If You Will, As It Were

Today I couldn’t remember the last time I updated or shared anything on Tumblr. Apparently it was March of this year. After relocating to Northern California, I put a lot of my writing aside while trying to adjust to a new lifestyle and culture. 

60 Songs from the 60 Best Records of 2016

I started the year by curating a playlist on Spotify. I called it “2015 RELEASES” and as I found a record I wanted to give more attention to, I would add it to this playlist/folder. Needless to say, since the ease of use meant immediate adding, even when a single song was new, I amassed quit the collection of new music this year. All told my 2015 RELEASES currently has 192 albums on it. Over the last month I have been trying to whittle down this to 10. 

I altered my approach. I picked the best 5 from all genres, Metal, Electronic, Songwriter, Other (this was a catch-all for jazz, stoner, punk, classical, etc). While this best 5 meant I had got down to 20 top records I still wasn't satisfied. 

So now I pick 10. Below you’ll find the ten I plucked from those plus the remainders under that. I don't do it in the order of 10 being least and 1 being best normally, but I will say that this year the #1 spot is indeed my favourite album of 2015, hands down.

So let’s get on with it....

10. Jamie xx - In Colour

So this fella, Jamie, from the band, ‘The XX’ did some solo stuff and put it out this year. It’s brilliant. It takes me back to the 90′s garage/dance scene in England and then some. It’s not a rave album by any means, on the contrary there are a lot of different influences on here. It’s one of those records that gets better and better with every listen. In fact on first listen, I never imagined it would make it to my top ten. Needless to say, after several listens, the catchy synths and beats had me reminiscing. Fantastic electronic album.

9. Mutoid Man - Bleeder

These guys are side project wonder material. Take Cave-In and Converge members and put them in a band. This is it. Brilliant doom, riff-heavy with a hint of 90′s video game sampling. It’s like you're a nasty teen again and you can’t help but love it.

8. Frank Turner - Positive Songs For Negative People

So Frank Turner. He’s been around for a bit. I’ve followed him on Epitaph Records and delved into his back catalogue and the guy is a fantastic songwriter. Kind of a modern day Billie Bragg. This album finds Turner attempting to put a more ‘positive’ spin on the sadder times in life and some of these songs just ooze anthemic after-glow. Check out ‘Mittens’, a fine anthem from this record, and my personal favourite. 

7. Windhand - Grief’s Infernal Flower

I mentioned doom when talking about the above Mutoid Man record. This has that and sludge in spades. A friend of mine at work commented on one of the 14 minute songs from this album, “How long is this song, I feel like I’ve been listening to the same four chords forever!” This is slow drawn out atmospheric doom and it’s epic.

6. Kamasi Washington - The Epic

Speaking of epic, who knew this bloke? I certainly didn’t. I don’t pretend to be a jazz aficionado or have my finger on the pulse of jazz in any way, but wow when I heard this I knew it warranted more attention. I still know nothing about this guy except that he put out a gigantic jazz-fusion album that I did not expect to reach such great heights. It has received some monumental commercial success and with good reason. If you’re a jazz fan, or maybe you just like good beats and a horn section, check out this monolithic record. It may take a few listens but it works its way into your soul and stays there in the best way possible.

5. Alabama Shakes - Sound & Color

Well, one of the years biggest and most successful albums has made it’s way onto the list. These guys did alright prior with some catchy stuff but this album shows them churning out every single song with prestige and wonder. I’m a huge fan of harmonies, something missing a lot in the modern age of horrendous vocoders and other heretic vocal manipulations. Alabama Shakes has harmonies for days and this is well crafted soul pop music. I couldn’t be happier that these guys have blown up. I for one am jumping on the wagon.

4. Superheaven - Ours Is Chrome

From time to time, there is a rebirth and a lot of elitists roll their eyes. “They don't sound anywhere near as good as ________ during the good old days.” Fuck that. And fuck those people. Superheaven have found a fantastic producer for their second album and put out a record that wouldn’t sound out of place in 1994. The best thing about this record? It holds its own. It’s immensely catchy and grungy at the same time and having got to see them by chance in Maine was one of the highlights of the year. You can’t help but feel good listening to this.

3. Marriages - Salome

I still have little to no idea around the history of Marriages because I haven’t opened up a second browser tab to search Wikipedia or Google. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. I found this album by accident. I was listening to something else on Spotify and they were thrown into the radio station algorithm. I heard one song, looked up the record and had it on repeat for several weeks after. This album is very gothic. It has a lot of ethereal female vocals, haunting keys and spacey beats and it’s brilliant. I knew after hearing it that it was always going to make the top ten. One of the very big unknowns, maybe the biggest. Seriously try it out.

2. Deafheaven - New Bermuda

I’m again going to smirk at the elitist metal audience and by the same token the hipster indie audience that were repulsed and in awe of Deafheaven, respectively. After their first album ‘Sunbather’ the indie world was awash with this amazing new band that combined metal and shoe gaze and got all fucked up about it. The metal world wrote them off as screamy hipsters chastising real black metal. All of that press, pissed me off to no end. Fortunately for me, I heard the record prior to reading all the shite online (as I usually do). This record was the same. I have yet to read a single review of it and I am still blown away by what a great job they did with it. They added a few new things (mostly effects I noticed as a musical geek) but still retained a wall of sound that combined brutal and beauty. This would have been my #1 album of the year if it wasn’t for a complete rank outside I had never heard of before October 2015.

1. Andy Shauf - The Bearer of Bad News

A friend of mine who works at NPR New Hampshire told me to check this guy out. We have similar tastes when it comes to songwriters. He’s not so much into the heavy stuff I enjoy, but we do enjoy similar sounds in the more mellow music. So this kid, Andy Shauf, a brilliant young Canadian with a crooning and haunting voice that has a brilliant range puts this album out. I listen to it a few times and I hear Elliott Smith, The Beatles, Beck in there. I give it a few weeks and I check out a few live videos online and then go back and listen again. This guy is phenomenal live. This is one of those kids that can just pick up an acoustic and press record on the video and blow you away. He is unassuming and, well, nice. Not in a boring radio-friendly way (although there’s no doubt I can see any track being played on NPR at 10pm). When I went back and listened, I found myself seeing how this was an Andy Shauf record. I stopped hearing the comparisons. With every listen I would find myself listening to the string section, or the acoustic guitars, or the effects, or the shimmering harmonies. That’s what sold me on it, a guy doing harmonies without gigantic production and a great backing band. A guy who is clearly having a great time doing it and had to whittle down from something like 300 songs to get this record out. I didn’t expect to hear a songwriter like this in 2015, especially with all the detritus put out by the likes of Sam Smith and that other fella who’s name I can’t remember. But this album gives me hope that new solo artists can still flourish while maintaining integrity. If only someone else had heard of him.

The rest from the top 20: