Top Five Buys 2013
I don’t really buy music. I know. I’m sorry. I pay for Spotify – that’s probably worse isn’t it? I just don’t have a need to ‘own’ music, I’m quite happy to pay my fee to Spotify and borrow it. I will, and do, pay actual money to go to gigs and that’s how I support the artists I like. It is rare that I feel compelled to possess and album, but it happens and as is the fashion, here is a list of those I’ve bought and loved in 2013:
- Queens & Kings by Fanfare Ciocarlia (2007)
I’ve long since been a lover of Romany, from the more traditional Klezmer through to the modern interpretations from the likes of Balkan Beat Box or The Lemon Bucket Orchestra through to the Western adaptations a la Beirut.
This album came out waaaaay back in 2007 but completely passed me by (I can only assume I was in the midst of my ‘boys in skinny jeans’ phase and did not have a window for brass in amongst the aural-neon that was Myths of the Near Future), but I heard Cerys Matthews on Radio 4 talking about her musical influences, citing Queens & Kings as a “must-listen” and so I did and then bought this album. It’s been one of my favourite things to listen to in 2013.
- Acousmatic Sorcery by Willis Earl Beal (2012)
This album is magical.
I first heard ‘Evening’s Kiss’ in around March time (though the album was released in 2012) and adored it. The rest of the album is equally as loveable; a lo-fi bluesey, folksy, surreal and enchanting melting pot of ideas and influences. It feels almost unfinished and as though you were never meant to hear it, like you’ve stumbled across his secret.
When I was a kid, my parents had a book of the supernatural and the paranormal. It was squirreled away, high up on the bookshelf, away from curious eyes, but whenever I could sneak a glance, I’d immediately turn to chapter showing grainy, black and white pictures of imps, fairies and elves… this album, to me, is that chapter.
- Arc by Everything Everything (2013)
I did not get Man Alive, Everything Everything’s first offering album-wise. I spent four weeks traveling across America that year and I can honestly say, hand on heart, I gave it a bloody good going over, but the whole thing just jarred. I wonder, if perhaps their song-titling may have put them on the back-foot with me; as a staunch objector to abbreviations ‘MY KZ, UR BF’ (WTF?) for example, well, it was never going to impress.
Needless to say then, I wasn’t expecting much from Arc. Well, I was wrong…to quote a great man “when I’m wrong, I say I’m wrong.” It is a triumph. It is eminently listenable, incredibly tight and focussed – there is nothing there (instrument, vocals, composition) that doesn’t need to be there - in stark contrast to the first album when EVERYTHING was everywhere.
It’s been my anthemic soundtrack of the year and can say, with some authority, that on a three hour and forty five minute train journey from Birmingham to Newcastle, you can listen to Arc 4.7 times and not get bored.
- Immunity by Jon Hopkins (2013)
To my shame, I didn’t truly appreciate Jon Hopkins until I saw him live at The xx Day & Night gig/field-day/festival ‘thing’ in June 2013.
I once knew a charming man, who would extoll the virtues of Hopkins and his wondrously skilful commandment of the electronica genre on an almost daily basis. And it made little to no impression on me, until I saw ‘Open Eye Signal’ live and it blew me away. He was by far and away the best performer I saw that day, in a line-up that included The xx, Solange, Polica (who were an incredible disappointment, by the way) Mount Kimbie, Sampha and London Grammar.
Immunity is bolder than the ambient Hopkins I remember the Charming Man introducing me to, and I like that. It makes an impression and reverberates right through you, even the mellower tracks (‘Abandon Window’, for example) demand your attention and thought.
- Comedown Machine by The Strokes (2013)
I couldn’t not buy this album, of course. The Strokes are my coming of age band. If Nat Faxon and Jim Rash were to write a film of my awkward teenage years, there’s no doubt The Strokes would soundtrack it. ‘Someday’ for the heady summer romances, ‘Ask Me Anything’ for my petulant teenage apathy, ‘Last Nite’ because I’m gloriously drunk at a house party. I’ve basically just written it myself.
So, to Comedown Machine, the fifth and frankly terrifying release from Casablancas and the boys. Terrifying, why? Because, album one was a (perhaps unmatchable) game-changing triumph, album two continued in the same vein and in it we revelled, oh how we revelled. Album three, *sucks air through teeth* we were divided, but persevered because loyalty dictates as much. Album four, we were sad, there had been solo projects, it wasn’t the same, it didn’t sound the same and it didn’t feel the same. Had we changed? Had they? Were we too old now? Had the time passed? Were they going to become the Paul McCartney of their era?
It could be said that fans of The Strokes are to music what England fans are to football. Maybe this year’ll be The Year, maybe this tournament, maybe this album, maybe this match, maybe this song. Do we hope for something that is perpetually out of reach?
Comedown Machine is not ‘our year’, there’s no revolution here, certainly not comparable to the monumental releases of Is This It? (2001) and Room on Fire (2003). But neither is it a disappointment. It’s The Strokes, it is more “The Strokes” than Angles (2011) was and if you listen to ‘50/50’ with your eyes-closed, you could almost be back in 2002.
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