Best music of 2016

Intro

A much more haphazard affair this year, I think, dearest friends, which I would suppose is in keeping with one of the themes of what has been a decidedly odd 2016 (as opposed to all the other 2016s we’ve had where no-one died and everyone was excellent to each other).

Plenty of decent music though, thank goodness. I count at least 94 records purchased/acquired plus a few others checked out on streaming services like a normal 21^st century person - I admit I’m starting to feel like maybe CDs aren’t all there is to life (you heard it here first). If my mother is reading this she’ll be breathing a sigh of relief for her attic space.

An overly long list of a very vague and poorly executed theme

I want to say that if you’re into music that doesn’t necessarily need a traditional vocal melody (I mean, what a cliché eh? Oh, and note I didn’t say instrumental music) you’ll have been in a happy aural place this year. But then I’m generally fairly dismissive of normal songs anyway. Pretentious, moi? Nevertheless, the plethora of great instrumental / growly vocal music includes such releases as:

• The ever reliable heavy math power trio Animals As Leader’s “The Madness of Many”
•  Atmospheric post-metal, and oh so much more than “local band”, Bossk’s stunning comeback full-length LP “Audio Noir”. Comes with incense and purple/green candles for the complete experience
• Swedish post-metal titans Cult of Luna teamed up with singer Julie Christmas for “Mariner”
• DJ Shadow’s “The Mountain Will Fall” – further proof that The Outsider was an artistic misstep in an otherwise solid body of work
• A new album from post-rock masters Explosions in the Sky: always something to write home about, and “The Wilderness” is as beautiful and comforting as ever
• Ditto for Japanese post-rock group Mono’s disturbingly titled “Requiem for Hell” – high quality but forgivably not as ambitious as 2014’s double “The Last Dawn / Rays of Darkness”
• French metal band Gojira’s “Magma” is superb, despite the haters’ claims of lack of heaviness
• Solid, if standard, efforts from the perennial mind-benders Meshuggah and fellow (Swedish, again) countrymen Opeth (continuing their prog  journey)
• I haven’t played the game, which was despite the hype apparently a bit of a disappointment, but 65daysofstatic’s instrumental-electronic soundtrack to No Man’s Sky makes it all worth it
• Isis (THE BAND!!!) legacy group Sumac’s “What One Becomes” is OK but frankly I much prefer Neurosis’ “Fires Within Fires” (given how much I like Cult of Luna it’s surprising how long I’ve taken to get here)
• A stunning swansong from The Dillinger Escape Plan with “Dissociation”. They’ll be missed but their members won’t be short of work – guitar wizard Ben Weinman seems comfortable in supergroup Giraffe Tounge Orchestra, and see later on for more on vocalist Greg Puciato’s electronic side-project

I could keep going, and mention the happy return of Holy Fuck with “Congrats”, or Trentemoller’s “Fixion” (god bless you Late Night Tales – a gift that keeps on giving), prolific and talented alternating MC/producer Oddisee’s “The Odd Tape”,…. but – let’s be honest – I should have stopped paragraphs ago

A much shorter list of another theme 

Don’t get me wrong, I have a place in my heart for more conventional music and structured songs, but I do demand that these be truly exceptional. The beautiful “Love Letter for Fire” by Sam Beam (Iron & Wine) and Jesca Hoop, “Hopelessness” (to be fair not exactly straightforward, but it’s not growly or instrumental) by Anohni (Anthony and the Johnsons), and “A Moon Shaped Pool” by Radiohead (far better than the mostly forgettable King of Limbs) are but three particular examples of this. Quirky Scottish trio Biffy Clyro’s “Ellipsis” is as fun as ever.
  
Jazz. Nice.

There’s been loads of good jazz this year, and it warms the cockles of my heart to be so assured that this most wonderful genre of music is alive and well. A good variation too, encompassing much good ol’ reliable as well as more leftfield and boundary-pushing stuff, plus a few acts that are appealing to non-jazz purists.

For solid, slick and well-performed, but hardly original, try saxophonist Marquis Hill’s “The Way we Play”, trumpeter Wallace Roney’s “A Place in Time”, pianist Hiromi’s “Spark” (of the four albums she’s cut with her Trio project, this is a splendid return to form and second only to the spectacular “Voice”), sax/vibes led Empirical’s “Connection”, or classic piano trio leader Kenny Baron’s “Book of Intuition”. While I flick between loving and hating the music of pianist Brad Mehldau, 2016 was a good year for him, both the pretty and competent “Blues and Ballads” trio covers album (he’s at his best when playing other people’s music), and the piano/sax duet album with Joshua Redman, “Nearness”. 

