The Idler Wheel… - Fiona Apple (Clean Slate, 2012)
After the somewhat bungled release of Fiona Apple's 2005 record Extraordinary Machine, Fiona Apple once again disappeared into the wilderness, reappearing again only in 2012 for an album whose title is best shortened down to The Idler Wheel.... Co-produced with Charley Drayton and her own damn self, hearing Apple fully in control is something quite thrilling, as small little sonic detours appear at random, with guitar flourishes popping in one verse and then disappearing for the rest of the album, the sonics perfectly reflecting the album's uneasy, unstable cover art.
What isn't unstable, however, are the songs themselves: considered, isolationist anthems with blood-dripping-down-the-teeth bite. From the acknowledgment of a toxic attraction on "Werewolf" ("But you are such a super guy ’til the second you get a whiff of me / We are like a wishing well and a bolt of electricity") to being left out of all the fun on "Periphery" ("Oooohhhhh, the periphery / They throw good parties there"), The Idler Wheel wears its outsider status on its sleeve, conscious of the psychic damage that others cause while also being conscious of the psychic damage her characters themselves are causing. From the music box/war-whoop opening of "Every Single Night" to the tympani-driven closer "Hot Knife", who knew that after all these years later, Apple's four albums would individually be considered some of the best of their respective decades? - ES
King of Limbs - Radiohead (XL, 2011)
The awkward middle-child between 2007's In Rainbows and 2016's A Moon Shaped Pool, The King of Limbs has had quite the journey: initially dismissed as Radiohead's first "bad" album since Pablo Honey (or Amnesiac if you're extra snarky), various publications and lone wolf critics have staged well-intentioned defense campaigns for this record that so far have not bucked the narrative that one of the greatest living rock bands stepped wrong-footed here, making a record that just can't hold a candle to their other numerous game-changing full-lengths.
The truth of the matter might be hard to swallow for some, but The King of Limbs, removed from all this critical bickering, remains what it has always been: quite good. Achieving moments of rare uplift (the lovely, forlorn closer "Separator"), raw emotion (the campfire strum-along "Give Up the Ghost"), and paranoid guitar wilings (the superb "I Might Be Wrong" sequel "Little By Little"), The King of Limbs finds the gang going through the growing pains of mixing their ever-dynamic guitar lines with the IDM-minimalism of Thom Yorke's solo work to create some kind of cohesion. A frequent criticism of this record is that it feels like two four-song EPs fused together, but… so what? Anyone who's heard "Morning Mr Magpie" live knows how much the song rips, and even the studio version contains that same frantic lumbering, meaning that even if The King of Limbs isn't a masterpiece, maybe we can stop calling it an outright disappointment for once? Y'all dance to it like Thom in the "Lotus Flower" video anyways. - ES
Knock Knock - DJ Koze (Pampa, 2018)
Knock Knock starts like it’s going to be this pretentious dance record. All vinyl-crackling violins, waltzing drums and stately bass processing forth with a sense of inevitability--then a silly as hell synth swoops down and a chorus of nonsense flows forth, all Walt Disney orchestrations and a sense of giddy relaxation. That’s what Koze does, mixes the melancholy with the goofy, managing anger with splatter-paint dumbassery.
Knock Knock is filled with stunningly beautiful moments, undeniable grooves, but Koze undercuts himself constantly, just to see if you’re paying attention. The video for disco slow-burner “Pick Up” gave away all the tricks of the trade, pointing out the relative simplicity of the drop and how a damn tambourine is the emotional crux of the song. Does it matter? Hell no, because the sobbing groove is sheer dancefloor, tearstained heaven. That dissonance and duality makes each peak all the more thrilling. Koze follows the late fall blues of “My Rock,” a drunken stumble of a song, with “Illumination” a grief-filled meditation on a decaying relationship. “Illumination” builds and builds until it breaks its rhythm up, using molasses coated strings and a sudden beat shift to underscore Roshin Murphy’s plea of “I need a bit of light here,” a switch that’ll tear the heart right out of you. Only to follow it with the aforementioned winking of “Pick Up.” When Knock Knock closes with “Drone Me Up, Flashy,” it’s reached a climax of nearly reverent gorgeousness. It’s a church like sanctuary, punctuated, or deflated, by singer Sophia Kennedy burbling in German like she’s about to crack a dirty joke. Koze says, live in the ambivalence, in the unknown, they have the best clubs there. - NS
LEGACY! LEGACY! - Jamila Woods (Jagjaguwar, 2019)
Legend tells that Muddy Waters only picked up the electric guitar to overwhelm chatty audiences. “Motherfuckers won’t shut up,” he ruefully explained before changing the course of blues. If they weren’t going to listen naturally, he’d force them through sheer power. They’d have to hear the DNA of blues, all the heartache and history through a screaming amp. But what if you made music so beautiful people had to shut up and hear your story? Something so entrancing that it equals a warring Waters without the volume decimation?
