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beneaththebrim · 1 year

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Brim’s favorite albums of 2022

In reverse order. First EPs, then LPs.

EPs:

10. A Sterling Murmuration | Zoon

Hazy shoegaze, nostalgic and soothing.

9. My Bestfriend’s House | Blue Hawaii

Dance-worthy! Was pleasantly surprised by the disco track at the beginning.

8. graves | Purity Ring

Standard Purity Ring fare, squealing croons atop haunting, euphoric synths.

7. SICK! | Earl Sweatshirt

A return of the meandering depressedcore hip hop we love. Dizzy and ephemeral soundscapes flit in and out like thoughts through an anxious mind.

6. La Ciudad de Dejamos | Fin del Mundo

Liquid guitars against balmy drumwork make for some really nice 90s-nostalgia shoegaze. Music like a cool summer night.

4 & 5. Kris, Perfect Order | KÅRP

Good ole dark Scandinavian synthpop. What would we do without you.

3. Ninety Three | Taylar Elizza Beth

Low key, lush hip-hop featuring Taylar Elizza Beth’s whispery vocals that float between rap and croon.

2. Raving Dahlia | Sevdaliza

Sevdaliza’s back with her signature inexorable smoky ballads. These tracks are a little dancier, a little heavier than those of her most recent album, though, while retaining her unique style.

1. Bloodline | Gabriels

(December 2021) Gabriels singlehandedly bringing back The Blues in the year of our lord 2021, why not? Meticulously vintage, with the agonized, raw-yet-finely-tuned vocal stylings of Jacob Lusk—one of the absolute best vocalists of our age, seriously. Southern gothic sin, baby.

Full albums:

27. Arkhon | Zola Jesus

It’s a Zola Jesus record, which means I like it. But I find myself never getting into any particular moment. Maybe it’ll take more time to sink in, maybe it’s just lacking stand-out tracks to anchor the album. Music like spelunking.

26. Entropy is the Mainline to God | The Veldt

The Veldt comes back rocking and rolling. I was hoping for something more shoegazy like their old stuff rather than the psychedelia-tinged 80’s metal sound they’ve got going here, but hell, it’s groovy!

25. Arrangements | Preoccupations

Previous album was a little one-note, but this one veers into some interesting spaces as it pushes and pulls with the distortion. Jaunty.

24. The Silence in Between | Bob Moses

Bouncin introspective dance music. It’s not original but it’s full of bops!

23. Loom | Uèle Lamore

Earthy yet ethereal blooms of instrumentation. Lovely to listen to, but for some reason lacks memorability.

22. Black Radio III | Robert Glasper

An eclectic tour de force featuring a stellar variety of guest spots atop Glasper’s production. Although a lot of tracks are fantastic, the album doesn’t quite cohere as a whole for me.

21. Once Twice Melody | Beach House

Beach House made a Beach House record, and it’s great. The same subdued, affectionate, dreamy sound we love.

20. 11 | Sault

The only Sault album I liked of the six they released this year ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It’s excellent though, love the down-tempo jamminess of the instrumentation and the thoughtful, murmuring vocals.

19. Broken Hearts Club | Syd

Vaped torch songs for your local lesbian fuckboy to play in the background while getting down. Syd comes through once again.

18. Only After You Have Suffered | Jamire Williams

(December 2021) Contemplative, choppy jazz with phenomenal hip hop and operatic interludes. “Pause in His Presence” in particular is something else.

17. Kanawha Black | Nechochwen

Indigenous-made atmospheric folk/black metal. Expansive melodies invoking the Appalachian forests meld with the harsh vocal texture to create a space of reverence and awe.

16. EBM | Editors

Delivering on that punchy aughts-nostalgia stadium rock. Head boppin rhythms and gushy pop-punk hooks.

15. Laurel Hell | Mitski

Mellow sounds that swirl around the main maelstroms of the album, cracking at the seams and letting the rawness soak through.

14. Plastic Estate | Plastic Estate

Slick and infectious 80s-nostalgia new wave that you just gotta sing along to. Very special when the singer sinks into a baritone.

13. Cool It Down | Yeah Yeah Yeahs High-energy-yet-dreamy punky indiepop. Some great anthems on this one.

12. Too Much to Ask | Cheekface Cheeky pop-punk that’s like scrolling through a quality twitter funnyman’s feed. Hilarious and full of bops.

11. Exister | The Soft Moon

A cold counterpoint from the California goth scene, starts off slow before cranking up an onslaught of noise that thrums between industrial and darkwave. Angry and cathartic.

