Now on to more recent stuff - including stuff even those of you closest to me might not have heard me rave about for ages already. Let's dive right in, to the best albums of 2021! After years of cultivating the (excruciatingly) slow buildup it feels weird to go straight to the best, but here they are, along with my select tracks from each album.
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| Little Simz left little doubt as to who's the boss with her last album. |
1. Little Simz - Sometimes I might be introvert. I hope Little Simz needs little introduction at this point. After being one of the best rappers in the game for years, she's now also showing herself as one of the most exciting, creative and boundary-pushing. Little Simz' fourth album is by far her biggest, boldest, most theatrical, most varied, and most over the top. With all its new avenues explored, and at over an hour's length, it's not without a few tangents I enjoy less than others, but all in all it's a hugely successful experiment. Closer in spirit to both Lemonade and To Pimp A Butterfly than to either of her own previous albums, it's the album that cements Simz' position among hiphop's greats. Oh and also, the music videos for this thing are amazing.
- Introvert
- Standing ovation
- Woman
- Speed
- Pills & good advice
- It could be better
- THIS IS A PROTEST FOR YOUR HEART!!!
- All night
- More
- I can wait
4. Sega Bodega - Romeo. Irish-Chilean Salvador Navarrete, with the love it or hate it stage name Sega Bodega, is doing to hyperpop what James Blake did to dubstep back in the day: When a new, much-loved genre turns into more and more of a pissing contest, where dudes try to out-glitch or out-bass each other, what's needed is someone to dial back, focus on emotion and beauty, and use the sounds that made the genre popular in the first place to create something gentle, vulnerable and different. Romeo does exactly that, just as James Blake's self titled debut did in 2011. The very modern and PC music-esque production may sound harsh and glitchy at times to the uninitiated listener, but it's never dwelt on for long - the hearts of these songs are tender and touching. The album is loosely themed around an imagined relationship with a being of light, features great guest performances by Arca and Charlotte Gainsbourg, and dwells long enough on ideas to properly explore them, rather than just hyperpopping through. The highlight "Um um" is a heartbreaking homage to the brilliant SOPHIE, visionary electronic music pioneer and close friend of Navarrete's, whose untimely death last year shook the whole world of anyone who knew of her. Its intertangled voices, heavily computerized but deeply human, chanting "I see you in everything, even though you're, even though you're not around", tug at heart strings and tear ducts like little else I've heard lately.
- Um um
- Romeo
- I need nothing from you
5. Odyn v Kanoe - Один в каное (sorry for the romanization). This album is gorgeous. An absolute treasure from Ukraine (one of so many I've had the joy of discovering lately, more on that later here), this album is tranquil, spacious and sparse, but immensely powerful and heart-wrenching, even without any thoughts about what's happening in Ukraine currently. With those thoughts on top though, listening to this music is almost too much to handle, but I believe it's a good act. Despite my limited knowledge (my exploration of Ukrainian music only started with go_A's "Shum" last year), this brooding, bold music feels like it captures something intimately tied to and of the land - not quite in the way that Jan Johansson's Jazz på Svenska does for Sweden, nor the way Sigur Rós' Agætis Byrjun does for Iceland, but perhaps somewhere in between the two. It paints a beautiful, mythical scene in vivid, epic detail - it sends me to a place I can only hope to one day experience for myself, and one whose people for whom I can only hope the present pain and suffering will end as soon as possible. At the heart of the album is the captivating voice of Ira Shvaidak, telling stories in a language I don't know, from a proud culture whose heart is currently being ripped out an torn apart. Let's all do our best to help its healing.
- Хуанхе
- Y мене немає дому
- Про aвтора
6. Arooj Aftab - Vulture Prince. Another breathtakingly beautiful album, this gem from Pakistani artist Arooj Aftab didn't so much blow me away when I first heard it, as slowly lure me in. It's a gentle, subtle, quite minimal album, but awash with next-level-perfect sounds: harps, strings, light jazzy accompaniment and Aftab's incredible voice singing Indian songs and melodies. The mixing of western jazz with Indian scales and tonalities is so smooth you don't even stop to think about it.
- Mohabbat
- Baghon Main
- Inayaat
7. Lokoy - badminton. The debut solo album by Lasse Lokøy, the bassist of Stavanger's favorite pop punk band Sløtface, shows an exciting and playful musician stand solidly on his own as a singer, songwriter, producer and curator of joyful, summery pop. Full of great collaborations and eclectic Gorillaz-esque mixing of genres, the album is more like window shopping than listening to one artist expressing himself. The local ties feel almost odd, given that I wouldn't have been surprised to hear this music on a hip tastemaker radio station somewhere in California. The songs are mostly breezy and many even a little dumb, but when Lokoy does go for the emotional punch, he really hits - the title track here is one of those perfect little ditties I can play over and over again, where every word and every instrumental flourish just seems like it descended from the heavens.
