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(PAPP) Sparks.1
1. Midnight City- M83
2. Eple (Original Edit)- Röyksopp
3. Lotus Flower- Radiohead
4. Pursuit of Happiness- Kid Cudi (feat. Ratatat and MGMT)
5. I’ll Take Care of You- Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie XX
6. And I Say- Nicolas Jaar (feat. Scout LaRue and Will Epstein)
7. Rolling in the Deep (Jamie XX Shuffle)- AdeleI’ll post one of these every week. Like a mini-mix. Without too much dubstep. After the page break, my top 5 albums of the year.
I don’t pay much attention to Grammys and whatnot, but because we’re a cutting edge incorporated blog now, I figured I’d take advantage of the music industry’s annual wank-off and tell you about my favorite albums of 2011.
First, I’ll give you some Honorable Mentions, the first of which being the soundtracks to Drive and Attack the Block, two films that I’ll be blagging about around Oscar time. Both feature largely electronic scores (a genre that I much appreciate in case you couldn’t already tell) and an eighties vibe that both enhances the films they’re in and provides an awesome listening experience. The lead track off the Drive OST, “Nightcall” (by Kavinsky featuring Lovefoxxx is excellent, while Attack the Block’s main theme “The Block” (Basement Jaxx) perfectly evokes the offbeat yet stylish vibe the film gives off.
And while I enjoy My Morning Jacket, Circuital is the first album of theirs that I’ve absolutely loved (especially “Holding on to Black Metal”). Additionally, El Camino is a great Black Keys album, with “Little Black Submarines” being my favorite track.
The rest of these are in no particular order:
Crystal Castles II- Crystal Castles
The original version of this was released in 2010, but a newer version with a key difference was released in 2011, so I win!!!
Crystal Castles is a hard band to recommend, as they sort of sound like a mashup between Passion Pit, MSI, and Aphex Twin. Raucous and repetitious 8-bit arpeggios either had you addicted or turned off completely with the first album, but this sophomore effort sounds like the band traveled back in time to the mid-80s to score a movie. If a slasher version of The Wizard existed, it would surely have this as its soundtrack.
Tracks like “Doe Deer” and “Vietnam” are the kind of love-it-or-hate-it variety the band is best at, while “Celestica” and “Not in Love” are two poppy gems that’ll probably get stuck in your head.
The best track is “Not in Love”, which on this version of the album features vocals by The Cure’s Robert Smith. The original edit is good, but Smith’s voice adds some extra heartbreak to this awesome track:
We’re New Here- Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie XXI can’t say I know very much about Gil Scott-Heron, but I do love The XX, and one of Jamie XX’s beats is featured in the Sparks playlist above. This album perfectly blends Scott-Heron’s poetry and soulful voice with Jamie XX’s cutting edge beats.
“I’ll Take Care of U” is a good example of this stylistic fusion (it’s also on the playlist), while “Running” plays more to Jamie XX’s strengths, providing an awesome backbeat to the vocals.
The best song isn’t even on the album, but a standalone single:
You Are All I See- Active ChildPat Grossi, who operates under the name Active Child, has become one of my favorite acts very quickly with his mixture of ethereally echoey vocals, 80s synthpop melodies, and ghost rappy beats, a combination that results in a sound you’re not liable to hear from too many other acts. His EP Curtis Lane is rather good, but his first full-length effort strips away the echoes and replaces them with synthy goodness.
“Hanging On” brings the heartbreak, but it is “Playing House” (featuring How To Dress Well) that’s smooth sex. The track evokes shades of Samberg and Timberlake, but it’s so smooth you’ll want to wear your sunglasses at night:
The King of Limbs- Radiohead
Now keep in mind that while I say The King of Limbs is one of my favorite Radiohead albums, every single Radiohead album is one of my Radiohead albums.
But I mean it with this one. It took me almost a full year to realize the greatness of this album, but here it is. Yorke and co. have successfully changed their sound completely with this new release, and while it’s the shortest album yet, the abbreviated running time actually works, and the album never overstays its welcome. There aren’t any singles, but “Lotus Flower” (on the playlist above) will fill that void. My favorite track is the somber “Codex”, which evokes older Radiohead melancholy piano tracks like “Videotape” and “Pyramid Song”, while adding the rich texture so evident throughout the album:
Wander/Wonder- Balam Acab
People who know me know that I’m all about the Ghost Rap (in fact, three out of five of us here at the slev could claim the same), so I was naturally pretty excited about Alec Koone’s second release after 2010’s See Birds EP.
This album blows that EP out of the water. Koone’s style has evolved past the muddy low-fi chopping and screwing and onto a new territory. There’s a consistent nature theme throughout (it complements The King of Limbs pretty well), with sampled clicks, rustles, and other watery ambiance. If you ever wanted to hear a dubstep (or post-dubstep if we want to split hairs) album recorded underwater, this is your dream come true. If that sounds weird, then listen to the opening track “Welcome” to either validate or invalidate your suspicions.
My favorite track is “Oh, Why”, whose atmospheric and lonely tone will hopefully hypnotize you to the point where you can’t stop listening to the album like it did to me:
So there it is. Wander/Wonder is my favorite album of 2011. See you next week,
-Papp