10. Ravage | Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch

Haunting and disturbed sounds from the French pianist/composer. A melding of dark ambient that wouldn’t be out of place in a horror movie, with crashing, harsh piano work.

9. Twenty Twenty Twenty Twenty One | Spencer Krug One of the best lyricists of the day, imo, reminiscent of Leonard Cohen. Every tug of Krug’s voice strains with emotion, and every turn he takes with the instrumentation on different albums is a welcome surprise, finding different ways to express his agonized sentimentality.

8. Giving the World Away | Hatchie Earnestly saccharine power-dreampop. Great album with some real bangers.

7. We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong | Sharon Van Etten Warm and husky, sad and poignant folk songs. Van Etten’s voice soars with transcendant emotion.

6. The Runner (Original Soundtrack) | Boy Harsher

Spooky and sleek darkwave, punctuated by a sparkly disco banger. Boy Harsher at the top of their form.

5. Angels & Queens - Part 1 | Gabriels

Jacob Lusk delivering that wonderful vintage, Nina Simone-esque vocal quality, with the opening tracks fast-forwarded from last year’s bluesy EP to some funky 70’s soul. Gorgeous and blue.

4. Ever Crashing | SRSQ

Gushy dark California gothy dreampop. Infectiously synthy, powerful vocals. Lush songs for a heart that’s itching for summers long past.

3. Stay Close to Music | Mykki Blanco

A humble confessional, at times diving back into the idiosyncratic rapping style of Blanco’s more dance-y earlier releases, at times plunging into an ethereal wash of sound.

2. Semblance | MorMor

There is something magical about MorMor’s tissue-paper-delicate voice. Gentle, sensitive, cathartic. Music for letting go when you so want to hold on.

1. Pigments | Dawn Richard & Spencer Zahn

Lovely. Sublime. Spacey. Sprawling. Meandering and melancholy pockets of plaintive yearning. Music that takes you on a journey and leaves your heart aching for more.

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ajoytobeheld · 6 months

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Gareth Campesinos!' records of 2010

December 2nd, 2010

And so, the moment I’ve been waiting for, my 12 albums for 2010. That averages at one a month </justification for exceeding ten>

I was intending to do this in order of preference, but the late arrival of Kanye convinced me otherwise. Right now I can’t see that I like an album from this year more than My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, but 12 months ago I’d have said the same about Perfume Genius’ Learning. Making a snap decision now could only cause me to cause some horrific injustice like, oooh, I dunno, suggesting the Marina And The Diamonds record is better than Kanye. Idiocy.

I cannot write about music, so please forgive these descriptions, they’re just to break up the pics, like.

So, in no particular order…

Psychorama – Bathcrones

Bright melodies bubbling atop and overflowing from slow motion beats. All sheets of synth noise and groove. An oddly uplifting record, kinda like a crack of light under the doorframe of a darkened room.

Love King – The Dream

The-Dream’s written some of modern chart music’s biggest hits (Umbrella, Single Ladies) but his solo records show an intelligence and degree of concept that very few people would expect. Dark, self obsessed stuff hidden behind MASSIVE TUNES. Our generation’s Michael Jackson, I tell you.

Carve Out The Face Of My God – Infinite Body

The most melodic shoegazy/ambient record I can recall hearing. Released on No Age’s Post Present Medium record label, this drone is modern day classical music if you ask me.

Autre Ne Veut – Autre Ne Veut

Like every annoying ten-minute trend this year, but with actual worth behind it, a set of bollocks and falsetto. Nostalgic, twisted pop-songs to make your head whir and your eyes cry ice cubes. This is one of my absolute favourites.

Blue Water White Death – Blue Water White Death

Starring Jamie Stewart and Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg, this, for me, harks back to La Foret era Xiu Xiu. Centred around acoustic instrumentation and eerie, threatening mantras.

LA Vampires Meets Zola Jesus – LA Vampires Meets Zola Jesus

Massively succesful year for Zola Jesus’ Nika Roza, whose Stridulum EP has seen her break into a world that I could never have imagined (though am so pleased to see her in). However this, her work with Pocahaunted’s Amanda Brown is my favourite of hers from this year. Mesmerising, minor key and dub tinged, this is pretty trippy stuff.

Dagger Paths – Forest Swords

So happy that this is receiving a late push from the likes of Pitchfork. Wirral producer Matthew Barnes is a gentleman, and produces music like nothing I can recall exactly hearing before. His cover of Aaliyah’s ‘If Your Girl’ may well be my track of the year (actually, no, that’s The-Dreams F.I.L.A., but still).

