Music & Films for
Common People
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KNOCK KNOCK
DJ Koze
25
Knock Knock is the peculiar electronic album that it's not designed either for clubs or elevators, although the world might be a better place if it was used for both. Stefan Kozalla's new album is incredibly accessible at the same time that it introduces us on a quirky world of its own, full of uncanny elements that could only belong to a work of fiction.
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Opposed to any other experimental electronic album, Knock Knock it's unique on how shiny it is, the space is plagued with bioluminescent particles and a perpetual sense of bliss. Yet, the complexities in the structure and mixing of each of these tracks go far beyond what it is perceived on a first listen.
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Best tracks: Pick up, Illumination (feat. Róisin Murphy), Baby (how much I LFO you).
A BRIEF INQUIRY INTO ONLINE RELATIONSHIPS
The 1975
24
Before this album, The 1975 were a difficult band to approach: a rock boyband? a digital version of emo? But it is A Brief Inquiry the album that finally has clear the ethos and the reason to exist of the band: embody the paradoxes of a woke generation that is worried with diversity, inclusion and mental health, but that lives through the immediacy of social media.
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With a youthful pop album with basic structures as the canvas, but the ambition is far broader, and the experimentations presented there could be described as very-well-thought avant-garde designs disguised as memes and Instagram filters to make a meta-comment on the state of the society on the verge of a digital overdose.
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Best tracks: Love it if we made it, It's not living (if it's not with you), Give yourself a try.
TWIN FANTASY
Car Seat Headrest
23
In 2011, a precocious Will Toledo released his sixth album (in less than two years), a collection of clever analysis about the anxieties and frustrations of a teenager's life, but that was limited by the lack of tools to produce something with good quality, and that went totally unnoticed. Seven years later, with much more fame and access to good production, he decides to recover that old album.
But instead of a re-release, he goes for a full make-over, and practically the most exciting part of it all is the capacity of Toledo for making meta-comments that reveal how much he has grown as a musician in these years, and also to mock himself and his art a little. A piece of art that could only be product of postmodernity,
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Best tracks: Nervous young inhumans, Beach life-in-death, Bodys.
BEYONDLESS
Iceage
22
Listening to Iceage new album is remember everything that has been exciting about rock music in the last decades and a fierce reminder that no matter how the charts and the mainstream moves towards other genres, when a band uses their creativity and energy to craft an album as potent as Beyondless, we should stop whatever else and just listen and surrender to the power of dirty guitar riffs.
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The fury and the passion are felt from the first chords, a kind of energy that can't be artificially produced, digitally manipulated, or sold through marketing; it is pure raw stamina, a declaration of freedom through sonic violence, but with more sophistication than any other thing the band has produced before.
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Best tracks: Under the sun, Catch it, The day the music dies.
COCOA SUGAR
Young Fathers
21
Young Fathers keep challenging themselves, and in Cocoa Sugar they go for juxtaposing introspectional lyrics with noise pop sounds, and it is the idea of contrast what drives the album: soft pianos against heavy distortions, gospel choirs against menacing rhythms, Bible references confronted to the brutality of modern day.
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Throwing in so many references and so much sparse ideas wouldn't have worked if it wasn't for the creative drive of a band that knows how to channel so many inclinations in a cohesive whole that is able to jump from one emotional state to the next one, some times subtly, other violently, but always with a very clear sense of purpose.
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Best tracks: In my view, Lord, Toy.
ROOM 25
Noname
20
A ground-breaking effort to approach rap from a different perspective, Noname shoots at all possible targets, only to try to deconstruct the social and political norms that won't let her have a voice of herself and tell her story with pride. The extremely intelligent rhymes that are a poignant analysis of gender and race politics in contemporary US flow over beats soaked by neo-soul and tints of jazz.
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Relentlessly, she dares to ask the hard questions about society in order for her to establish and proclaim her autonomy and freedom to be whoever she wants. Here we have a black woman fighting with her wit and her self-confidence to go beyond what has been traditionally permitted to someone like her and she wants to make sure we have debunked all our prejudices while listening to her statement.
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Best tracks: Blaxploitation, Self, Ace (feat. Smino & Saba).
TRANQUILITY BASE HOTEL & CASINO
Arctic Monkeys
19
Arctic Monkeys knows how to make a turn in their sound before they start getting too comfortable, and that might be the reason why they are the only 00's indie rock band that is still relevant nowadays. Changing the suave classic rock from AM for retro lo-fi psych-rock parting from the concept of a resort in the moon, the Arctic Monkeys surprised (and confused) everybody with such a departure of their acclaimed past glories.
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But the new Monkeys are as interesting as any of their previous versions. Alex Turner retains the witty glory of his lyrics, but the sound is getting a new cinematic quality that they had never possessed before. They are able to create a sci-fi new world in the outer space, but they make sure that the intern turmoil of the inhabitants is the center piece of the music.
Best tracks: Four out of five, The ultracheese, Tranquility base hotel & casino.
SAFE IN THE HANDS OF LOVE
Yves Tumor
18
Safe In The Hands of Love is a demanding work that requires compromise and attentiveness to find the beauty among the chaos. It is an album that constantly defies our expectations, that at times throw us a clue to understand it, but that soon shifts in the opposite direction, as if we were taking part of a dream that is not making much sense.