- badminton
- both eyes
- morning sun
8. Marina - Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land. Indie pop provocateur Marina Diamandis (formerly known as Marina and the Diamonds) makes a grand statement on her newest album. The front half is packed full of anthems for the MeToo movement, tearing down the patriarchy, raising climate change awareness, dismantling capitalism and fighting for social justice. The catchiest of melodies pair with the catchiest of catchphrases, and this would all be awfully cheesy if it wasn't done so well. It's protest songs for the dancefloor, and it makes me wish there was more music this fun trying to say something important. The back half of the album is more ballad-heavy and, almost undermining the first half slightly, very focused on love. But it's still beautiful songwriting, showcasing Marina's powerful voice, and just makes me appreciate even more and artist who can do both.
- Man's world
- Venus fly trap
- Flowers
9. Lost Girls - Menneskekollektivet. Jenny Hval and Håvard Volden get together as "Lost Girls", for a collaboration pulling Hval's entrancing songs and poetry into dreamy electronic, almost ambient territory. These five tracks are long and sprawling, mixing LCD Soundsystem quality soundscapes with the structural lightness of a next-morning DJ set. Whether it's a stark spoken-word passage or an otherworldly melodic mantra, Hval's voice is high in the mix commanding attention, even over these rich and entrancing compositions. It's a beautiful and delightful album, hopefully the first of many from this duo.
- Love, lovers
- Menneskekollektivet
- Carried by invisible bodies
10. Maybeshewill - No Feeling is Final. UK quartet Maybeshewill reignited my love for proper post rock, but not before they'd officially quit after their 2015 album Fair Youth. So it was with great excitement I read the news of their return, and after a few absolutely lovely singles, including "Refuturing" featuring trumpetist Marcus Joseph, I was again ready to fall prey to the magical, hypnotic allure of epic instrumentals, bombastic buildups and cacophonous climaxes. Maybeshewill don't stray too fall from their winning formula here, but there's enough variation - borrowing orchestral strings, heavy metal guitars, comfortable electronics, Glass-y piano ostinatos, and the occasional environmental destruction message courtesy of dramatic newscasters - that the 50 minutes fly by and leave me wanting more.
- Zarah
- Refuturing
- The last hours
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| Left at London's t.i.a.p.f.y.h. gets the #2 slot from 2021. Give her a listen, you won't regret it. |
And some honorable mentions, for twas a good year:
Iceage - Seek Shelter. The rowdy Copenhagen boys in Iceage are growing up, and the follow-up to 2018's excellent Beyondless is only slightly less captivating. Frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfeldt retains his charismatic sloppiness, and what this offering lacks in punk vigor it more than makes up for with world-weary nuggets of wisdom.
- Vendetta
- Gold City
Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine - A Beginner's Mind. A beautiful collaboration by two angelic indie folk crooners, this album is chock full of jangly guitar, silky falsetto harmonies and atmospheric piano, and was to many Sufjan Stevens old-schoolers the follow-up album to Carrie and Lowell people have been waiting for.
- Reach out
- It's your own body and mind
dltzk - Frailty. Modern music making software has done fantastic things to the bedroom angst of 17-year old. dltzk (pronounced "delete zeke") goes from lo-fi guitar ditties to power emo rock to hyperpop's fully glitched-out electronic chaos multiple times across this album and within songs. Although the 57 minute album grows maybe slightly grating towards the end of its dozenth noisy car crash ("Kodak moment" kind of jumps the shark and renders everything after it a bit muddy), its boundless creativity and disregard for genre conventions results in one of those albums that just makes me happy that it exists and that people do art.
- search party
- your clothes
- movies for guys
black midi - Cavalcade. I did fall for the absolutely-never-heard-it-before jazzy weirdness of UK trio black midi's debut album Schlagenheim, perhaps especially the off-the-wall crazy performances of hit single "bmbmbm". Follow-up Cavalcade is definitely the better and more cohesive album of the two, showcasing a band in total control of their own creative whims. While frontman Geordie Greep's absurd lyrics and vocal performances are the first thing that jump out to most casual listeners, Morgan Simpson's drumming is quickly revealed as the ace up the band's sleeve.
- John L
- Slow
- Dethroned
Squid - Bright Green Field. black midi's fellow breakouts from the vibrant scene around London's The Windmill, Squid, also released their amazing debut album last year. If you like your progressive-jazz-math-rock with a little less progressive-jazz-math and a bit more catchy indie rock in it, maybe opt for this one. Not that it isn't also some of the most leftfield and creative stuff out there. Finally, as a spoiler for an upcoming blog post, scenefellows Black Country, New Road also debuted in 2021 with For The First Time, although I haven't played that one nearly as much as their breathtaking new album Ants From Up There.
- Boy Racers
- Narrator
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