Most excited about: Swans – To Be Kind
Swans’ 2012 album, The Seer, was a colossal slab of sweaty music the likes of which you could only expect from a legendary New York noise-rock band like Swans. Stretching out for two glorious hours, the album found Michael Gira and his ’mates channeling the raw power of their earlier recordings while surging forth with flexibility and groove. In short, the band (which Gira reassembled in 2010 after bringing it to an end 13 years prior) had simply outdone itself, producing one of its most remarkable records to date.
Since their reunion, the band has been touring across the land, setting audiences into deep hypnosis with what I’ve heard are expansive, incredibly loud live performances that stretch for as long as two hours. Reportedly, these live settings are where they’ve developed some of the material for their new album, To Be Kind, which comes out May 13 on Young God and Mute. But they’ve also spent time forging new songs in the studio, with Gira taking on production duties alongside John Congleton. Though the new album’s title sounds relatively benevolent for a Swans release, it seems there are some epic arrangements in store—the band has reportedly brought in extra players to contribute strings, synthesizers, piano and electric guitar, among other things, while Annie Clark of St. Vincent came in to add extra vocal parts.
These guys don’t strike me as the type of musicians who wring their hands over the usual band insecurities, like whether their new album will be as great as the previous one. My guess is they simply pick up their instruments and proceeded to let the ground crack beneath their feet, while Gira—wearing his trusty cowboy hat—intones words in a mesmerizing baritone.
Runner up: Metronomy – Love Letters
Metronomy have a way of being quirky goofballs and sexy British sophisticates at the same time. Their electro-pop tunes are as buttoned-up as can be, yet sometimes it sounds like they’re playing instruments made out of Crayons and Play-Doh. “Love Letters,” the title track to their new album—out March 10—brims with yearning as the band rides a rubbery bass-line into a trumpet-solo conclusion. Yeah, it’d be a hoot making out to this one.
Alchemist – Whatever the fuck he drops when it drops
360 Waves, Albert Einstein, My First Chemistry Set, the score for Grand Theft Auto V. Those are just the full-length projects Alchemist had his MPC pounding hands in last year. I left out Masterpiece Theatre (w/Willie the Kid), any solo tracks he produced, and Cutting Room Floor 3.
At this point, I believe Alchemist is the best and most prolific producer in the game. With the ease of sparking a lighter, he’s both modernized gutter N.Y. boom-bap and turned it into tie-dyed, ayahuasca soaked psychedelia. And he can make la musica de yacht-rap as well as anyone. He’s also pulled great verses/albums from his collaborators while learning from them, finding the sweet spot between Evidence, Prodigy, and Roc Marci in his own rhymes.
Maybe Alchemist’s secret formula is the right combo of Santa Monica sun, Girl Scout Cookies (the smoke kind), trips to Coffee Bean, and jerk chicken. Then again, I’ve tried all them and haven’t dropped a beat or bar yet.
Stepbrothers is already out this year and damn good (case in point, “See the Rich Man Play”); the track he produced for Schoolboy’s Oxymoron is already a candidate for Schoolboy’s top five; there’s reportedly a project with Roc Marci; another Gangrene album is ostensibly in the works; and I’ve been told there may even be a gospel record. Really, I wouldn’t be surprised if CBS asked him to score the next season of Hawaii Five-0.
Runner Up – Dam-Funk – Invite the Light
Toeachizown dropped four years ago. Yet Pasadena’s ‘starchild’ Dam-Funk has never left us wanting. He DJs and/or performs constantly (often in L.A.). He releases a free Soundcloud track seemingly every other week. And last year he made solid records with Steve Arrington and Snoop Dogg (a.k.a. Snoopzilla).
My expectations for Invite the Light are high, but I have no doubt that Dam will deliver his singular brand of soothing, shoulder-synth funk yet again. George Clinton said in a recent Red Bull interview, “Funk is whatever it need to be at the moment it need to be there.” Dam put the funk in his name — it’s always going to be there.
Freddie Gibbs and Madlib – Pinata
The math on this one is so easy…
On one hand you have Gibbs, a superlative talent but too often a blunt(ed) rapping force without stylistic direction. In the course of his career he has dabbled in almost every possible variation of gangsta rap, but none stuck, and more importantly he never stuck with one for the duration of an entire full length project. As a result, his releases often veer to the ‘mixtape’ side of the ‘mixtape vs album’ dichotomy; they sound more like disjointed collections of songs than cohesive statements of artistic purpose. Working with Madlib could be the perfect remedy for this lack of focus. Here (presumably) will be an album shaped by a singular producer who can do more than just provide beats, but instead create a dedicated sonic aesthetic that frames Gibbs’ bars and enhances them. Their previously released EPs already serve as proofs of concept for this idea – see how the production on ‘Shame’ expands the song’s narrative, or the way ‘Thuggin’ reaches into spaces where very few have thugged before.
