Top Ten

Here are a few highlights from my year of listening, in approximately chronological order.

A$AP Rocky on Late Show with David Letterman
I’m responsible for about 1,000 of those 20,000 YouTube views. This happened way back in January 2013 (feels like three years ago), and I’ve come back to this again and again. It’s delirious, intimidating, invigorating and… Holy shit! It’s Araabmuzik!

Holly Williams, The Highway (Georgiana)
Sturgill Simpson, High Top Mountain (self-released)
Poor, poor country music fans. Even hip-hop has popular artists working hard to buy back its soul, but country music seems doomed to another few years of truck songs, country-rap, (Do even need to hear it to know it’s an abomination?), and pop-country pap from Justin Timberlake, Hootie, and Britney’s little sister. Luckily, there are more than a few artists out in the leftfield ready for the roots revival.

Holly Williams is, indeed, the granddaughter of Hank Williams, and the half-sister of Hank3. Her first two releases were less than impressive, standard corporate-Nashville fare. For her first album in five years, though, Holly dug deep into family stories and personal pain, penning bare-boned songs from the perspective of her mother and grandmother, strong women married to career musicians and all that entails. “Waiting on June” is particularly affecting. The resulting tunes are shot through with wincing heartache and the kind of sincerity that is the hallmark of the truest country music.

Kentucky’s Sturgill Simpson, meanwhile, is being looked to by many to bring the outlaw sound of the ‘70s back to the forefront. Certainly his instant classic of a record, High Top Mountain, and its leadoff “Life Ain’t Fair and the World Is Mean” have a sound that Waylon, Willie and the boys would be proud to call their own. Simpson, however, wants no part of it. In interviews, he’s repeatedly shrugged-off comparisons, and insists he’s not modeling his life or his career on any particular influence. From what I hear tell, the original outlaws said the same thing.

Thundercat, Apocalypse (Brainfeeder)
I’m trying to sample “Heartbreaks & Setbacks” with Ableton and it has me perplexed. The beat just isn’t sitting naturally. I tweak and warp and adjust my tempo and pretty much destroy the pleasures of the original in the process. It just isn’t regular. Sometimes Apocalypse sounds like electronic music made by computers, but there’s an erratic human heartbeat behind this record, with imprecise and hand-chiseled grooves, not just “beats.” The rhythm section (and these songs are mostly rhythm section) lurches, stutters, rushes forward, and falls back. The beat gets emotional. Though the story people tell about this release usually focuses on Stephen Bruner’s virtuosity and technique, it should be about the vulnerability he brings to this frequently instrumental, certainly progressive funk. You’re sitting there breaking your neck on some syncopated bassline, and then you turn the corner smack into some of the most beautiful and (eek!) tender sounds anybody recorded this year.

Unwound, Kid Is Gone (Numero Group)
I could write 500 words about the packaging alone. It’s Numero, though, so no one’s surprised. Black and white photos printed on heavy cardboard, reproduced show fliers, heavy-duty vinyl, plenty to read. Numero describes this set as the “prehistory” of the band. Indeed, by the end of the third LP, your appetite is fully whet for the three volumes of this project yet to follow.

Old 97s & Waylon Jennings, Old 97s & Waylon Jennings EP (Omnivore)
Mr. Jennings sounds more like ol’ Waylon on these two tracks than he did on just about anything released in the last 15 years of his life—or since his death in 2002. No one could ever have hoped this would be so good. Apparently these two tracks are all they recorded together. That’s a damn shame.

Juana Molina, Wed 21 (Crammed Discs)
This album isn’t among the 10 best of the year, but it’s one of my favorites. It succeeds phenomenally at what Juana Molina does so uniquely well, and what that is is uniquely difficult to describe. Rhythmic, entrancing, beguiling, pretty and dissonant ,and ethereal. So intimate it feels like she’s singing right into your ear. If there’s anything else quite like it, please tell me. If you haven’t heard it yet, you’re really missing out.

Destroyer live
I saw Dan Bejar twice this year (and with the same two friends) and both shows were phenomenal. First, in Cleveland, we saw him as Destroyer with a seven-piece band milking every bit of swing and pleasure out of the songs on Kaputt and connecting the dots between that record and the earlier Destroyer catalogue. Hearing songs like “Savage Night at the Opera” and “English Music” back-to-back was a real “a-ha” moment.

The second show was just a few weeks ago, when Bejar played a solo set at the Wexner Center here in Columbus. Like the full-band show, this one made clear the through-lines that weave through Bejar’s music. Early songs sit next to his newest material, showing off Bejar’s particular and peculiar sensibilities, his way of always choosing the unexpected route through a lyric. And when he sang a song in Spanish (from his Five Spanish Songs EP) no one batted an eye. The foreign tune sat naturally in Bejar’s range, the colloquial melody sounded like one of his own (even though it’s not.) He took a while to warm-up to the room, but eventually was quite personable, even entertaining the crowd with stream-of-consciousness insight into the state of his mind as he performed. It was a lovely, quiet, rewarding night.

Kendrick Lamar’s incredible year
It’s not just the “Control” verse, did you see that Pusha T “Nosetalgia” video? He’s on fire. The “U.E.O.N.O.” remix? Pnwd it. And he very nearly saved a truly awful track (“Love Game”) on Marshall Mathers LP 2. If you see him live, you’ll realize he actually can move the crowd, like a real MC. And I’m just talking about 2013 here. Doubters beware, Kendrick’s coming for ya.

Ras G & The Afrikan Space Program, Back on the Planet (Brainfeeder)
Like his Brainfeeder labelmate Thundercat, Ras G (a.k.a. Gregory Shorter Jr.) brings a decidedly human touch to the proceedings, but in this case, he’s working very explicitly through machines, namely Roland’s SP-303 and 404 samplers and his beloved MPC-2000XL. Fans of Madlib and J Dilla will find much to love here. However, be prepared for Ras G to push his G-Funk to metaphysical extremes, blasting off to the outer realms for overblown sub-bumps, warbling synths, and disorienting polyrhythms. I like it for some of the same reasons I enjoy Miles Davis’s early-70s jazz-funk-rock experiments, though it sounds little like those albums. Like Miles, though, Ras G is broadcasting from a planet all his own.

Beyoncé, Beyoncé (Parkwood/Columbia)
I love surprises, and this was a big one. I’m not talking about the way she released the album, I’m talking about how much I like it. I couldn’t care less about her previous four studio albums, but I can’t stop listening—and further more, examining—this one. One minute and 10 seconds into “Heaven” she does this fluttery, abstract thing with a few layers of her voice. You should really listen to it with headphones. It’s a more articulate expression than any of the lyrics in the song. The album is full of surprising, impressive moments like that, and I keep rewinding in disbelief. When did she start doing things like that? When did she start liking Prince so much? When did she get so clever? I’m bewildered, and for now I like it.