2013 Albums Of The Year: Part Two

Following on from last week's post covering my albums of the year here are my favourite five albums of 2013. Don't forget the Spotify playlist of all of my favourite tracks from the year too.

5. Modern Vampires Of The City - Vampire Weekend

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Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend's third album feels a little older and wiser than the previous efforts, still ramshackle and chaotic as it tumbles out of the speakers on tracks like Diane Young but also a little more worldly-wise and heart-breaking. You can hear a growing maturity on tracks such as Hannah Hunt, a song that sounds like the conclusion to Springsteen's Born To Run (or, more likely, Vampire Weekend's own similarly optimistic Run). There was a gritty Gatsby-esque glamour to Modern Vampires Of The City, and it was hard not to be charmed by it's sparkle.

Purchase on Amazon.co.uk on CD or MP3 [affiliate links]. Listen on Spotify:

4. Random Access Memories - Daft Punk [review]

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Daft Punk

Random Access Memories was album almost too big to view up close, better for having a little distance and hype dulled perhaps, though an element of the thrill has innevitably gone. It is deserving of a place on this list, if not at the top, for sheer ambition. Daft Punk blew away all their imitators by making real music and delivering what feels like the last ever conventional 'event record' - something Beyoncé has just rendered all the more obsolete by creating the first real 'event album' of the future. Her staggering eponymous video release dropped with none of the hype or fanfare Columbia threw at Random Access Memories. Both are a pleasure to behold, true widescreen artist visions.

Purchase on Amazon.co.uk on CD or MP3 [affiliate links]. Listen on Spotify:

3. Field Of Reeds - These New Puritans [review]

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These New Puritans, image copyright: Dean Chalkley

In Field Of Reeds, These New Puritans emerged a considerable musical force, shaking free the shackles of their post-punk revival birth to become one of Britain's most intriguing bands since Radiohead. Field of Reeds sounds like the onset of paranoia or manic depression, and you can forget aggression - as Homeland's Carrie knows, feel psychological anguish doesn't get much scarier than when it is soundtracked by dischordent jazz and classical music.

These New Puritans are at their best when beguiling with approachable yet malicious moments - the delirious cover of Herb Alpert's This Guy's In Love With You, or the ghoulish screaches set against Organ Eternal's spiralling melodies.

Purchase on Amazon.co.uk on CD or MP3 [affiliate links]. Listen on Spotify:

2. Immunity - Jon Hopkins [review]

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Jon Hopkins

Whether it is whilst it is in the midst of kicking your ass on its more electronic and intense first-half or stoking your heart on the slower, more contemplative latter Jon Hopkins' Immunity was 2013's dance album non-dance fans could dig.

Those stark melodic moments certainly helped - Abandon Window is cinematic and heart-breaking and the closing title track feels like a healing experience. But the album achieves much through structure and pacing, building in intensity from the taught opener We Disappear to the strung out and reeling Collider. In his work with Brian Eno, Hopkins has learnt from the best, and here he shows what you can do when 'the best' makes up your foundations.

Purchase on Amazon.co.uk on CD or MP3 [affiliate links]. Listen on Spotify:

1. Cupid Deluxe - Blood Orange [review]

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Dev Hynes

No other album released this years captured the imagination in the way Dev Hynes' second album as Blood Orange did. From the opening sultry come hither eyes of Caroline Polachek's turn on Chamakay (keep watching for her forthcoming rise to R&B mega-stardom... She was last heard providing Beyoncé with her jams) to the empathetic band-aid of a record that is album closer Time Will Tell this is an album that wears its heart and sexuality on its sleeve. And I can't help but love the honesty. Hynes drops heartbreaker after heartbreaker whilst also honing his production style to near-perfection.

The result is an album that never suffers a dull moment. Cupid Deluxe is a gorgeously approachable record, packed with creativity and surprises yet also chock-full of hooks. Full of intelligent self-referential nods to Hynes' own work, there is enough on Cupid Deluxe to keep attentive listeners fascinated.

Yet it is the songs themselves that I will remember. The slow moving balladry of Chosen, a song floating on skipped heartbeats and heavenly sax. The jazzy breaks and 90s raps of Clipped On. The tears that On The Line's relationship difficulties inspires. No other album in 2013 felt so human, and no other album felt so good.

 Purchase on Amazon.co.uk on CD or MP3 [affiliate links]. Listen on Spotify:

That's it for 2013... Let me know what I missed or what you agree or disagree with, otherwise I'll be back all fresh and excited in 2014.

Album Review: Random Access Memories - Daft Punk

The new Daft Punk album has rapidly become the most hotly anticipated album of the current decade so far, with many struggling to recall an album this hot this side of the millennium. You don't even need to put Random Access Memories on to understand why this album is such a big deal.

We don't make records like this any more. We don't approach them in this way and perhaps more importantly, the labels don't market them like this any more. There is a palpable permanence on Random Access Memories - it's built to last, to age and to be shaped by years of listening.

