This playlist from Beatport imagines the perfect 10 tracks for a sunrise set at Berlins legendary Panorama bar. As you can imagine, these tracks are bright, anthematic excursions into deep house, nu-disco and funky house, and include Omar S, Pépé Bradock and Todd Terje.
Subscribe to the Spotify playlist right here.Dark music is often defined by an instrumentalist’s skill: guitarist Dave Mustaine’s mastery of his six-string made Megadeath legends, the controlled metallic baritone of Nine Inch Nail’s Trent Reznor put mall-goth on the map. These particular manipulations are amplified in noise music insofar as they are changed, strained, crushed and elongated. By definition the genre is contradictory—how is noise, music?—and as a result, challenges thinking about silences. When looped vocal techniques are distorted, feedback is allowed to prosper, static is treated as an instrument—what is made? This year has been especially interesting for noise—in Puce Mary’s “Night is a Trap ll” Frederikke Hoffmeier’s twisted speakerphone vocals mimic the sounds of an industrial explosion around her; Bruxa Maria’s “Human Condition” acts in discordance with every element in its songwriting, Gill Dread’s high-pitched holler placed below the sounds of sharp saws running unmanned. Far removed from their powerelectronics are the ambient, animalistic found sounds of David Toop’s “For a Language to Come,” and the Wagnerian haunt of The Stargazer’s Assistant. In 2016, a year filled with noise politically and otherwise, a genre embraces the pandemonium.
When David Bowie died of liver cancer eight days into the New Year (and two days after the release of his astonishing Blackstar), it was an awfully prescient indication of 2016’s relentlessly downward direction. When news came of Prince’s passing in April — a sudden and surprising event given that the Purple One had seemed his usual vital self the same week as his death, tooling around Minneapolis on his bicycle and shopping on Record Store Day — it felt like a kick in the teeth. How bad could this year get? As it turned out, it could get a lot worse…By December, the list of the departed would range from boomer rock titans (Eagles’ Glenn Frey; Jefferson Airplane’s Paul Kantner; Leon Russell; both Keith Emerson and Greg Lake) to soul and R&B greats (Sharon Jones, Billy Paul, Natalie Cole, Maurice White) to heroes of the underground (Suicide’s Alan Vega, French electronic-music godfather Jean-Jacques Perrey, house-music pioneer Colonel Abrams) to many more gone way too soon (Phife Dawg of A Tribe Called Quest, hardcore-era Beastie Boys guitarist John Berry). While Merle Haggard passed away peacefully in his tour bus, tragic car crashes would claim both Atlanta rapper Shawty Lo and the rising British band Viola Beach. Hell, we even lost Blowfly, dammit, though if it’s any consolation, the hereafter just got a whole lot filthier with the addition of the NC-17-rated R&B showman.Perhaps he’ll find a new friend in Leonard Cohen, another songwriter who prided himself on having a certain expertise on carnal matters. Though his loss was keenly felt in November (especially since the news hit two days after the election), Cohen was just as considerate as Bowie in ensuring he left us with one final masterwork. Sublime tracks from Blackstar and You Want It Darker are part of this collection of songs by singers, songwriters and musicians who’ve been sadly silenced by the fate that’s waiting for the rest of us, too.
XX only have two albums, so picking out a best-of is a little bit ancillary at this point, but its still great to hear all of the hits. This is particularly revealing when listened to side to side with Jamie XXs latest album, In Colour . His latest marks a dramatic aesthetic leap forward, and it will be interesting to hear what happens when the group reconvenes for their third album.
In his intro for the "article," FACT editor-in-chief Joe Muggs makes an interesting distinction:
To an extent, "Indietronica" is a catch-all for both electronic music tracks with pop song structures, and, conversely, for indie pop tracks with electronic embellishments, both of which are made by musicians who are largely not within mainstream culture, but its a bit of a critical crutch that this list defines too broadly. Hot Chip and even Caribou definitely fit the mold, as where theres a lot more going on in tracks by clOUDDEAD or Sampha than just Indietronica. The latter belongs in the same electronic singer-songwriter tradition as James Blake (whose also included on the list), while cLOUDDEAD fall into the experimental hip-hop camp. Of course, you could also make the case that the point of bands are to resist easily classification altogether. Regardless, this is a really enjoyable and cohesive set of tracks.
