Bonafide Magazine @ MSN: Bonafide writers top 10 records of 2013 |  |
|
Posted: 29 Dec 2013 04:35 PM PST
Whereas most publications choose to issue a unanimous 'best of' list, collating numerous writers' selections into one broad statement, we at Bonafide have decided to bend the tradition slightly and instead give a platform for some of our writers to broadcast their opinions on the year's best records in their own right.
At any rate, as you can see from the albums (EPs and mixtapes, we should add) that made the final cut, the results are so varied and far-reaching, that the task of assembling everyone's picks into one big list would be night-on impossible, and wouldn't do justice to the great range of tastes that we so cherish amongst our writers. So without further ado, here are Bonafide contributors’ top 10 albums of the year.  Adrian Choa 1. The Underachievers – Indigoism This is an album which snuck up on me; a valued Beast Coast member lost in the shadows beneath the hysterical limelight of A$AP Mob and Pro Era. They have fought through, releasing an intelligent, tight and adequately rowdy debut mixtape. . 2. Drake – Nothing Was the Same It was clear to me from the opening seconds of Tuscan Leather that Nothing Was The Same was not going to be a disappointment. The Drakean honesty and emotion remains in full force whilst his characteristic latent aggression viciously swats away his dedicated haters. 3. Dillon Cooper – Cozmik Between bouncing 808s and throwback Premo-esque production, Dillon Cooper has kept it current whilst writing a love letter to the nineties. Don't be fooled by his height, this guy has enough talent in him to rise far above his competitors next year. 4. Flatbush Zombies – Better Off Dead Bringing the macabre bite-your-fucking-face-off vibe to hip-hop this year, Flatbush Zombies have spawned a surprisingly heartfelt and simultaneously raw mixtape. Like World War Z through the lens of an acid trip. 5. Mac Miller – Watching Movies With The Sound On Everyone wanted this to be shit, or had decided that it was before listening. This is somewhat fair enough considering Mac's dramatic downfall from the dizzying, addictive heights of K.I.D.S to the oppressive lows of the hugely forgetful Blue Slide Park. With 2013's Watching Movies With The Sound On, it looks like his graph of success is beginning to resemble a roller-coaster, as we are flung back into the air with this solid record. 6. Joey Bada$$ – Summer Knights Although certainly less perfect than 1999, Summer Knights shows Joey's darker, misanthropic side. This 18 year old expertly raps over beats that could have been produced when he was in diapers, yet still owns them. 7. OthaSoul – Real Talks This young duo from Kentish Town have released Real Talks, an expertly produced banger of a mixtape, within only a few months of forming. Together, they bring back a slice of the old school seasoned with contemporary and pertinent lyrics. 8. Hawk House – A Little More Elbow Room British hip-hop's main representatives in recent years have been Tinie Tempah and Dizzee Rascal rapping over tacky Euro dance tracks. Hawk House are an enormously welcome breath of fresh air to the scene; with possibly the most chilled demeanour on road, they produce sophisticated, throwback hip-hop with vocals which are not a far cry from spoken-word poetry. 9. Flofilz – Daiquri This German producer elegantly fuses 90s hip hop vocals with a diverse array of jazz samples ranging from inter-war to contemporary. This results in a perfect fusion, casting old sounds in a new light. The closest he has come to releasing an LP so far is his sugary Daiquri mix; the perfect accompaniment to any lazy Sunday afternoon or raging party. 10. Yung Lean – Unknown Death 2002 With Unknown Death 2002, this 16 year old Swedish genius has unleashed an effective and hilarious satire of Southern hip-hop over such slick, hooky production that it's not funny anymore. It's serious, deeply serious. Sad Boys 2003.  Andrew Spragg 1. Kanye West – Yeezus It's difficult to know where to begin. So much has been written about Yeezus, and so much more is likely to be written in the next few years. West has created an album so audacious in scope and delivery that it felt like a genuine event. From the abrasive, hyper-minimalist beats to the super-maximalist, but equally-abrasive, lyrical content, every aspect of Yeezus feels like a challenge to everyone else. It may be pop music, but the industrial and caustic textures of the album convey a modernist leap forward for what might qualify as such in the 21st century. 2. Tim Hecker – Virgins Virgins comes with all the weight of an ocean-liner bearing down on the listener. Tim Hecker has blended electronics with live instrumentation to deliver an album that articulates a perpetual collapse of melody into ambient noise and discord. There are few better summations of what it feels like to be living in these times than mid-album reprieve Black Refraction. 