Tag Archives: Aaron’s top albums

by | January 1, 2021 · 1:36 pm

Protomartyr’s ‘Ultimate Success Today’ Is Aaron’s Top Album Of 2020

Protomartyr’s Ultimate Success Today

March 7, 2020 was the last time I saw live music. I finally got to see Chalk Circle, a beloved band from my youth, as part of a benefit show at Toronto’s Lee’s Palace. Five days later the entire music industry in Canada — and largely around the world — shut down and everything changed as we entered The Pandemic Times.

Listening to music in total isolation is strange. Sure, if you’ve got any lonerism in you it’s not that strange. After all, dancing alone to records in your bedroom isn’t entirely daunting if that was half your life in high school. What was missing in 2020, though, was the feedback. Not the actual buzzing noise of feedback, but that static in the air that comes with a shared joke about a song you’d listen to repeatedly on a road trip with friends, or the universal hatred that comes from every mall clothing store playing that same song of the summer constantly. This was the year of no road trips and no shared listens. And none of that feedback that elevates a song to becoming something more, something communal.

That said, with no concerts, no recreation, no visits and virtually no hobbies, this year ended up being a very all-consuming music listening one for me. I listened to more new music this year than any time in recent memory. Which is saying a lot considering that for more than 20 years my professional duties have generally meant listening to new albums all day, constantly, day-in, day-out.

While that need to chase the new sound, to discover anything that could make me feel was incredibly strong, it was the familiar that gave me the most relief. Albums from the likes of Public Enemy, Thurston Moore, Rufus Wainwright, Run The Jewels, The Avalanches and Flaming Lips certainly don’t represent brave new waves at this point, but they provided comforting blankets of sound, even if the actual sounds some of them make are far from comforting.

Language barrier be damned, the experimental cumbia the Meridian Brothers throw down was a party, and the fascinating sci-fi of the Futuro Conjunto project suggests there’s an incredibly exciting alt wave of Latin music to be explored. Elsewhere, Cheekface’s Emphatically No. may turn out to be an unexpected late-stage win for the legacy of Cake, and Daniel Romano’s outlandish series of quality releases (10 or so records, depending on how you count) would only be more impressive if it didn’t make the rest of us feel so bad about our comparatively failed productivity during the pandemic.

But enough wistful pondering, here’s my top 10 albums list for 2020:

10) Kaytranada — BUBBA

I like Kaytranada’s sound and vibe, but BUBBA‘s greatest asset may be its ability to just stick and remain effortlessly cool and enjoyable after repeat listens. It’s a testament to Kaytranada’s skill as a creator. Highlights include “Go DJ,” “10%” and “Vex Oh.”

Kaytranada’s “10% ft. Kali Uchis”

9) The Chats — Dine N Dash

I halfway thought I had grown out of silly pop-punk songs about catching venereal diseases, eating pub food and drinking too much. I was wrong. These Australian garbage pail kids are way more compelling than they should be.

The Chats’ “The Clap”

8) The Dears — Lovers Rock

The Dears might be my favourite band. There’s no band on Earth I’ve seen more than them and at this point I’m not sure I have the ability to accurately assess them as a professional music critic. And so here they are, plunked into a relatively politically neutral spot on my annual list.

The Dears’ “Instant Nightmare”

7) The Budos Band — Long In The Tooth

We have a saying in the Risky Fuel household called “you find your people.” Normally applied to straight up weird bands, movies, art, parties or whatever, it’s the principle that if you’re into some bizarro wackadoodle shit and you find similar people into similar bizarro wackadoodle shit, sometimes something bizarro wackadoodle amazing emerges. A bunch of band dorks trying alchemically fuse Black Sabbath and Fela Kuti qualifies.

The Budos Band’s “Long In The Tooth”

6) Gorillaz — Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez

If you told me in 2000 that Damon Albarn would have a band made up entirely of cartoon characters, that they’d be a worldwide phenomenon, and that “the kids” wouldn’t even know who or what a “Blur” was I would straight up fight you. And yet here we are, and on close inspection the globetrotting sound thievery that is Gorillaz is probably the superior Albarn work.

Gorillaz’s “Severed Head ft. Goldlink & Unknown Mortal Orchestra”

5) Sarah Harmer — Are You Gone

There are like three songs on this album — “St. Peter’s Bay,” the ice skating one, “What I Was To You,” the Gord Downie one, and “Shoemaker,” the one about her grandfather — that run the risk of making me cry if I make the mistake of listening to them too closely.

Sarah Harmer’s “St. Peter’s Bay”

4) Witch Prophet — DNA Activation

DNA Activation feels more timeless than of a time, a trip-hop/jazz/soul exploration of family that doesn’t quite sound like anything else that came out this year. Highlights include “Makda” and “Musa.”

