<\/p>\n
![\"Zola](\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/zola_jesus-okovi.jpg\")
<\/a>#10
\nZola Jesus
\nOkovi
\nSacred Bones Records<\/h4>\nHaving drifted far afield from her discordant beginnings, Zola Jesus crossed fully into a lavish pop direction with her fourth album, 2014\u2019s debut for Mute Records, Taiga<\/i>. To these ears, it wasn\u2019t exactly a success artistically, with some of the tension that fueled her past work being lost in the gloss. Taking a few years off, she returned to her old label home, Sacred Bones, for her latest, which feels infinitely more personal. The emotional weight of Okovi<\/i> didn\u2019t hit me until temperatures began dropping; it bears the icy consonance of her earlier work while the album\u2019s brevity (it\u2019s just under 40 minutes) gives each track added importance. When she sings, \u201cYou should know that I\u2019ll never let you down\u201d on \u201cSoak,\u201d you can tell that she has somebody specific in mind. Similarly, \u201cSiphon\u201d conjures a matter of life and death in the repeated lines of \u201cWon’t let you bleed out, can’t let you bleed out.\u201d Somehow Zola sounds resolute in the face of despair, making the album come off all the more triumphant for it. SS<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
![\"Jlin,](\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/jlin-black_origami.jpg\")
<\/a>#9
\nJlin
\nBlack Origami
\nPlanet Mu<\/h4>\nJlin, long one of the most exciting artists in the Chicago\u2019s footwork scene, continued her rise to the top of the pack with sophomore album Black Origami<\/i>. There\u2019s a loose, improvisational vibe to these songs and a sense of revealing the music’s layers. Jlin is a magician unafraid of showing you what’s in her sleeve. The seams left on these compositions are deliberate and the humanity of them, including the repeated use of distorted human voices, is what keeps the listener coming back to these beguiling miniatures that beg us to dance and say, \u201cYou can\u2019t grasp this.\u201d There isn\u2019t one moment of cliche or an ounce of pandering. Over rolling tub-drumming and hissing shakers and cymbals, \u201cChallenge (To Be Continued)\u201d uses a video game shout and sliced up, distant cheers to heighten drama without releasing tension. The thrilling \u201cNyakinyua Rise\u201d uses vocal samples and animal sounds as ballast for a thick, three-dimensional groove principally strung from hollow percussion. Meanwhile, \u201cNever Created, Never Destroyed\u201d feels like an anthem from a future we\u2019re not ready for yet. RS<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
![\"Wolves](\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Wolves_in_the_Throne_Room-Thrice_Woven_2017.jpg\")
<\/a>#8
\nWolves in the Throne Room
\nThrice Woven
\nArtemisia Records<\/h4>\nDon\u2019t call it a comeback as Wolves In The Throne Room never went anywhere. But Thrice Woven<\/i> sure feels like it after 2014\u2019s Celestite<\/i>. The earnest but ultimately unfulfilling take on spacey synth-rock was a misstep that possibly the band itself now realizes. Thrice Woven<\/i> is not just a return to form for the reclusive proto-hipster black metallers, but possibly the best album the band has ever released. All of the facets of the band\u2019s past are here\u2014female vocals and recorded spoken word passages that break up the metallic screaming, furiously cascading and shimmering guitars, droning percussive rhythms\u2014but they are all coordinated flawlessly. It\u2019s epic and stunning and glorious to behold. BO<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
![\"Kelala,](\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Kelela-Take-Me-Apart.jpg\")
<\/a>#7
\nKelela
\nTake Me Apart
\nWarp Records<\/h4>\nThe true ingenuity of Take Me Apart<\/i> is in its composition. Singer-songwriter Kelela has before cited her influences as R&B, jazz, and more specifically, Bj\u00f6rk, but the album seems to stretch those influences beyond their original reach, crafting an atmosphere that feels light years away for any other artist. (Grimes\u2019 Visions<\/i> and The XX\u2019s debut might be close.) Kelela hits on something otherworldly here, despite lyrics that are very much grounded. The synths on \u201cBetter\u201d hum in a canyon-like space, creating deep and resonant tones while having the understated presence of a whisper. With a wobbling synth line as its anchor, \u201cJupiter\u201d is possibly the most intriguing and most overlooked song on the record, despite at times seeming like the soundtrack for a massage studio with its babbling brook, chimes, and thunder sounds. TMA\u2019s<\/i> composition is so inventive while perfectly echoing the tone of Kelela\u2019s relationship quandaries throughout the album. Descriptions hardly do it justice, but TMA<\/i> is the epitome of forward-thinking. ML<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
![\"King](\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/king_krule-the_ooz.jpg\")
<\/a>#6
\nKing Krule
\nThe Ooz
\nTrue Panter Sounds\/XL Records<\/h4>\nIf you hadn\u2019t yet heard of 23-year-old Archy Marshall, 2017 was a great year to get acquainted. Marshall gifted the music world with his sophomore release in October, expanding on his catalogue of acid jazzy, trip-hoppy, experimental punk with 19 dark and hallucinogenic new songs. Marshall told NPR the record was \u201cabout the monotony of day to day, falling back into your head, being taken with your thoughts into a different place.\u201d On \u201cLogos\u201d he sings of a fractured relationship: \u201cI thought about her, her smell through clothes, her spoken smoke, mixed with my cologne.\u201d Meanwhile the video for single \u201cDim Surfer\u201d found him emerging from a stretcher to front a band of the undead. It\u2019s an appropriate conceit for a macabre and otherworldly sound, one that Marshall has embraced with aplomb. JP<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