Unlike the French robotic duo's previous 'studio' albums, Random Access Memories wasn't recorded in their bedrooms on computers - it was recorded using analogue equipment in studios across the world (Paris, New York and Los Angeles to be precise). It wasn't funded by a label, but it wasn't recorded on the cheap or via Kickstarter - it was entirely self-funded and Thomas Bangalter proclaims it cost "more than a million dollars […] easily".

Daft Punk's last album, Human After All, took two months. They obsessed over the ridiculous detail of this record for years and incorporated a plethora of recent and classic musicians, and then one day they then just carried it into Columbia Records. In doing so Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo guaranteed this would be a record that would be marketed, sold and celebrated. It kept them in control, something Bangalter recently explained the importance of to The Observer. The first thing they did was avoid the temptation to shutter it off - something the label would no doubt have wanted.

Having teased the Pharrell Williams featuring Get Lucky at Coachella they created a storm that appeared to be almost getting out of hand. Edits of the snippet circled as the internet whipped itself into a furore. But just when it seemed like we couldn't take any more waiting Daft Punk just let it drop, releasing the full track (well, an edit) as a single. The same thing happened with the full album, available to stream in full via iTunes in the week running up to its release and then available pretty much instantly on Spotify on release day. This isn't how big bands (or more likely their labels) act with hotly anticipated albums. The latest Vampire Weekend album still isn't on Spotify, weeks after release. It's almost like Daft Punk actually want you to hear their music.

Your first actual listen to Random Access Memories tells you that this is a very different Daft Punk and you will either relish in that or be befuddled by it. The internet has changed the way we consume music to the point where everything feels like a sample of an edit of a remix of a cover and thousands of bloggers, DJs and fellow artists are combing over your music as soon as it is released, looking to find the original source material. Many stars of electronic music, Daft Punk included, have found their back catalogue ransacked and arguably, in the eyes of the faithful, somewhat devalued by the revelation that some of those killer hooks weren't actually so fresh after all. Daft Punk have also found themselves at the centre of a venn-diagram of dance genres riffing off of the output from their first three albums. In the US EDM exploded following their notorious Alive 2007 tour and in Europe Justice's and half of Kitsuné's output has long been based on Daft Punk's original formula.

So Random Access Memories is a departure precisely because departure was the only credible option. An album of more intense electronic dance music would have put Daft Punk in league with their descendants, rather than above them, and so R.A.M. is an album of more laid back and considered, maybe even (whisper it) mature songs. The internet means any tracks based purely on samples would have been uncovered near instantly and therefore it also isn't a surprise that this album is almost completely sample free - just one track, Contact, features samples and the bulk of the music is played with instruments rather than computers.

Daft Punk have made an anticipated, culturally significant and important album. But is it any good? In a word: yes. It's very good in fact, but that is not to say it is without flaws. Our short collective cultural memory seems to forget how controversial Daft Punk's second album Discovery was, precisely because it became so strong and so influential over hundreds of repeated listens. Even Human After All became more important and enjoyable through the lens of Alive 2007. It is very likely the same maturation will happen here, but R.A.M. takes a little time to explore.

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​Random Access Memories - Daft Punk

First let me cover the flaws. With an album of such brazen ambition it feels a little resigned to still be pushing the vocodered and auto-tuned vocals, applied to all of Daft Punk's vocals and similarly applied to Julian Casablancas on Instant Crush (where he strangely sounds right at home following the latest Strokes album). At times though, those vocals still work - almost gospel on Touch or rhythmic on Lose Yourself To Dance - and it is difficult to think of an alternative. They are part of the myth - certainly more of the duo than their long-since forgotten faces. The melodic piano piece, Within, with the help of Chilly Gonzales, almost sounds like an Elton John song. The robotic melodies sit somewhat awkwardly and undermine the emotional punch, despite giving what would otherwise be hamfisted lyrics an added dimension.

There are also several moments that feel a little too much like filler. Maybe they will grow over time but right now Motherboard and The Game Of Love both feel like a pause for breath amongst so many set pieces, and fade from memory quickly.

There is, however, so much on Random Access Memories that is beautiful, surprising and impossible not to love. Album opener Give Life Back To Music is a pure statement of intent, almost literally jumping on the table, stamping its feet and DEMANDING more from music. Nile Rogers puts in his first appearance with a Chic-style guitar lick that gives the track an important rhythm around which Daft Punk build a ballsy track that demonstrates the scale of their new sound.

Giorgio By Moroder is already an instant classic - part documentary, part concept album and all absolute belter. The track builds around Moroder's voice, creating a musical reference to everything he describes as it happens. It's a statement of music experimentation and the drop, signalled by Moroder's line: "My name is Giovanni Giorgio, but everyone calls me Giorgio" is thrilling and incredibly touching at once, a simple love song from two musicians to one of their heros. The track's breakbeat and record scratches carry it into a new dimension and it never feels anything but thrilling, organic and alive.