Witch Prophet’s “Tesfay”

3) IDLES — Ultra Mono

The thing that shocked me most about IDLES’ new album Ultra Mono was the backlash. To be clear, it’s not surprising that they’d have their enemies. After all, they’re an unapologetic “leftie” and “soft” activist hard rock band. There are people for whom such a thing even existing at all is offensive. Backlash from those sorts wasn’t surprising. What was surprising, though, was the pushback against them from progressive types. Their feminism isn’t right, they’re faux working class, their politics are too simple… They’re all arguments that might be correct, but they’re also all arguments that are very progressives-are-eating-their-own-again. Regardless of whether or not they perfectly meet the ever-changing standards for whatever gatekeepers want and expect them to be, there are at least five bangers on Ultra Mono that are worth soundtracking the war, and those can’t be taken away.

IDLES’ “Mr. Motivator”

2) Jessie Ware — What’s Your Pleasure?

If someone releases a perfect disco album in the middle of a global pandemic and nobody can gather on a dancefloor to hear it, does it even exist? In this case, the answer is a lonely, twirling-around-by-yourself yes. Ware’s shift from sad R&B balladeer into full-on dance diva was one of this year’s unexpected turns, but it was an entirely welcome one. What’s Your Pleasure? is a vessel for escape, something which was incredibly necessary.

Jessie Ware’s “What’s Your Pleasure?”

1) Protomartyr —Ultimate Success Today

I listened to an advance copy Ultimate Success Today for the first time on March 17 when we were just days into the uncertainty and anxiety of lockdown #1. With only the barest hints of colour amidst smears of grey, a bristling post-punk record that confronts one’s mortality and systems of oppression like this really shouldn’t have helped, given the circumstances. But it did. And continued to do so throughout the year. This was my soundtrack to fear and unease, an aural manifestation of the bleak, precarious nature of every single day in 2020. I’m not quite done with this album yet, but truly hope for a time to come in the not-so-distance future where I’ll never want or need to listen to this record ever again.

Protomartyr’s “Processed By The Boys”

Other album lists…

2019 Top Ten — Julia Jacklin’s Crushing is #1
2018 Top Ten — Idles’ Joy As An Act Of Resistance. is #1
2017 Top Ten — Land Of Talk’s Life After Youth is #1
2016 Top Ten — Daniel Romano‘s Mosey is #1
2015 Top Ten — SUUNS + Jerusalem In My Heart’s SUUNS + Jerusalem In My Heart is #1
2014 Top Ten — Sharon Van Etten’s Are We There is #1
2013 Top Ten — M.I.A.’s Matangi is #1
2012 Top Ten — Dirty Ghosts’ Metal Moon is #1
2011 Top Ten — Timber Timbre’s Creep On Creepin’ On is #1
2010 Top Ten — The Black Angels’ Phosphene Dream is #1
2009 Top Ten — Gallows’ Grey Britain is #1
2008 Top Ten — Portishead’s Third is #1
2007 Top Ten — Joel Plaskett Emergency’s Ashtray Rock is #1
2006 Top Ten — My Brightest Diamond’s Bring Me The Workhorse is #1
2005 Top Ten — Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Howl is #1
2004 Top Ten — Morrissey’s You Are The Quarry is #1
2003 Top Ten — The Dears’ No Cities Left is #1
2002 Top Ten — Archive’s You All Look The Same To Me is #1
2001 Top Ten — Gord Downie’s Coke Machine Glow is #1
2000 Top Ten — Songs: Ohia’s The Lioness is #1
1999 Top Ten — The Boo Radleys’ Kingsize is #1
1998 Top Ten — Baxter’s Baxter is #1
1996 Top Ten — Tricky’s Maxinquaye is #1

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by | January 1, 2020 · 1:28 pm

Julia Jacklin’s ‘Crushing’ Is Aaron’s Top Album Of 2019

Julia Jacklin Crushing

Julia Jacklin Crushing

Doing an annual top albums list for as long as I have one starts to see the true value in the exercise. It’s not the ranking, codifying or picking the “best” things so much as it’s about stitching together a tapestry of one’s year and seeing the patterns that emerged.

Much like in 2018, a lot of my personal music listening energy was devoted to my Before They Die list — a meticulously curated list of musical acts I need to see before, well, y’know — and I ended up catching 12 on-the-list and 17 list-adjacent acts on top of whatever other concert-going I did.

That meant a little less energy spent on discovery. It also meant if one pattern emerged it was that there was lots of leaning on the past. I don’t mean that in the Rolling Stone Magazine-will-always-give-Dylan/Springsteen/Stones-perfect-reviews leaning on the past kinda way. What it did mean, though, was there were a lot of albums that could be argued represent new forms of things I’ve enjoyed in the past.

Read below to see the patterns that emerged.

Bubbling under for 2019: Abjects, Geoff Berner, Sondra Sun-Odeon, Mimico, Jacques Greene, King Gizzard, De la Noche, PUP, Wargirl. (Also, Thus Owls’ The Mountain That We Live Upon probably would have been my #3 but it came out in Sept. 2018 and that was just too 2018.)