![\"Bjork,](\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/bjork-utopia.jpg\")
<\/a>#5
\nBj\u00f6rk
\nUtopia
\nOne Little Indian Records<\/h4>\nBj\u00f6rk is probably as singular an artist as you\u2019ll find working the pop music realm over the past 20 years. While most of the world thinks of her as an alternative artist, much of her catalog is at its core filled with pop music\u2014only turned inside out and mutated. It\u2019s fitting that after a series of albums that seemed to go more and more abstract, her last album, Vulnicura<\/i>, came back to earth with the most human of concerns: heartache and breakup. After the virtual bloodletting of that cycle there was nowhere to go but up and Utopia<\/i> gives that too you in wink-wink, nudge-nudge fashion. If Vulnicura<\/i> was weighed down with the pain of loss, Utopia<\/i> is bouyed by a thread of birdsongs that pepper the album. Bj\u00f6rk described the record as her \u201cTinder album,\u201d and she is positively giddy with the possibilities of new love, new flirtations, and just new possibilities. Aided by her Vulnicura<\/i> collaborator and co-producer Acra, the album is full of shifting, lighter-than-air tones, which are occasionally shot through with abrasive sounds and snatches of tough beats. There\u2019s nothing as immediate as some of Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s greatest singles, but the songs still draw you in and engage you, even across some relatively extended running times. Utopia<\/i> shows that Bj\u00f6rk always has something to say and an interesting way to say it. DSH<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
![\"Kendrick](\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/kendrick_lamar-damn.jpg\")
<\/a>#4
\nKendrick Lamar
\nDamn
\nInterscope Records<\/h4>\nI’ll be the first to admit that when Damn<\/i> first arrived, it felt anemic in the shadow of the monolith that was To Pimp a Butterfly<\/i> and the heady detritus that appeared on Untitled Unmastered<\/i>. It didn’t feel complex enough, as if he owed us something even bigger. It didn’t feel deep enough, as if he were responsible to save us all. Indeed, Damn<\/i> was a quick jab, a visceral, sample-packed, front-loaded firecracker, with little in the way of theorizing or proselytizing. There’s no real soapbox because that’s not K. Dot’s current version. Instead, it’s huge singles, summer jams, whiz-bang references to Juvenile’s \u201cHa.\u201d Effortless brilliance.<\/p>\n
But wait, it wasn’t until Kung Fu Kenny released Damn<\/i> in reverse that the truth was revealed. Listening to the album backwards, the way it was reportedly intended, that final third is the most thrilling and artistically imposing triplet Kendrick has yet produced. The verbal mathematics that end “Duckworth,” the big, soul-searching, epic of “God,” likewise the self-deprecating earnest of “Fear,” show a success story trying to grapple with success and the pitfalls that follow. It’s even more transcendent than TPAB<\/i>. Trucking in a creative flow that\u2019s starting to parallel those before him (Prince, Janet, Zappa, Madonna), Kendrick is now the kind of giant we have to never doubt, just because it’s all that good. KJE<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
![\"St.](\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/St-Vincent-Masseduction.jpg\")
<\/a>#3
\nSt. Vincent
\nMasseduction
\nLoma Vista Recordings<\/h4>\nFew albums were as present and intense as Masseduction<\/i> this year. That\u2019s accounting, too, for Annie Clark\u2019s noticeable lack of guitar shredding and the significantly poppier direction of the album. Every song\u2019s emotion is palpable; at any given time, the listener will be wrecked, pepped up, or at least, given some general invigoration. This in part can be attributed to how digestible and distinct the songs are, each of which can tip their hat to the work of other established and already great artists. \u201cPills\u201d and the title track are akin to heyday MIA, just as \u201cSugarboy\u201d is to Human League and \u201cHappy Birthday, Johnny\u201d to Joni Mitchell\u2019s stripped-down, simple genius (a la \u201cA Case of You\u201d). Then there\u2019s the song-of-the-year contender \u201cNew York,\u201d whose strength could carry an otherwise mediocre album by appealing to the lovelorn and in-love. In a modern world that\u2019s especially rife with conflict and chaos nowadays, it\u2019s nice to know Anne Clark continues to be a beacon of songwriting consistency. Masseduction<\/i> has cemented that. ML
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
![\"Sinkane,](\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Sinkane-Life-And-Livin-It.jpg\")
<\/a>#2
\nSinkane
\nLife and Livin’ It
\nCity Slang<\/h4>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/a>#9
\nJlin
\nBlack Origami
\nPlanet Mu<\/h4>\nJlin, long one of the most exciting artists in the Chicago\u2019s footwork scene, continued her rise to the top of the pack with sophomore album Black Origami<\/i>. There\u2019s a loose, improvisational vibe to these songs and a sense of revealing the music’s layers. Jlin is a magician unafraid of showing you what’s in her sleeve. The seams left on these compositions are deliberate and the humanity of them, including the repeated use of distorted human voices, is what keeps the listener coming back to these beguiling miniatures that beg us to dance and say, \u201cYou can\u2019t grasp this.\u201d There isn\u2019t one moment of cliche or an ounce of pandering. Over rolling tub-drumming and hissing shakers and cymbals, \u201cChallenge (To Be Continued)\u201d uses a video game shout and sliced up, distant cheers to heighten drama without releasing tension. The thrilling \u201cNyakinyua Rise\u201d uses vocal samples and animal sounds as ballast for a thick, three-dimensional groove principally strung from hollow percussion. Meanwhile, \u201cNever Created, Never Destroyed\u201d feels like an anthem from a future we\u2019re not ready for yet. RS<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#8
