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Playground1935–43

Ruth Chaney American

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2017 in music appreciation

It was another year of music plenty. Sorting through more than 77 hours of LPs for my favorites, here are 10 debuts, 10 non-debuts, and 10 new discoveries from last year.

TEN DEBUTS

1. Girl Ray - Earl Grey (Moshi Moshi Music) This trio of precocious London teens will charm you with their achingly sweet hymns to young romance. Fun fact: the gals met at Finchley’s Fortismere secondary school, where the Kinks’ Ray Davies was schooled way back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j07UM7wTLQ

2. Molly Burch - Please Be Mine (Captured Tracks) I like me some old-school country with a pop sensibility that would pair nicely with late-night slow dancing in an empty bar. Enter Molly Burch, Austin’s latter-day Patsy Cline. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU8_7QPaI10

3. Reptaliens - FM-2030 (Captured Tracks) Get serenaded in the cocktail lounge of a bubbly dream-pop cruise through the cosmos with this Portland, Oregon-based band of weirdos led by husband and wife Cole and Bambi Browning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0I-qhKsvQI

4. School Damage - School Damage (Chapter Music) A new addition to the fertile music scene in Melbourne, Australia, this shambly foursome has shared a stage with venerable forebearers as the Twerps and the Bats. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdNTR07B6YY

5. Star Tropics - Lost World (Shelflife Records) With chiming guitars, confectionary melodies, and a wistful, cinematic vibe, this Chicago group worships in church of indiepop. Call me an adherent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKxREq8gO5k

6. Casey Golden - Casey Golden (Muscle Beach Records) The country-tinged psych-pop from this Tuscon resident is reminiscent at times of Beechwood Sparks and Yellowbirds at times. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ae60etRtr0

7. Smokescreens - Smokescreens This collection of gleeful noisy Los Angeles indiepop features the bass stylings of Corey Cunningham, a guitarist in Terry Malts and Magic Bullets. https://smokescreensla.bandcamp.com/

8. Business of Dreams - Business of Dreams Winsome pop of the jangley and synth varieties comes courtesy of none other than Corey Cunningham (see #7). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7Dh4RdFK0E

9. Holiday Ghosts - Holiday Ghosts (PNKSLM Recordings) Sam Stackpoole of The Black Tambourines and his girlfriend, Katja Rackin, form the core of this British band whose garagey tunes pay homage to the Modern Lovers and the Clean. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLZWFxreMGw

10. Oro Swimming Hour - Penrose Winoa (Art Is Hard Records) Sounding like a lost Elephant Six recording, this off-kilter collection of bewitching lo-fi is the creation of British duo Oliver Wilde and Nicholas Stevenson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_vs92H6KF0

Honorable Mentions: The BV’s - Speaking from a Distance Fazerdaze - Morningside Gingerlys - Gingerlys Midnight Sister - Saturn Over Sunset Old Smile - Elusive Day The Stroppies - The Stroppies

TEN LPs FROM ESTABLISHED ACTS

1. Lake - Forever or Never (Tapete Records) The seventh album from this Olympia, Washington, ensemble sounds something like a cross between Fleetwood Mac and a fuzzy sweater or Michael McDonald and a bubble bath – fully realized 1970s-style pop songs rendered with expansive, warm production, simultaneously slick and handmade. In the band’s words, Forever or Never is “a collection of humanistic songs that explore the complications of moral and spiritual being in a hostile world.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehTx_AVI-Vk

2. Happyness - Write In (Moshi Moshi Music) This London trio craft shimmering orchestral lo-fi steeped in decades of rock references points, from late Beatles to the Clean to Pavement to Deerhunter.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4ziXDmmxZc

3. Dent May - Across the Multiverse (Carpark Records) There are elements of ELO and Queen in this collection of maximalist pop that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Put it on repeat.  https://www.vevo.com/watch/dent-may/across-the-multiverse-(feat-frankie-cosmos)/US22N1712363