3. Zomby – With Love Zomby may purposefully not have the visibility of Kanye West, but he certainly has the ability to communicate an almost unassailable confidence and ability with his music. With Love is a double album of songs that operate as miniature evocations of mood, seemingly hasty assemblages that actually hide a sculptural intricacy that surpasses the majority of Zomby's contemporaries. 4. DJ Rashad – Double Cup Footwork has felt like it was bubbling under the radar in recent years, acquiring a certain kudos from those with an ear for the thrillingly weird and new. DJ Rashad's first album with Hyperdub acts as a great introduction for those not au-fait with the genre, whilst also demonstrating the scope and ability of the producer. Double Cup stands as one of the seminal examples of why footworks has become such a progressive leap forward for dance music. 5. Earl Sweatshirt – Doris You have to admire Earl Sweatshirt. Few other rappers would have survived the torrent of hipster acclaim, including a misplaced public campaign to bust him out of reform school, intact. The fact Earl has managed it, delivered a startling debut and remained so un-phased by any of it is perhaps even more astounding. Earl's voice is one of the most distinctive in current hip-hop, and on Doris it set against a rich array of high-quality productions. It is a rumbling and verbose debut, not brash but studied and confident. 6. The Underachievers – Indigoism At times they are high-concept conscientious – al la daisy-age De La Soul – while other times they exude the snot-nose aggro of Odd Future. By skewing this with a preoccupation with Egyptology and a touch of afro-futurism, the Underachievers have created something both appealing and gloriously eccentric. 7. Thundercat – Apocalypse I remembered not being overwhelmed by the new Thundercat record, even at the point of reviewing it. Months down the line the album still crops up on my playlist, bringing with it a slow gratification at learning to love an album. Apocalypse is a combination of space-jazz and space-funk influences, guided by the steady hands and laser eyes of Thundercat and Flying Lotus. 8. Oneohtrix Point Never – R Plus Seven If Tim Hecker presented a frightening sign-of-the-times type record with Virgins, then R Plus Seven provided counterpoint in the nostalgia for a future that failed to manifest. Jarringly familiar in some senses, the album is one for walking around abandoned civil architecture, fuzzy-headed from over-the-counter sedatives. 9. Captain Murphy – Duality Strictly speaking, Duality was an album of 2012, but its late-November release meant it was overlooked by most end-of-year lists. Flying Lotus' rap persona may borrow a lot in tone from Tyler, the Creator and contemporaries, but it still bears the quality assurance hallmarks of his other work. An excellent choice of production and the engaging mix of humour and menace make Duality a worthy side-swipe from one of electronic music's most interesting talents. 10. Heliocentrics – 13 Degrees of Reality The whole album is rich with influences, but they are skewed by a very contemporary aesthetic. Perhaps intent is best signposted by its title, a project in alternative histories by a band of confident and accomplished talents. It feels like a peculiar evolutionary hybrid, one that crosses temporal boundaries in order to present something thrillingly of the now, but also of the then. David Kane 1. Kanye West – Yeezus I don't think 2013 has been a vintage year for music. There have been plenty of interesting albums, but there hasn't been the depth of quality experienced in 2012. Looking back at the Best 50 Records of 2012 feature we ran in print at the start of the year there were excellent albums by Actress (RIP), Bobby Womack (The Bravest Man In The Universe) and Death Grips (The Money Store) that barely scraped the top 20, not to mention ubiquitous chart toppers like Channel Orange and Good kid… But this year there was Yeezus. An album so sonically grandiose and bombastic in its artistic ambition – Yeezus is a fantastically experimental record given West's moment at the pinnacle of pop culture – coupled with the engrossing hubris and complexity of Kanye, leaves little doubt that people will be talking about Yeezus for a long time to come. 2. Darkstar – News From Nowhere News From Nowhere is an odd, intrinsically British album from electronic trio Darkstar. It is an album that is probably far too self deprecating to make most end of year lists – but when it possess tracks like the poignant A Day's Pay For A Day's Work, taken from the soundtrack to a Mike Leigh film that hasn't been made and Hold Me Down, a sublimely ethereal moment of musicality, nestled amongst various other gems – it sits comfortably near the top of mine. 3. Anika – Anika EP Portishead's Geoff Barrow doesn't produce music for many people, but all it took was a chance meeting with a political journalist, Anika, and barely two weeks of recording to produce her debut album in 2010. Anika EP, a follow up of sorts, pursues a