\nWolves in the Throne Room
\nThrice Woven
\nArtemisia Records<\/h4>\nDon\u2019t call it a comeback as Wolves In The Throne Room never went anywhere. But Thrice Woven<\/i> sure feels like it after 2014\u2019s Celestite<\/i>. The earnest but ultimately unfulfilling take on spacey synth-rock was a misstep that possibly the band itself now realizes. Thrice Woven<\/i> is not just a return to form for the reclusive proto-hipster black metallers, but possibly the best album the band has ever released. All of the facets of the band\u2019s past are here\u2014female vocals and recorded spoken word passages that break up the metallic screaming, furiously cascading and shimmering guitars, droning percussive rhythms\u2014but they are all coordinated flawlessly. It\u2019s epic and stunning and glorious to behold. BO<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#7
\nKelela
\nTake Me Apart
\nWarp Records<\/h4>\nThe true ingenuity of Take Me Apart<\/i> is in its composition. Singer-songwriter Kelela has before cited her influences as R&B, jazz, and more specifically, Bj\u00f6rk, but the album seems to stretch those influences beyond their original reach, crafting an atmosphere that feels light years away for any other artist. (Grimes\u2019 Visions<\/i> and The XX\u2019s debut might be close.) Kelela hits on something otherworldly here, despite lyrics that are very much grounded. The synths on \u201cBetter\u201d hum in a canyon-like space, creating deep and resonant tones while having the understated presence of a whisper. With a wobbling synth line as its anchor, \u201cJupiter\u201d is possibly the most intriguing and most overlooked song on the record, despite at times seeming like the soundtrack for a massage studio with its babbling brook, chimes, and thunder sounds. TMA\u2019s<\/i> composition is so inventive while perfectly echoing the tone of Kelela\u2019s relationship quandaries throughout the album. Descriptions hardly do it justice, but TMA<\/i> is the epitome of forward-thinking. ML<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#6
\nKing Krule
\nThe Ooz
\nTrue Panter Sounds\/XL Records<\/h4>\nIf you hadn\u2019t yet heard of 23-year-old Archy Marshall, 2017 was a great year to get acquainted. Marshall gifted the music world with his sophomore release in October, expanding on his catalogue of acid jazzy, trip-hoppy, experimental punk with 19 dark and hallucinogenic new songs. Marshall told NPR the record was \u201cabout the monotony of day to day, falling back into your head, being taken with your thoughts into a different place.\u201d On \u201cLogos\u201d he sings of a fractured relationship: \u201cI thought about her, her smell through clothes, her spoken smoke, mixed with my cologne.\u201d Meanwhile the video for single \u201cDim Surfer\u201d found him emerging from a stretcher to front a band of the undead. It\u2019s an appropriate conceit for a macabre and otherworldly sound, one that Marshall has embraced with aplomb. JP<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#5
\nBj\u00f6rk
\nUtopia
\nOne Little Indian Records<\/h4>\nBj\u00f6rk is probably as singular an artist as you\u2019ll find working the pop music realm over the past 20 years. While most of the world thinks of her as an alternative artist, much of her catalog is at its core filled with pop music\u2014only turned inside out and mutated. It\u2019s fitting that after a series of albums that seemed to go more and more abstract, her last album, Vulnicura<\/i>, came back to earth with the most human of concerns: heartache and breakup. After the virtual bloodletting of that cycle there was nowhere to go but up and Utopia<\/i> gives that too you in wink-wink, nudge-nudge fashion. If Vulnicura<\/i> was weighed down with the pain of loss, Utopia<\/i> is bouyed by a thread of birdsongs that pepper the album. Bj\u00f6rk described the record as her \u201cTinder album,\u201d and she is positively giddy with the possibilities of new love, new flirtations, and just new possibilities. Aided by her Vulnicura<\/i> collaborator and co-producer Acra, the album is full of shifting, lighter-than-air tones, which are occasionally shot through with abrasive sounds and snatches of tough beats. There\u2019s nothing as immediate as some of Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s greatest singles, but the songs still draw you in and engage you, even across some relatively extended running times. Utopia<\/i> shows that Bj\u00f6rk always has something to say and an interesting way to say it. DSH<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#4
\nKendrick Lamar
\nDamn
\nInterscope Records<\/h4>\nI’ll be the first to admit that when Damn<\/i> first arrived, it felt anemic in the shadow of the monolith that was To Pimp a Butterfly<\/i> and the heady detritus that appeared on Untitled Unmastered<\/i>. It didn’t feel complex enough, as if he owed us something even bigger. It didn’t feel deep enough, as if he were responsible to save us all. Indeed, Damn<\/i> was a quick jab, a visceral, sample-packed, front-loaded firecracker, with little in the way of theorizing or proselytizing. There’s no real soapbox because that’s not K. Dot’s current version. Instead, it’s huge singles, summer jams, whiz-bang references to Juvenile’s \u201cHa.\u201d Effortless brilliance.<\/p>\n
But wait, it wasn’t until Kung Fu Kenny released Damn<\/i> in reverse that the truth was revealed. Listening to the album backwards, the way it was reportedly intended, that final third is the most thrilling and artistically imposing triplet Kendrick has yet produced. The verbal mathematics that end “Duckworth,” the big, soul-searching, epic of “God,” likewise the self-deprecating earnest of “Fear,” show a success story trying to grapple with success and the pitfalls that follow. It’s even more transcendent than TPAB<\/i>. Trucking in a creative flow that\u2019s starting to parallel those before him (Prince, Janet, Zappa, Madonna), Kendrick is now the kind of giant we have to never doubt, just because it’s all that good. KJE<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#3