10) Mercury Rev — Bobbie Gentry’s The Delta Sweete Revisited

The best part of an album isn’t always the album itself, so much as the sense of discovery around the album. Mercury Rev redoing Bobbie Gentry’s The Delta Sweete with a cast of guest vocalists not only serves as a wonderful intro to Gentry, but also makes a wonderful entry point for contributors like Margo Price, Carice van Houten (Melisandre from Game of Thrones can sing?) and Phoebe Bridgers.

Hear “Sermon” ft Margo Price

9) Angel Olsen — All Mirrors

Sometimes when I play Fantasy A&R Man the best idea I can come up with is “a new Connie Francis… but goth.” There are points on Angel Olsen’s All Mirrors where she comes this close.

Watch “All Mirrors”

8) Murray Lightburn — Hear Me Out

I’m a firm Dears loyalist and might consider them my favourite Canadian band. However, my acceptance of their transition from an early days chaotic bombast machine to something with more dignity and refinement has been hard won. So it was a touch surprising that Lightburn lead singer Murray Lightburn’s bombast-free second solo album would strike so deep. What Lightburn gives us — “I Give Up” is a soul ballad from another time, “I’m Not Broken” has knowing gospel touches — paints with just enough different colours to enthrall.

Watch “Changed My Ways”

7) Rustin Man — Drift Code

This record is quite literally the output of a wobbly old weirdo who spent two decades building a science project in his back shed. Read my full review here.

Watch “Judgement Train”

6) Tallies — Tallies

It’s been a slow and not absolute process, but I’m on my way to divesting from Morrissey because of his terrible politics and worldview and middling late-period music. Having an act like Tallies and songs like the jangle gem “Midnight” help soften this transition.

Watch “Midnight”

5) Deadbeat Beat — How Far

If you like Sloan’s Jay songs you’ll love Deadbeat Beat’s How Far. I’m particularly partial to “Dim Bulbs.”

Watch “You Lift Me Up”

4) Michael Kiwanuka — Kiwanuka

This new Kiwanuka album is exquisite — a majestic, soaring, hands-held-high sermon from Mt. Soul. The brilliance of the individual bits of this record are only half the story, though. The other half comes from basking in the glow of the brilliant craftsmanship. Kiwanuka is a master of his domain and to be able to witness such excellence is its own type of reward.

Watch “You Ain’t The Problem”

3) Moonface — This One’s for the Dancer & This One’s for the Dancer’s Bouquet

Technically, this was a late 2018 release, but I didn’t really tweak to it until well into 2019. And yes, I realize that it’s near hypocritical to endorse Moonface while disqualifying Thus Owls, but it’s my list and my rules, so suck it.

This One’s for the Dancer & This One’s for the Dancer’s Bouquet is a fascinator. It’s two separate projects — half a delayed keyboard treatment audio experiment, and half songs sung from the perspective of the Minotaur of Greek mythology — woven together to create something otherworldly and unique. The Minotaur songs strike particularly deeply. For a giant, blood-thirsty, bull-headed beast, the Minotaur’s journey forgiving all those who’ve hurt it is one of the most genuine, better and human set of stories I’ve heard put to song.

Watch “Minotaur Forgiving Knossos”

2) Hawksley Workman — Median Age Wasteland

In the year 2019 I was not expecting to a) rate a Hawksley Workman album so highly, and b) to feel it so deeply. And yet here we are.

To be fair, I’ve always been casually fond of Workman’s dandy woodsman idiosyncrasy, but with Median Age Wasteland he seems optimized. Having the above-mentioned Murray Lightburn on production probably helped. Certainly Workman’s vocals are both torqued up and focused in ways they may not have been in the past. Where Median Age Wasteland truly stands out, though, is in the storytelling. Whether it’s the mythologizing of a snowmobile (“Snowmobile”), the joyful BMX bike gang journeying (“Battlefords”), the tributes to forgotten figure skaters (“Oksana”) or even the outwardly ludicrous (“Stoners Never Dream”), Workman takes us to fantastical places with each and every song.

Watch “Italy”

1) Julia Jacklin — Crushing

At the 4:27 mark of Jacklin’s “Don’t Know How To Keep Loving You” she delivers a series of repeated “don’t. know. how. to. keep. loving. you” lines so charged, so gut-wrenching you can’t help but worry if Jacklin will ever find her way. The entire Crushing album is filled with these emotion-charged bombs as Jacklin explores unraveling relationships, personal agency, hurt and self-healing in an unflinchingly beautiful way.

Watch “Don’t Know How To Keep Loving You”

Other album lists…

2018 Top Ten — Idles’ Joy As An Act Of Resistance. is #1
2017 Top Ten — Land Of Talk’s Life After Youth is #1
2016 Top Ten — Daniel Romano‘s Mosey is #1
2015 Top Ten — SUUNS + Jerusalem In My Heart’s SUUNS + Jerusalem In My Heart is #1
2014 Top Ten — Sharon Van Etten’s Are We There is #1
2013 Top Ten — M.I.A.’s Matangi is #1
2012 Top Ten — Dirty Ghosts’ Metal Moon is #1
2011 Top Ten — Timber Timbre’s Creep On Creepin’ On is #1
2010 Top Ten — The Black Angels’ Phosphene Dream is #1
2009 Top Ten — Gallows’ Grey Britain is #1
2008 Top Ten — Portishead’s Third is #1
2007 Top Ten — Joel Plaskett Emergency’s Ashtray Rock is #1
2006 Top Ten — My Brightest Diamond’s Bring Me The Workhorse is #1
2005 Top Ten — Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Howl is #1
2004 Top Ten — Morrissey’s You Are The Quarry is #1
2003 Top Ten — The Dears’ No Cities Left is #1
2002 Top Ten — Archive’s You All Look The Same To Me is #1
2001 Top Ten — Gord Downie’s Coke Machine Glow is #1
2000 Top Ten — Songs: Ohia’s The Lioness is #1
1999 Top Ten — The Boo Radleys’ Kingsize is #1
1998 Top Ten — Baxter’s Baxter is #1
1996 Top Ten — Tricky’s Maxinquaye is #1

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by | January 1, 2019 · 8:45 pm

Idles’ ‘Joy As An Act Of Resistance.’ Is Aaron’s Top Album Of 2018

Idles' 'Joy As An Act Of Resistance.'

Idles’ ‘Joy As An Act Of Resistance.’

This was the year that I came to the realization that I’m so far removed from whatever the culture-music zeitgeist is that I’m not even bothered about it.

I dove deep into numerous Best Of 2018 lists (Pitchfork, Guardian, NPR, Metacritic, etc) and what I found there left me mostly unmoved. A certain amount of this was from a weary I’ve-heard-this-all-before cynicism. It’s a music writer position I try to fight against constantly, but I’ve been around long enough, seen enough trends and have a deep enough collection and knowledge base that the ol’ “I liked this band better back when they were called [insert era appropriate punchline]” isn’t just a lazy criticism, it’s often also a real truth.

I won’t admit to being jaded just yet. After all, if your rap record sounds like something from 1998 and it reminds me of the best of 1998, I’m still here for it. It’s the lesser versions of a thing I can’t abide by. And it felt like I heard a lot of those this year.

Maybe it’s because I’ve spent so much of my music listening capital trying to witness the greats perform live in recent years, but my interest in anything less than the masters of their craft in any given genre/scene/trend is rapidly disappearing.

At this point I’m mostly chasing the unique, the unusual and the just-that-much-different than what’s normal. The good news is there’s still lots of that to go around and I still found tons of great new music to listen to this year.

Here’s my official Top 10 album list for 2018:

10) Sol Invictus — Necropolis

I had a lot difficulties with this album and none of them were because of the music itself. Necropolis is a fascinating album, a collection of spoken word prog-folk story-songs exploring the dark, murderous corners of London and the Thames River. It’s a penny dreadful in musical form and a fascinating concept and listen. No, the problem is with band leader/sole official Sol Invictus member Tony Wakeford. Having known little about the band before this album, some cursory reading reveals that Wakeford has had past flirtations with the far-right fascists of the National Front in addition to some flirtations with far-left ideologies as well. I can’t tell if he’s a radical, a searcher, a confused hippie, or something in-between (officially he says he’s “unequivocally opposed to fascism, racism, anti-semitism and homophobia”), but that uncertainty about Wakeford himself casts an uncertain shadow on what is otherwise a genuinely intriguing album.

Watch “Old Father Thames”

9) Spain — Mandala Brush

The standard by which I judge all freak-folk-jazz is Tim Buckley’s Starsailor album. It’s insane and perfect because it’s insane. Spain’s Mandala Brush is kinda like what would happen if someone smuggled a copy of Starsailor into a Christian summer camp and all the kids listened to bootleg tape copies at night after their lessons on how dinosaurs are only 5,000 years old.

Watch “Maya In The Summer”

8) Phantastic Ferniture — Phantastic Ferniture

It doesn’t feel like a coincidence that Australian three-piece Phantastic Ferniture are on the same label as Alvvays (Polyvinyl). But where Alvvays are for bedroom headphoned introverts, Phantastic Ferniture rep an extroverted flipside. The band’s self-titled record is a bit of a grower but “Fuckin ‘n’ Rollin” is a straight anthem and “Uncomfortable Teenager” and “Dark Corner Dance Floor” tap into some pretty universal feelings.

Watch “Fuckin ‘n’ Rollin”

7) Vince Staples — FM!

Vince Staples is my favourite rapper under the age of 40. That might be a backhanded compliment, or a self-own maybe, but it’s not meant to be. He’s consistently intriguing, he’s always going for it production-wise and most of all he seems to be actually trying to “art.” Yes, the idea of an album as a faux radio station is a little bit corny, but there’s a lot to like here, including “FUN!,” “Feels Like Summer” and “Don’t Get Chipped.”

Watch “FUN!”

6) The Myrrors — Borderlands

So, this year I found out this thing I’ve been listening to for years, nay, decades, actually has its own genre — “psych drone.” Arizona’s The Myrrors would qualify as charter members in this genus. Propelled by heat shimmers, Borderlands pokes at the imagination and takes you to places more conventional desert rockers aren’t brave enough to go.

Watch “The Blood That Runs the Border”

5) Marie Davidson — Working Class Woman

Remember how I was saying that if you’re gonna sound like the past you better be amazing at it? Well, Marie Davidson is that. Her acid house/techno/electro/whateverthekidshaverebrandeditthesedays takes me back to having to call hotlines on flyers on Saturday nights so I could figure out where the shuttle bus was going to pick us up and take us to some dank rave in some dank warehouse/studio space. Now that I think about it, that was a pretty sketchy time.

Watch “Work It”

4) Young Galaxy — Down Time

If Young Galaxy have indeed packed it in for the foreseeable future, they’ve gone out on their shield. Down Time is a defiant, beautiful electronic record that takes the band to places one could have never predicted during their early-2000s Montreal indie scene rise. There’s a not-particularly-subtle undercurrent of fuck you to Down Time, complete with allusions to the sinister machinations of the music industry and the band’s new status as a fully independent recording act. Yet Down Time never gets bogged down in boring biz-related bitterness, instead offering up a shimmering we’re-above-it-all best heard on the entrancing “River” and flag-planting “Frontier.”

Watch “Frontier”

3) Avulsions — Expanding Program

If you had told me at the start of the year that some Cure tribute band from Saskatoon was turning Blade Runner fan fiction into songs — and that they would be ice cold amazing — I would have eaten a bullet from Deckard’s blaster. And yet here we are.

Watch “The End”

2) Woolworm — Deserve To Die

There’s only a very narrow sliver of ’90s-style “alternative” rock that I truly care about. If I were to fence it in it’d include the shoegaze of Catherine Wheel, Sonic Youth’s mid-period “sellout” DGC albums, PJ Harvey catsuit rock and all the Jesus & Mary Chain records they made once everyone stopped caring. I have no idea if members of Vancouver’s Woolworm give a shit about any of these acts, but listening to Deserve To Die fits in a very complimentary way next to them. There are strong doses of self-loathing and an eerie preoccupation with death and loneliness about Deserve To Die that feels particularly on the nose if we’re playing the time travel game. I listened to this record more than any other this year. Which may say a bit too much, but its noise and grind felt cathartic.

Watch “Deserve To Die”

1) Idles — Joy As An Act Of Resistance.

It’s been a long time since I felt a new band as deeply as I have since discovering Idles. Joy As An Act Of Resistance. is like a blinding, violent beam of angry light setting the darkness aflame with its personal politics. This Bristol band’s post-punk/rock/hardcore/whatever is like a musical shield for anyone who feels “other” in any way. Their ultimate act of resistance has been to make fight songs for the misfits of the world to scream along to.

Watch “Colossus”

Other album lists…

2017 Top Ten — Land Of Talk’s Life After Youth is #1
2016 Top Ten — Daniel Romano‘s Mosey is #1
2015 Top Ten — SUUNS + Jerusalem In My Heart’s SUUNS + Jerusalem In My Heart is #1
2014 Top Ten — Sharon Van Etten’s Are We There is #1
2013 Top Ten — M.I.A.’s Matangi is #1
2012 Top Ten — Dirty Ghosts’ Metal Moon is #1
2011 Top Ten — Timber Timbre’s Creep On Creepin’ On is #1
2010 Top Ten — The Black Angels’ Phosphene Dream is #1
2009 Top Ten — Gallows’ Grey Britain is #1
2008 Top Ten — Portishead’s Third is #1
2007 Top Ten — Joel Plaskett Emergency’s Ashtray Rock is #1
2006 Top Ten — My Brightest Diamond’s Bring Me The Workhorse is #1
2005 Top Ten — Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Howl is #1
2004 Top Ten — Morrissey’s You Are The Quarry is #1
2003 Top Ten — The Dears’ No Cities Left is #1
2002 Top Ten — Archive’s You All Look The Same To Me is #1
2001 Top Ten — Gord Downie’s Coke Machine Glow is #1
2000 Top Ten — Songs: Ohia’s The Lioness is #1
1999 Top Ten — The Boo Radleys’ Kingsize is #1
1998 Top Ten — Baxter’s Baxter is #1
1996 Top Ten — Tricky’s Maxinquaye is #1

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by | January 1, 2016 · 12:29 pm

SUUNS + Jerusalem In My Heart Is Aaron’s Top Album For 2015

SUUNS + Jerusalem In My Heart

SUUNS + Jerusalem In My Heart

While last year a lot of my bubbling under listens were from the hardcore, thrash and heavy metal world, most of my not-quite-core records this year were, for jurisdictional reason, ineligible for Top 10 album consideration.

