Brainfeeder has shared a new mix to start off the new year. The collection was mixed by PBDY and features tracks from artists on the label. The very last song on the mix is a new track from Flying Lotus called “Quarantine.” Listen to the 46-minute collection below. The mix features remixed Thundercat songs as well as music from Iglooghost, Lapalux, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, and more.
Ben Varian seems to have perfected the craft of pop music. with somewhat absurd lyrics and upbeat melodies and instrumentations makes it the ultimate pop album. Bringing the mundane into lyrics and making it actually enjoyable is a very difficult feat but somehow he made it. The name of the album is also aptly titled as it filled the time Ben was not doing something else, like going on tour with Dent May or recording a 24-hour live album.
2. Florist – If Blue Could Be Happiness
Florist is one of those bands that will tug at every one of the heart strings in your body whether you want it or not. The simplicity of this album is what intitally draws the listener in and the fragility in the lyrics keeps them in. In order to make sense with a parent’s death, Emily Sprague finds logic and comfort in everyday affairs while somehow still showing empathy through the lyrics about coping with loss.
One of my favorite projects of the last few years recently put out its final release under the name. Filled with songs digging deep into his childhood and the pain that came with it. “At home there’s blood on my bed/and no running water/there is a room i don’t go in/i see myself through the door/me and my mom used to hide there/crying our prayers through a window.”
1. Window – Coma Cinema
2. Veil – The Washboard Abs
3. Cassette Jam One – Ada Babar
4. Capacity – Big Thief
5. Bread – Ben Varian
6. Time On Her Side – Future Islands
7. Heart Basel – The Drums
8. Glowing Brightly – Florist
9. Losing All Sense – Grizzly Bear
10. Road Head – Japanese Breakfast
11. Never Been Wrong – Waxahatchee
12. Baybee – Jay Som
13. 123 – Girlpool
14. Star Roving – Slowdive
15. Hard to Say Goodbye – Washed Out
16. Appointments – Julien Baker
17. The Embers – Vagabon
18. Apocalypse – Cigarettes After Sex
19. Real Death – Mount Eerie
20. Kept Women – Fleet Foxes
Even though it isn’t technically out until next February, 2018, Ada Babar blessed us with putting it up on their Bandcamp this year. Their music is filled with seemingly inconceivable midi controls and even airhorns (as heard on “fav chair”). Ada put out a rather spontaneous album in a seemingly repetitive genre.
Body Meat & The Washboard Abs – Redux
This split was the second of three releases from Body Meat and one of two from The Washboard Abs. Body Meat’s side of the split are a few of the best songs is filled with experimental songs that feels amorphic and as if everything in pop makes sense all at once. The Washboard Ab’s side features full band songs from previous songs and unreleased songs that seem to make the Washboard Abs as full sounding as they have ever been.
Pleasure Systems – Antumbra Pull
Although I’ve listened to this album for critique several (several) times before the release and know Clarke Sondermann well, hearing the progress and emotions that went into the release in anticipation is why it made this list. Dedicated to their partner and is filled love and thank you notes to him, makes it one of the most sincere albums to be put out this year.
Ben Varian – The L.A. Concession
One of my favorite artists is also seemingly one of the hardest working ones as well. Having put out seven (7) releases (this EP, a live album, a 72-track “food journal” with Jake Tobin, a “Christmas gift” with his partner, a 24-hour recording session, a full-length album, and another album?), as well as go on tour with Dent May over the summer, this EP is both surprisingly nd unsurprisingly one of the best pop releases of the year. Ben never seems to dissappoint with absurd lyrics mixed with almost always upbeat melodies.
Lily and Horn Horse – Next to Me
The third release this year from Lily Konigsberg and second with this project with Matt Norman, it is filled with everything they claim to be inspired by, which is the “Baby One More Time” era of Britney Spears and Bill Callahan at his coziest. This collaborative album feels as though they have been making music together for years even though this is only their second release together.
– Isabella
Francis and the Lights has released a new album called Just For Us. The 10-track LP can be streamed below. Francis Starlite announced the release on hours before it officially arrived.
Solange has cancelled her headlining set at Afropunk Festival Johannesburg on New Year’s Eve because of a recent diagnosis of an autonomic disorder. In a statement on Instagram, she talks about her health issues. “The past five months I have been quietly treating, and working through an Autonomic Disorder,” she writes. “It been a journey that hasn’t been easy on me… Sometimes I feel cool, and other times not so cool at all.” She explains that her Afropunk cancellation is due to doctors’ orders, writing, “Right now, my doctors are not clearing me for such an extended lengthy flight, and doing a rigorous show right after.” View her full note below.
1. Adriana – Montero
2. Lost and Found – The Cry
3. The World Should Be More Wonderful – Shintaro Sakamoto
4. Anyone – Swim Mountain
5. Your Motion Says – Arthur Russell
6. Shinzo No Tobia – Mariah
7. Camino Del Sol – Antena
8. Antabus – Makthaverskan
9. Fire By the River – Harumi
10. Trust, In Love – Anna Domino
11. Khala My Friend – Amanaz
12. Dooyo – Dur-Dur Band
13. Haenim – Kim Jung Mi
14. It’s So Different Here- Rachel Sweet
15. Cacti for Clothes – Pageants
16. Dancing – Fringe
17. California Shake – Margo Guryan
18. I Walk Alone – Marijata
19. I Don’t Like – Lee Jung Hwa
20. How Can You Say It – Gloria Ann Taylor
Sufjan Stevens has released a new video for the Helado Negro-remixed track “Life with Dignity.” Watch it through Apple Music. The video follows three cancer patients, Theresa, Roland, and Justin as they battle the disease. The song is featured on Stevens’ new mixtape The Greatest Gift, and is remixed from his Carrie & Lowell song “Death With Dignity.”
James Blake has shared a studio recording of Don McLean’s “Vincent,” which he occasionally performs at his live sets. Watch the performance video that was shot yesterday at L.A.’s Conway Studios here. McLean’s song was written as a tribute to Van Gogh and appeared originally on his LP American Pie.