\nSt. Vincent
\nMasseduction
\nLoma Vista Recordings<\/h4>\nFew albums were as present and intense as Masseduction<\/i> this year. That\u2019s accounting, too, for Annie Clark\u2019s noticeable lack of guitar shredding and the significantly poppier direction of the album. Every song\u2019s emotion is palpable; at any given time, the listener will be wrecked, pepped up, or at least, given some general invigoration. This in part can be attributed to how digestible and distinct the songs are, each of which can tip their hat to the work of other established and already great artists. \u201cPills\u201d and the title track are akin to heyday MIA, just as \u201cSugarboy\u201d is to Human League and \u201cHappy Birthday, Johnny\u201d to Joni Mitchell\u2019s stripped-down, simple genius (a la \u201cA Case of You\u201d). Then there\u2019s the song-of-the-year contender \u201cNew York,\u201d whose strength could carry an otherwise mediocre album by appealing to the lovelorn and in-love. In a modern world that\u2019s especially rife with conflict and chaos nowadays, it\u2019s nice to know Anne Clark continues to be a beacon of songwriting consistency. Masseduction<\/i> has cemented that. ML
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#2
\nSinkane
\nLife and Livin’ It
\nCity Slang<\/h4>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/a>#8
\nWolves in the Throne Room
\nThrice Woven
\nArtemisia Records<\/h4>\nDon\u2019t call it a comeback as Wolves In The Throne Room never went anywhere. But Thrice Woven<\/i> sure feels like it after 2014\u2019s Celestite<\/i>. The earnest but ultimately unfulfilling take on spacey synth-rock was a misstep that possibly the band itself now realizes. Thrice Woven<\/i> is not just a return to form for the reclusive proto-hipster black metallers, but possibly the best album the band has ever released. All of the facets of the band\u2019s past are here\u2014female vocals and recorded spoken word passages that break up the metallic screaming, furiously cascading and shimmering guitars, droning percussive rhythms\u2014but they are all coordinated flawlessly. It\u2019s epic and stunning and glorious to behold. BO<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#7
\nKelela
\nTake Me Apart
\nWarp Records<\/h4>\nThe true ingenuity of Take Me Apart<\/i> is in its composition. Singer-songwriter Kelela has before cited her influences as R&B, jazz, and more specifically, Bj\u00f6rk, but the album seems to stretch those influences beyond their original reach, crafting an atmosphere that feels light years away for any other artist. (Grimes\u2019 Visions<\/i> and The XX\u2019s debut might be close.) Kelela hits on something otherworldly here, despite lyrics that are very much grounded. The synths on \u201cBetter\u201d hum in a canyon-like space, creating deep and resonant tones while having the understated presence of a whisper. With a wobbling synth line as its anchor, \u201cJupiter\u201d is possibly the most intriguing and most overlooked song on the record, despite at times seeming like the soundtrack for a massage studio with its babbling brook, chimes, and thunder sounds. TMA\u2019s<\/i> composition is so inventive while perfectly echoing the tone of Kelela\u2019s relationship quandaries throughout the album. Descriptions hardly do it justice, but TMA<\/i> is the epitome of forward-thinking. ML<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#6
\nKing Krule
\nThe Ooz
\nTrue Panter Sounds\/XL Records<\/h4>\nIf you hadn\u2019t yet heard of 23-year-old Archy Marshall, 2017 was a great year to get acquainted. Marshall gifted the music world with his sophomore release in October, expanding on his catalogue of acid jazzy, trip-hoppy, experimental punk with 19 dark and hallucinogenic new songs. Marshall told NPR the record was \u201cabout the monotony of day to day, falling back into your head, being taken with your thoughts into a different place.\u201d On \u201cLogos\u201d he sings of a fractured relationship: \u201cI thought about her, her smell through clothes, her spoken smoke, mixed with my cologne.\u201d Meanwhile the video for single \u201cDim Surfer\u201d found him emerging from a stretcher to front a band of the undead. It\u2019s an appropriate conceit for a macabre and otherworldly sound, one that Marshall has embraced with aplomb. JP<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#5
\nBj\u00f6rk
\nUtopia
\nOne Little Indian Records<\/h4>\nBj\u00f6rk is probably as singular an artist as you\u2019ll find working the pop music realm over the past 20 years. While most of the world thinks of her as an alternative artist, much of her catalog is at its core filled with pop music\u2014only turned inside out and mutated. It\u2019s fitting that after a series of albums that seemed to go more and more abstract, her last album, Vulnicura<\/i>, came back to earth with the most human of concerns: heartache and breakup. After the virtual bloodletting of that cycle there was nowhere to go but up and Utopia<\/i> gives that too you in wink-wink, nudge-nudge fashion. If Vulnicura<\/i> was weighed down with the pain of loss, Utopia<\/i> is bouyed by a thread of birdsongs that pepper the album. Bj\u00f6rk described the record as her \u201cTinder album,\u201d and she is positively giddy with the possibilities of new love, new flirtations, and just new possibilities. Aided by her Vulnicura<\/i> collaborator and co-producer Acra, the album is full of shifting, lighter-than-air tones, which are occasionally shot through with abrasive sounds and snatches of tough beats. There\u2019s nothing as immediate as some of Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s greatest singles, but the songs still draw you in and engage you, even across some relatively extended running times. Utopia<\/i> shows that Bj\u00f6rk always has something to say and an interesting way to say it. DSH<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#4