My local record store and a place I’ve patronized for years, Vortex Records, closed shop forever yesterday and in the last few months leading up to this dark day I’ve been stocking up on discounted classic rock CDs. We’re talking old AC/DC, Boston, Guns n’ Roses, Ozzy Osbourne and the like. These were all records I owned on cassette back when I was a teenager but never chose to replace in the compact disc era when I had moved on to that “alternative” music. Revisiting these old records has been a blast — it’s easy to forget how rock ‘n’ roll early AC/DC were until you actually go back and listen to Powerage. Unfortunately, with Vortex gone it may be a while before I buy another record in a real store.

As for my Top 10 list, it was surprisingly, overwhelmingly Canadian this year. Well, I guess that’s not that surprising, though a number of international acts like JD McPherson, ASAP Rocky, My Morning Jacket, The Arcs and Vince Staples all made records I considered long and hard before deciding they didn’t quite make the cut.

Here’s my official Top 10 album list for 2015:

10) Jazz Cartier Marauding In Paradise

Yes, 2015 was the year of Drake, but I’ll never really be moved by his upward grasping/world building. For me Marauding In Paradise was a far more intriguing “Toronto” statement. Jazz Cartier’s Toronto is just a little darker, a little heavier and a little deeper than Drake’s and it’s one that feels far more familiar to me.

Watch “Wake Me Up When It’s Over”

9) Peaches Rub

I used to get teased mercilessly in the Chart office for liking Peaches. The Ladies Of Chart™ would be all, like, “You only like her because she talks about tits and has photos of her crotch on her website…” And sure, I did like those things, but what I liked more was the actual music. It was bold, unique and completely without compromise. There are at least two songs on Rub — “Dick In The Air” and “Rub” — that are on the ultimate wild party playlist that’s rolling around in my head.

Watch “Dick In The Air”

8) Pusha T King Push – Darkest Before Dawn: The Prelude

To me the best rap acts of the last few years have been Pusha T, Run The Jewels and Ghostface Killah, all men of “a certain age.” It’s something I’ve thought about quite a bit. Do I like them because I’m old and they’re old, and therefore I intuitively understand them? Is this where rap starts to enter its Carlsberg years? Does liking them mean I’m out of touch? I’ll ask these questions but when I put on Darkest Before Dawn: The Prelude the answers come pretty quick. I like these acts because they still rap, they still rhyme and they still sound righteous. There’s narrative, there’s purpose and there’s brilliant execution.

Watch “Crutches, Crosses, Caskets”

7) Yacht I Thought The Future Would Be Cooler

Maybe it’s a barely sublimated longing for the return of LCD Soundsystem, or a secret yearning to commune with people who text message exclusively in emojis, but this Yacht record really hits some of my dance pop pleasure points.

Watch “I Thought The Future Would Be Cooler”

6) The Dears Times Infinity Volume One

I’m proper friends with approximately three bands. Everyone else either hates me, or I hate them. It’s one of the side effects of steadfastly refusing to be a musical jock sniffer despite its (obvious) career advantages. The Dears are one of the bands I would consider friends. This, of course, adds a layer of complexity to scrutinizing whatever new music they put out. Especially when the turbulent, emotional records they made 15 years ago mirror the turbulent, emotional rollercoaster I experienced in my own life 15 years ago and any music The Dears put out now has to compete against that slurry of sentiment. It’s good then, that there are songs like “Hell Hath Frozen In Your Eyes” to lead the way. That song is a long was from the screaming, tortured, bombastic Dears of yore, but it’s a Dears I can appreciate just as much.

Watch “Here’s To The Death Of All The Romance”

5) Michelle McAdorey Into Her Future

Crash Vegas’ 1990 album Red Earth was and is perfect. I consider it a foundational album, as important to Canadian music as, say, Joni Mitchell’s Blue. It’s also set a bar that Crash Vegas and its lead singer Michelle McAdorey never quite matched with various spotty recordings in the 25 years since then. Into Her Future goes a long way to fixing that. Filled with gossamer, introspective country-psych, Into Her Future returns McAdorey to her rightful place among this country’s most beguiling voices.

Watch “Into Her Future”

4) The Souljazz Orchestra Resistance

Whether it’s The Clash, Public Enemy or Bob Dylan, I’ve always been partial to rebel music. These acts, noble and amazing all, are decidedly “western” sounding, though. It’s music from the cities and streets that I know and understand intimately. It’s only been in the last few years that I’ve started to see and understand that the same rebel spirit can be found in lots of other musics from around the world. Souljazz Orchestra may be nominally a Montreal band, but their dizzying amalgam of soul, jazz, funk, afrobeat and Latin is exactly the sort of world-spanning music that exemplifies this. That they’re fighting all the same fights I want to fight has opened up a thrilling new world.

Watch “Shock And Awe”

3) DRALMS Shook

Sad bedroom poets aren’t necessarily my jam, but Christopher Smith’s rebirth as the turbulent electro act DRALMS had a magnetic hold on me this year. In particular the song “Gang Of Pricks” has left me mesmerized. What it’s about, I have no idea. It could be diary notes about particularly violent video game, it could be sketches for a dystopian young adult novel, or it could be an extended metaphor for life that I haven’t pieced together yet. Whatever it it, I’m going to keep listening until I figure it out.

