8 years ago

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The Stem, Episode 1 (Script)

Howdy! My name is Thomas McPhee, and you're listening to the first episode of The Stem. The Stem is a music podcast where I talk about my thoughts and feelings on whatever happens to make its way into my musical rotation each month. While most episodes will be a review of a single album, I want to celebrate the new year, as well as the beginning of this podcast, by sharing my list for the top ten albums of 2016.

Before we begin, I want to take a moment to share how I built my list. For me, what makes an album one of the most successful albums of any given year is its longevity. Am I still listening to this album weeks or months after I first hear it? There are plenty of albums that I’ve enjoyed on the first listen, but have completely forgotten about after a week. This list then is comprised of albums that I find myself returning to again and again months after I first hear them. There are two important questions this raises that I want to address quickly.

First, what to do about albums released in December, which don’t give me a lot of time to see how they age? My list for 2016 Includes two albums released in mid to late December, which I am choosing to include based purely on the strength of my early impressions. Both of these artists’ previous albums are quite strong, and these new releases have been earning the majority of my attention since I purchased them. For these reasons, I feel safe including them on the list, though I recognize that my early impressions might be wrong and that I am somewhat breaking my own rubric by including them..

Secondly, there are some deliberate omissions that I want to comment on. This year there were several records (Danny Brown’s Atrocity Exhibition and Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds’ Skeleton Tree being the prime examples) that I expect to see top other people’s lists due to their artistic and technical merits. While I appreciate what these albums achieve and how they influence political and musical discourse, if an album doesn’t draw me in and make me listen to it again and again, or if it’s too intense to listen to without significant preparation beforehand, it won’t appear on this list. While I appreciate sharp, incisive lyrics and experimentation in form, I place higher value the ability for an album to be both casually and critically accessible. This list then, like my reviews will be, is very specific to me and my experiences and patterns of listening to music, and I want to be upfront about that so I’m not flooded with questions about why I didn’t include X album or Y artist on this list like everyone else did.

Without any further ado, let’s get to the list! First up, I have four honorable mentions I want to touch on briefly. These are albums that were enjoyable and had longevity, but I couldn’t justify ranking them above the 10 albums that made the cut. They are worth checking out though, so I recommend you given them a listen or two on your preferred streaming service and see what you think. They are

Hell Or High Water: Original Soundtrack - Nick Cave and Warren Ellis

Nick Cave and Warren Ellis are prolific soundtrack composers when they’re not busy working together as Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, and this was a strong addition to their catalogue. This is the soundtrack to yet another western, and its strength lies in how well the original compositions play with the curated songs from other artists. “Sleeping On the Blacktop” by Colter Wall is a standout track here. This record is available through Milan Records.

The Adventure Zone: The Crystal Kingdom Original Soundtrack by Griffin McElroy

The Adventure Zone is a comedy Dungeons and Dragons podcast put out by the podcasting machine McElroy family, and along with his duties as the primary editor of the podcast, as well as the dungeon master for their campaign, Griffin McElroy has begun composing music for the show starting in the show’s third mini-arc. Griffin himself describes these pieces as more musical stingers than actual songs, but the thematic unity between them, as well as the effectiveness they demonstrate in capturing the feelings of the scenarios they underscore, makes this collection well worth a listen. The four part song titled Crystal Kingdom is the strongest song on the album, incorporating haunting melodies together with an almost playful instrumentation. It also features some truly fantastic vocaloid work. You can find this album on Bandcamp, and links will be available on The Stem website.

SremmLife 2 by Rae Sremmurd

SremmLife 2 is the sequel to Rae Sremmurd’s debut full length SremmLife, the 2015 release that was a surprise hit and one of my biggest guilty pleasures of that summer. SremmLife 2 takes the frantic energy and no shame party jams of the first album and pushes them even harder, while also adding a slight dash of love, regret, and reflection. The album is a lot of fun (and often very ridiculous), and even some of the slow jams on it deserve attention. The opener “Start A Party” is a fantastic first track and does its job of hooking you superbly. You can find this album from Interscope.

Now onto the list proper.