\nKendrick Lamar
\nDamn
\nInterscope Records<\/h4>\nI’ll be the first to admit that when Damn<\/i> first arrived, it felt anemic in the shadow of the monolith that was To Pimp a Butterfly<\/i> and the heady detritus that appeared on Untitled Unmastered<\/i>. It didn’t feel complex enough, as if he owed us something even bigger. It didn’t feel deep enough, as if he were responsible to save us all. Indeed, Damn<\/i> was a quick jab, a visceral, sample-packed, front-loaded firecracker, with little in the way of theorizing or proselytizing. There’s no real soapbox because that’s not K. Dot’s current version. Instead, it’s huge singles, summer jams, whiz-bang references to Juvenile’s \u201cHa.\u201d Effortless brilliance.<\/p>\n
But wait, it wasn’t until Kung Fu Kenny released Damn<\/i> in reverse that the truth was revealed. Listening to the album backwards, the way it was reportedly intended, that final third is the most thrilling and artistically imposing triplet Kendrick has yet produced. The verbal mathematics that end “Duckworth,” the big, soul-searching, epic of “God,” likewise the self-deprecating earnest of “Fear,” show a success story trying to grapple with success and the pitfalls that follow. It’s even more transcendent than TPAB<\/i>. Trucking in a creative flow that\u2019s starting to parallel those before him (Prince, Janet, Zappa, Madonna), Kendrick is now the kind of giant we have to never doubt, just because it’s all that good. KJE<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#3
\nSt. Vincent
\nMasseduction
\nLoma Vista Recordings<\/h4>\nFew albums were as present and intense as Masseduction<\/i> this year. That\u2019s accounting, too, for Annie Clark\u2019s noticeable lack of guitar shredding and the significantly poppier direction of the album. Every song\u2019s emotion is palpable; at any given time, the listener will be wrecked, pepped up, or at least, given some general invigoration. This in part can be attributed to how digestible and distinct the songs are, each of which can tip their hat to the work of other established and already great artists. \u201cPills\u201d and the title track are akin to heyday MIA, just as \u201cSugarboy\u201d is to Human League and \u201cHappy Birthday, Johnny\u201d to Joni Mitchell\u2019s stripped-down, simple genius (a la \u201cA Case of You\u201d). Then there\u2019s the song-of-the-year contender \u201cNew York,\u201d whose strength could carry an otherwise mediocre album by appealing to the lovelorn and in-love. In a modern world that\u2019s especially rife with conflict and chaos nowadays, it\u2019s nice to know Anne Clark continues to be a beacon of songwriting consistency. Masseduction<\/i> has cemented that. ML
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#2
\nSinkane
\nLife and Livin’ It
\nCity Slang<\/h4>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/a>#7
\nKelela
\nTake Me Apart
\nWarp Records<\/h4>\nThe true ingenuity of Take Me Apart<\/i> is in its composition. Singer-songwriter Kelela has before cited her influences as R&B, jazz, and more specifically, Bj\u00f6rk, but the album seems to stretch those influences beyond their original reach, crafting an atmosphere that feels light years away for any other artist. (Grimes\u2019 Visions<\/i> and The XX\u2019s debut might be close.) Kelela hits on something otherworldly here, despite lyrics that are very much grounded. The synths on \u201cBetter\u201d hum in a canyon-like space, creating deep and resonant tones while having the understated presence of a whisper. With a wobbling synth line as its anchor, \u201cJupiter\u201d is possibly the most intriguing and most overlooked song on the record, despite at times seeming like the soundtrack for a massage studio with its babbling brook, chimes, and thunder sounds. TMA\u2019s<\/i> composition is so inventive while perfectly echoing the tone of Kelela\u2019s relationship quandaries throughout the album. Descriptions hardly do it justice, but TMA<\/i> is the epitome of forward-thinking. ML<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#6
\nKing Krule
\nThe Ooz
\nTrue Panter Sounds\/XL Records<\/h4>\nIf you hadn\u2019t yet heard of 23-year-old Archy Marshall, 2017 was a great year to get acquainted. Marshall gifted the music world with his sophomore release in October, expanding on his catalogue of acid jazzy, trip-hoppy, experimental punk with 19 dark and hallucinogenic new songs. Marshall told NPR the record was \u201cabout the monotony of day to day, falling back into your head, being taken with your thoughts into a different place.\u201d On \u201cLogos\u201d he sings of a fractured relationship: \u201cI thought about her, her smell through clothes, her spoken smoke, mixed with my cologne.\u201d Meanwhile the video for single \u201cDim Surfer\u201d found him emerging from a stretcher to front a band of the undead. It\u2019s an appropriate conceit for a macabre and otherworldly sound, one that Marshall has embraced with aplomb. JP<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#5
\nBj\u00f6rk
\nUtopia