similarly stripped back aesthetic. I Go To Sleep is a haunting cover of the The Kinks’ He Hit Me, with a masochistic tone it is as unsettling as it is compelling, much like the entire EP. 4. Earl Sweatshirt – Doris The biggest compliment I can pay Earl Sweatshirt is that he wears his influence, MF Doom and The Marshal Mathers LP -era Eminem,in Doris on his red box sleeves. But he does them justice, and at 19 years old he is only just getting started. Chum is an obvious standout, over a haunting piano loop a candid Earl addressees his estranged father and notions of mixed race-ness. 5. James Blake – Overgrown Overgrown is James Blake's butterfly moment – a chrysalis from the dubstep leanings of his inconsistent earlier releases, there are still traces of dancefloor influences but they are superseded by soul and even hip-hop – the mark of an artist comfortable in his sound. Although aurally rich, Overgrown is thematically a collection of ballads, and you can't escape the aching cosmic loneliness of many of Blake's words on Overgrown but there's usually the hope of (re-)union lying somewhere behind them. 6. V/A – Theo Parrish's Black Jazz Signature Japan based Snow Dog Records continues to explore the Black Jazz label archive (active 1971 – 1976) with this impressive compilation series of afro-centric jazz. Theo Parrish curates and soulfully sequences an impeccable selection of singles from Doug Carn, The Awakening, Calvin Keys, Rudolph Jonson, among others. 7. Machinedrum – Vapor City Machinedrum, aka Travis Stewart, has numerous aliases (Syndrone and Tstewart) and, perhaps more emphatically, collaborative projects as one of half of Sepalcure, JETS and Dream Continuum alongside Om Unit. But Vapor City must be his most accomplished work yet. A concept record centred round the mythical Vapor City it is an intoxicating mix of duke, jungle and, in the case of U Still Lie, Cocteau Twins-esc indie rock. 8. Run The Jewels – Run The Jewels On the face of it EL-P, a New York figurehead for alternative hip-hop for the best part of two decades, and Killer Mike, the Southern rapper who counts T.I. and Outkast among frequent collaborators, don't make for obvious bedfellows. But as promised on last years R.A.P. Music, Killer Mike's entirely EL-P produced album, it's a formula that works devastatingly well. Run The Jewels EL-P even has an extended spell behind the mic. 36" Chain, DDFH and Job Well Done all bang. 9. Thundercat – Apocalypse Thundercat's sophomore release, Apocalypse, is the classic example of a record that grows with every listen, as Andrew Spragg notes, it 'is an album that yields its value in increments. The hooks and melodies are all memorable, but do not reach for immediate gratification.' Read an interview with Thundercat here. 10. Chance The Rapper – Acid Rap Acid Rap, the second mixtape by Chicagoan Chance The Rapper, references Native Tongues and late-90s Dilla productions, without sounding derivative of them. Lyrically Chance is melancholic, but in a way that probably has much to do with a growing nostalgia for the 90s among his peers. His cadence is endearingly loose, high pitched and jazzy, acting as a sound in it's own right. Even in a fertile period for MCs his voice remains quite distinct, this coupled with a good ear for a sample and interesting lyrical content marks Chance The Rapper as an exciting new voice for hip-hop.  Kidkanevil 1. Madegg – Kiko We did a Kidsuke show with Madegg in Kyoto and I was super impressed. The album is really beautiful, unique and full of interesting ideas. 2. Cuushe – Butterfly Case I’m such a Cuushe geek, crazy amazing daydream songs. 3. Bibio – Silver Wilkinson Super honest and beautiful album. 4. Youtaro Nusro & Mujo – Hypnotized Loopz Pure head nod vibes, super nice. Plus Mujo wins snare of the year for Lady Blue. 5. i-fls – Diary of Spectre All made on GarageBand apparently. Amazing beautiful lo-fi vibes. 6. Yuta INOUE – 巨大空中遊泳都市クリスタルヘヴン Just stumbled across this one randomly, totally dope crazy beats. Nice artwork too. 7. Friendzone – DX Sounds like playing sonic bonus stage on 3D Imax. 8. Earl Sweatshirt – Doris There’s been a lot of nice rap tracks, mixtapes and verses this year, but not so many actual albums for me. This would be the exception, super dope. 9. ESTA. – FREE.LOVE Super soulful screw face beats. 10. My Fantasies – 12 Songs I spent quite a lot of time in Japan this year working on music, during one session i got given this CD. I don’t know much more about it to be honest, other than it contains astonishingly beautiful music and has super nice homemade artwork. Kinda sounds like a Cho Kawaii version of the Bibio album. Listen to Kidkanevil x Bonafide Beats #25.  Lev Harris 1. Chance the Rapper – Acid Rap What makes Chancelor Bennett so unique? His hometown of Chicago is synonymous with the mutually aggressive genres of drill (Lil Durk, Chief Keef) and footwork (DJ Spinn and DJ Rashad), but Chance's kaleidoscopic Acid Rap is a break from both. Coloured with subject matter ranging from hashtags and drinking Henny to Chicago's crippling murder rate, the tape bursts with a fearless eccentricity and bittersweet vocal delivery that has since become his trademark. A future classic. 