Traditions whose absence would mean Christmas would just not
be Christmas: The Coke advert (“holidays are coming”), Starbucks’ Red Cups, the two week special edition of the Radio
Times, and of course my end-of-year music best-of list
One way or another I have acquired (and no, that’s not meant
to be as dodgy as it sounds) over 90 studio albums released in 2014. As great as some of the reissues (Nas
Illmatic XX), hip-hop history lessons (Wu-Tang Clan, Dr Dre, Notorious BIG, The
Roots, Mos Def, Public Enemy) and Record Store Day releases (Life Without
Buildings, The Pogues With Joe Strummer, singles boxed-sets of Soundgarden and
The Dead Kennedys) undoubtedly were, well it’s all about the here and now,
innit? One day I’ll get old, draw a
line, refuse to listen to new music and dismiss whatever the young people are
listening to these days, but given I only managed to pick up 63 new releases
last year it would appear I’m not heading to that place quite yet. Good for me.
Given what a high (quality) year 2014 has been, you can
hardly blame me. Indeed, this prolific
and welcome output was hardly limited to any particularly genre. In pop/rock we had the breakout success of
Royal Blood (self-titled), the triumphant return of Jamie T (Carry on the
Grudge), Foo Fighters’ best album in a good while (Sonic Highways), the
delightfully off-the-wall St Vincent (another self-titled effort) and the
perennial (and recently rather reliable) titans Manic Street Preachers’
satisfying counterpart to the acoustic/mellow 2013’s Rewind the Film (Futurology).
Plenty of other great stuff in that (loosely titled by yours truly) genre too –
Counting Crows’ Somewhere Under Wonderland, Nina Persson’s (of the Cardigans)
Animal Heart, and Alt-J’s This Is All Yours, to name but three more.
If you’re a fan of heavy music / prog metal, if you weren’t
happy with 2014 I suggest you put your affairs in order as I’m not sure there’s
anything more that can be done for you.
Breathe in.
Animals As Leaders produced the mind-bendingly mental The Joy
of Motion (the various Cloudkicker output will give you a comparably toned down
slice of prog metal). Pale Communion was
a bit safe and narrow in its focus, but a less good Opeth album is still better
than most mere mortals can hope for. In
Swedish Martyrdod’s Elddop and American Trap Them’s Blissfucker we have two
brutal and mighty records of the highest order (I also discovered Oathbreaker
this year, sadly too late to include the magnificent Eros!Anteros in my 2013
best-of). None too shabby efforts from
groove metal legends Crowbar (Symmetry in Black) and Hellyeah (Blood For Blood)
nor from EyeHateGod with their first album in umpteen years. Lacuna Coil’s Broken Crown Halo contained
tunes as irresistible as theirs always are. The Melvins’ Hold It In (for which
the band included two members of The Butthole Surfers) proved that 2010’s
failed experiment The Bride Screamed Murder was but an anomaly in the otherwise
consistently brilliant Washington band’s ever increasing output. I need a little more time with Old Man
Gloom’s double opus (The Ape of God I/II) but signs point towards upward
thumbs. Sick Of It All’s Last Act Of
Defiance will please anyone who likes New York hardcore both generally and when
it’s been the same for 20 years (ie AFI fans who stopped listening in
2000). And although a bit of a
hotchpotch and not exactly the out-of-left-field triumph of the self-titled
release in 2008, a new record from the super-group United Nations (The Next
Four Years) will never be unwelcome.
Every Time I Die’s From Parts Unknown was also a very welcome release in
that particular vein.
Breathe Out.
For the third and final genre into which I’m going to struggle
to force musical outfits for the sake of one more paragraph of procrastination,
obviously I’m going to pick jazz. I’m
much happier with the recorded output I’ve checked out in 2014 than I was last
year, in terms of both variety and quality.
We had the Helge Lien [piano] Trio’s lovely and understated Badgers And
Other Beings, and for other jazz that is “safe” but executed extremely well,
there was Keith Jarrett & Charlie Haden(RIP)’s The Last Dance, Chick
Corea’s Trilogy (not actually a studio album; so sue me), and/or The Pat
Metheny Group’s Kin. For more modern
stuff, try Jean Toussaint 4tet’s Tate Song, GoGo Penguin’s V2.0, The Bad Plus’
Inevitable Western (their other 2014 release was the not altogether successful
rendition of Stravinsky’s The Rite Of Spring) and/or the superlative Roller
Trio’s sophomoric Fracture (in whose liner notes I am credited (due to spending
more than £25 in the crowdfunding pre-order)).