\nOne Little Indian Records<\/h4>\nBj\u00f6rk is probably as singular an artist as you\u2019ll find working the pop music realm over the past 20 years. While most of the world thinks of her as an alternative artist, much of her catalog is at its core filled with pop music\u2014only turned inside out and mutated. It\u2019s fitting that after a series of albums that seemed to go more and more abstract, her last album, Vulnicura<\/i>, came back to earth with the most human of concerns: heartache and breakup. After the virtual bloodletting of that cycle there was nowhere to go but up and Utopia<\/i> gives that too you in wink-wink, nudge-nudge fashion. If Vulnicura<\/i> was weighed down with the pain of loss, Utopia<\/i> is bouyed by a thread of birdsongs that pepper the album. Bj\u00f6rk described the record as her \u201cTinder album,\u201d and she is positively giddy with the possibilities of new love, new flirtations, and just new possibilities. Aided by her Vulnicura<\/i> collaborator and co-producer Acra, the album is full of shifting, lighter-than-air tones, which are occasionally shot through with abrasive sounds and snatches of tough beats. There\u2019s nothing as immediate as some of Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s greatest singles, but the songs still draw you in and engage you, even across some relatively extended running times. Utopia<\/i> shows that Bj\u00f6rk always has something to say and an interesting way to say it. DSH<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#4
\nKendrick Lamar
\nDamn
\nInterscope Records<\/h4>\nI’ll be the first to admit that when Damn<\/i> first arrived, it felt anemic in the shadow of the monolith that was To Pimp a Butterfly<\/i> and the heady detritus that appeared on Untitled Unmastered<\/i>. It didn’t feel complex enough, as if he owed us something even bigger. It didn’t feel deep enough, as if he were responsible to save us all. Indeed, Damn<\/i> was a quick jab, a visceral, sample-packed, front-loaded firecracker, with little in the way of theorizing or proselytizing. There’s no real soapbox because that’s not K. Dot’s current version. Instead, it’s huge singles, summer jams, whiz-bang references to Juvenile’s \u201cHa.\u201d Effortless brilliance.<\/p>\n
But wait, it wasn’t until Kung Fu Kenny released Damn<\/i> in reverse that the truth was revealed. Listening to the album backwards, the way it was reportedly intended, that final third is the most thrilling and artistically imposing triplet Kendrick has yet produced. The verbal mathematics that end “Duckworth,” the big, soul-searching, epic of “God,” likewise the self-deprecating earnest of “Fear,” show a success story trying to grapple with success and the pitfalls that follow. It’s even more transcendent than TPAB<\/i>. Trucking in a creative flow that\u2019s starting to parallel those before him (Prince, Janet, Zappa, Madonna), Kendrick is now the kind of giant we have to never doubt, just because it’s all that good. KJE<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#3
\nSt. Vincent
\nMasseduction
\nLoma Vista Recordings<\/h4>\nFew albums were as present and intense as Masseduction<\/i> this year. That\u2019s accounting, too, for Annie Clark\u2019s noticeable lack of guitar shredding and the significantly poppier direction of the album. Every song\u2019s emotion is palpable; at any given time, the listener will be wrecked, pepped up, or at least, given some general invigoration. This in part can be attributed to how digestible and distinct the songs are, each of which can tip their hat to the work of other established and already great artists. \u201cPills\u201d and the title track are akin to heyday MIA, just as \u201cSugarboy\u201d is to Human League and \u201cHappy Birthday, Johnny\u201d to Joni Mitchell\u2019s stripped-down, simple genius (a la \u201cA Case of You\u201d). Then there\u2019s the song-of-the-year contender \u201cNew York,\u201d whose strength could carry an otherwise mediocre album by appealing to the lovelorn and in-love. In a modern world that\u2019s especially rife with conflict and chaos nowadays, it\u2019s nice to know Anne Clark continues to be a beacon of songwriting consistency. Masseduction<\/i> has cemented that. ML
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#2
\nSinkane
\nLife and Livin’ It
\nCity Slang<\/h4>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/a>#6
\nKing Krule
\nThe Ooz
\nTrue Panter Sounds\/XL Records<\/h4>\nIf you hadn\u2019t yet heard of 23-year-old Archy Marshall, 2017 was a great year to get acquainted. Marshall gifted the music world with his sophomore release in October, expanding on his catalogue of acid jazzy, trip-hoppy, experimental punk with 19 dark and hallucinogenic new songs. Marshall told NPR the record was \u201cabout the monotony of day to day, falling back into your head, being taken with your thoughts into a different place.\u201d On \u201cLogos\u201d he sings of a fractured relationship: \u201cI thought about her, her smell through clothes, her spoken smoke, mixed with my cologne.\u201d Meanwhile the video for single \u201cDim Surfer\u201d found him emerging from a stretcher to front a band of the undead. It\u2019s an appropriate conceit for a macabre and otherworldly sound, one that Marshall has embraced with aplomb. JP<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#5
\nBj\u00f6rk
\nUtopia
\nOne Little Indian Records<\/h4>\nBj\u00f6rk is probably as singular an artist as you\u2019ll find working the pop music realm over the past 20 years. While most of the world thinks of her as an alternative artist, much of her catalog is at its core filled with pop music\u2014only turned inside out and mutated. It\u2019s fitting that after a series of albums that seemed to go more and more abstract, her last album, Vulnicura<\/i>, came back to earth with the most human of concerns: heartache and breakup. After the virtual bloodletting of that cycle there was nowhere to go but up and Utopia<\/i> gives that too you in wink-wink, nudge-nudge fashion. If Vulnicura<\/i> was weighed down with the pain of loss, Utopia<\/i> is bouyed by a thread of birdsongs that pepper the album. Bj\u00f6rk described the record as her \u201cTinder album,\u201d and she is positively giddy with the possibilities of new love, new flirtations, and just new possibilities. Aided by her Vulnicura<\/i> collaborator and co-producer Acra, the album is full of shifting, lighter-than-air tones, which are occasionally shot through with abrasive sounds and snatches of tough beats. There\u2019s nothing as immediate as some of Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s greatest singles, but the songs still draw you in and engage you, even across some relatively extended running times. Utopia<\/i> shows that Bj\u00f6rk always has something to say and an interesting way to say it. DSH<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#4