Number 10: The Storm – Tech N9ne

Tech N9ne is a Missouri based rapper, and The Storm is the sequel to his 1999 commercial debut, The Calm Before The Storm. Tech is one of the original co-founders of Strange Music, a record label that is an enormous part of Tech’s image and rap persona. The Storm, like his previous albums, features dozens of Strange Music artists, with Krizz Kaliko making a total of 7 appearances across the deluxe edition of album, which equates to a little more than 20% of the entire record. The lyrics here are often typical Tech N9ne fare, which often focusses on the nature of an indie rap life, as well as the darker nature of Tech’s music and his love for his Strange Music crew. I was first introduced to Tech N9ne through his 2015 album Special Effects, which I enjoyed quite a bit, and it prompted me to go into his back catalogue and pick up a few of his previous albums.

While all of them are lengthy, and all of them tread much of the same lyrical and thematic ground as this record, The Storm to me feels like the ultimate realization of Tech’s vision and interests, and as such it stands as one of his longest albums. While there are a few songs on The Storm that I found myself consistently skipping, a number of them come on the album’s second half, which finds itself devoted mostly to featuring songs from his Strange Music label mates that don’t even have Tech on them at all, so I’m willing to overlook them in terms of how I rate the album overall. The fact that, for an almost two hour long album, I would call a solid hour of it fantastic, with the remaining hour split between good, decent, and a few stinkers, seems like a remarkable achievement that deserves being rewarded. There’s something powerful in listening to Tech vault across a myriad of different musical styles provided by his producers, unleashing the full repertoire of his technical rapping ability, and hitting catchy, infectious success at such a high rate. Where the album shines, it shines the brightest of any album he has put out so far, and even where it fails, it feels like it fails more by comparison to the rest of the album than failing wholesale. While this album is a recent release, it has made up the majority of my listening time since I purchased it, and I can easily imagine continuing to listen to it for the months to come.

Number 9: Helter Seltzer – We Are Scientists

My infatuation with We Are Scientists was swift and recent, as I had never heard a song of theirs before summer of 2016, and in the time span of about two to three weeks bought all of their albums and fell in love. Helter Seltzer is the fifth album from this indie pop-rock duo, and in many ways it feels like a return to form for me. Their first album, With Love And Squalor, had a drive and energy to it that kept me hooked and kept the album on rotation in my headphones. It was simple without being sparse, and energetic without being exhausting. Brain Thrust Mastery, their sophomore release, incorporated more electronic elements, and while featuring a few strong songs, generally failed to capture the same feeling and energy that excited me about their debut. Then Barbara, their third album, stripped out a lot of the electronic elements, and while it was a slower paced album than their first, something in the melodies and the lyrics captured my attention again; it felt more intentional with its pacing, and you could almost feel the concentration that went into the album and it payed out in spades. Then TV en Francais came out, and was largely disappointing to me. It kept the slow pacing of Barbara, but lost the focus, feeling too slow and lacking any gripping elements for me.

Now we turn to Helter Seltzer, where it feels like We Are Scientists sat down and re-listened to With Love And Squalor 50 times in a row and regained some of their energy and excitement. Helter Seltzer has possibly one of the most gripping and exciting opening tracks of any album this year with “Buckle”, a hard hitting rock song that sonically and lyrically shows a clear drive and an intensity that hooked me in instantly. The album takes the best parts of all their previous albums and incorporates them seamlessly, navigating the slower ballads of TV en Francais and the electronic experiments of Brain Thrust Mastery, all while continuing to engage me and deliver on the promises of the opening track. Lyrically we cover a powerful range of emotions; we open in “Buckle” with “I want you to buckle when you think of me”, and we end in “Forgiveness” with “What I need’s anybody’s guess, but honestly I don’t expect forgiveness.” While the band are known for their humorous antics, their cat filled music videos, and their generally silly personas, what strikes me most about the album is how how serious they clearly are taking this music. It may not all be serious in tone or subject, but the intention and thought brought to this album is clear, and it helps make this a truly catchy, eclectic rock album that manages to avoid all pretension and still deliver something heartfelt and powerful. This album is available through 100%.