Submotion Orchestra’s Alium is definitely more hit than miss (although
they’re a bit too “cool” and restrictively-structured to be superior for me). I took a punt with Marius Neset & The Trondheim
Jazz Orchestra at Ronnie Scott’s and I was unsurprisingly rewarded, the record
itself (Lion) more than living up to the live show. Somi’s The Lagos Music Salon has some
standout moments (but it is a bit samey and it doesn’t need all of its 18 tracks). Check out the revelatory violinist Regina
Carter’s Southern Comfort if you like a bit of southern folk with your jazz
(and even if you don’t, because you will).
Disappointments
Not many of these, thankfully. Mastodon’s Once More ‘Round The Sun is their
weakest record to date, mainly because it represents the least progression (if
any) between albums. The new direction
taken on the Neil Cowley Trio’s Touch and Flee makes it an incredibly dull
record, truly background fare if ever there was. I had such hope for trumpet virtuoso Ambrose
Akinmusire’s second outing, but as a wise jazz friend said to me, most of it
sounds like a musical study. At one
point I had more hope for him than another contemporary trumpet master,
Christian Scott, but alas no longer
Lily Allen’s Sheezus is, overall, a mess (she herself
somewhat refreshingly acknowledges it’s not her strongest work). The singles Hard Out Here and Air Balloon are
truly horrible but in tracks 4-6 there is a beautiful trilogy of songs,
starting with Our Time and ending with the tragic and affecting Take My Place.
Hiromi’s third record of the Trio Project, Alive, is Voice
part 3, with all the virtuosity and none of the tunes. As a massive fan of Pink Floyd’s The Division
Bell, I was looking forward to The Endless River but it’s actually an
ultimately pointless release.
The prolific and talented Max Cavalera has many recordings
to be proud of. Cavalera Conspiracy’s
bland third album (Pandemonium) is not one of them. Similarly, after a couple of corkers, Machine
Head’s Bloodstone Diamonds is not all that – it’s derivative and overlong.
Near misses &
special mentions
Picking a mere top ten was rather difficult. I could have easily made it to twenty. Cut-missers include the previously mentioned
Animals As Leaders’ crazily satisfying The Joy Of Motion, Foo Fighters’ Sonic
Highways (I generally find I have to be in the right mood for Dave Grohl’s
crowd-pleasers, but I really do enjoy this), Marius Neset’s inventive and
superbly executed Lion, and Opeth’s Pale Communion (do we miss the death
growls? Sometimes I guess). Others include the jangly self-titled album
from Omar Rodriguez-Lopez’s Antemasque (notable for featuring Flea on bass and
for welcoming Cedric Bixler-Zavala back into the fold), post-rock epic wizards
Crippled Black Phoenix’s White Light Generator, John Frusciante’s best and most
consistent record in ages (Enclosure), Mogwai’s Rave Tapes (far more consistent
in quality than their previous Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will),
super-group Killer Be Killed’s self-titled album (whose whole is admittedly not
as great as the sum of its Dillinger Escape Plan / Mars Volta / Mastodon /
Soulfly parts), and Japanese post-rock beauty-mongering Mono’s pair of albums
The Last Dawn / Rays Of Darkness.
Dry The River’s Alarms In The Heart is better from start to
finish than Shallow Bed, albeit with no single song as good as New Ceremony, Ed
Sheeran’s X (pronounced “multiply”, apparently) is great fun, and Damien Rice’s
My Favourite Faded Fantasy was definitely worth the wait. Acrobatic acoustic guitar duo Rodrigo y
Gabriela produced another album in 9 Dead Alive to delight those of us who
revel in people being truly spectacular at what they do.