\nKendrick Lamar
\nDamn
\nInterscope Records<\/h4>\nI’ll be the first to admit that when Damn<\/i> first arrived, it felt anemic in the shadow of the monolith that was To Pimp a Butterfly<\/i> and the heady detritus that appeared on Untitled Unmastered<\/i>. It didn’t feel complex enough, as if he owed us something even bigger. It didn’t feel deep enough, as if he were responsible to save us all. Indeed, Damn<\/i> was a quick jab, a visceral, sample-packed, front-loaded firecracker, with little in the way of theorizing or proselytizing. There’s no real soapbox because that’s not K. Dot’s current version. Instead, it’s huge singles, summer jams, whiz-bang references to Juvenile’s \u201cHa.\u201d Effortless brilliance.<\/p>\n
But wait, it wasn’t until Kung Fu Kenny released Damn<\/i> in reverse that the truth was revealed. Listening to the album backwards, the way it was reportedly intended, that final third is the most thrilling and artistically imposing triplet Kendrick has yet produced. The verbal mathematics that end “Duckworth,” the big, soul-searching, epic of “God,” likewise the self-deprecating earnest of “Fear,” show a success story trying to grapple with success and the pitfalls that follow. It’s even more transcendent than TPAB<\/i>. Trucking in a creative flow that\u2019s starting to parallel those before him (Prince, Janet, Zappa, Madonna), Kendrick is now the kind of giant we have to never doubt, just because it’s all that good. KJE<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#3
\nSt. Vincent
\nMasseduction
\nLoma Vista Recordings<\/h4>\nFew albums were as present and intense as Masseduction<\/i> this year. That\u2019s accounting, too, for Annie Clark\u2019s noticeable lack of guitar shredding and the significantly poppier direction of the album. Every song\u2019s emotion is palpable; at any given time, the listener will be wrecked, pepped up, or at least, given some general invigoration. This in part can be attributed to how digestible and distinct the songs are, each of which can tip their hat to the work of other established and already great artists. \u201cPills\u201d and the title track are akin to heyday MIA, just as \u201cSugarboy\u201d is to Human League and \u201cHappy Birthday, Johnny\u201d to Joni Mitchell\u2019s stripped-down, simple genius (a la \u201cA Case of You\u201d). Then there\u2019s the song-of-the-year contender \u201cNew York,\u201d whose strength could carry an otherwise mediocre album by appealing to the lovelorn and in-love. In a modern world that\u2019s especially rife with conflict and chaos nowadays, it\u2019s nice to know Anne Clark continues to be a beacon of songwriting consistency. Masseduction<\/i> has cemented that. ML
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#2
\nSinkane
\nLife and Livin’ It
\nCity Slang<\/h4>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/a>#5
\nBj\u00f6rk
\nUtopia
\nOne Little Indian Records<\/h4>\nBj\u00f6rk is probably as singular an artist as you\u2019ll find working the pop music realm over the past 20 years. While most of the world thinks of her as an alternative artist, much of her catalog is at its core filled with pop music\u2014only turned inside out and mutated. It\u2019s fitting that after a series of albums that seemed to go more and more abstract, her last album, Vulnicura<\/i>, came back to earth with the most human of concerns: heartache and breakup. After the virtual bloodletting of that cycle there was nowhere to go but up and Utopia<\/i> gives that too you in wink-wink, nudge-nudge fashion. If Vulnicura<\/i> was weighed down with the pain of loss, Utopia<\/i> is bouyed by a thread of birdsongs that pepper the album. Bj\u00f6rk described the record as her \u201cTinder album,\u201d and she is positively giddy with the possibilities of new love, new flirtations, and just new possibilities. Aided by her Vulnicura<\/i> collaborator and co-producer Acra, the album is full of shifting, lighter-than-air tones, which are occasionally shot through with abrasive sounds and snatches of tough beats. There\u2019s nothing as immediate as some of Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s greatest singles, but the songs still draw you in and engage you, even across some relatively extended running times. Utopia<\/i> shows that Bj\u00f6rk always has something to say and an interesting way to say it. DSH<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#4
\nKendrick Lamar
\nDamn
\nInterscope Records<\/h4>\nI’ll be the first to admit that when Damn<\/i> first arrived, it felt anemic in the shadow of the monolith that was To Pimp a Butterfly<\/i> and the heady detritus that appeared on Untitled Unmastered<\/i>. It didn’t feel complex enough, as if he owed us something even bigger. It didn’t feel deep enough, as if he were responsible to save us all. Indeed, Damn<\/i> was a quick jab, a visceral, sample-packed, front-loaded firecracker, with little in the way of theorizing or proselytizing. There’s no real soapbox because that’s not K. Dot’s current version. Instead, it’s huge singles, summer jams, whiz-bang references to Juvenile’s \u201cHa.\u201d Effortless brilliance.<\/p>\n
But wait, it wasn’t until Kung Fu Kenny released Damn<\/i> in reverse that the truth was revealed. Listening to the album backwards, the way it was reportedly intended, that final third is the most thrilling and artistically imposing triplet Kendrick has yet produced. The verbal mathematics that end “Duckworth,” the big, soul-searching, epic of “God,” likewise the self-deprecating earnest of “Fear,” show a success story trying to grapple with success and the pitfalls that follow. It’s even more transcendent than TPAB<\/i>. Trucking in a creative flow that\u2019s starting to parallel those before him (Prince, Janet, Zappa, Madonna), Kendrick is now the kind of giant we have to never doubt, just because it’s all that good. KJE<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#3