Subscribe to the Spotify playlist here.Rap fans over 30 no longer ditch the genre for grown and sexy R&B — throwback rap as a radio format exploded in 2016 nationwide. So its time to start seriously considering rappers in their 40s to be the Greatest Generation in rap. Guys like Fat Joe, Snoop, Nas, Tribe, Mobb Deep, etc came up in the 90s, when budgets and deals and label options were abundant. Their albums were considered failures if they ONLY sold 300K units. You could write 25 verses a year to fulfill one album and be done — no constant mixtapes, features, Soundcloud exclusives, radio freestyles, etc. You had a lot of mystique — people only knew something about you if you said it in a magazine, put it on wax, on a video, or in your CD booklet Thank Yous. To start your career under those circumstances and still want to keep going in a world of $0.06 royalty checks from Spotify really speaks to the character of men who now have kids to put through college.Guys like Snoop, Kool Keith, and E-40 have maximized their personas to attract various revenue streams through TV shows, toys, movies, etc. Indie artists like Aesop Rock and Run the Jewels have adapted to the new economy with extensive merch options, tours, and licensing to movie soundtracks and television. RTJ even tapped into the Marvel Comics audience with multiple comic book covers dedicated to their iconic logo. Fat Joe eschewed an album altogether by aiming for the top with "All the Way Up,” a staple in pro sports arenas, ESPN commercials, and daytime radio. De La Soul crowdsourced a No. 1 album while A Tribe Called Quest recorded their comeback record in secret and performed on SNL with Dave Chappelle the week of its release. Nas, an investor in the razor company Bevel, promoted the crap out of his product on his revitalized smash "Nas Album Done" with DJ Khaled. Ka, who didnt break out until he was 38 years old, caught hell from New York tabloids for his firefighting day job and "objectionable" lyrics about cops shooting black people, all the while self-financing another great album gobbled up by his diehard fanbase. Havoc of Mobb Deep released a surprisingly outstanding solo LP The Silent Partner with Alchemist thats just as dark and nihilistic as any Mobb release in the late 90s. Geechi Suede of Camp Los latest solo single "Phone Check" would fit perfectly next to the groups smash single "Lucchini" in 1997. A Tribe Called Quest made their best album since 1993s classic Midnight Marauders. And Snoop cemented himself as the official rapper for all barbecues with his latest LP Coolaid almost 25 years after the release of Doggystyle.None of this would matter if The Greatest Generation in Rap wasnt as sharp as they were when Arsenio Hall was the apex of hip. This group will most likely be doing it well into their 50s — E-40 is 49 years old, Jay-Z just turned 47. Kool Keith’s age can only be quantified by the color of whatever wig he wears this week. This was a great year for rap fans who now stream their music in minivans.
Subscribe to the Spotify playlist here.It was, by many metrics, a terrible, terrible year. But it happened to be an excellent year for ambient music—and that turned out to be incredibly fortuitous, since nothing works better than ambient music when youre in the mood to close the blinds and crawl under the covers for the next four (or, God help us, eight) years.There was so much great ambient music this year that it inspired a number of commentators to ask whether we were in the midst of a comeback. Id venture that ambient music never went away, assuming you knew where to look for it. But its certainly true that this years crop of quality ambient music amply proved just how varied the form can be. Huerco S. gave us lo-fi ambient techno slathered in tape hiss. Former Emeralds member Steve Hauschildt kept perfecting his blissed-out Tangerine Dreamscapes. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith paired burbling arpeggios with wild vocal processing, while Julianna Barwick looped her own voice into a soft, tenebrous web.There was a surprising amount of guitar-based music that fit an ambient sensibility this year: Christian Naujoks paid tribute to Durutti Column on a lovely LP for Hamburgs Dial label; Tortoise member Jeff Parker explored skeletal atmospheres on his solo album Slight Freedom; and super-producer Daniel Lanois spun pure gossamer out of pedal steel on the masterful Goodbye to Language.One of the years most interesting developments in ambient music may have been the return of what Jon Hassel termed "Fourth World" music. Motion Graphics, Visible Cloaks, and the New York duo Georgia all paid tribute to the digital synthesizers and rippling textures of Japanese ambient and new age music of the 1980s; an artist named Slow Attack Ensemble even covered the Japanese duo Inoyama Lands 1983 song "Mizue" on a beautiful album called Soundscapes for the Emotional-Type Listener. And both Andrew Pekler and the duo of Jan Jelinek and Masayoshi Fujita delved into ideas of otherness and exoticism on their respective albums for Jelineks Faitiche label this year.Thats just scratching the surface; I havent even mentioned the ambient-leaning techno from Studio OST (White Materials Galcher Lustwerk and Alvin Aronson), or the broken-down synthesizer experiments from Kassem Mosses Honest Jons LP, or the jewel-toned clouds of tone Tim Hecker whipped up, or the spirit-channeling mysticism of Anna Homler and Steve Moshiers Breadwoman, an early-80s cassette that the deep-digging RVNG label rescued for contemporary ears. And special mention goes to Sarah Davachi, who is responsible for not one but two of the years finest ambient albums: Dominions and Vergers, both of them examples of drone music at its most meditatively breathtaking. If its respite youre craving, youll find plenty of escape routes on this two-and-a-half-hour playlist.
