2014 In Music

This year was a pretty good one for music, so far as I've noticed. While well known media outlets like NPR and Paste have published lists of their favorite albums, and as I await lists from other prominent sources, I've collected my top ten albums after a careful accumulation of music from a variety of sources. Yes, I discovered some of these artists as a breath of fresh air, new sonic territories carving paths into territory yet uncharted. Others I appreciate for their lyricism, or the particular nuances of emotion that an artist can convey through their voice, tone, and timbre. Some are new offerings from old favorites. You'll notice I don't organize the music apart from the entire work. I could make a list of songs, singles, or even new artists that I've enjoyed this year. But I am a firm believer in the album format, and despite my love of creating mixtapes to travel with me in my pickup, it is still the medium that most comprehensively captures the essence of the artist. So, without further ado, I submit my own favorites from this past year. My ears thank you, Oh gods of the sonic cosmos.

Do yourself a favor and check these recommendations out on Spotify, YouTube, or (and especially) your local record store.

10. Morning Phase - Beck

This is a spiritual successor to his excellent output Sea Change, where Beck traded charming electronic riffs and witty MC'ing for acoustic threads and tender singing. He's up to more of that here, where a haunting, often string induced production lends this album to many listens while reading a favorite novel or enjoying a good, dark beer. 

9. My Favourite Faded Fantasy - Damien Rice

Though I was introduced to this Irish crooner through his ode to teenage love "The Blower's Daughter" while practicing for a spoken word poetry event back in college, it seems that he hasn't lost his charm through the years. It's been a full eight years since he's produced any original studio material, and this offering opens with the high tenor breaking into a falsetto in the chillingly good title track, which is replete with a score for the ages. This may be the sound of breaking hearts, but hey, isn't that why we showed up?

8. Bill Bruisers - The New Pornographers

This band helped provide the soundtrack for my life back in the early years of my indie-rock explorations, and allowed me to fall in love with my favorite region of rock music-Canada. I owe my love of Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, and others to this supergroup featuring the formidable talent of Neko Case in the roster of action stars, among others. Although we're a long way from 2005's fantastic Twin Cinema, there's plenty of fun to be had here. It's good to know rock music is alive and well, in a sonic landscape where many of the conventional forms are challenged and warped beyond intelligibility. 

7. Shriek - Wye Oak

"Civilian" is the title track off their 2011 album of the same name. It features one of the most powerful noise-rock-angular-momentum guitar solos this side of OK Computer. Thus I expected big things from the Baltimore Duo. Although their sound is a bit more subdued than their previous effort, it's still a great listen. The group cleverly crafts a song that navigates between folk, electronica, dream pop, and noise rock in a way that doesn't really give any hints as to exactly where their influences lie. That's part of the fun, and I can't wait to see what they have to show us next. 

6. Neon Steeple - David Crowder

I was admittedly disheartened when the bearded wonder and Texas native disbanded his influential Band two years ago after their magnificent send off Give Us Rest. Equipped with his own talent and a new studio team, Crowder cranked out a collection of his signature electronic-tinged reverential songs. There are some here that should make the list of contemporary worship songs, such as the beautiful "Come As You Are." We'll see if music ministers wise up. In the meantime, Crowder has shown us that he's off in a new direction, but with a steady vision and talent to back it up.

5. No One Is Lost - Stars

The second Canadian band to make my list this year, Stars have had a special place in my heart since I heard the wonder Set Yourself on Fire, considered a masterpiece of contemporary indie rock and one of the best albums of the new millennium. A few tracks off of 2012's The North have made some of my most recent mixtapes, accompanying me on long treks between northern and southern California. Their latest is a worthy collection of disco-infused, nearly danceable, and trancelike beats that show the two leads sparring in ways that seem to equally suggest sarcastic ambivalence and an openness where everyone is invited to the party. This is party rock without the ridiculous obligatory dance moves. You're free to be who you are in the eyes of the Stars.