Number 8: Dangerous Woman – Ariana Grande

Dangerous Woman is the third full length album by pop superstar Ariana Grande, and for me it represents the moment that Grande was able to successfully combine all the ingredients in her formula and make a pop album that is so expertly crafted that it engages me critically as well as sonically. While I’ve always enjoyed pop music, I have found much of it to be fluffy enough or thin enough that it tends to only have about a week to a month’s worth of longevity. This album has blown that out of the water, providing new experiences and joys even after seven and a half months of listening. The way Grande weaves her way through the album, from the more classical love ballad “Moonlight”, past the innuendo rife sex ode “Side To Side”, and ending with the more downtempo, electronic, and thoughtful “Thinking About You” is joyful to listen to, really making you want to get up and dance at every moment. The production is infectious, but provides enough layers and development to keep me from getting sick of it after repeated listens.

I’m usually loathe to use a word like “genius” in this context, as it feels like it ties into broken concepts of intellectual superiority in music and “high art/low art” arguments, but it really feels like Grande is a musical genius on this record. It exceeded all my expectations for how much depth, complexity, and earnestness could be on a pop album, and it made fun feel as important as political discourse. Listening to Ariana sing about sex, love, and complicated relationships on this record feels more relatable, important, and in so many ways empowering than it has on any of her previous records, or on similar pop efforts by other artists. It’s also nice to see that the guest list is quite small, so it feels like the mastery of different tones and styles really does come from her musical ability. That said, Ariana uses her guests perfectly; each song is tailored to complement the featured singer, and yet they all fit in and flow naturally within the course of the album. The Lil Wayne feature “Let Me Love You” in particular is one of the standout tracks for me; also of particular note are the showtune-esque “Greedy”, and the longer, more relatively experimental “Knew Better/Forever Boy.” The album is available from Republic.

Number 7 (Tie): Life’s What You Make It - EP & A Place For Us To Dream – Placebo

English alternative rock group Placebo have been making music now for twenty years, and the growth and development they’ve shown over that period is remarkable and part of the reason they’re one of my favorite bands of all time. They’ve released 7 full length studio albums, each with an noticeably different sound and feeling, and yet all their music is held together by the divisive nasal singing of Brian Molko and the band’s music, infused by drugs, sex, and sadness. In a lot of ways I view Placebo as what would have happened had Depeche Mode picked up guitars rather than synthesizers, and both bands have now spanned a similarly epic length of time for a band to remain relevant (though Depeche Mode do beat Placebo out by a good ten years!). So now that they’ve been around for a while, it’s clear Placebo are thinking hard about where to go next. Their last full length release was the 2013 album Loud Like Love, which was my introduction to the band, and stands as possibly their most pop-friendly album to date, featuring bright, crisp production. While the sadness that is innate in Placebo’s very bones is still present, there’s a surprising amount of hope, happiness, and just earnest feeling, rather than the darkness and uncertainty of their previous works. Now, three years later, they’re looking back at their career and planning the next step forward. This consideration has manifested itself as two releases: a short 6 song EP which features four new songs and two live performances of their single “Twenty Years”, and a thirty-six track retrospective/greatest hits collection, which also includes one or two new songs, as well as finally releasing a couple of singles for the first time on the USA iTunes store. Thus while they are old songs they have been previously unavailable to me, so I will consider them as new for the purposes of including these albums on the list.

The new songs across these two albums themselves constitute a short album’s worth of material, and they speak to the band’s ever changing nature. “Life’s What You Make It” takes the pop rock of Loud Like Love and explodes it out into a grandiose atmospheric meditation on happiness and existence, whereas “Jesus’ Son” takes that same starting point and brings it inward, creating a tight, danceable exaltation of happiness and joy. “Autoluminescent” is a more winding and fuzzy electronic track that would feel at home on an electro remix/sequel to Meds, which I consider their best album. The slow version of “Breathe Underwater” takes one of the most fast paced and driving tracks from Battle For The Sun and turns it into a mournful ballad that evokes love and loss simultaneously. These tracks bounce around lots of new ideas, reframing old songs or jumping off from their recent efforts in new directions. It’s worth noting that many of these songs are covers, but I have not ever heard the originals before, and since the band has released an entire album of covers before and incorporates covers into a large part of their identity, I still wanted to call these songs “new”, in that the covers felt very much like they were still Placebo songs at their center. As someone who has been in love with this band since the moment I first heard them, it felt important to me to include these two albums and to mention these songs, as they serve as a neatly wrapped starting point for newcomers to the band, while still challenging all my conceptions of what they are capable of producing. You can find both of these albums on Elevator Lady Ltd.

