Any Shape You Take - Indigo De Souza
My favorite album of the year is from an indie darling who was ultimately rewarded with the ever coveted badge of a little red arrow pointing upwards. Snail Mail? Faye Webster? Taylor Swift? Fine, one of those is a joke. Look - it's Indigo de Souza's sophomore album Any Shape You Take. It's an album that was instantly seared into memory because of its courage to push beyond the bedroom grunge that entrapped so many the first go around. It also has one of the best songs to capture what the last year and a half has felt like on the centerpiece "Real Pain": a cacophony of us all struggling to escape from the abyss, only to have the leash yank us back into a shimmering facade of normalcy. - Tony Disarufino
The Blue of Distance - Elori Saxl
Life bubbles up beneath death.
The emergence of spring might have a sound for you. The rustling of robins, hushed winds blowing over freshly sprouting clover fields, but as winter’s grip loosens, something more elemental burbles. Composer Elori Saxl heard it from the shores of Lake Superior, the growing sounds of water flowing beneath thick sheets of ice. Under a surface of sheer stillness, life flowed.
The Blue of Distance wrangles with the ideas of memory and how they’re warped by the digital age, but it also stands alone as an album without any outside narrative. Alongside the seminal works of Gas and William Basinski, Saxl’s nexus of digital, analogue, nature and manipulation is one of the finest ambient albums in recent memory, calming in one deft arrangement, thought-provoking the next.
Bright Green Field - Squid
Brighton lads Squid allege we’re all stuck in a “Global Groove.” An unending, jittery dance of work, sleep and shock at new horrors unfolding on our phones. At least the soundtrack to this desolate boogie is great.
Bright Green Field builds on a bevy of EPs and singles that proved the quintet were a pithy, catchy bunch, with unrolling tension bubbling just below their Talking Heads inspired post-punk. But even by that budding promise, their debut finds them outstripping their own ambition, getting weirder, darker and more vulnerable. Twin monoliths “Narrator” and “Pamphlets” are mammoth depictions of unraveling minds, both unleashing maelstroms of sound. But the surprises are hidden in the smallest moments. The jangly “Paddling” has a tender heart under all the shuddering guitars and “Documentary Filmmaker” is mostly squawking horns and synths, etching a brief, lonely moment in a wing of a hospital ward. The question was never if Squid could go big, they proved that with aplomb. But the fact that they can recoil into the micro with just as much skill proves they’re here to stay. - Nathan Stevens
Christine - Canary Room
The first noise we hear on Christine is a bird, chirping merrily away, like it’s warming up its voice. The EP from Portland-based songwriter Canary Room, aka Maddy Heide, is one of 2021’s small joys. Heide’s dexterous guitar work and fluttering voice puts her alongside the bare musings of Linda Perhacs or Sibylle Baier, but with her constant gestures at the natural world, with water springing forth in nearly every lyric, Christine is most at place not with other humans, but in nature. By the end of the EP, it becomes self evident that the tuning bird at the start was getting ready to duet with Heide.
Cool Dry Place - Katy Kirby
The difference between Katy Kirby and your favorite indie-rocker is that she can actually have fun. Despite some devastating moments (comparing a friend’s panic attack to “thrashing like a goldfish in a garbage bag” is going to haunt me), there’s a dexterous, shimmying rhythm underpinning all of Cool Dry Place. From the cruising “Juniper” to the firework display of a chorus on “Secret Language,” Kirby’s control of contrast and dynamics is peerless, launching the whole album into instant scream-along territory. That’s not even counting the slinky, folk-pop banger of the year “Traffic!” - NS
CHRISTFUCKER - Portrayal of Guilt
2021 was the year Portrayal of Guilt became our most diabolical band. True to its title, CHRISTFUCKER is harsh. In PoG’s gnashing visions of Hell, glass breaks skin; nails pierce bone; and a skull or two smack the concrete. Noise punctures the negative space while the tenets of underground metal are subjected to all manners of sonic torture. But the greatest trick Portrayal of Guilt ever pulled was making something so extreme feel so alluring. - Trey Fett
Ethernity - For Tracy Hyde
For Tracy Hyde have been earnest about their cinematic ambitions since their debut LP, 2016’s Film Bleu, and the dream-pop band’s approach to crafting albums like movies have often reminded me of the music of M83’s Anthony Gonzalez. Ethernity, then, is their Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming: a full realization of their creative vision at a blockbuster scale. They open with the most explosive fireworks, though that’s only a few tricks they have up their sleeves. They cull from the sweet-and-sour grunge of Charly Bliss, the doom of Angelo Badalamenti, the young adult friction of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: For Tracy Hyde compiles a full 360 look of the heights and capabilities of dream pop.