That’s what Chicago representative Jamila Woods has been doing for a few years. Her bluntly political music is always delivered in captivating sounds. The author, poet, community activist and singer is a true renaissance woman and her second album LEGACY! LEGACY! is the first document to capture her essence; traveling from the streets of Chicago to higher planes of existence. LEGACY! traces the influence and history of Woods’ heroes, from Miles Davis and Waters to modern poets Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez. All are captured in exuberant all-caps like Woods is joyously shouting their names. It’s an expression of self through the artistic explorations of others.
But she never emulates; she only reinterprets and stays clearly, gloriously herself. “You’re the holy book I can lay my hands on,” she sings, the words of “GIOVANNI” and “BALDWIN” balms and teaches in lean times, but her compass is her own. She begins and ends by singing with a “I am not your typical girl,” with a giddy grin. No shit, Jamila! - NS
Liberation! - Peter Matthew Bauer (Mexican Summer, 2014)
Peter Matthew Bauer, patron saint of dirtbags, weekend astrologist and spiritual citizen of Philadelphia has got some stories, let me tell you. Freely rambling from a wake to the divest of dive bars, Bauer is a genial guide through worlds both alcohol-laden and spiritual (or both!) And he never sounds stately or torrid during the entire affair. The ramshackle, early rock of The Rolling Stones flows through him, delivering off-kilter sermons like a man preforming his own exorcism. Elsewhere, he cocoons the album in radiant gratefulness through the gentle sanctuary of “Istanbul Field Recordings” or the boozy sway of “Shiva the Destroyer.”
But where Bauer really excels is in grabbing us by the lapels and shouting through a slightly disconcerting grin that we’ve gotta “leave it behind.” Liberation! is a record of freedom from all the pains here on this muddy planet, while admitting enlightenment is likely a goal that can never be reached. But what a journey we’ll have on the way there. - NS
Listen to our interview
Life Will See You Now - Jens Lekman (Secretly Canadian, 2017)
I don’t know if Life Will See You Now saved my life, but it’s certainly my best-album-friend. During the roughest year of my mental health struggles, Jens Lekman’s 4th record was there with a wink, a hug and an understanding of my problems I didn’t even quite comprehend.
That’s also a compliment to Lekman’s growing maturity. The thesaurus devouring and detail-obsessed Swede was known for his silliness and melodrama in equal amounts. How else could you make a song called “I’m Leaving You Because I Don’t Love You” as ridiculous and cutting as the title suggests? But by Life Will See You Now, the histrionics had died down a bit, leaving room to explore ambivalence. A friend of his 3-D prints a model of the tumor that nearly killed him in ‘Evening Prayer” and exchanges the near-death experience for a beer. Jens shares a smoke with a bride-to-be commenting “marry and regret it / don’t marry regret it too,” with a smile and a shrug. Over his catchiest disco beat ever, he delivers a nearly five-minute-long punch line on how he and his partner hooked up on “How We Met, the Long Version.” He grapples with the dramatic side of love of course, wouldn’t be a Jens album without that, but the problems he inspects go deeper and have stranger answers. “How Can I Tell Him” starts as a gay love story, but unfolds into two dudes who have no idea how to show even base platonic love, while “Postcard #17,” has Lekman driving himself crazy with writers block, his perfectionism destroying his art.
With his musical mentor Tracy Thorn, he goes to “Hotwire the Ferris Wheel,” comforting her with a bit of illegality after she’s been cheated on. The two of them watch the city lights below on their freshly hi-jacked carnival ride, Lekman promising “I promise won’t make it a sad song / It’ll go like this / WHOOOO,” which it does, but he injects a slice of melancholy. Hot-wiring a Ferris wheel is the perfect metaphor for the sparks of joy Lekman seeks, not truly carrying him anywhere new, but allowing for a brief thrill and time for reflection. He closes the album with “Dandelion Seed,” talking to his old muse Lisa, who’s appeared on all of his albums. He compares her devil-may-care life to his own propensity to “build a bomb shelter under every tree.” But he ends on a tranquil, meditative note and in the reverse position of his first album’s opening song. “Tram #7 to Heaven” found him riding the trolley up Stockholm’s Celestial streets to find a date that’d ditched him, crooning his devastation. “Dandelion Seed” finds him on a park bench only with the wind that sounds like a “string section” which carries away his final words, allowing for Jens to stop his babbling and simply listen. Jens, and I (eventually), find a peace in the ambivalence. Rocking, or at least being comfortable, in chaos rather than bemoaning its every ebb and flow. - NS
…Like Clockwork - Queens of the Stone Age (Matador, 2013)
Obviously, musical quality is subjective, and there’s no empirical metric by which it can be graded “right” or “wrong.” That said, there’s nothing more exhilarating and indisputable than a rock record that does it right.