In terms of more leftfield stuff, Brummie saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings continues to appear the busiest man in jazz, and his participation in The Comet is Coming’s “Channel the Spirits” is my favourite of his work over the year (he also did some stuff with the “Ancestors”, and has recently toured with his fabulous  but oddly lined-up group Sons of Kemet). Soweto Kinch has gone and made the album I’ve wanted him to make for years – Nonagram is stripped back and mostly instrumental jazz, still with concept and experiment but designed to be listened to all the way through more than once (sorry, Mike Smith) – although it’s still a beast of a double album and I’ll need to live with it a bit longer. Scandi trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer and his group delivered a nice slice of avant-garde (but not too much) with Buoyancy. My good pal Bobby K plays trumpet but generally doesn’t like avant-garde (even the majestic A Love Supreme is too free for him, the poor philistine!) but he fell for this guy big time when we saw him at Ronnie’s. Donny McCaslin’s (famous, so far, for playing saxophone on David Bowie’s “Blackstar”) own record “Beyond Now” flirts happily with the avant-garde and appeared in Jazzwise magazine’s top 20.

In terms of the more mainstream acts, the superlative Snarky Puppy released the collaborative “Family Dinner, vol 2” (for me personally, more appreciated than enjoyed, but I have put their version of Laura Mvula’s “Sing to the Moon” on my top 20, although this more of a testament to the quality of the original song) as well their more singular “Culcha Vulcha”, which is much more my thing. Mancunian piano trio Gogo Penguin are going from strength to strength, selling out big venues and making the groovy infectious hip-hop influenced “Man Made Object”. Controversially, I didn’t think much of Gregory Porter’s last effort “Liquid Spirit”, particularly the awfully overdone version of “I fall in love too easily” at the end, but I enjoyed 2016’s “Take me to the Alley” a helluva lot more – it’s more subtle, restrained, and pleasant to mine ears.

Disappointments?

Nothing much in terms of disappointments really. A lot of decent music from such luminaries as hardcore outfits Every Time I Die (“Low Teens”), Trap Them (“Crown Feral”), Black Peaks (“Statues”) and Nails (“You will never be one of us”), groove metal mainstays Crowbar (“The Serpent Only Lies”), the prog-tastic Crippled Black Phoenix (“Bronze”), Metallica (the by-numbers but otherwise hard to fault “Hardwired…to      self-destruct”, even-worse-than-usual lyrics aside), instrumental trio Russian Circles (“Guidance”, very by-the-book for these chaps), tenacious progsters The Pineapple Thief (“Your Wilderness”, where Porcupine Tree’s drum machine Gavin Harrison helps take things to the next level, albeit several albums in). Pixies and the Red Hot Chili Peppers produced a pair of largely forgettable albums (although I do enjoy the title track of the former’s “Head Carrier”, and apparently most prefer RHCP’s “The Getaway” to “I’m With You”. I am not in agreement with these people, although Detroit is a good tune). Focusing solely on the musical output of one Mr Philip H Anselmo (and not on his racist outbursts), I think I actually preferred the Scour EP to Superjoint’s “Caught Up in the Gears of Application” which I found too sludgy and not groovy enough.

Finally, I would mention Jimmy Eat World, whose “Integrity Blues” I was prepared to dismiss but ended up rather enjoying, and the truly infectious “California” by renewed and revitalised (thanks Matt Skiba) Blink 182.

The main event

Right enough of all that. Here’s a top ten, albeit in no particular order:
 
Alcest – “Kodama” 
 
Having seen these guys support Opeth, I bought the previous record and enjoyed a couple of the tracks. Then when the new one, apparently influenced by Japanese animated film Studio Ghibli’s masterpiece Princess Mononoke, hit, I snapped it up. And it’s a fabulous piece of french shoe-gazey post-metal from start to finish. 
 
The Black Queen – “Fever Daydream” 

I mentioned earlier the electronic side-project of Greg Puciato from The Dillinger Escape Plan. This is it. While not totally consistent, it has plenty of stunning stand-out moments, and it shows off the beautiful side of Puciato’s vocals (why is it these really powerful growly guys and girls can sing really well properly too? Mike Patton (an obvious influence on Puciato), Slipknot’s Corey Taylor, Rolo Tomassi’s Eva Spence, etc. 

Check out: Ice to Never, That Death Cannot Touch 


David Bowie – “Blackstar” 

If it wasn’t Mr Bowie and if he hadn’t sadly passed away, would this record be as great? Hard to say, but it’s jazzy and beautiful and I like it very much, so there. There’s some truly dirty bass, with groovy interplay from the drums, and yearning shimmering vocals, plus the previously mentioned saxophone.

Check out: ‘Tis a Pity She was a Whore, I Can’t Give Everything Away 

Death Grips – “Bottomless Pit” 

This noisy keyboard and drum backed hip-hop group is yet another one of those parties people have been at for ages before I turned up. But now I have, I’ve had quite the eye-opening experience. Given my love of messy drummer Zach Hill, I’m surprised that I’m surprised.

