Onze eindejaarscountdown! De tien favoriete albums van Linda, Ilse, en ondergetekende uitgebracht in 2010. Favoriet, omdat iedereen natuurlijk andere dingen leuk vindt en andere connotaties heeft bij de muziek en thema’s/genres die we daarin kunnen terugvinden. Dus dit zijn niet objectief de beste albums, maar de albums die op ons om de een of andere reden de meeste indruk hebben gemaakt. Enjoy!Favorite albums of 2010: 10 - 9 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4
Nr. 3 – Linda
Album: Stridulum/Stridulum II/Valusia EP
Artist: Zola Jesus
I didn’t really know which release to choose as Zola Jesus has released rather a lot this year. She’s made it even more difficult by releasing her stuff first in the USA, then adding some songs before she released the same stuff in Europe, then figuring that she should also release the new European stuff in the USA but adding some more new stuff and finally releasing the last new USA stuff in Europe as a single. I could just choose Stridulum II as that features most of her stuff and was actually intended to be an album – according to the press release that landed in my inbox at least, Nika Roza Danilova herself seemed to disagree – but then I’d miss out on ‘Poor Animal’. Moreover, I don’t own that record myself, whilst I do own Stridulum and the Valusia EP (and that last one comes in some beautiful packaging).
But hey, let’s talk about the music. I think these releases are bloody brilliant. The songs on Stridulum sound more like her earlier work, but cleaned up, the layers of noise have lifted a bit. ‘Night’ and ‘Manifest Destiny’ are filled with despair, but at the same time there is that glimmer of hope which sounds so amazing when the opera-trained Nika sings it. The tracks on the Valusia EP are more poppy, as if she discovered catchy melodies and figured she could get away with that as well, and oh my God, she can. One of my favourite tracks is ‘Sea Talk’, which also featured in a now almost indistinguishable version on her Tsar Bomba EP. It’s been brushed up from the – sorry for the cliché, but it just really fits here – rough diamond it was to a real gem.
I didn’t really know which release to choose as Zola Jesus has released rather a lot this year. She’s made it even more difficult by releasing her stuff first in the USA, then adding some songs before she released the same stuff in Europe, then figuring that she should also release the new European stuff in the USA but adding some more new stuff and finally releasing the last new USA stuff in Europe as a single. I could just choose Stridulum II as that features most of her stuff and was actually intended to be an album – according to the press release that landed in my inbox at least, Nika Roza Danilova herself seemed to disagree – but then I’d miss out on ‘Poor Animal’. Moreover, I don’t own that record myself, whilst I do own Stridulum and the Valusia EP (and that last one comes in some beautiful packaging).
But hey, let’s talk about the music. I think these releases are bloody brilliant. The songs on Stridulum sound more like her earlier work, but cleaned up, the layers of noise have lifted a bit. ‘Night’ and ‘Manifest Destiny’ are filled with despair, but at the same time there is that glimmer of hope which sounds so amazing when the opera-trained Nika sings it. The tracks on the Valusia EP are more poppy, as if she discovered catchy melodies and figured she could get away with that as well, and oh my God, she can. One of my favourite tracks is ‘Sea Talk’, which also featured in a now almost indistinguishable version on her Tsar Bomba EP. It’s been brushed up from the – sorry for the cliché, but it just really fits here – rough diamond it was to a real gem.
Live she possibly even more impressive. I’ve seen her with a full band crammed on a small stage in New York and on alone on a vast stage in London with nothing more than a laptop. She has enough attitude to make both work, even though she’s obviously absolutely uncomfortable with a whole crowd of people staring at her. With the progress she has made in this year alone I absolutely can’t wait for her new album next year.
Random Track: ‘Manifest Destiny’
Nr. 3 – Ilse
Album: Learning
Artist: Perfume Genius
Despite not having listened to Perfume Genius much in the last month or two, overall he really is one of the most intriguing artists I discovered this year. This is mainly because every time I listened to his debut album ‘Learning’, it managed to instantly make me feel so utterly sad, in the lump-in-your-throat kind of way. Every now and then it even left me with actual tears rolling down my face. But hey, when an album starts off with ‘No one will answer your prayers / until you take of that dress…’ it is obvious you’re not in for some happy birthday songs. Especially ‘Lookout, Lookout’ (‘He will not be missed / He didn’t have a family to begin with’) and ‘Mr. Peterson’ (‘He made me a tape of Joy Division / He told me there was part of him missing / When I was sixteen / He jumped off a building…’) are incredibly gripping and Mike Hadreas’ vulnerable, fragile, soul-piercing voice, in combination with tender piano melodies make it sound all the more heartbreaking.
Another thing that makes his music all the more riveting, is that in his lyrics he deals with unpleasant topics: suicide, abuse, relationship with an authority figure, self-destruction/addiction, but through his music and voice he somehow seems to offer his tormentor(s) forgiveness (‘I know you were ready to go / I hope there’s room for you / up up up above, or down below’). Seeing Perfume Genius live only adds to the whole fragility experience: he looks like a bashful young deer behind a piano/organ, coming across a bit bewildered, almost as if he were autistic. Perhaps you’re not sensitive to the emotional strings Perfume Genius pulls for some people, he certainly is the living proof that the most delicate of beauty has to come from the darkest and most troubled of souls.
Random Track: ‘Gay Angels’
Nr.3 – Stef
Album: This is Happening
Artist: LCD Soundsystem
Yeah honey, it is, it is happening. I love the DFA label because everything really seems to tie into the same kind of themes and feels. On one hand you have the more disco feel that basically begs for being able to feel true emotions again like love and hope and beauty. On the other hand you’ve got a more sci-fi and a more modernistic approach. The sci-fi is more of a questioning where those true emotions at this moment are. Android versus human. Very much the theme on the Juan MacLean album last year (well, in their whole oeuvre, really). You also have the post-modern approach. “Love and rock are pick-up things”, James Murphy sings. Those base emotions that disco thrives on, what do they mean? If they mean anything anymore. If you can enter a television program to vie for a guy and you’re in love. If you can put on a guitar, grow your hair, and you are rock. If you can have rock if you just download it with one click of a button instead of being in that small, local venue.
But hey, perhaps this is happening. Perhaps “people who need people” are indeed being thrown in the back of the bus. And if so, what do we do now? Can we go back, do we have to make do? Should we grow detached, or should we crave and yearn for those what one can term feelings of old. Should we escape in drunkenness, as seems to be the case on ‘Drunk Girls’ and ‘Somebody’s Calling Me’ to remove ourselves entirely from it all? This album meanders from a craving for emotion and a human touch to detachment to escapism. That’s what I completely love about this album, as for me it signifies the current crossroads of metropolitan life. Not only that, it is also packaged in fabulous songs you can dance to. Or intricately crafted songs in which both the music and Murphy’s voice work together to evoke a certain atmosphere. I really like how they work together on for example ‘Somebody’s Calling Me’, which for me really gives that drowsy feel of having had a late night drink. True, I could’ve done without the first two songs (though a lot of people will argue the first song is the best on the album, but oh well), but I’m not throwing Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? out of the window either because I wouldn’t mind to skip the first twenty or so pages. I think the album is just too great thematically and does so good a job of addressing the state of modern urban life that I just love it. That the music is ace and dance-y and goes over well life also has something to do with it of course.
Random Track: ‘All I Want’
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