Operating with a sound gossamer in texture and fuzzy at the edges, For Tracy Hyde inevitably runs on nostalgia as its main fuel supply. Ethernity uniquely pins a specific time and place in which its reminiscences are based. “Blockbuster, Coke, pizza, and I love you,” vocalist eureka sings in part one of “Interdependence Day,” transporting listeners to an imaginary America of a past decade; part two sends us even deeper into a more glamorous, alternate timeline as it fades in a speech from Barack Obama. The point is clear: they’d rather be anywhere but here and now.
While Ethernity is on, For Tracy Hyde provides the vehicle in which to indulge and escape into such sweet, wide-eyed fantasies. That said, the insistence for For Tracy Hyde to fall back on daydreaming about a more romanticized version of the past in Ethernity also echoes tragic. Their glossy version of America can only be further from the truth, and that dissonance gives the album a certain hopelessness from the knowledge that their desires of a better tomorrow will unfortunately go unfulfilled. Ethernity, meanwhile, marches on despite the fact with their pure, heart-on-sleeve innocence yet to be tainted by the harsh reality. - Ryo Miyauchi
Fado - João De Sousa and BASTARDA
Fado is a genre, an emotion, a history of a nation. And an album.
The Portuguese word “Saudade” means, loosely, the beautiful pain of remembering and the melancholy that follows. Fado is that word transmitted in sonic terms. And Fado, the album, has mutated that gorgeous darkness into one of 2021’s most beguiling albums.
Polish jazz trio Bastarda and Portuguese songwriter João de Sousa teamed up to reimagine the Fado canon. With de Sousa’s dexterous guitar and enchanting voice weaving between mournful jazz, Fado isn’t just a respectful tribute to the genre, but an evolutionary step forward, and a perfect introduction to anyone unfamiliar with the aural ennui.
GLOW ON - Turnstile
From Madonna to Dead Kennedys to Weezer to Green Day to Vampire Weekend to Turnstile, one can safely assume that writing a song about a "HOLIDAY" is a sure fire ticket to lasting fame in the music world. At this juncture in 2021, seeing hardcore punks Turnstile alongside those other musicians may seem out of place. But when a band releases a collection of tune where anyone could argue there are five songs better than "HOLIDAY" on it, I doubt it will take much longer before it makes sense to talk about Turnstile the same way we speak of old favorites. GLOW ON is one of those records where you don't even worry if Turnstile will ever top it. They probably won't. But GLOW ON is the type of album that will give Turnstile reason to tour forever. Because you really gotta see it live to get it. - Raptor Jesus
God’s Trashmen Sent to Right the Mess - Fievel is Glauque
In an era where genre descriptions often read like Mad-libs, it’s still hard to wrap the tongue around the most apt definition of Fievel Is Glauque: “Lo-fi-jazz-micro-pop.”
But, of course, that’s overly pedantic. The Brussels based group searched for luck and improvisation and found it in spades for their debut album God's Trashmen Sent to Right the Mess with 20 songs that are basically just hooks on hooks on hooks. Compositional wizard Zach Phillips crafted the sketches of these songs to be as direct and catchy as possible. It’s a deliriously delightful collection, with three ensembles adding fiery saxophone, seductive rhythm and intoxicating keys to Ma Clément’s captivating singing. “Decoy” slinks like a lost ‘60s pop hit, “the Dream Team” has a sensual stutter and “Unfinding” erupts into a full on progressive-rock epic in micro-dose format.
La Grande Folie - San Salvador
San Salvador describe their sets as a “battle.” It’s no exaggeration. They engage in sonic warfare. The French sextet crafts some of the most absurdly difficult vocal music recorded—ever. The songs sprawl beyond 10 minutes, unfolding themselves and revealing more and more complex sections and hidden, dizzying depths. Ever spiraling harmonies erupt into polyphonic chants, men and women’s voices becoming fused. If vocalists had their own Guitar Hero, San Salvador’s La Grande Folie would be the final challenge. But the sheer magnitude of their compositions accents the desperation and energy rattling through every song. Accompanied only by percussion, San Salvador’s frenetic approach to acapella music isn’t in the same universe as a barbershop quartet. The flexing muscles that make up the foundation of their music has more in common with metal or the madness of avant-folk. You don’t have to understand a word of San Salvador’s dispatches from the French Massif Central to be compelled. It is blood boiling, cinematic, scope shattering music.