When “My God Is the Sun” came out on March 30, 2013, and thermometers everywhere exploded. Built on a feral guitar lick, a scorching chorus, and a Dave Grohl drum performance with enough trampling power to kill a hundred Mufasas, the single slaked a thirst that even hardcore QOTSA fans didn’t realize they had. The devil horns were raised, and speckled with goosebumps. When …Like Clockwork dropped in June, its payload comprised nine more tracks of delectable heavy metal glory.
Themes of injury and convalescence are evident in the lyrics, many of which revolve around downtrodden, haunted, and occasionally vengeful characters. These narrators have seen crowds and comrades transformed into fog and monsters. “Fairweather Friends” and “I Sat by the Ocean” indict these capricious traitors, while “Keep Your Eyes Peeled” and “Kalopsia” pull up the hospital bedcovers, shaking in their snakeskin boots. “If I Had a Tail” and “Smooth Sailing” paint destructive, lonely visions of restitution. These ten desert rock jewels are so parched and desiccated, they make Homo habilis bones at Olduvai Gorge look like K-Y Jelly. It’s raw, hypnotic, and unexpectedly classy. Other LPs, like a trip to the beach, might leave you with sand in your shorts; this one leaves sand in your soul.
Supposedly the band might have been called Kings of the Stone Age, but that name was rejected on the grounds of being “too macho.” True, their albums are gruntingly buffed-out, but their music also carries a splash of the burlesque; they seem like the kind of band that would be comfortable in anything leather. …Like Clockwork is a nasty and flamboyant masterpiece. It doesn’t waste a single breath—soft or fiery—and takes no prisoners except the ones it wants to serenade before vanquishing them. - BP
Mandatory Fun - Weird Al (RCA, 2014)
The genius of "Weird Al" Yankovic is how he makes fun of everything: pop, rap, country, dance -- you name it. People keep listening to Al because they love his sense of humor, and for that reason alone, many young and impressionable listeners (usually white suburban kids) were suddenly exposed to genres of music they may not have been exposed to otherwise. It's for this reason that great lovers and appreciators of music often have Weird Al in common as a childhood figurehead, and it's for this reason his career has outlasted many of the artists he's parodied.
What a shame it is, then, that Mandatory Fun, his 14th studio album overall, may very well be his last. In experimenting with digital releases and finally, with this record, topping the charts for the first time, Yankovic seems content to keep touring his vast catalog of comedy, hinting that he might be done with putting out full-length albums going forward. If that's the case, at least he went out on top with Mandatory Fun, which features some truly genius late-era parodies, best of all with his nuance-for-nuance riffing of Iggy Azalea's "Fancy" with "Handy", going full-paranoia on "Foil" -- a glorious reinvention of Lorde's "Royals" -- and wrapping it all together with one of his best polka medleys ever. There are style parodies abound (The Pixies with "First World Problems", that Crosby, Stills & Nash sound on "Mission Statement"), a trademark long-form experiment as the closer ("Jackson Park Express"), and just ... more great Al music. In truth, he deserves as long a break as he wants to have, having been a constant force in the industry for as long as he has been, but that doesn't make us miss him any less. - ES
Minecraft - Volume Alpha - C418 (Ghostly, 2012)
Minecraft is, and was, a phenomenon, rapidly exploding from a niche title made by some developers that no one had heard of into a household name and a maker of millionaires. With the rise of video game streaming and the accessibility of the title as it spread to other platforms, combined with a behemoth of marketing and merchandising, Minecraft was unstoppable.
If you played Minecraft, you were familiar with producer C418’s haunting, ambient soundtrack for the game, a series of soft melodies heard in the distance as you wandered the blocky, cubelike infinity of Minecraft’s worlds. Expertly crafted (heh) to add to the experience of the game, C418 (also known as Daniel Rosenfeld) created a soundscape to rival the game itself: peaceful, infinitely listenable, and a perfect companion to days of crafting and nights of surviving. - DD
Modern Vampires of the City - Vampire Weekend (XL, 2013)
Yes, Vampire Weekend sounds like a Bonobos short-sleeve buttonup shirt turned sentient. It’s a grating affect on the band’s first two LPs, but on Modern Vampires of the City, everything clicks. From the gorgeous black-and-white photo on the album cover – of New York draped in smog – to all the production minutiae that give this music a one-of-a-kind vibrancy, Modern Vampires proved that Vampire Weekend deserves to be considered amongst the indie rock royalty of their day. They nail a Paul Simon homage (“Unbelievers,” their best tune) and somehow pull off rockabilly (“Diane Young”). At one point, frontman Ezra Koenig rattles off lyrics like he’s an auctioneer (“Worship You)” and it works. It’s strange that Vampire Weekend became a lightning rod act; the worst thing you could say about them is that they overindulged their naturally twee disposition, like they were answering the question, “What if the movie (500) Days of Summer made a band?” But no matter your opinion of Vampire Weekend’s whole “thing,” it’s hard to deny the mainstream appeal of Modern Vampires, to date the band’s indelible recording. - BE