2014 Songs of the Year: Part Four - 30 through 21

December 28, 2014

Just got here? Get up to speed with Part One, Two and Three. Click the Prev post button at the bottom of this post to get to Part Five once it is out.

30. I Ain’t Gonna Tell You - The Dedication

Dedication "I Ain't Gonna Tell You" A. Original B. DJ Kaos Highland Park Power Mix http://store.dfarecords.com/products/dfa2410 http://aboveboarddist.co.uk/dfa/DFA2410

As I posted back in May there is something a little bit inspirational about this record. Proper disco, but made for now. So much energy, passion and drive that it is hard not to feel ashamed if you didn’t bounce out of bed this morning with a grin on your face. Get on it!

29. Hey Mami - Sylvan Esso

Sylvan Esso available on iTunes: smarturl.it/SylvanEsso.iTunes http://sylvanesso.com www.twitter.com/SylvanEsso www.facebook.com/SylvanEsso @sylvanesso

Sylvan Esso make folky influenced pop with garage and bass influences and from the moment I heard this opener to their self-titled debut album I knew I’d never forget it… Hey Mami is basically ridiculous - more bass and pop sass than you can possibly know what to do with.

28. 2 Is 8 - Lone

Taken from the album 'Reality Testing' iTunes - http://georiot.co/34OP R&S (CD and LP) - http://bit.ly/QXssTi R&S (Transparent Yellow vinyl) - http://bit.ly/1gDzW2r https://www.facebook.com/magicwirelone https://soundcloud.com/lone-1 https://twitter.com/lone https://www.facebook.com/randsrecords

Lone’s album has been a sleeper classic for me this year - one I keep going back to. 2 is 8 is one of it’s most immediate and infectious moments.

27. Real - Years & Years

'Take Shelter' -- Available on iTunes: http://po.st/yytsYTD 'Real 'out now via Kitsuné.

Years & Years caught my attention supporting Say Lou Lou earlier in the year, and it was hard not to come away thinking the headliners had been upstaged. As we near the release of their debut album their recent tracks have felt a little less urgent and essential, but Real was them at their best… Olly Alexander’s vocals pitched and desperate and the electronics raw and insistent.

26. ILYSB - LANY

www.thisislany.com

I know nothing about LANY, nor this song, but it found it’s way to me towards the end of the year and I’m utterly in love with the way it captures the intensity of loving like nothing else matters. The killer line: “And you need to know that nobody could take your place … And you need to know that I’m hella obsessed with your face”. Nothing else this year made me feel so much like an infatuated teenager.

25. I Don’t Need Another Lover - Billie Black

EP 000100 out now. http://smarturl.it/BB000100 www.billie-black.com | www.facebook.com/thisbillieblack | www.twitter.com/thisbillieblack | www.soundcloud.com/billie-black Directed by Alex Brown

The first track I heard from Billie Black remains her best so far - her vocals are steadfast and determined and the electronics bounce and skitter along full of all the modern soul the song can muster. Definitely one to watch in 2015.

24. Sweet Spot - Wild Beasts

Wild Beasts - Sweet Spot Buy Sweet Spot at iTunes - http://po.st/SweetSpotiTunes Pre-Order Present Tense at: Domino - http://po.st/PresentTenseDM iTunes - http://po.st/PresentTense UK / EU / US 'Present Tense' Tour Dates - Buy Tickets Here : http://po.st/WBSITE

Wild Beasts hit 2014 like their lives depended on it - Present Tense is easily their best album yet, more taught, focused and ultimately theirs. Sweet Spot was one of the finest songs on that album, full of all the refined minimalism that defined much of its best moments.

23. Return - Eno + Hyde

Brian Eno and Karl Hyde delivered several surprises this year… Following on just weeks after their conflicted first collaboration Someday World was High Life, and it was at times a revelation. This epic opener combined elements of the African style that inspired the album’s name with some of Eno’s signature production styles, whilst simultaneously reminding us that the best thing about U2 is actually an Eno trick… Just feel those guitars.