2. Kelela – Cut 4 Me British stable Night Slugs have been bossing the UK bass scene for a while now, but this year was the turn of their American sister label Fade To Mind to take centre stage. In particular, one Kelela Mizanekristos whose free mixtape Cut 4 Me sent ripples around the blogs in October. Under the tutelage of FTM head honcho Kingdom, Kelela's impassioned voice breathed new life into the sparse productions offered up by the Night Slugs clan. 3. Vic Mensa – INNANETAPE Since gaining notoriety thanks to a spellbinding cameo on Chance the Rapper's Acid Rap, Vic Mensa has gone from strength to strength. His first tape, INNANETAPE, includes guest appearances from Thundercat, Ab-Soul and Chance himself, with a gleeful Vic taking centre stage. Complemented by rhymes both dense and playful, the tape is imbued with a distinctly summer charm (Orange Soda, Lovely Day). Could we be witnessing the frontrunner to usurp Chance's crown in 2014? 4. Earl Sweatshirt – Doris Arguably the jewel in the Odd Future crown, Earl Sweatshirt triumphantly returned this year with his major label debut Doris. A starkly personal record that trades in issues such as the vulnerability of fame at a young age as well as his troubled youth, Doris was Earl's calling card which universally affirmed the hype over the precociously talented teen rapper. 5. Jon Hopkins – Immunity A man who initially earned his keep as a backing band member to Imogen Heap and producer for Coldplay, Jon Hopkins stepped forward this year with Immunity, the most ambitious electronic record of the year. Clocking in at exactly one hour, the Mercury nominated album was a muscly yet restrained mission statement from Hopkins, whose live show has since taken the hypnotic grooves found on Immunity onto another plane entirely. 6. Kevin Gates – The Luca Brasi Story At 22 tracks, Kevin Gates' The Lucas Brasi Story may appear to be an imposing proposition, but it zips along at a surprisingly brisk pace thanks to big, booming production that marries well with Gates' flow that is bellicose whilst being underpinned with sensitive emotion. It's that simple, but there's nonetheless something admirable about Gates' M.O. to simply revel in southern rap's boisterous tendencies. 7. Jessy Lanza – Pull My Hair Back Hailing from Hamilton, Ontario Jessy Lanza is an artist with a difference. A degree in jazz performance at Concordia University served as the backbone to her subsequent exploits into electronic music on Pull My Hair Back, with her passion for r'n'b and pop coming to the fore (Kathy Lee, Keep Moving). Arguably Hyperdub's strongest release of the year, PMHB is a standout in the overstuffed sphere of electronica. 8. Thundercat – Apocalypse Whilst Frank Ocean takes all the plaudits for imbuing r'n'b with a more personal touch, Stephen Bruner's similar work as Thundercat tends to get brushed under the carpet. With his second album for Brainfeeder, Apocalypse continues Bruner’s sprawling exploration into jazz fusion, this time tempered by the death of his colleague Austin Peralta. Despite being both plaintive and fragile in parts, Apocalypse also boasts arguably the feel-good track of the year in Oh Sheit It's X. 9. James Blake – Overgrown Perhaps the main surprise with James Blake taking home this year's Mercury Prize was that it was met with such a surprise. A quiet outsider for the annual music event, his second album Overgrown was a big step forward from his eponymous debut, strengthened with one of the tracks of the year in Retrograde. 10. The Underachievers – Indigoism Much has been made of the New York renaissance over the past couple of years. What with A$AP Mob's ascent into superstardom and ProEra's 90s-pampering aesthetic, The Underachievers have somewhat flown under the radar. This is hardly to their detriment however, with the excellent Indigoism, a mixtape that celebrates both AK and Issa Gold's lyrical dexterity and a strong ear for production. Their debut album awaits.  Nathan Roberts 1. Toro Y Moi – Anything in Return Chazz Bundick was one of the first proponents of the whole chillwave phenomenon that proliferated music blogs circa ’09, but despite his rise within what was once an ubiquitous joke genre, he has consistently produced some of the best electronic music in recent memory. Anything in Return capitalises on that progression, an exemplary piece of work that is still ringing in my ears after its January release. 2. King Krule – 6 Feet Beneath the Moon Archy Marshall is entirely, wholly infuriating. One aspect of that is the talent, knowledge and ambition he displays at his tender age. 6 Feet… came out on his 19th birthday this year, and it’s an incredible documentation of his whole career up unto that point. It’s hard not to reckon that the melancholy in tracks like Neptune Estate and Cementality shouldn’t be pouring forth so readily from a teenager, but for once, a 'wise beyond his years' schtick actually works. 