Albums of 2021

[Ms Harmless]

this song is everything, so beautiful

[Ello Sailor]

^ Molko still dropping earworm instrumentals. I've cooled on his vocals bit, but they're not bad by any means.

[Rangi Guy]

Hadn't listened to any Placebo in some time, but I really dug that

[Higgs]

Yep, that was great.

[Ello Sailor]

No album yet, but the new Mastodon tune is pretty neat.

[Brett]

2021 Mini-reviews, Part 2

Anarchist Mountains Trio - La terre et la force
I sometimes wish that I could go back to the time in my life that ambient and drone music really affected me. Occasionally something will come along that will almost get me to that point, and this is one such album. Gorgeous pieces that are multifaceted in texture and a real joy to just bliss out to. I hope this collaboration stays together for a while to put out some more music in the future.

Animal Collective - Crestone
Over the last four years or so, Animal Collective have slowed down a bit and have been returning to exploring some of their quieter and more abstract sonic tendencies. This soundtrack featuring only two of the four members (neither of whom typically sing) is a further extension of that trend. It's an atmospheric and impressionistic collection that features just enough of Animal Collective's penchant for unusual textures to mark their identity without being an overwhelming listen.

Black Midi - Cavalcade
These kids are going places, I think. Expanding from their noise rock/post-punk roots to reach into shades of jazzy prog and bossa nova, these songs are dynamic and dramatic, loaded with interesting sounds and stellar musicianship. It's uncomfortable at first, but gets under your skin.

Charles Spearin - My City of Starlings
These mostly instrumental songs find joyous irreverence in both mundane circumstance and quirky details. As a member of Do Make Say Think and Broken Social Scene, it's easy to draw comparisons to those bands with this music which is generally more laidback in tone and more particular in timbral choices. It's not something that's aiming for anything big or important, but it's a nice little album for this year.

Colleen - The Tunnel and the Clearing
For the last decade, Colleen (neé Cécile Schott) has been reshaping her musical identity from her earlier forays in a hybrid electro-neo-classical style to a more refined ambient pop that draws heavily from Caribbean and African rhythmic influences. This album continues that trajectory, dipping now into space age pop territory as well. It's a charming song cycle that flits between vocal and instrumental tunes, but it's once again not as strong as her breakthrough Captain of None album.

Crumb - Ice Melt
Crumb specialize in a strain of jazzy, dark psychedelic pop, and that's all over this, their second full-length record. It's simultaneously extremely chilled out and incredibly uneasy, a juxtaposition that makes them all the more intriguing. Many of these songs end up in unexpected places, and more than a few I think could spend more time exploring the little detours they do take, but on the whole this is a fascinating listen even if it's too brief.

Eldritch Priest - Many Traceries
It's no surprise that a man named Eldritch Priest makes some pretty weird music, and it's further no surprise that being from Toronto, he fits right in with the resurrected Rat-Drifting label. Priest's compositions for small ensembles slide and bend in many delightful ways, with obscure melodies that slowly unfurl across unexpected timbres. Though I do think this would have felt a bit more at home if released during the label's initial run, as it skews rather closely in sound to releases by Marmots and The Allison Cameron Band, I am nevertheless quite pleased to have this album exist and the label to be active once again.

Fly Pan Am - Frontera
It's rather impressive that a cycle of music originally composed for a dance performance can be so engaging divorced from that context. Fly Pan Am trim back some of the dense textural interplay of their previous album to create this more skeletal, rhythmically focused material, aligning it a little more closely to their first two records in sound. Physically intense and mentally stimulating, it's a definite highlight of this year.

Golden Melody Awards - Golden Melody Awards
It's still very weird to think of this album as a 2021 release because I've been listening to most of the songs for the last seven years and they date back to twenty years ago. Ryan Driver and Kurt Newman concoct a sound world where various forms of mid-20th century pop shied away from vocals or anything too overtly flashy, but still clung to beautiful, affecting melodies and sweetly psychedelic expressiveness. Some of these songs I'm happy to call favorites, and I hope there's others out there enjoying this stuff.

K.D.A.P. - Influences
Reading the initial press for this album, I had a different kind of music in mind, one that hearkened back to the sounds of the first Broken Social Scene record. Instead, this owes a far heavier debt to the electronic influences that Kevin Drew was absorbing in that time period, eschewing much of the more rock-oriented sound. Nevertheless, Drew managed to make something profoundly affecting with little more than a music-making app and an abundance of emotions to outlet.