Number 6: EP1 - FKA Twigs

While the previous entry on this list was a short EP coupled with a few singles from another album, this and the next two entries are all simply short EPs, which I want to quickly unpack here while I have a moment. While it feels a little disingenuous to include several rather short EPs on a best albums list, I tend to think of albums simply as any collection of songs that a musical performer has determined are a complete set by their own self-determined metric. The three EPs included here have such fantastic songs on them, and offer such a satisfying musical experience, that I see them as having a place on this list, and offer something different to many of the quite lengthy full lengths that make up the rest of the list. While I admit there’s something of an apples to oranges conversion going on, I think it’s worth just celebrating fruit and not getting too strung up in the details. I also think it’s important to recognize the role EPs plays nowadays, especially for certain artists.

FKA Twigs, British alternative/electronic/ambient singer, has long utilized EPs and shorter musical works in a way I see few artists with her level of fame and appeal do; of Twigs’ four releases, only one is over five songs long. While this particular EP was the first project she ever released, dating back to 2012, until now it had only been available in the United Kingdom on vinyl. It is thus a new release in the United States and this is the first time I’ve been able to get my hands on it (legally), so I’m considering it new, as there was clearly a choice made to make the product readily available to new audiences, which to me provides it with a context of understanding and reaction to current musical events. The atmosphere generated on this release, while tonally consistent with her other releases, feels simpler and sparser overall, featuring fewer lyrics than her already lyrically minimal other works, as well as less noise and fewer different production layers and instruments. While nothing that FKA Twigs does is “traditional” by any stretch of the imagination, and it all features a somewhat sinister feeling, this album almost feels like a lullaby, something to fall asleep to, not in the sense that the EP is boring or uninteresting, but rather in that there’s a sense of vulnerability and softness throughout, even in the harsher and faster songs, that seems to speak to a direct intimacy and connection with the listener. The song “Ache” is in particular possibly one of the best songs I’ve heard all year, and shows, without any pretension or angst, the ways in which love and longing can tear us down just as much as they can push us forward. This song in particular is a showcase for Twigs’ vocal abilities, which provide the majority of the melody, as well as the majority of the sound on the song, and the song creates an emotional response in me as a listener that was almost overwhelming and was certainly beautiful. You can find this album from The Young Turks.

Number 5: Hypnos/Flame EP – Chelsea Wolfe

Chelsea Wolfe is a alternative/experimental singer songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who started out making albums that were crosses between goth rock and folk music, and has recently began to incorporate elements of hardcore electronica and metal into her sound. If I had to sum up the genre of her most recent works in a single word, it would absolutely be “apocalypse”. Her 2015 album Abyss is sweeping in scope, drenched in ambient atmospheres of darkness and hopelessness, while also still featuring some incredibly hard hitting and crunchy guitar riffs, synth melodies, and unsettling vocal effects. This album was a stand out for me, and really captured something special in the way it mixed so many different elements I loved without feeling bogged down. Jump forward to 2016, and she releases the Hypnos/Flame EP. While only two songs on the album are brand new, the other three being unreleased demos of songs from Abyss, the strength of those two songs alone puts it in the number five spot on this list. The first single, “Hypnos”, is a little closer to a more “traditional” guitar ballad, but it is possibly the most sinister track you’ll hear this year. It starts with a simple but menacing acoustic guitar line, and Wolfe’s vocals seem to be slipping in from some far away location, the way it echoes and softens suggesting maybe the opposite side of a large, empty auditorium. She sings “I licked your hatred, you set me free, In summer in the boiling blood.” Then the melody line shifts, adding a simple extra layer of complication, and turning into a song for a loved one, more intimate and kind. After the chorus we get the subtle addition of a couple of extra guitar notes, which sound almost like a very soft piano, and a synth swirls gently in the background, making it sound like a small chorus of singers is singing from an even further away location in this auditorium of sound. Wolfe sings “Oh baby, I’ll carry your disease, That darkness that lives inside you deep, Oh honey, I’ll put up a fight with death, He’s never coming near my love again.”