While little on this playlist would otherwise be deemed "folk," everything here retains that genres elegant simplicity—all shot through a moody ambient soundscape. Justin Vernon of Bon Iver is the absolute king of this sparse, lonely sound, ever-enhancing it through velvety guitars, samples, and fragmented beats, while his cohort James Blake creates such fragile atmospheres from a whole different angle: bass music and hip-hop. But they blend seamlessly together (just see their "I Need a Forest Fire" collaboration), alongside Radiohead (who can lift you into a dream-like state like no other), Daughter (whose hushed electro-folk is absolutely gut-wrenching), and a few of their most notable IDM and ambient influences.
Lets face it, being sentient in 2018 is a pretty grim proposition. The Western order is collapsing. Immigrant children are being torn from their parents. Social media has turned us all into data-packets. Each and every morning we wake up and are greeted with headlines proclaiming the blowback from racism, misogyny, and environmental degradation. Our safety net is disintegrating. Truth is under segue. There’s an opioid crisis, a tariff war, and seemingly a new school massacre every freaking week. Our president is Donald Trump, and our friends are Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin. There’s even a guy running for Senate in Virginia who is an active, admitted pedophile.I get that you just came here to listen to the best music of 2018, and not read a depressing recap of 2018’s most nightmarish news, but the two things are connected. Popular music, now more so than any time in recent memory, reflects the dread and dysfunction of our public lives. You can hear it in the dark irony of Childish Gambino’s “This is America” and in the damaged hip-hop soul of Huncho Jack’s “Modern Slavery.” It’s in the narcotized nihilism of Lil Peep’s “4 Gold Chains” or XXXTENTACION’s “Sad!”, and in the clamoring industrial noise-scapes of Osheyak’s “Hidden Teeth” or the pinging rap cacophony of Jpegmafia. Even when our music is hopeful, you can still spot the shadows of our particular malaise. Janelle Monae and Kamasi Washington push the gospel of resistance, and even transcendence, both of which are empowering, of course, but it also serves to draw our attention back to our collective cancer. One really has to look to electronic music for any true relief, and new music from DJ Koze, Nico Jaar, DJ Sports, and Axel Bowman feels particularly sublime -- you need a pretty big flashlight to combat this darknessAnd while this all sounds horribly depressing, it’s also resulted in some great music. There has yet to be the single album-length masterpiece -- no DAMN! or Yeezus -- but we’re not living in the album age, and each week seems to bring some titanically awesome single, whether that’s Jean Grae and Quelle’s “Gold Purple Orange” or Oneohtrix Point Never’s “Black Snow.” And even if the public landscape looks impossibly grim, we’re undeniably lucky to live in the same world where Peggy Gou, Vince Staples, Nils Frahm, Cardi B, and Kendrick Lamar are all making music. So let’s rejoice -- it’s rally the best logical response to this ongoing shitshow.
Subscribe to the Spotify playlist right here.Within the ever-evolving world of Latin music, we’ve seen some sensational moments and headline-grabbing spectacles in 2016. Colombian urban powerhouse J Balvin solidified himself as the reigning king of the new reggaetón movement via the skyrocketing Energía; Marc Anthony and J.Lo stunned global audiences with their surprise reunion at this year’s Latin GRAMMYS with a tropical rendition of Pimpinela’s “Olvídame y pega la vuelta” (and their now-infamous kiss!); our beloved Mexican legend Juan Gabriel passed away too soon yet left behind a charming duets document, Los Dúo 2, starring everyone in Latin music and their mothers (well, not really, but you get the point). Because these buzzed-about folks and their 2016 material are doing so well without our help, having a spot secured in nearly every big publication out there, we’ve decided to spotlight some sparkly hidden gems, exciting artists worthy of your discovery, and killer songs you might have missed by respectable acts. And boy, do these 50 Best Tracks resonate loudly in our hearts.Spunky electro-pop wunderkinds Alex Anwandter, Cineplexx, and Selma Oxor kept things intriguingly hyperactive through iridescent synths and a dash of mystery. Hypnotic electro-tropical masterminds Systema Solar, Compass, and Orkesta Mendoza continued to bend the boundaries of cumbia and folkloric sounds via their dashing experimentalism and love of tradition. Alt-norteño took the throne in unconventionalism in the good hands of regional Mexican iconoclasts Juan Cirerol and Helen Ochoa while staying true to form. Debaucherous punk made waves across borders through the awesomely cacophonic powerchords of daredevils AJ Davila, Sexy Zebras, and Los Nastys. For our utter excitement, we also saw the return of alternative rock royalty Café Tacvba, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, and Andrés Calamaro. Oh, and not to mention 2016 also brought us surprisingly killer renditions delivered by the likes of Mexrrissey and Vanessa Zamora. Here are the 50 most riveting tracks hailing from indie and non-conformist Latinx acts. Happy listening!