\nSt. Vincent
\nMasseduction
\nLoma Vista Recordings<\/h4>\nFew albums were as present and intense as Masseduction<\/i> this year. That\u2019s accounting, too, for Annie Clark\u2019s noticeable lack of guitar shredding and the significantly poppier direction of the album. Every song\u2019s emotion is palpable; at any given time, the listener will be wrecked, pepped up, or at least, given some general invigoration. This in part can be attributed to how digestible and distinct the songs are, each of which can tip their hat to the work of other established and already great artists. \u201cPills\u201d and the title track are akin to heyday MIA, just as \u201cSugarboy\u201d is to Human League and \u201cHappy Birthday, Johnny\u201d to Joni Mitchell\u2019s stripped-down, simple genius (a la \u201cA Case of You\u201d). Then there\u2019s the song-of-the-year contender \u201cNew York,\u201d whose strength could carry an otherwise mediocre album by appealing to the lovelorn and in-love. In a modern world that\u2019s especially rife with conflict and chaos nowadays, it\u2019s nice to know Anne Clark continues to be a beacon of songwriting consistency. Masseduction<\/i> has cemented that. ML
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#2
\nSinkane
\nLife and Livin’ It
\nCity Slang<\/h4>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/a>#4
\nKendrick Lamar
\nDamn
\nInterscope Records<\/h4>\nI’ll be the first to admit that when Damn<\/i> first arrived, it felt anemic in the shadow of the monolith that was To Pimp a Butterfly<\/i> and the heady detritus that appeared on Untitled Unmastered<\/i>. It didn’t feel complex enough, as if he owed us something even bigger. It didn’t feel deep enough, as if he were responsible to save us all. Indeed, Damn<\/i> was a quick jab, a visceral, sample-packed, front-loaded firecracker, with little in the way of theorizing or proselytizing. There’s no real soapbox because that’s not K. Dot’s current version. Instead, it’s huge singles, summer jams, whiz-bang references to Juvenile’s \u201cHa.\u201d Effortless brilliance.<\/p>\n
But wait, it wasn’t until Kung Fu Kenny released Damn<\/i> in reverse that the truth was revealed. Listening to the album backwards, the way it was reportedly intended, that final third is the most thrilling and artistically imposing triplet Kendrick has yet produced. The verbal mathematics that end “Duckworth,” the big, soul-searching, epic of “God,” likewise the self-deprecating earnest of “Fear,” show a success story trying to grapple with success and the pitfalls that follow. It’s even more transcendent than TPAB<\/i>. Trucking in a creative flow that\u2019s starting to parallel those before him (Prince, Janet, Zappa, Madonna), Kendrick is now the kind of giant we have to never doubt, just because it’s all that good. KJE<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#3
\nSt. Vincent
\nMasseduction
\nLoma Vista Recordings<\/h4>\nFew albums were as present and intense as Masseduction<\/i> this year. That\u2019s accounting, too, for Annie Clark\u2019s noticeable lack of guitar shredding and the significantly poppier direction of the album. Every song\u2019s emotion is palpable; at any given time, the listener will be wrecked, pepped up, or at least, given some general invigoration. This in part can be attributed to how digestible and distinct the songs are, each of which can tip their hat to the work of other established and already great artists. \u201cPills\u201d and the title track are akin to heyday MIA, just as \u201cSugarboy\u201d is to Human League and \u201cHappy Birthday, Johnny\u201d to Joni Mitchell\u2019s stripped-down, simple genius (a la \u201cA Case of You\u201d). Then there\u2019s the song-of-the-year contender \u201cNew York,\u201d whose strength could carry an otherwise mediocre album by appealing to the lovelorn and in-love. In a modern world that\u2019s especially rife with conflict and chaos nowadays, it\u2019s nice to know Anne Clark continues to be a beacon of songwriting consistency. Masseduction<\/i> has cemented that. ML
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#2
\nSinkane
\nLife and Livin’ It
\nCity Slang<\/h4>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/a>#3
\nSt. Vincent
\nMasseduction
\nLoma Vista Recordings<\/h4>\nFew albums were as present and intense as Masseduction<\/i> this year. That\u2019s accounting, too, for Annie Clark\u2019s noticeable lack of guitar shredding and the significantly poppier direction of the album. Every song\u2019s emotion is palpable; at any given time, the listener will be wrecked, pepped up, or at least, given some general invigoration. This in part can be attributed to how digestible and distinct the songs are, each of which can tip their hat to the work of other established and already great artists. \u201cPills\u201d and the title track are akin to heyday MIA, just as \u201cSugarboy\u201d is to Human League and \u201cHappy Birthday, Johnny\u201d to Joni Mitchell\u2019s stripped-down, simple genius (a la \u201cA Case of You\u201d). Then there\u2019s the song-of-the-year contender \u201cNew York,\u201d whose strength could carry an otherwise mediocre album by appealing to the lovelorn and in-love. In a modern world that\u2019s especially rife with conflict and chaos nowadays, it\u2019s nice to know Anne Clark continues to be a beacon of songwriting consistency. Masseduction<\/i> has cemented that. ML
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>#2
\nSinkane
\nLife and Livin’ It
\nCity Slang<\/h4>\n
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n