3. Kanye West – Yeezus I feel like even including this album so high warrants some kind of apology; it’s definitely a marmite record, and one that has drawn untold scorn and derision as the media circus makes more and more of the rapper’s personality than ever before. No, he’s definitely not as tortured as he would like everyone to believe, but after extracting the music from such shambles, Yeezus is one of the most direct, angry and compelling records I’ve heard all year. Read Joe Hall’s review of Yeezus here. 4. Action Bronson & Party Supplies – Blue Chips 2 It should come as no surprise that Bam Bam delivers, consistently, across 19 tracks of pure, inspired hilarity on Blue Chips 2, and with beats this good, courtesy of Party Supplies, it was nigh on impossible that Blue Chips 2 would fail to make the cut. Bars about a mythical NBA Championship game-rigging scenario are great too: 'I told the driver, Lennie, swing me by the garden, I gotta talk to Pat, hit 'em with stacks, showed 'em the gat, like, 'You're gonna miss the finger roll right?' 5. Mount Kimbie – Cold Spring Fault Less Youth Mount Kimbie‘s Crooks and Lovers debut was a real highlight of 2010 and as the duo moved up to Warp for this year’s second effort, hopes were undoubtedly raised. With a heightened focus on instrumentation and vocals, something that they always excel at live, Cold Spring Fault Less Youth definitely feels more physical whilst retaining their irreproachably futurist quirk. 7. The Underachievers – Indigoism It was Emily Kai Bock's fantastic "Spit Gold Under An Empire" short film that put me onto these out these cats, but obviously any group that ends up associating with FlyLo is going to be worth the price of admission alone. The Mahdi deserves props alone for repurposing an already iconically sampled Billy Cobham track. 8. Chance the Rapper – Acid Rap Honestly, my interest waned in Chance just a little bit when he started belting out the Coldplay standards, but that can't distract from the break-out nature of his frankly sublime Acid Rap mixtape. Good Ass Intro, the Slum Village/Dilla-appropriating Everybody's Something and Favourite Song figure as definite highlights. 9. Jessy Lanza – Pull My Hair Back I knew nothing of Hyperdub-signed Jessy Lanza before listening to/watching the video for Kathy Lee, the latter of which features an arresting performance from ‘Jed the dancing guy’, but Pull My Hair Back is one of the year’s most assured and refreshingly forward-thinking records. When the tempo picks up with the likes of Fuck Diamond and Keep Moving, it proves to be one that is to hard ignore. 10. Run the Jewels – Run the Jewels El-P and Killer Mike‘s collaborative debut as Run the Jewels is something to behold; with a deafening selection of scathing beats and equally barbed rhymes from these sparring partners. The ballsy bombast of closing track A Christmas Fucking Miracle is also something to cherish, the first time a Christmas song has come close to Scrooge-ing the whole thing up for everyone, in a good way. Watch our interview with Killer Mike here.  |
|
Posted: 29 Dec 2013 03:31 PM PST
Whilst much prized as a session bassist, Stephen Bruner has also been recognised as a powerful collaborative influence by Flying Lotus during the recording of both Cosmogramma and Until the Quiet Comes. It is in this spirit that the two of them approached this, Bruner's second solo album under the Thundercat moniker, creating work from loose jams and exploratory sessions in the studio. In actuality, the finished work sounds more focussed than the first album The Golden Age of Apocalypse.
The song-writing is comparatively taught, with Bruner's bass taking a prominent melodic role without being quite as skittish as past outings. Highlight Lotus and Jondy gives a good idea of the template for the rest of the album, its lyrics sung with naïve sincerity over a reasonably sparse arrangement that formulates primarily around bass and drums. Naïveté is a key part of Thundercat's lyrics on Apocalypse, but this is not intended to be taken in a pejorative sense. Instead they complement the voice, itself well-rounded but relatively un-dynamic. Moments such as A Message for Austin, part of the triptych that closes the album, feel like they are swept away with a rush of feeling that compresses any complexity of thought to the simplest things said in the simplest of ways. Apocalypse is an album that yields its value in increments. The hooks and melodies are all memorable, but do not reach for immediate gratification; rather they seem to resist some of the usual showboating that might tempt someone of Thundercat's talents. The album demands some form of close attention, or patience at least, in getting to know its virtues. There is no doubt that that Apocalypse deserves that kind of listener; let's hope they stick around to hear it. Words: Andrew Spragg  |
No comments:
Post a Comment