4. Destroyer - ken (Merge Records) Destroyer’s Kaputt might be my favorite album of the last 20 years. This latest release is probably closest to recapturing its stylish flare, marrying majestic synthpop and sax with cryptic, sometimes ridiculous lyrics, often veering into dark, unsettling terrain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-N6jfO5NOQ

5. Fred Thomas - Changer (Polyvinyl Records) Angry, nostalgic, introspective, the latest from pop genius Fred Thomas is chock full of strong feelings and musical hooks that skillfully mix genres from surf rock, country, electronica, and Hold Steady-style talk-rock. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g2pymDewXs

6. Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble - Find Me Finding You (Drag City) The goddess of Stereolab returns with her latest grouping of shimmering poem-polemics that showcase her heavenly vocal chords. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs0z_f3T8io

7. Beach Fossils - Somersault (Bayonet Records) A return to form from these Brooklyn janglers sees the band explore a more lush production, including on one song, a flute solo.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39F2B-EW9ms

8.  Clientele - Music for the Age of Miracles (Merge Records) These Londoners have been crafting wistful, autumnal pop lullabies for nearly two decades now. Brightened by gorgeous production, this latest collection may be their best yet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaU2L9D8rw4

9. Jay Som - Everybody Works (Polyvinyl Records) This record has my nomination for the most shredding guitar solo of the year, on the song, “One More Time, Please.” Oakland-based Melina Duterte’s chops are undeniable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRES6Af_Wyg

10. Slowdive - Slowdive Legendary shoegazers return with their first album in 22 years, and many of its songs are as majestic and soaring as the best of its 90s output. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxwAPBxc0lU

Honorable Mentions: Alvvays - Antisocialites D.A. Stern - Aloha Ha Foliage - Silence Heavenly Beat - John Kelley Stoltz - Que Aura Monk Parker - Crown of Sparrows The Stevens - Good Tara Jane O’Neil - Tara Jane O’Neil Versing - Nirvana

TEN EXCELLENT 2016 ALBUMS I DISCOVERED THIS YEAR

1. Failed Flowers - Failed Flowers

2. IAN SWEET - Shapeshifter (Hardly Art)

3. Black Marble - It’s Immaterial (Ghostly International)

4. Blue House - Suppose (Whipped Cream Records)

5. Go Cozy - Glaziao (Babe City Records)

6. The Holiday Crowd - The Holiday Crowd (Shelflife Records)

7. Divino Niño - The Shady Sexyfornia Tapes (The Native Sound)

8. Versing - Nude Descending (Youth Riot Records)

9. Snails - Safe In Silence

10. Charlie Hilton - Palana (Captured Tracks)

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Customers at Chinese Pizza Huts have taken the stores’ “one plate/one trip per customer for the salad bar" as an excuse to create towers of food. Architectural and artistic marvels! Sadly, Pizza Hut has announced it is closing down its salad bars to keep from going bankrupt. :-)

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Stanley Kubrick - One Point Perspective

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Tim Gough

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This kickass lady (and Kansas state representative) really said that. 

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Weekly reminder Bob Ross was a better human being than you will ever be.

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❤ oh, the 80s. Nancy Reagan and SanTa from @mental_floss

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The Beatles in a hotel room, c. 1963

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Ghada Karmi and Ellen Siegel, in 1973, 1992 and 2001. Photos by Francis Khoo (1, 2) and Jean-Pascal Deillon (3)

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PB&J’s for NYC

—Hurricane Sandy relief at GOLES, Good Old Lower East Side

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Wigglegram of the Day:

Maze by Seattle-based illustrator Dain Fagerholm. Ink pen and color dye marker on paper, GIF.

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Ringo for president

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FY Brutalist Playgrounds dot Tumblr dot com.

Park Hill Estate, Sheffield, England, 1961

(Jack Lynn & Ivor Smith, Sheffield City Architect’s Department)