Suburban Tours – Rangers

Like early Ariel Pink, but less annoying (to my ears). Every AM radio song of the 80s recorded to cassette and played atop of each other over a melted car stereo. But sad, very sad.

Learning – Perfume Genius

The most delicate and tortured music I’ve heard since the highest (or is that lowest) points of This Mortal Coil. Just a beautiful man and his demons sat aside a piano. I’ve gone on about this record enough that if I’ve not convinced you by now, I’m sure I never will.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy – Kanye West

There are no words.

Mare – Julian Lynch

Hazy, folky pop songs made ‘difficult’. Soothing and rewarding.

New Love – Former Ghosts

Industrial, hyper emotional tales of the heart and soul from the composer of my favourite album of 2009. This second full length pays even more attention to detail and space. Somehow more pop and more brutal than before.

Needless to say, I’m excited for all the upcoming End Of Year Lists from certain publications, to see what brilliant stuff I’ve missed out on this year. And maybe yours too?

#2010 #gareth!blog #lc!blog

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lunapaper · 4 years

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Album Review: ‘Moveys’ - Slow Pulp

The most beautiful of art can arise from turmoil.

In the lead-up to Slow Pulp’s debut album, frontwoman Emily Massey was diagnosed with both Lyme Disease and glandular fever. This past March, just as the Wisconsin band were finishing up the record, her parents were involved in a massive car accident, forcing Massey to return home. And then COVID-19 hit a week later...

Yet Slow Pulp persevered, or more appropriately, moved forward. Although the self-produced Moveys is enveloped in haze of shoegazy post-punk that gorgeously fades as quickly as it appears, there’s also a glimmer of hope hidden deep within its ghostly depths.

Opener ‘New Horse’ is cautiously optimistic as Massey slowly begins to emerge from a winter-long depression, unravelling in a fuzzy blanket of reverb and trembling chords. Yet Moveys is very much rooted in self-loathing and fear; always surrounded by an air of suspicion.

She keeps a lover at arm’s length on ‘Idaho,’ floating atop a restless sprawl of slow-burning grunge. She refers to herself as a ‘deadbeat’ on the sun-bleached alt-rock of ‘Falling Apart,’ taunting back at the broken figure staring back at her: ‘Why don’t you go back/To falling apart/You were so good at that/You're one in a million now/You don’t want to take the time/You just need to seem alright.’ Amid the coastal rock fuzz of ‘At It Again,’ she pleads:’ Oh c'mon, please, don't take it back/I should’ve known that I couldn’t make it last,’ while on the swooning, country-tinged ‘Montana,’ she’s a ‘bad mess’ and a ‘loner with no plans’ as she tries to keep the voice in her head at bay.

Even bassist Alex Leeds’ solo turn on ‘Channel 2’ feels like a response to Massey’s crippling doubt (‘Concentration takes up all of my time/I’ll come back tomorrow/Your hesitation tells me what was on your mind/It’s never convenient’), where a sluggish crawl of riffs soon blisters and frays.

The stripped-back nostalgia of ‘Whispers’ (In the Outfield),’ meanwhile, provides a brief respite. Featuring Massey’s father on piano, it’s a serene breakaway; a fitting soundtrack to a coming age film that reaches a woozy crescendo just before the credits roll.

After drifting through such a heavy fog of introspection, the strangely funky 'Movey' can feel kind of jarring. Yet, this slice of 90s hip hop proves an exhilarating end, even playful with its gleeful proclamations of ‘scram!’ and ‘get back!’ Quite cathartic, the interlude doesn’t offer closure as such, but it does prove that we don’t have let our trauma define us, that the aforementioned fog will one day lift.

Massey herself says as much. As she recently told NME:

‘I think there’s a lot of really sad subject matter on the album, but I think for the first time I had a mentality of ‘things can change and things can get better,’ whereas before I felt stuck, like it’s gonna be like this forever and I have to accept it […] It was a shift in believing in myself that I hadn’t had in a really long time.’

Though Moveys is a tragic beauty, it’s also a clear, confident and captivating debut.

At a slight 26 minutes, Massey & co. gorgeously wallow in their dreamy melancholy but never outstay their welcome; the kind of tight and cohesive effort created by a band who’ve forged strong bonds in the face of adversity as well as a strong sound. Melodies are hazy, restless and weary but crafted with immense care, while Massey’s confessional lyricism is wonderfully rough around the edges, turning whatever obstacles in her way into haunting rock gems.

It’s astounding that a band can sound this accomplished after just a handful of EPs. The only direction Slow Pulp are moving in from now on is up...

- Bianca B.

#music #slow pulp #moveys #new #reviews #albums #Bianca B

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