.5: The Gray Chapter retains a helluva lot more Slipknot
than one might have thought in the absence of chief songwriters and
co-masterminds Paul Gray (RIP) and Joey Jordison. It’s a fine record featuring more than its
fair share of cracking songs, but like 2008’s All Hope Is Gone it’s not going
to make you squirm with life-changing astonishment as did the masked men’s
trilogy of masterpieces that ended with the transcendental Vol.3 The Subliminal
Verses. But that’s OK.
Having banged on for two (Microsoft word) pages, I think
it’s about time I got to the point. Here
we go:
Finally, the actual
top ten
10) Khatia Buniatishvilli – Motherland
I’m intelligent when it comes to music, but I’m not
wise. I know how to use most of the
tools, but I’m not able to make a table.
Ergo as much as I love classical music, I’m not the guy to tell you
which recording is better than the other.
Sometimes, however, it’s so in-your-face obvious not even I can miss
it. The terminally overrated Lang Lang’s
playing is invariably vulgar (he can get the notes right and play loud and
fast, but that’s about all). Georgian
pianist Khatia Buniatishvilli, on the other hand, is a revelation. One listens to her recordings or watches her
give a live performance and one can tell she’s something special. After an album dedicated to Lizst and one to
Chopin, Motherland does not focus on any particular composer, which is of
course exactly how Buniatishvilli gets to show off her range – across the 17
tracks we have quiet and loud, fast and slow, contemporary and baroque, and she
approaches them all with effortless passion, lyricism and exquisite musicality.
Check out: Vagiorko mai / Don’t You Love Me? (Trad), Menuet
From Suite in G Minor HWV 439 (Handel)
9) Martyrdod – Elddop
For a heavy metal album, I struggled to choose between this
and Trap Them – Blissfucker. Both are
loud, brutal, cathartic, and mighty, strongly composed and superbly performed.
I landed on Martyrdod because they’re a little bit different. For starters, the lyrics are unapologetically
in Swedish (you can tell they’re not English from the track names, liner notes
and, surprisingly one might think for this type of music, listening to them). Most of the songs are quite short. The vocals are a just tiny bit far enough away
from “generic metal growling” to stand out.
There’s a decent bit of variety across the 15 tracks. I suppose I must admit it’s not as a whole
all that original, but it’s expertly delivered and ticks all the boxes I want
from my metal.
Check out: The last three tracks will give you a flavour of
the variety I mentioned: Martyren, Hjarnspoken, Under Skinnet
8) Morrissey – World Peace Is None Of Your Business
In deciding what was “best” in a given year, in a foolish
attempt to be objective one might try to pick something a little bit original
or new, or at least different. A couple
of years ago I didn’t pick Deftones’ Koi No Yokan for my top ten. One of my favourite albums of that year by
one of my favourite bands of any year? Yep. One of the most original and
interesting albums of that year? Not by
a long shot. In the year of our lord two
thousand and fourteen, however, the majesty of Morrissey both in general and on
his latest album means I am unable to leave him off the list. I’m going to cheat a bit and refer to the
special edition of the album, which came with a second CD. Of the six tracks on that, the last five of
them are as good as those on the main album proper. Only four less successful tracks out of
eighteen this far into his career speaks to Morrissey’s enduring talent and
appeal, and as a new fan of his solo material I was perfectly happy that his
November set at the O2 included ten of the new songs (alas he included two of
the relatively weaker songs, Smiler With Knife and Scandinavia). Older fans may say this is album isn’t up to
his others but if that’s true I’m really looking forward to catching up with
the old ones.
As usual, if you don’t already like Morrissey this ain’t
gonna convert you. If you’re fortunate enough to do like him, everything you’ve
come to know, love and expect is present and correct. Weird wonderful lyrics? Check (“Neal Cassady
Drops Dead, and Allen Ginsburg’s Tears Shampoo his Beard”). Huge choruses?