22. Rootwork - Trees

Ann Arbor's Trees drops this wicked ep, six slices of lush, each on their own planet but part of the same galaxy, where techno, hip-hop and house rub up against jazz, Kraut-rock and African percussion. There's a saying in Ann Arbor that goes “I spent half my life waiting for Charles”. Charles Trees, because that's who people are referring to when uttering those words, is the local music scene's best kept secret. In a city literally brimming with talent (MC5, Iggy, George Clinton, Mitch Ryder, Recloose, Mayer Hawthorne, Shigeto, Dabrye, anyone?), Charles is one of the absolute heroes, a gem among gems, yet relatively few people outside the city limits have heard of him. Why? Well, probably because our man doesn't really care too much about fame, hipster blogs, online social networking or other forms of shameless self promotion. He just makes his music, and remixes, and spins his tunes around town, and sometimes even releases some of them, like his EPs on Moodgadget, Ghostly International, or Paris imprint Musique Large. Which is how we heard about Charles. He made us a brilliant remix for Pajaro Sunrise' “Old Goodbyes”, and after that we had the pleasure of meeting him in person. A deal was struck for an EP. It was the summer of 2012, and we were about to find out what the “half my life waiting for Charles” was all about. Fast forward to 2014, and lo and behold, habemus EP. And not just any EP. A HUGE EP. Six slices of lush, each on their own planet but part of the same galaxy, where techno, hip-hop and house rub up against jazz, Kraut-rock and African percussion. Sounds like a cliché, right? Uh huh, yeah. The title track starts out like a Sun Ra jam, with the brilliant Dan Bennett on sax. After the fist bass stab, the beat kicks in and we're taken on a jubilant ride towards the acidic finish. “Exodus” continues on a hypnotic house tip while the level of funk keeps rising. The slamming beat finishes things off quite nicely. On “Get Advanced”, Detroit rapper, poet and Egyptologist Intricate Dialect spits his rhymes over hypnotic and minimal percussion and some nasty 303-stabs. Dan Bennett returns on “What's Left”, a slow burning piece of space boogie. Madrid-based DJ F does a good job of remixing”Rootwork”, adding some eeriness by changing the beat and replacing Bennett's sax with trippy keyboards. And finally, the mighty Shigeto stretches “What's Left” to almost nine minutes, with a four-minute intro leading up to a more uptempo but equally hypnotic version of the original. https://soundcloud.com/charlestrees http://lovemonk.bandcamp.com/album/rootwork

Crazy, epic, confused and utterly beautiful. Trees was unknown to me before this year, but there is no forgetting him once you have heard Rootwork - it’s simply fantastic, inspired and genius.

21. Alena - Yumi Zouma

Buy Alena on iTunes: http://bit.ly/1naY1rj Yumi Zouma return with new single, Alena, a song infused with their trademark quiet intimacy, now buoyed on a pad of lush electronics and building slowing to a muted euphoric refrain. Sliding in and out of dream states, capturing the safety of nostalgia and the grasping for good times out of reach, Alena's power stems from its evocative ability to unlock chambers in our memory banks. This fall Yumi Zouma circumnavigates the globe in support of Lorde (New Zealand shows) and later, play Iceland Airwaves, along with dates in the UK and US. Yumi Zouma on tour: www.yumizouma.com Yumi Zouma FB: http://tinyurl.com/nz7lecr Cascine FB: http://tinyurl.com/py2dncx

Bloggers’ darlings in 2014 following their self-titled EP and breakthrough track The Brae, but it was the warm shot of Balearia that was Alena that really showed what they Yumi Zouma are capable of.

Album Review: Present Tense - Wild Beasts

February 28, 2014 in review, album review

"Don't confuse me for someone who gives a fuck” asserts vocalist Hayden Thorpe on Wanderlust, the opener of album number four. It is a moment that defines just how much Wild Beasts have become their own animal.