The next track, “Flame”, moves a little more swiftly, featuring a more driven guitar line. Wolfe’s voice is front and center, singing right next to you and reverberating all around the sonic space as she sings about running west and chasing the sun, defying everything that has failed her and an unknown other in their relationship thus far.

The demos that are also on the EP are interesting, and vary widely in how much they differ from their counterpart takes that made the cut on the album. “Grey Days” and “Survive” feel quite close to the album versions, but feature subtle shifts in production and pacing, which reveal something interesting about the recording process, providing a window into Chelsea’s mind about what these two tracks needed in order to feel complete to her. “Simple Death”, on the other hand, is starkly different in demo form, featuring an almost entirely different instrumentation, a much slower tempo, and more elaborate supporting vocal work. Like many of the EPs and albums on this list, this collection plays with the idea of “new” and how those kinds of arguments influence what we allow on our end of the year Best Of lists, but based on the strength of the two new songs, as well as the way in which the demos offer something tangible about the perspective and process of the artist, I think this was an incredibly strong offering that deepened and pushed forward Wolfe’s artistry and music. You can pick up this EP from Sargent House.

Number 4: Ritual Spirit EP - Massive Attack

Massive Attack are a DJ duo/trip-hop group from the United Kingdom that’ve been around for almost thirty years, mostly consisting of Robert Del Naja, or “3D”, and Grant Marshall, or “Daddy G”.

Ritual Spirit is the first new release from Massive Attack in a few years, and it feels like a strong departure from their last full length album, Heligoland. Whereas Heligoland was a grander, more cinematic album, with moments of love and hope, Ritual Spirit is a tight, frantic, and desolate collection of songs. The opening track, “Dead Editors”, is a blitzy hip hop track with a haunting, synthetic, and dirty beat. Roots Manuva raps over it with a full, bass tone, unconcerned with exact melody or precision, instead using his voice more like a sledge hammer. The title track, “Ritual Spirit”, is a gorgeous evocation of darkness and uncertainty, featuring relatively sparse and open production and vocals from Azekel, who, while difficult to understand, conveys perfectly an atmosphere of wariness and the unknown simply by the power of his vocal inflection and tone. “Voodoo In My Blood” brings back the franticness, but with the inclusion of the Scottish group Young Fathers, this track feels more like a depraved, reckless party anthem for those already way far gone. The clicking of the drums, and the driving surge of the two note guitar line make the song hard to resist moving to, even when it’s unclear whether you should be dancing or running away. The final track, “Take It There”, features Tricky, another famous English trip-hop musician, and a previous collaborator with Massive Attack. Tricky’s thick, deep vocals as he sings “Treat the girl, like licorice, she's so soft, and ticklish” over the simple, repetitive, but almost hopeless beat is hypnotizing. The thumping of a morose repeated piano note plays as the track seems to almost drag itself forward; this is the song for the end of the night, when all energy has been spent, all hope lost, and the listener must simply lay down and wait for whatever comes next. Together the four tracks provide a compelling and engaging arc over their eighteen minutes, and while it’s undeniable that this is Massive Attack, there’s something in these tracks that feels new, reinvigorated, and makes me hopeful for a new record sometime in 2017. You can find Ritual Spirit on Virgin records.