Watch “Pillars & Pyre”

2) Etiquette Reminisce

Part of what appealed to me about Reminisce, the dream electro project from Julie Fader and Holy Fuck’s Graham Walsh, was the nostalgia. There’s a stolen New Order bass sound on “Brown & Blue,” a thumpy Death In Vegas thing to “Twinkling Stars,” and a dramatic Everything But The Girl vibe to “Promises.” It all feels like a captured moment in time from the mid-90s: The scene’s some nameless waterfront warehouse space. The headliner’s long done spinning, the chill out room has been shut down, and all there is left is that exhausted-but-a-little-bit-euphoric walk back to the car and the drive home with the sun coming up.

Watch “Attention Seeker”

1) SUUNS + Jerusalem In My Heart SUUNS + Jerusalem In My Heart

To call Montreal rockers SUUNS collab with Radwan Ghazi Moumneh (stage name Jerusalem In My Heart) my “top” album or my “#1” is a bit of a misnomer. Sure, technically it fills the first spot on my year-end listicle, but its place in my universe is far more… metaphysical. Sonically, the album’s combination of propulsive psych rock, traditional Arabic rhythms, fractured electronics and ghostly vocals courtesy of Moumneh sounds like virtually nothing I’ve ever heard before. That “filling a spot,” the uniqueness, has a certain undeniable value to a music fan like myself. But I encounter unique sounds every day so that’s not enough to propel a record to the top for me. What does, though, is the particular imagination-flaring effect listening to SUUNS + Jerusalem In My Heart has. Songs like “2amoutu I7tirakan” and “Seif” send my mind on wild journeys. In some spots I’m dizzily twirling around the same coliseum Pink Floyd used to film Live At Pompeii, in others I’m hurdling through the time warping “star gate” from 2001: A Space Odyssey. That’s when I’m not tripping balls on an Arrakis sand dune having just taken the water of life. These are sensations that only one album was able to give me this year.

Watch “Gazelles In Flight”

Other album lists…

2015 Top Ten — SUUNS + Jerusalem In My Heart SUUNS + Jerusalem In My Heart is #1
2014 Top Ten — Sharon Van Etten’s Are We There is #1
2013 Top Ten — M.I.A.’s Matangi is #1
2012 Top Ten — Dirty Ghosts’ Metal Moon is #1
2011 Top Ten — Timber Timbre’s Creep On Creepin’ On is #1
2010 Top Ten — The Black Angels’ Phosphene Dream is #1
2009 Top Ten — Gallows’ Grey Britain is #1
2008 Top Ten — Portishead’s Third is #1
2007 Top Ten — Joel Plaskett Emergency’s Ashtray Rock is #1
2006 Top Ten — My Brightest Diamond’s Bring Me The Workhorse is #1
2005 Top Ten — Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Howl is #1
2004 Top Ten — Morrissey’s You Are The Quarry is #1
2003 Top Ten — The Dears’ No Cities Left is #1
2002 Top Ten — Archive’s You All Look The Same To Me is #1
2001 Top Ten — Gord Downie’s Coke Machine Glow is #1
2000 Top Ten — Songs: Ohia’s The Lioness is #1
1999 Top Ten — The Boo Radleys’ Kingsize is #1
1998 Top Ten — Baxter’s Baxter is #1
1996 Top Ten — Tricky’s Maxinquaye is #1

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by | December 29, 2014 · 9:01 pm

Sharon Van Etten’s ‘Are We There’ Is Aaron’s Top Album For 2014

Sharon Van Etten's Are We There

Sharon Van Etten’s Are We There

Looking at my Top 10 for the year is revealing both for what’s on it and what isn’t. This year there were easily 20-30 “really good” records which bubbled under my eventual picks, including offerings from The Hidden Cameras, My Brightest Diamond, Ariel Pink, Prince Rupert’s Drops, Thus Owls, Budos Band and, rather shockingly, Robert Plant. This was also the year where I rediscovered my heavy music roots and spent a substantial amount of time with bangers from Lost Society, Judas Priest, Comet Control, Orchid, The Prophecy 23, Exodus, Accept, The Skull, Incite, and the improbable rap-metal of Rise Of The Northstar. That said, when it came down to it I didn’t feel that deeper connection with any of these albums.

In the realm of reissues and the like, I’ve developed a deeper appreciation for The Velvet Underground thanks to those ultra-thorough deluxe reissues and took quite a trip by going through the complete Bob Dylan discography. Better, though, was my time with the 27-disc Fela Kuti complete works box set. That quite literally consumed about two month of my music-listening time.

Here is my official Top 10 album list for 2014:

10) Common Nobody’s Smiling

Not sure why it was that after 20 years and 10 albums this particular Common record stuck with me. Certainly Nobody’s Smiling‘s reflective, unflinchingly honest look-back quality had something to it. It also helped that “Out On Bond” and “Hustle Harder” are full of tough truth.