The ’90s have never sounded better than they do right now—especially for modern-day indie rockers. There’s no shortage of bands banging around these days whose sound suggests formative phases spent soaking up vintage ’90s indie rock. Not that the neo-’90s sound is itself a new thing. As soon as the era was far enough away in the rearview mirror to allow for nostalgia to set in (i.e., the second half of the 2000s), there were already some young artists out there onboarding ’90s alt-rock influences. But more recently, there’s been a bumper crop of bands that betray a soft spot for a time when MTV still played music videos and streaming was just something that happened in a restroom. In this context, the literate, lo-fi approach of Pavement has emerged as a particularly strong strand of the ’90s indie tapestry, and it isn’t hard to hear echoes of their sound in the work of more recent arrivals like Kiwi jr. or Teenage Cool Kids. Cherry Glazerr frontwoman Clementine Creevy seems to have a feeling for the kind of big, dirty guitar riffs that made Pacific Northwestern bands the kings of the alt-rock heap once upon a time. The world-weary, wise-guy angularity of Car Seat Headrest can bring to mind the lurching, loose-limbed attack of Railroad Jerk. And laconic, storytelling types like Nap Eyes stand to prove that there’s still a bright future ahead for those who mourn the passing of Silver Jews main man David Berman. But perhaps the best thing about a face-off between the modern indie bands evoking ’90s forebears and the old-school artists themselves is the fact that in this kind of competition, everybody wins.
It may be that 2019 was the best year for ’90s metal since, well, 1999. Bands from the decade of Judgment Night re-emerged with new creative twists and tweaks: Tool stretched out into polyrhythmic madness, Korn bludgeoned with more extreme and raw despair, Slipknot added a new drummer (Max Weinberg’s kid!) who gave them a new groove, and Rammstein wrote an anti-fascism anthem that caused controversy in Germany (and hit No. 1 there too). Elsewhere, icons of the era returned in unique ways: Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor scored a superhero TV series, Primus’ Les Claypool teamed up with Sean Lennon for some quirky psych rock, and Faith No More’s Mike Patton made an avant-decadent LP with ’70s soundtrack king Jean-Claude Vannier. Finally, the soaring voice of Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington returned for a moment thanks to Lamb of God guitarist Mark Morton, who released a song they recorded together in 2017.
Taking a look at the playlists for my show on Boston’s WZBC might give the more seasoned college-radio listener a bit of déjà vu: They’re filled with bands like Versus, Team Dresch, and Sleater-Kinney, who were at the top of the CMJ charts back in the ’90s. But the records they released in 2019 turned out to be some of the year’s best rock. Versus, whose Ex Nihilo EP and Ex Voto full-length were part of a creative run for leader Richard Baluyut that also included a tour by his pre-Versus outfit Flower and his 2000s band +/-, put out a lot of beautifully thrashy rock; Team Dresch returned with all cylinders blazing and singers Jody Bleyle and Kaia Wilson wailing their hearts out on “Your Hands My Pockets”; and Sleater-Kinney confronted middle age head-on with their examination of finding one’s footing, The Center Won’t Hold.
Italian guitar heroes Uzeda—who have been putting out proggy, riff-heavy music for three-plus decades—released their first record in 13 years, the blistering Quocumque jerceris stabit; Imperial Teen, led by Faith No More multi-instrumentalist Roddy Bottum, kept the weird hooks coming with Now We Are Timeless; and high-concept Californians That Dog capped off a year of reissues with Old LP, their first album since 1997. Juliana Hatfield continued the creative tear she’s been on this decade with two albums: Weird, a collection of hooky, twisty songs that tackle alienation with searing wit, and Juliana Hatfield Sings the Police, her tribute record to the dubby New Wave chart heroes (in the spirit of the salute to Olivia Newton-John she released in 2018). And our playlist finishes with Mary Timony, formerly of the gnarled rockers Helium and currently part of the power trio Ex Hex, paying tribute to her former Autoclave bandmate Christina Billotte via an Ex Hex take on “What Kind of Monster Are You?,” one of the signature songs by Billotte’s ’90s triple threat Slant 6.