Present Tense is an album not simply recorded but meticulously planned and crafted. Rather than simply going into the studio to record songs as they apparently did on their previous albums, here the band started by planning out the songs and the album like a strategy. Pieces were assembled on computers first and they abandoned concerns about pre-defined roles within the band in terms of the instruments they played - anyone could contribute whatever they wanted. It sounds like a dangerous game that cold lead to a cold and clinical album, but the result is anything but.

As the first single from Present Tense much has been made of the baiting of an unnamed British band's attempts to Americanise their sound (it's not label mates the Arctic Monkeys apparently) but to focus on the target of the barbs perhaps misses the point... Wanderlust also has Thorpe delivering the line "It's a feeling that I've come to trust". The point is that this is a band confident in their own path, and the two lines highlighted here attest to that. Self-acceptance is key.

This album is a much more heavily produced one than any of their previous, with co-producers Lexx and Brian Eno protégé Leo Abrahams helping to grant the band more focus and confidence. It is overtly more electronic than anything else they have released and yet it comes without any cost when it comes to the effectiveness of the band themselves. They remain tight, in-sync and limber.

The songs are all just as athletic, lyrically tackling that growing confidence that often comes with masculine maturity, and Thorpe's vocals for the first time not over-playing their hand. In amongst the warmer electronics and restrained playing he feels more at home, less flamboyant. A baritone vocal delivery on Nature Boy add an element of malice whilst that trademark Thorpe falsetto provides a emotional femininity on tracks like the confessional album closer Palace.

And it can't really be overstated - the production work just glitters. An elastic bouncing rhythm on A Dog's Life punctuating the words "So throw the ball up into space...", a line otherwise delivered in near silence. It is a moment delivered seconds prior to a crescendo of synthesizers. The final quarter of Sweet Spot (posted recently here) still makes the hairs on your arms stand up, a series of clean harmonic synth chords stab through the song clinically and beautifully... The kind of moment you wish would never end.

Present Tense is a considerable achievement - it easily represents the best work the band have released and it does so with confidence. This is a band that have figured out what they are doing and appear to know they are good at it.

Present Tense is out now on Domino, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD and MP3 [affiliate links]. Listen to Wanderlust on Spotify:

Stream: Sweet Spot - Wild Beasts

February 12, 2014 in video, stream

Following on from the excellent Wanderlust this new track from Wild Beasts' new album Present Tense has me excited for the album... It's a bit of a build, but the big chords that cut through the track from 3:15 are beautiful.

Present Tense is released through Domino on 24 February.

Video: Wanderlust - Wild Beasts

January 08, 2014 in video

Ahead of their new album Present Tense, due out on Domino on February 24, Wild Beasts have released the video for lead single Wanderlust. It feels like a departure for Wild Beasts, more electronic and there is a more solemn and ominous atmosphere.

The co-production on the album comes from Lexxx and Brian Eno portégé Leo Abrahams. The press release says we should expect a step-change in production once the album drops, and if this is anything to go by then I'm excited. Cue my jazz hands.

Album Review: Two Dancers - Wild Beasts

July 28, 2009

BlackPlastic has listened to the Wild Beasts' new album Two Dancers many, many times already and yet is still a little at odds with what to think. Listening to this album is a bit like trying to make love to fish - it's difficult to get a purchase on what you like about it but once you have reached its climax it generally feels like it was worth the effort.

Singer Hayden Thorpe's falsetto vocals do occasionally stray a little close to pretentious pomp but for every slight miss-step (the ponderous 'When I'm Sleepy') there are moments of sheer fantasy - the tenor intro to 'All The Kings Men' followed by a superb lead vocal delivery.

Wild Beasts also have a wonderfully delicate sound at times - as the gentle muted guitar of album opener 'The Fun Powder Plot' comes in it captures a tremendous amount of feeling before a single word is even laid down. And despite having a sound that at times feels a little self-consciously arty there are still hooks you can get behind, as on lead single 'Hooting & Howling'.

What Wild Beasts have created in Two Dancers is an album of magnificent depth. It may occasionally boil over but when it delivers it manages to evoke the curious feeling of what it is to be a you Britain in our age. This is an album that undoubtedly looks forward yet at the same time it could only exist given Britain's musical heritage.

BP x