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There's so many elements thrown to cause discomfort, that is surprising that the whole holds a sense of hypnotic grip on you, although this might be an example of the most avant-garde experimentation, there's a primal emotion there, a rawness that evoke our most intimate fears and longings. A surrealist experience might not be entirely pretty, but makes you very aware of what's lurking on the dark side of your mind.
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Best tracks: Lifetime (feat. Oxhy & Puce Mary), Noid, Licking an orchid (feat. James K).
OIL OF EVERY PEARL'S UN-INSIDES
Sophie
17
Sophie's music has been characterized for being totally over the top from her first singles, and her new album won't change nothing of that, but for the first time we are able to see the artist and not just the digital interface. With moments of pure introspection that show Sophie's human side contrasting with her usual futuristic robotic pop, we get a sense that she is finally accomplished.
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Sophie wants to challenge, never before a pure bubble-gum pop album could have dreamt to be as disruptive as this one, but by adding industrial textures, Sophie is meta-commenting on ideas of what is it that makes a human being, and how much our identity is shaped by the virtual persona we want to be.
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Best tracks: Faceshopping, Immaterial, Is it cold in the water?
FREEDOM
Amen Dunes
16
It's his fifth album the one that fully develops the potential that was promised in his previous efforts. His vibrato voice makes the project something entirely his, but on the background, he explores rich textures that tie psychedelia with classic rock with confidence and aplomb, an album that is well executed in its technical part, but that is designed to sound imperfect, as if it was being broadcasted in an old transistor radio.
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The themes of loss and longing are mature and well approached in the lyrics, they are straight narrations that recollect memories, but with hidden symbols that enhance the emotional power of heart-break. It is a work that was crafted from vulnerability and tenderness, but executed from certainty and poise.
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Best tracks: Blue rose, Miki Dora, Believe.
I'M ALL EARS
Let's Eat Grandma
15
One of the quirkiest music acts in recent memory has decided to go full pop, but with this movement they hadn't sacrificed a single ounce of their eccentric personality. Recruiting a sister unconventional soul as Sophie as the producer of their new material, they aim for pop not in its condescending nuances made for conformist masses, but in its complicated challenging structures: excess in colours, shine, noise and saturation as a critique to the fake ideal world of the mass media.
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Finding that balance between bubble gum pop and avant-garde experimentation is quite unusual, but Let's Eat Grandma find the perfect way to keep thing interesting with experimentations in every corner without missing the chance for contagious hooks.
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Best tracks: Falling into me, It's not just me, Hot pink.
BLOOM
Troye Sivan
14
Troye Sivan opens his new album with a song about how discovering sex at a young age transformed him from a boy to a man, and it is exactly by openly putting queer sex as the main topic of his album that Sivan matures as an artist, a ground-breaking pop moment that shreds any taboo just by using "he/him" as the pronouns to refer to his loved one, and to use subtle poetics to describe a not too subtle sexual act.
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If queer artists like St. Vincent and Janelle Monáe that refuse to get labels attached to them are very necessary, we also were in desperate need of Troye Sivan, a man that makes his gayhood the centre of his music, that is proud of who he is and what he likes and condense the best of those who paved his way in a smart and energetic pop album.
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Best tracks: My my my!, Bloom, Dance to this (feat. Ariana Grande).
WIDE AWAKE!
Parquet Courts
13
One of the most advanced punk rock bands nowadays, Parquet Courts know that there are many reasons to be angry in nowadays' world, but their approach is not to be engulfed by rage, but to take a step backwards and make a mordent dissection full of irony, and use non-traditional elements and structures to craft an album that is as thought-provoking as it is enjoyable and even danceable.
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Wide awake! might also be the expansion of the possibilities of the band as a rock band, never before we've heard such a diverse range in sub-genres and such a marked difference between one track and the next from them. From their usual rage punk with dirty riffs, to the unusual mature rock ballad that looks inwards to the personal disillution.
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Best tracks: Wide awake!, Mardi Gras Beads, Total Football.
ISOLATION
Kali Uchis
12
Almost as a compound of pan-American music, Kali Uchis takes advantage of her biculturalism to blend jazz, hip hop, son, salsa, guajira, bossa nova and reggaeton in a perfectly crafted pop album that shows the entire possibilities that one can achieve when cultural differences are embraced and used to create something bold and fresh.
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In her music, there's an acknowledgement of what makes latin folk so unique, but in her canvas, she is painting a latin scene with the colors of the indie international movement. She is selecting all the right people to work with, from Kevin Parker to Damon Albarn, to get different perspectives that give depth and contrast to her sultry tropical postcard.
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Best tracks: After the storm (feat. Bootsy Collins & Tyler, the Creator), Body language, In my dreams (feat. Damon Albarn).
LITTLE DARK AGE
MGMT
11
It took them 10 years to craft an album that was as entertaining and significative as their debut, Oracular Spectacular. Little Dark Age is the perfect middle ground between fun pop and creative experimentations, but stripped from the pretentiousness that plagued their two intermediate albums.
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The duo ventures into psychedelic rock, but regains that impudence that made them successful in the first place. Its irony and social comments are seen through a casual lens of not-caring too much. The having fun in the process is, again, much more important than try to leave a legacy, and that is what makes this album so enjoyable and rounded.
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Best tracks: Me and Michael, When you die, Little dark age.