Number 3: Strange Little Birds – Garbage

Garbage are another older band that have come together to produce new work, the previous release from Garbage being from 2012. In my opinion this is the most interesting work put out by the band, and to me represents the most successful attempt at their self stated goal of “tak[ing] pop music and mak[ing] it as horrible sounding as we can.” Which is not to say that this album doesn’t sound good or plays too much with sonic dissonance; this is by and large a harmonic and easily accessible piece. However, it’s clear that the band is pulling from pop influences and sensibilities, but then twisting them into these eclectic electro, grunge rock songs. Many of the songs, including the album’s opener “Sometimes”, feature heavy synth work and have a kind of otherworldly quality, but other tracks, like “Empty”, feel much more like traditional rock songs, and the balance on the album between all these different ideas and sounds is both successful and energizing. Most of the tracks on the album hit the 5 to 6 minute mark, and there’s something cinematic and luxurious in listening to them, as the space they take allow each of these tracks to grow and evolve as the seconds tick on. While there are a few exceptions, the overall tone of the album is quite dour, telling stories about doomed love, fights to stay alive, and the ways in which we self-sabotage in our own foolishness. From the final track on the album, and my personal favorite, “Amends”, we have the lyrics “It’s what you do to make it right, Matter of fact, it’s called revenge, Cut off your nose to spite your face, It’s pretty cool shutting me out.” The lyrics across the album are unafraid to get down and dirty, lending an almost confrontational tone to the album, and in several places it caused me to stop and think about my own life and relationships, finding moments where I felt like the singer was both describing my own feelings, or calling me out on my mistakes. There’s also something seamless about the album, as it all feels completely natural and effortless, expertly balancing complexity and simplicity not only across songs but within individual tracks as well. You can find this record on Stunvolume.

Number 2: Northern Lights – Allan Kingdom

Allan Kingdom is a Canadian rapper based out of St. Paul, Minnesota, who you may know for his work as part of Thestand4rd with Spooky Black, Bobby Raps, and Psyum, or for his feature on the Kanye West single “All Day”. While the Twin Cities have been known for a while for their indie rap scene, Allan represents the indie indie rap scene of Minnesota, not quite achieving the level of notice and acclaim as groups like Atmosphere and Brother Ali. This album, though, should be the first step in Kingdom receiving that level of attention, as it’s a smart, sharply put together collection of songs exploring love and lies, while expertly capturing a sonic representation of the winter up north. Kingdom is both a successful singer and rapper, effortlessly moving from one to the other. The song “Interruption” is possibly the only track that features almost no singing, and it comes across as an incredibly intimate and honest foray into the real Allan Kingdom, as he gives us scenes from his life, including countless journeys across buses to spend time with a lover. He raps

“I’m vulnerable vulnerable,

so laugh it up laugh it up,

the son of some immigrants ‘bout to sun ‘em like Africa,

you made me some dinner,

I said my debit was actin’ up,

my wallet got lost but we both knew that I ain’t had enough”

His lyrics play around punchy and puny one liners, captivating stories, and a more reserved and cautious version of the braggadocio rap that is all too common place nowadays. The hardest hitting and fiercest songs on the album, “Northern Lights” and “Go Fish” are all about love and relationships, documenting his struggle to communicate his attraction towards and maintain the attentions of those he sees being himself with. Kingdom is able to take the mundane or clichéd aspects of life and culture and transform it into something larger and more complex.

The production across the album is glossy and electronic, adding a brightness to even the darkest of the songs, but it never feels so bright or cheery that it becomes saccharine. Each song deepens our understanding of the person behind the mic, and he has curated his features wisely, allowing each guest singer or rapper to feel perfectly at home in the song they are brought in on. What at first may seem like a foolishly simple album is instead, I think, incredibly earnest; Kingdom is comfortable telling you the truth of how he feels, the struggles of his romantic entanglements, and he’s unashamed to put himself out there on this record, flaws and all. This level of honesty is charming and enticing, and rewards multiple listens. You can pick up this record from his website, allan-kingdom.com, as well as find it on Itunes and other digital music marketplaces.

