Le Poisson

Bold from the off and showy in its experiments (however radical they may turn out to be), albums like The Spiritual Sound have a charm that makes them prone to overhype. Are Agriculture all vibes, these genre-colliders (certainly not genre-blenders), these try-hards? This band certainly does try hard, but that is not a bad thing. The Spiritual Sound splits styles and flits between sounds and structures but on several occasions it genuinely ascends, its all-consuming ambitions achieving something noisy, fresh, special. 

A fascinating premise: an artist who previously made new music out of age-old tapes now takes those workings and refashions them into new music once more. Meitei’s ear for the nostalgic and cinematic is as powerful as ever; even if some elements of his original pieces are slickened into dilution, the manner in which Agate unites distant eras remains a musical experience like little else.

Living through the death of a parent happens to most, but few do so at a young age. One can barely imagine the panic and confusion, the sense of unfairness, years lost, time wasted. Not only has dexter in the newsagent endured this but she has effectively communicated those experiences in her art. Time Flies has a vulnerability that is genuinely rare. 

Just when I thought Yaya Bey had perhaps gotten too comfortable, that she had learned a formula for her sentimental, ruminatory contemporary soul, she proves my idiocy. For of course this music, so joyfully dextrous, has no formula. It comes from the heart, an organ which is far, far too complex to stratify. Fidelity very clearly makes several bold but thought-through decisions, greater melodic complexity, more detailed sound design and wider instrumental variation – rickety breaks, plush jazz, squelching funk, inching reggae – combining with Bey’s impressionistic vocals. 

Up to now, part of Los Thuthanaka’s live set was unaccounted for. Each of the occasions I’ve seen them, the duo first exhausted and entranced with deafening, spangly chugs, but it is what followed that confirmed their status as titans of contemporary rock: building upon ‘Parrandita “Sariri Tunupa”’ with an ascendiary bliss-out of obscene beauty, vast tides of vibrant, collaged electronica, great arcs of sentimental guitar, some of the most gorgeous music I’ve ever heard live. That element of Los Thuthanaka is now put to record on Wak’a. 

The aesthetics of marijuana are so much more powerful than the substance itself. Through those aesthetics, plenty of musicians – Thundercat included, of course – have constructed an image of coolness without ever actually making music one could consider ‘cool’ (or even simply ‘good’). Distracted assembles the starriest guestlist on a Thundercat album yet, though the songwriting remains so poor that every track meanders and drags like a tedious drunk (or stoner, I suppose).

How do you concoct the grandeur required of blackgaze within the brevity of an EP? Nigh-on impossible, as shown by Agriculture’s insubstantial and immemorable Living is Easy.

Fakemink must move on from the sound he has pioneered, for some reason, or so he seems to think. If The Boy Who Cried Terrified is a teaser of a second album – perhaps titled Terrified – then that record will be one of the year’s great disappointments; the profound dilution of one of this decade’s most distinctive hip-hop talents.

Genre-flitting is all well and good, but the real challenge is to do so while retaining a sense of identity. On Zoo んoon do not just dabble but, in each track, they wholly commit to a new genre; drum ‘n’ bass and bossa, jazzy piano pop, fizzling trap and spacey psych. A consistent identity isn’t particularly clear.

Rilo Kiley made ever-so-slightly-better-than-most indie rock, momentous and pretty and with quirky details, but it has enjoyed greater longevity than most due to one thing: Jenny Lewis. She has hooks with yell-along-ability and not just range but an ability to flick through said range constantly and with ease. Most importantly she has a really excellent pine, the kind of which can add tints of hope or doubt to anything. 

I, also, liked Tyler’s Igor. Not enough to make a full-album ode, though.

Shinichi Atobe is a master of patient, detail-oriented techno. His previous releases have set an extraordinarily high bar; it is a marvel that Silent Way manages to keep pace with expectations, a work with so much evident and meticulous craft, microtonal details and alternative sound tangents, never losing sight of the fact that you’re supposed to dance. 

Atmo-pop done particularly well, hooks and melodies and the club emerging from richly moody and engulfing washes of gloop. 

I am so fascinated by the fidelity of Knocked Loose’s sound, how this band has ramped up intensity through production and, as a result, become one of this era’s great rock acts. Many heavy music bands reach a point where innovating the quality of sound results in sanitisation – not Knocked Loose. A Tear in the Fabric of Life notched up the fidelity even further than A Different Shade of Blue, a release of beguiling girth.

Earl Sweatshirt and MIKE haven’t just spearheaded one of the defining rap movements of the 2020s, now they’re platforming some of the genre’s biggest current talents. On split mixtape Pompeii / Utility MIKE and Earl do their thing, leaving producer collective Surf Gang to fill out the rest. The production intrigues most when it has a liminality that vividly resembles the tangents and distractions followed by the human mind; but it isn’t always so engaging, and at its worst is too sparse and immobile. 

The luxury of a record to really wrap your ears around. Cameron Picton is most clearly inspired by the billowing, loping, tumbling folk prog of the Canterbury Scene – My New Band Believe is the most pastoral record I’ve heard this decade (and maybe the one before, too) – to which he applies his compositional meticulousness and taste for the momentous.  

True indie bands save their sophomore slump for the third record. Sumday was a seemingly deliberate attempt to shake off all the grand indie experimentalism of Grandaddy’s first two; twelve versions of the same plodding indie rock song. Well, let’s say nine – there are a few goodies.