Check (Istanbul, The Bullfighter Dies). Little moments of nuanced beauty? Check
(The wordless singing that ends Neal Cassady Drops Dead, the way Mozzer sings
“plaaaaace” in Kiss Me A Lot, the line “Give me the gun, I love you” in One of
Your Own, and plenty more instances throughout). The solid musicians with whom
he surrounds himself being more than his match? Check. Quirky but effective
song-writing? Check (just listen to the bloody thing already)……
Check out: Neal Cassady Drops Dead, Istanbul, Kiss Me A Lot,
One Of Your Own
7) Trioscapes – Digital Dream Sequence
Trioscapes is a side project of Dan Briggs, bassist from
“the thinking person’s” hardcore band Between The Buried And Me. I know that BTBAM suffer from a surfeit of
intense and magnificent musicianship, but the ridiculousness of Briggs’ bass
guitar abilities is even more verily apparent on this futuristic free jazz
masterclass. As one may expect from the
band name, Briggs is joined by two other musicians, who play drums and
saxophone (throughout the record there’s a few other things going on but those
and the bass are the main three instruments).
Like I said, it’s very free, and it’s very noisy, which are not
ingredients of everyone’s cup of tea, but the sheer energy and outrageousness
of it all may well win you over.
Check out: The Jungle
6) Lamb – Backspace Unwind
A largely electronic musical duo from Manchester who have
been on my radar for years (Lou Rhodes has collaborated with The Cinematic
Orchestra but I never made the connection), but this year I finally took the
plunge. As I’m a grumpy old purist I demand quite a lot from my electronic
music (it’s not all that way – As Satellites Go By starts with just piano and
vocals). Luckily Backspace has the ideas, the construction, the variety and the
emotional payoffs to deliver in spades.
Some of it’s rather dance-able, some of it’s very beautiful.
Check out: In Binary, As Satellites Go By, What Makes Us
Human
5) Wovenhand – Refractory Obdurate
Something a bit different for Jacob Bannon’s Deathwish
record label, this (he knows that too, given I didn’t recognise the artwork as
his). By that I mean it’s not screamy
and shouty and fast and loud. Wikipedia
lists it as “alternative country” and I have no advance on that, even though
that hardly tells the whole story.
There’s plenty of inventive acoustic guitar throughout, as well as
plenty of rock drums and electric guitar (some of it gets nice and distorted
& noisy). Vocals are a little bit
down in the mix but that makes perfect sense as this hardly a
singer-with-backing band. The brainchild
of a versatile and clearly very clever gentleman by the name of David Eugene
Edwards, Wovenhand sound like Swans might if they were a little less mental and
wrote short(er) songs.
Check out: Corsicana Clip, Obdurate Oscura, Hiss
4) Aphex Twin - Syro
Believe the hype.
Well some of it anyway. Electronic
music pioneer Richard D James has been away for a while but he’s sure come back
with a worthy record. Apparently it’s
not easy to tell what the album was made on, but how a moog or laptop differ
(at least in output) from whatever James has hidden away in his shed is beyond
me. Apparently it’s intelligent dance
music, and that I can get behind. This seems to me to transcend the dance-floor
and the MDMA and become true art in a way that (for me) Deadmaus, Skrillex, and
the like do not. Then again, 180db_[130]
(yes, that’s a track name) seems a bit more straightforward while still being
great fun. There’s not much I can say
about Syro that hasn’t already been said elsewhere – it’s weird, it’s
brilliant, and it has samples of the James family’s vocals all over it (‘coz,
y’know, that’s clearly a dealbreaker).
Check out: Minipops 67 [120.2][Source Field Mix],
Xmas_Evet10 [120][Thanaton3 Mix] (all ten and a half minutes of it, if you’re
up for it)
3) Zara McFarlane – If You Knew Her
Londoner Ms McFarlane’s 2011 debut, Until Tomorrow, would
have gone on my best-of list that year had I heard it that year. That album introduced the effortlessly
talented jazz singer to the world, and her follow-up is its equal. In many ways it’s better – its larger scope,
for example – but then there’s nothing like the time one hears one’s favourite
musical artists for the first time, is there?
With a very natural delivery, sumptuous timbre and a willingness to
(generally) stay within her range, McFarlane bears happy comparison with the
great Billie Holliday. Granted she tries to show off more these days, with
mixed results (the “normal” scat singing is up there with any top class
soloing, but don’t get me started on those horse noises she makes on Angie La
La). With her easy charisma, her willingness
to give her band (not a weak link among them) plenty of room to breathe, her
taking of the mantle from Bjork in bringing Manu Delago’s gorgeous hang drum
playing to the world (on the lovely opening ballad Open Heart), her well-chosen
and even better executed covers (Police and Thieves, Plain Gold Ring), wide
range and deep ability, McFarlane’s star seems very rightly to be in the
ascendant.