Number 1: Nocturnal Masquerade – Toothgrinder

Toothgrinder are a New Jersey based metal outfit, and Nocturnal Masquerade is their first full length release, and with it they have firmly cemented themselves as a band to doggedly watch over the coming years. This record is simply, purely brutal, in a way that I’ve rarely rarely seen be so accessible and engrossing. Lead singer Justin Matthews’ ability to growl, scream, and sing, each with equal precision and mastery, on every single song creates the perfect album for those whose interest in metal is limited by your tolerance for harsh vocals. This is not to say the album isn’t heavy; the vast majority of most songs feature harsh shouted vocals, but Matthews lends them a melodic quality that soothes simultaneously as it pummels.

This is also to say nothing of the instrumentation, which utilizes nasty, pummeling drums and urgent guitar and bass riffs that compliment the aggressively musical melodies and harmonies in back. Where other metal bands revel in making their entire sonic palate a fuzzy, discordant, atonal mess of sludge, Toothgrinder cut through that notion with a surgical precision, bringing just enough fuzz and wallop to pack a punch, but never pushing so hard as to lose focus on the trajectory of the songs and the melodies that lie in their center. These songs are incredibly layered; not in the sense that they feature dozens and dozens of different instruments and different musical motifs or lines, but rather that they are similar to a painstakingly plotted novel: each component of the song has a specific purpose and has been matched with the parts around it, creating sub harmonies and sub-rhythms that only reveal themselves after repeated listens.

There are no simple tracks here, but it never feels overwhelming; each song readily provides a through line to follow and grab onto for your first listen, then trusts you to explore around the room each time afterwards until you realize just how much work must have gone into every single one of these songs. With the exception of the fourth song “I Lie In Rain” (which, admittedly, is still pretty heavy and has a strong pace to it, especially in its second half), this album does not stop or slow down ever. It is 42 minutes of constant brutal propulsion that does not let up, but simply changes forms and pushes you from a different angle. Normally I would find something so relentless exhausting or repetitive, but instead, the album makes me just want to go jogging the whole time, constantly feeding me energy and new ideas to keep me going.

“Diamonds for Gold”, which features vocals from Periphery singer Spencer Sotelo, showcases more stripped and bare guitar lines during its verses, removing the fuzz and punch that then comes full force during its chourses; this kind of willingness to mix and interplay with different tonal qualities and instrumentation even within single songs helps keep the album surprising and engaging for every second. My favorite track, “Blue”, is a clear love letter to Meshuggah, but still feels entirely at home within the album, and, more importantly, like a Toothgrinder song. The beat drops on this track are gut wrenching and demand a headbang from even the most staunchly non-metal listeners. “It ain’t nothing but a goddamn monster, harboring, dance a little closer, it ain’t nothing but a goddamn monster, I want to hold your breath right now” Williams screams in the song’s bridge, and he’s right: this album is a goddamn monster, and it makes me catch my breath every time I hear it.

The most moving and almost shocking musical moment on this album is the two song pair “Dejection/Despondency” into “Schizophrenic Jubilee”. “Dejection/Despondency” opens with a sharp guitar line that sounds like an alarm piercing out into the night, and as the song builds up around this sound and shifts, it morphs into something different, allowing for a killer guitar solo which leads into a percussive drop that seamlessly transfers us into “Schizophrenic Jubilee” which picks up the pace as if the two songs were really just one all along, carrying on the momentum and melody for a few seconds before transforming it again. The two songs together are a seven minute powerhouse of precision, technical ability, and pure energy, leaping through a dozen different melodic and sonic ideas while still all showing a direct relation to the starting seconds of ‘Dejection/Despondency.” The compositional work on this album is practically flawless, and I have returned to the album as a whole over and over again since its release in January. It still feels as powerful, fresh, and exciting as when I first heard it, and I don’t expect it to tire out soon. You can find this album on Spinefarm.

Thank you all for listening to this first episode! I hope you found something new you hadn’t heard of before that you might give a listen to. You can find me on Twitter, Tumblr, and Gmail, all at thestempodcast. I plan on having a new episode up within the next month, which will likely be a shorter, more typical review of a single album. If you have any comments, angry, happy, or otherwise, feel free to send those along. The theme music for the show was “Cash Rules” by Ari de Niro, which is available from Needle Drop Co. Happy New Year everyone, and I’ll be back soon. Until then, you’ve been listening to The Stem.

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