4. Lost in the Dream - The War on Drugs

I honestly had no idea who these guys were until I stumbled upon a flurry of critical acclaim by some of the critics and publishers that I respect the most. Adam Granduciel draws heavy influences from heartland rockers like Springsteen and especially mid 80s Bob Dylan, artists that my parents have great love for but I largely eschewed in favor of the Post-Punk from overseas. Thus it surprised me to find such an emotionally captivating, musically coherent, and increasingly endearing collection of songs. There are only ten songs here, but in between beautiful synth infused hooks, processed vocals, and the occasional glimpse of clear-eyed lyrical poetry, you have one to remember. 

3. Seeds - TV on the Radio

These guys from Brooklyn have always been heroes of interracial, aggressive, experimental and fearless abandon to me. They include weird electronic squalls and keyboard lines to compliment their blistering guitar lines and Tunde Adebimpe's wail. Thus I found their last effort, 2011's Nine Types of Light, as a minor disappointment. Sure, they had the melodic hooks in place, but they seemed to lose their sense of adventure. My misgivings were put to rest once I heard their latest, where the lead single includes a music video with Paul Reubens completing laps around a racetrack with increasingly weird hallucinations going on. "Happy Idiot" might be the album's most tame number, but it points to the subtle sense of complexity, loss, and tenderness that underscores this work. Back in 2011, they lost their bassist, and have channeled their grief into something affecting and tangible, as if garage rock took a ride on a spaceship and returned from another dimension. Sci Fi was always a favorite of mine, and I hope TVOTR continue to do this kind of work. 

2. St. Vincent - St. Vincent

We're a world away from the days that New York's Annie Clark was only known as a hired hand in Sufjan Steven's band. The 32 year old released a handful of albums under the moniker chosen to induce the name of a hospital "where poetry goes to die," as well as a collaboration with fellow artsy weirdo David Byrne a few years back. She returns to the scene resplendent in postmodern art rock glory, possessing a confidence and presence that few artists hope to do with this similar level of recognition. She has crafted a masterpiece that, at first listen, honestly had me all kinds of tripped out. When you watch her perform "Digital Witness," for example, you pick up on the quirky head cocks and eyeball flares that she intended for her audience to experience. She's a guitar virtuoso that trades lengthy solos for jittery leads that pepper this work like electric ornaments. It's an album that, despite her reputation as a cold, abstract, and distant performer, is surprisingly deep, witty, and deserves multiple listens. Viva La Vincent. 

1. Are We There - Sharon Van Etten

I have to admit, I came late to the game on this one. I once had an embarrassing dislike for female indie artists, not because I have some sort of misogynist agenda, but because the pop world had me weary on the vocal registers above a tenor. Luckily, my love for indie rock changed all that, where the leads of Stars, Wye Oak, Beach House, the Civil Wars, and numerous R&B artists showed me the soulful places a woman's voice could go that no man could hope to emulate. Enter Sharon Van Etten, a woman that I had never heard of before November of this year, and whose album has haunted my waking hours ever since. Are We There is a tour-de-force that is at turns dark, moody, and yet intensely captivating and controlled by the steady hand of somebody who has been on this road for a long time. There is a surprising diversity to the music here, from the trance-like chamber pop of "Taking Chances" to the piano ballad "I Love You But I'm Lost." All of this is tied together by Van Etten's voice, which weaves through the songs in ways that are smoky and delicate at the same time. She doesn't overuse vibrato, you don't hear any hoarse screaming here, or any hints that she's been smoking cigarettes to perfect her timbre. This is heartbreaking stuff, taking me to places that I'm familiar with in my own romantic tragedies. Above all, it's the year's most perfect marriage of poetry and music to fit the mood. Although these songs are emotionally rich, resonant, and melancholy, you don't just get a brooding organ or a sad lo-fi acoustic guitar to echo Bon Iver's winter in Wisconsin. There's variety here, but a cohesiveness that suggests painstaking control and character. You find an artist breaking through the numbness that we experience in the aftermath of pain, where grief is transformed into something utterly transcendent. 

So what about you? What are some of your favorites from this years past? Comment below. And here's to a great 2015!