Get Lucky's mirror is Lose Yourself To Dance, which also features Pharrell and is intense, demanding and almost aggressive to Get Lucky's flirty promiscuity. A heavy bass and forceful drum beat makes it very difficult not to relent to Williams' chants. It's immediately followed by R.A.M.'s most eccentric moment - the Paul Williams featuring Touch, which moves through campy disco melded into jazzy big-band through orchestral strings and on to a highly dramatic finale. It sounds, unsurprisingly given Wlliams' involvement, like a musical, ridiculous but also brilliant and a central anchor for the album's other moments.

Fragments Of Time, featuring Todd Edwards, gives the album it's title and is almost a revisit of what he made last time he collaborated with Daft Punk, then on Discovery's Face To Face. One of the most surprisingly collaborations - that with Panda Bear - turns out to work well, his vocal work bringing the wide-eyed psychedelic Beach Boys sound of Animal Collective and introducing it to the one of Daft Punk's most intensely uplifting disco tracks and the most electronic track is.

Final track Contact is an appropriate climax - by far the most intense moment on the album. It is a widescreen rocket fuelled blast-off into space that samples Apollo 17 astronaut Eugene Cernan describing a UFO from his capsule. Contact, and that sample in particular, are a fitting conclusion on an album that is about the past as much as the future, and (be it forward of back) the view from one era to another.

​Random Access Memories is out now, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP+MP3 and MP3 [affiliate links]. Listen now through Spotify on the embedded player.

Anticipation: Random Access Memories - Daft Punk

Human After All left me cold but the sheer hype of the Alive 2007 tour (effectively a gigantic mashup and a greatest hits album on wheels) got me back on the Daft Punk gravy train...

The internet is now seriously hype for the forthcoming fourth DP album on Columbia. Everyone is concentrating on a collection suspension of disbelief at this point. It's practically impossible for everyone to come out happy, but we may as well sit happy for a few weeks in the belief that the new album Random Access Memories may save music.​

Two things for you to chew on whilst you wait. Firstly, this excellent article from the Verge on whether Daft Punk can make albums (fuck it, music?) actually matter again. Secondly the below interviews with Giorgio Moroder and Todd Edwards for the Creators Project, both of whom collaborated with Daft Punk on the new album.

By the sounds of things the album sounds perfect - a focus on real instrumentation avoids those moments when you suddenly realise 75% of the groove existed for decades. And let's face it, with Spotify spot the sample takes days rather than months. The vibe also sounds perfect - less novelty hard rock, more silky soul and disco updated for the now.

A look at the collaborators behind Random Access Memories, the new album from Daft Punk. Episode 1: Giorgio Moroder. Pre-order on iTunes: http://smarturl.it/RAMiTunes The Collaborators, a series by The Creators Project with direction from Ed Lachman.

A look at the collaborators behind Random Access Memories, the new album from Daft Punk. Episode 2: Todd Edwards. Pre-order on iTunes: http://smarturl.it/RAMiTunes The Collaborators, a series by The Creators Project with direction from Ed Lachman.

Download: If It Isn't Digital Love - Gamble & Burke

This dropped into the inbox a little while back but I've only just grabbed a minute to post it. Gamble & Burke have previously released material on Kitsune Noir ('Let's Go Together' - check it out on their Soundcloud) and they recently put together this mashup of New Edition's 'If It Isn't Love' together with Daft Punk's 'Digital Love'.

I've not previously ever really checked out New Edition but did after hearing Gamble & Burke's mashup. This version is actually not particularly close to either of the records it draws from and that is actually a good thing - it takes the ideas from the two and goes to a whole new place. The result is an incredibly laid back, slick summer soul record. Apparently this week is due to be a heat wave in Britain so you just might need something like this to cool you down!

Download 'If It Isn't Digital Love' by Gamble & Burke here [right click, save as].

If you are on this site I'll trust you know Daft Punk's work already but check out the New Edition original below for some 80s boy band funk genius:

BP x

Video: MTBig Planet

This is freaking awesome.  BlackPlastic loves the sackboys in Little Big Planet (there is a sentence we wouldn't have predicted a few years ago) and Danteneverdies has put together a video montage / parody of a series of well known dance music videos using Little Big Planet.

The take on the Prodigy complete with graphiti in the form of a LBP sticker is BlackPlastic's personal favourite.

Tracklist:

Flatbeat - Mr Oizo
Sing it Back - Moloko
Satisfaction - Benny Bennasi
Destination Calabria - Alex Gaudino
Right Here Right Now - FatboySlim
Who’s Your Daddy - Benny Bennassi
Starlight - Supermen Lovers
DANCE - Justice
My Boobs are Ok - Lene Alexandre
Hey Boy Hey Girl - The Chemical Brothers
Call on me - Eric Prydz
Invaders Must Die - The Prodigy
One More Time - DAFT PUNK

Source: Danteneverdies / Via: Rubbishcorp & @misstwinkle.

BP x