On the other hand you have Madlib. I’m a huge fan of his work, but not always his choice of collaborators. The last time, and maybe the only time, he made an album with a rapper who is truly a match for his talents was Madvillainy. He needs to align with somebody who is more than just a technician, somebody whose lines I actually want to pay attention to. As opposed to just marveling at all the syllables and the multis contained therein. I know this sounds like mean editorializing on my part. I’m ok with that. I just want to hear Madlib work with somebody I care about for a change, for more than one or two songs at a time.
These guys need each other. Not desperately, each is already well established and will likely continue to flourish regardless of the other. But they need each other to make something together that neither has consistently managed to do on their own.
Duppy Gun Productions – S/T
My love for Duppy Gun’s idiosyncratic dub experiments was already well documented in my contribution to POW’s Summer Jamz 2012 series. The duo’s repertoire has grown since then, and my appreciation followed suite. They followed their collaboration with The Congos with a slew of 4 eps, each more interesting than the one before. The very last song song on the fourth ep is a 13 minute journey which somehow manages to encompass dub, footwork, jungle, ambient and some other styles I don’t even know the name of. On paper it reads like the recipe for a total clusterfuck, but in my headphones it sounds like an odyssey into a possible dub future which Lee Perry could have never imagined but would probably really love. So naturally I’m dying to hear what’s next.
FKA Twigs – TBA
Isn’t it crazy what we get to see today? We used to see artists emerge fully formed, the years of honing their sound spent mercifully out of the public eye. But art gets democratized, radio stations go broke, and now we get to watch every step of the process right as it happens.
The artist formerly known as (FKA) Twigs was on the cover of fashion magazine i-D when the London singer had two songs out. Then the FADER profiled her, Pitchfork anointed her “Rising,” and hell followed with it.
But the way an artist changes in tiny increments tells you a lot about them. The mediocre ones flail about, slapping wildly at styles in an effort to hit one that feels right.
The good ones emerge, and with every next glimpse you catch, you feel like you know them more, until eventually you realize you know who they are.
On those first songs, Twigs hid behind walls of Massive Attack witchery, soft-selling her powerful voice with whispers and squeaks. On EP2, the songs were stronger, but Twigs was being acted upon: pummeled by Arca synths, letting herself be groped in her videos.
Late last month, though, a Yours Truly released a video of Twigs performing EP1 track “Hide” in the ruins of a Mayan village near Tulum, Mexico.
And suddenly, there she is. All at once, Twigs feels like she’s using the active voice, commanding our attention and asserting herself. Her voice is unadorned, her presence transfixing and confident. The studio “Hide” captured the titular sentiment; Twigs hid. Here, she discovers a new thesis statement and practically growls it right into the camera: “Face me.”
If everything prior was setup, call this the lock-in for Twigs’ narrative. Now all she has to do is tell her story.
Banks – TBA
LA singer Banks, on the other hand, just has to decide what she wants. She can croon nastily over hammering pianos, she can bob and weave through UK Funky obstacle courses, and she can craft a man-hating fuck-you anthem for the ages. And she can do all of it while enticing young electro royalty like SOHN, Lil Silva, Shlohmo, and Jamie Woon to pledge as her bannermen.
She’s in much the same position A$AP Rocky was post Live.Love.A$AP: tons of potential and the hottest collaborators in the game. Here’s hoping the promise of Florence and the Machine money doesn’t turn her into another voice behind a piano. She could be so much more.
Jeff Weiss
Teebs — E S T A R A
It’s easy to get exhausted. There are too many musicians begging to have their demos heard. Too many bloggers babbling about nothing to fill space. Often enough, I feel as guilty as anyone. There are too many distractions and too many times that I check my e-mail or Twitter. And sometimes, you want to escape. So most of the time, I bury my ears in old jazz or afro-beat or soul and try to forget that someone is paying me to think something about a record that I may or may not want to thinking about anymore. Maybe it’s not that good and that bores me. Maybe it’s that good and it makes it that much harder.
This is why my off-the-clock listening gravitates towards music that just sounds gorgeous — the sort of stuff that makes me feel like I’m binging on a Ziggy Piggy. That’s how I feel about Teebs’ music. It makes me remember why sounds can be pleasing in the first place — and the more music I hear, the more I want to revert to some amniotic state before my ears overheard Bon Iver play 73 times at a yoga class or Armond Van Buren (SIC) attack me at an LA Fitness in Hollywood. Maybe I have lived in LA too long. But maybe this is why I find myself returning to Teebs’ music as much as any artist. It doesn’t definite a time, it defines a mood much harder to access than I once expected.
Runner-Up: Kendrick Lamar & Imagine Dragons — Collision Course 2. Bro.
Bro.
Broooooooooo.