Check out: Giving Bad People Good Ideas, Eh 

 In Flames – “Battles” 

I was disappointed to recommend this to a friend who subsequently wasn’t into it. My exact words to him were “wall to wall bangers”. Having listened to it again in the car this morning I have decided I still love it. Perhaps it is on the cheesier side of melodic and perhaps I will file this latest from the Swedish (again) melodic death metallers under “guilty pleasure”. 

Check out: The End, In My Room 

Tegan and Sara – “Love you to Death” 

Speaking of guilty pleasure, here’s another but in my mind way more successful pop album from the Canadian sisters. The earlier stuff was “indie” rock, then the last one came out sounding like the soundtrack to a 90s workout video (I’m quoting/paraphrasing another friend of mine, thanks Barney), but this one just works much better for me. Short and very sweet, filled with catchy tunes. 

Check out: Boyfriend, 100x

Oathbreaker – “Rheia” 

I actually struggle with this one a little. Off the back of the masterpiece that was “Eros/Anteros”, I had high hopes for the new material. Alas it’s not as consistent or cohesive, but it has some incredible highs, not least the main opening song, Second Son of R. It starts with the requisite smack in the face, then after some momentary pause for breath ends with some of the most brutal (and frankly superb) screaming I have ever heard on record. Many would argue that’s not musical, but to me it’s wonderfully aesthetic, brutally & uncompromisingly authentic, and it utterly works. The rest of the record I think loses its way at times. The unengaging quieter bits are probably designed to accentuate those highs I mentioned, and it would sound strange without them, but most of them just lose me.

Check out: Second Son of R., Where I Leave 

Michael Kiwanuka – “Love and Hate” 

A title that would seem unoriginal from someone less talented and precocious, but an artist of Kiwanuka’s ability gets away with it. A multi-instrumental polymath with a striking voice, good taste in compatriots, and a strong ear for songwriting, his rockier follow-up to 2012’s “Home Again” was worth the wait. 

Check out: Cold Little Heart [Pink Floyd, anyone?], Black Man in a White World 

Omar Puente – “Best Foot Forward” 

I was watching the news one day, and there was a segment on Debbie Purdy, a music journalist and campaigner for assisted suicide who suffered from multiple sclerosis. At one point was mentioned…“her husband, Cuban jazz violinist Omar Puente”! Small world I thought, given that despite Courtney Pine’s best efforts, Puente is not hugely well known. This is a shame given his musicianship and quality of output. Perhaps people don’t like jazz violin that much, and to be fair there aren’t many of them – Regina Carter perhaps being the most famous (currently)? Anyone, on the strength of his sophomore release, dedicated to his wife who passed in 2014, Puente deserves as much recognition as anyone else. It’s not super original, but it incorporates plenty of Cuban, and other, influences, and it is incredibly well executed. I have mentioned John Coltrane’s seminal A Love Supreme already, and I was excited to hear the iconic four notes quoted in Puente’s solo on Morning in Morocco. I’m nothing if not fickle, and it is probably largely for this reason I have picked this record as my favourite jazz album of 2016. 

Check out: Morning in Morocco, En La Noche 

Swans – The Glowing Man 

Another Swans record (the last of the current run, we are given to understand), another epic double album that succeeds on all levels. It completes something of a great trilogy (a concept I am more than a little interested in) of 2-hour sonic explorations. Noisy, groovy, clever and engaging at every turn, things that others wouldn’t get away with Swans pull off with aplomb. I am excited to see what’s next for main man Michael Gira and friends. 

Check out: Frankie M, The Glowing Man

Top 20 tracks / playlist for 2016

1. 65daysofstatic – Supermoon
2. Blaqk Audio – The First to Love [on their third album, the electronic AFI side project continue the tradition of one killer song surrounded by filler]
3. Blink 182 – San Diego
4. David Bowie – I Can’t Give Everything Away
5. Death Grips – Giving Bad People Good Ideas
6. Deftones – Prayers/Triangles
7.  In Flames – The End
8. Michael Kiwanuka – Black Man in a White World
9. Oathbreaker – Second Son of R.
10. Omar Puente – Morning in Morocco
11. Pixies – Head Carrier
12. Radiohead – Ful Stop
13. Sam Beam & Jesca Hoop – Chalk it up to Chi
14. Snarky Puppy with Laura Mvula – Sing to the Moon
15. Superjoint – Caught up in the Gears of Application
16. Swans – Frankie M
17. Tegan and Sara – Boyfriend
18. The Black Queen – Ice to Never
19. The Dillinger Escape Plan – Nothing to Forget
20. Thrice - Whistleblower