Check out: Open Heart, You’ll Get Me In Trouble, Angie La La
2) Swans – To Be Kind
I shan’t fail to make comparisons between this and 2012’s
The Seer (yet another party I was late to) – they’re both epic 2-hour double
albums (on CD, triple on vinyl), gloriously noisy, dripping with atmosphere, more
than a little experimental, utterly hypnotic, flawed but fantastic. I actively look forward to times when I’ll
have 2 hours straight in which to listen to one of the last two Swans records. Perhaps To Be Kind is the inferior of the
two, being admittedly fairly similar to its predecessor, but only a little bit.
For every long patch of droning (which I
never really feel could be cut) there’s a great riff ready to explode (like Oxygen’s). This is very big music with a lot going on,
all of it meaningful (especially the bells!) – even the lyrics are important
(and have received much critical praise) if sometimes the vocals which deliver
them are a occasionally a tad perfunctory.
It’s very repetitive, sure, but that’s so as to properly explore every
musical idea mastermind Michael Gira brings to the table, of which there are
clearly very many.
Check out: Oxygen (the closest thing to a “single” Swans are
capable of), Kirsten Supine, (or if you’re feeling really brave for the next 34
minutes) Bring The Sun/Toussaint L’Ouverture
1) Pianos Become The Teeth – Keep You
When you watch a film billed as a comedy, your expectations of
humour are raised. When something funny
happens you think “yeah well of course that happened, I’m watching a comedy” and
you smile a little bit. When you watch
The West Wing or Firefly, neither of which are comedies per se, when something
funny happens you roll about the floor laughing.
When you listen to Pianos Become The Teeth you might
reasonably expect the usual post-hardcore screamo that “The Wave” (Pianos,
Touche Amore, La Dispute, etc) are known for.
2009’s excellent Old Pride and 2011’s even better The Lack Long After
gave us that it and did so very well.
2014’s utterly gorgeous Keep You dispenses with that and instead gives
us beauty. But it’s the contrast that
really makes it special and Pianos have clearly worked very hard to make sure
that comes across. Mostly, of course, that’s
in the vocals – what Mr Kyle Durfey lacks in technical ability he more than
makes up for in expression and lyrical wit – but very much in the guitars as
well, right at the very start with Ripple Water Shine’s confident statement of
intent, right at the very end with Say Nothing’s heart-wrenching outro, and
many, many times in between. That’s not
to say the bass and drums are any less restrained, effective, or lovely.
After Listening to Keep You right the way through (which you
absolutely must), you’ll feel like you’ve been raked over the coals, but that’s
exactly why it works, and you’ll want to experience it again as soon as you
can.
Check out: The Queen, Say Nothing
Bonus feature – twenty
tracks for a 2014 playlist
Spotify: Jimmy E best of 2014 / Jimmy E best of 2014
- Animals As Leaders – Para Mexer
- Antemasque – 4am
- Aphex Twin - Minipops 67 [120.2][Source Field Mix]
- Beck – Wave (I haven’t mentioned Beck in the above, but this is a lovely highlight of his well-received Morning Phase album)
- Crippled Black Phoenix – Northern Comfort
- Crosses – The Epilogue (2014’s studio album only brought five new tracks, alongside the two previously released EPs, of which this one is the best (beating Bitches Brew by a hair))
- Damien Rice – It Takes A Lot To Know A Man
- Hellyeah – Hush (a bit cheesy but stomping good fun)
- Lamb – In Binary
- Le Butcherettes – Burn The Scab (a nice little slice of straight-up punk from Teri Gender-Bender and companions)
- Lily Allen – Take My Place
- Manic Street Preachers – Let’s Go To War
- Morrissey – Neal Cassady Drops Dead (so many great tracks to choose from but this one has that wonderful singalong outro)
- Pianos Become The Teeth – Say Nothing
- Roller Trio – High Tea
- Somi – Ankara Sundays
- Swans – Oxygen
- United Nations – Serious Business
- Wovenhand – Corsican Clip
- Zara McFarlane – Angie La La