Kiefer - Between Days
I really like where Kiefer was going with his two EPs from 2019, adding tasteful synth touches to his usual melange of jazzy piano-led instrumental hip-hop. This one scales back the synth for a heavier jazz sound that is still largely enjoyable, but a trifle disappointing to hear that he sidestepped where he seemed to be evolving towards. There's a full-length that will be addressed in my next set of reviews that will showcase a rather different approach to a similar sound.

Sarah Neufeld - Detritus
On her third solo release, Sarah Neufeld ends up with a sound that sits somewhere between her minimalist debut and the dance-influenced follow-up. It's a very pretty sound with classical violin leading washes of synth and vocals and the occasional rhythmic underpinning. Sadly, like her two albums before this, I have a hard time finding any real depth behind the lovely facade and I think that she's done her best work in the realm in a collaborative fashion (the album she did with Colin Stetson in 2015).

T. Griffin - The Proposal
I was really hyped up for this by the companion piece "The Smell of Wet Clay," but it turned out to not impress me as much as I would have liked. There's some really wonderful stuff here in places with great instrumental interplay (unsurprising given the stellar lineup), but a lot of the middle stretch feels like underdeveloped vignettes, and it's probably because the pieces weren't structured much beyond their original film cues. I think Griffin and this band could do some really amazing stuff if they chose to shape their material for dedicated listening rather than a soundtrack like this.

The Draperies - La Historia del Sombrero
The third of three new releases by the resurrected Rat-Drifting, this is the only one I had actually been expecting to happen eventually, though I never expected the label to come back to do so. A collection of eight pieces from the improvising trio recorded over a pair of performances on a summer night in 2016, it's quite possibly the strongest and most diverse set of music they've put out (though there's only three albums out there). Textural and melodic exploration from three seasoned improvisors that often collude to make beautiful noise, but rarely in a fashion that could mistaken for a song.

[tragabigzanda]

Thanks Brett, I’ll check a couple of these out for sure

[epilogue]

Brett

I need to check out something new soon. I think I'll pick the one from your list and sounds most interesting.

[Brett]

Here's the first set of reviews I did several months back in case something there might catch either of your fancies more: viewtopic.php?p=1685745#p1685745

[psychobain]

[Ello Sailor]

Strong single, that.

Be sure to let us know how the full album sounds, 'bain.

[liebzz]

Having just seen the live show last week at Sea.Hear.Now, I am very excited for the new Strand of Oaks tomorrow.

Edit: first listen this morning was a good one. Into Galacticana, Hurry, Somewhere in Chicago, Jimi & Stan, Sunbathers, Carbon, and Sister Saturn so far. Slipstream is pretty great too.

[Brett]

Another Constellation release announced, this time with a short turnaround before release. Sequence Two is the second album from Light Conductor, the psychedelic ambient duo of Jace Lasek and Stephen Ramsay, releasing October 29. I was pretty underwhelmed by Sequence One in 2019, so I'm cautiously hoping this second record is closer to my speed. Bandcamp link below with lead track "Splitting Light" streaming both in full-length and a five-minute radio edit:

[Brett]

Sarah Terral is the alter-ego of French musician Clément Verceletto, one third of Orgue Agnès and one half of Kaumwald. Le Ménisque Original is the debut recording of this alter-ego, recently released by the excellent Swiss label three:four records. Modular synth explorations that may leave the listener a bit disoriented but satisfied.
Bandcamp:

[Birds in Hell]

Sorry if it's been mentioned before but the new FACS is outstanding, one of those bands that get better with every record.

A little late to the party here but I’m enjoying this a lot.

[Ello Sailor]

I really need to check out more albums from this year, but Turnstile's GLOW ON is nipping at the heels of Mogwai's ...Love Continues for my top spot.

[dad]

I really need to check out more albums from this year, but Turnstile's GLOW ON is nipping at the heels of Mogwai's ...Love Continues for my top spot.

i love that there are other RMers into Turnstile.

i should check out Mogwai's new one as well.

[Ello Sailor]

Well it's just the two of us thus far.

Which is exactly how I like it.

[dad]

you suave mfer, you...

i think trag likes Turnstile too, so maybe a threesome?

[Rangi Guy]

I don't know much of their stuff, but what I've heard is alright