9) The Horrors Luminous

I frequently purge ‘n’ rebuild my iPhone’s music library throughout the year, often using it as a tool to listen to new records while I’m commuting. With that in mind, it wasn’t until I realized Luminous had survived numerous digital cullings that I became fully aware of how much I dug this collection of lysergic, broody synth rock.

8) Lykke Li I Never Learn

There’s a scene in an early Mad Men episode where Arthur Case says to January Jones’ Betty Draper character, “You’re profoundly sad.” She then responds, “No. My people are just Nordic.” I’m still trying to figure out whether Lykke Li is profoundly sad or just Nordic.

7) Run The Jewels Run The Jewels 2

There’ve been at least a half-dozen instances where I second-guessed putting this album on the list as an inverse don’t-believe-the-hype reaction to all the praise it’s getting. Then I listen to it again and it’s BAM… like that song… BAM… dig that one, too… BAM… shit, that’s the best thing Zack De La Rocha’s ever done… and then I remember, “Yeah, this is pretty amazing.” Best of all, there’s actual rapping. Using words. And rhymes. And if we don’t support craftsmanship like this the world is just going to serve us up more Tyler, The Creator.

6) Lana Del Rey Ultraviolence

Ultraviolence may be prepackaged hipster lounge from a soulless coke zombie, but it’s also pretty much the platonic ideal of what prepackaged hipster lounge from a soulless coke zombie would sound like. When I listen to Ultraviolence I’m not sure if I should be sad for Lana Del Rey, if I should hate her, or if I’m supposed to be jealous of her. In fact, about the only thing I feel confident about when I listen to this album is the belief it’s secretly a concept album tribute to the movie version of Less Than Zero.

5) Paolo Nutini Caustic Love

Blue-eyed soul’s been taking a beating recently what with its Robin Thickes and Maroon 5s and the people who love them (and the need for them all to be set on fire). Thank Gaye, then, for Paolo Nutini’s Caustic Love. Things aren’t great when Nutini tries to funk below the belt (see “Numpty,” “Scream (Funk My Life Up)”), but the more earnest moments (“One Day,” “Better Man,” “Iron Sky,” “Let Me Down Easy”) are heart-sickeningly gorgeous.

4) Alvvays Alvvays

If you’re a human person and you don’t like at least three songs from this album there’s something wrong with you.

3) Guy Blakeslee Ophelia Slowly

Who knew that there were still musicians making records about heroin in 2014? But Guy Blakeslee, frontman for The Entrance Band, did just that with his Ophelia Slowly solo album. There’s less psychedelic sonic adventuring here than with Entrance and a greater focus on “songs,” the result of which is an incisive, uncomfortably bleak journey.

2) Lisa Leblanc Highways, Heartaches and Time Well Wasted

Full of compulsively listenable stories from the struggle, I seriously contemplated making Highways, Heartaches and Time Well Wasted the #1. Ultimately, what stopped me were the facts that it was an EP and I needed more, and the suspicion the instrumental title track exists mostly as padding.

1) Sharon Van Etten Are We There

I’m still not 100 per cent on this as my #1 pick and have no idea how I’ll feel about it in a few years. That said, the song “Your Love Is Killing Me” is perfect. As obvious as it sounds to most ears, the song’s a mystery to me, an inscrutable diary entry filled with an intense, poisoned passion my always-measured self can only ever look at through the lens of a curious outsider. Add songs like “I Love You But I’m Lost” and “Every Time The Sun Comes Up” and it’s clear Are We There ably speaks to the darkest parts of the soul.

Other album lists…

2015 Top Ten — SUUNS + Jerusalem In My Heart SUUNS + Jerusalem In My Heart is #1
2014 Top Ten — Sharon Van Etten’s Are We There is #1
2013 Top Ten — M.I.A.’s Matangi is #1
2012 Top Ten — Dirty Ghosts’ Metal Moon is #1
2011 Top Ten — Timber Timbre’s Creep On Creepin’ On is #1
2010 Top Ten — The Black Angels’ Phosphene Dream is #1
2009 Top Ten — Gallows’ Grey Britain is #1
2008 Top Ten — Portishead’s Third is #1
2007 Top Ten — Joel Plaskett Emergency’s Ashtray Rock is #1
2006 Top Ten — My Brightest Diamond’s Bring Me The Workhorse is #1
2005 Top Ten — Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Howl is #1
2004 Top Ten — Morrissey’s You Are The Quarry is #1
2003 Top Ten — The Dears’ No Cities Left is #1
2002 Top Ten — Archive’s You All Look The Same To Me is #1
2001 Top Ten — Gord Downie’s Coke Machine Glow is #1
2000 Top Ten — Songs: Ohia’s The Lioness is #1
1999 Top Ten — The Boo Radleys’ Kingsize is #1
1998 Top Ten — Baxter’s Baxter is #1
1996 Top Ten — Tricky’s Maxinquaye is #1

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