John Bemis
Reporter
@bemiscourant
As December 31st approached in 2013, there was little hope that 2014 would bring forth the same amount of musical ingenuity that the previous year had yielded. Despite this looming shadow of sonic prosperity the year prior, music lovers across the board were treated to countless fantastic albums throughout 2014 in all genres. Here, in a very particular order, are my top 10 favorites.
- Tobacco – Ultima II Massage
Genre: Electronic
Released on May 13th, 2014 via Ghostly International
Thomas Fec, the founder of Pennsylvania’s mysterious psych-tronica collective Black Moth Super Rainbow, has come back as Tobacco to release his fourth LP. Across sixteen tracks, he expertly produces churning, explosive, and colorful electronica, just as tantalizing and abstract as it is danceable
- FULL OF HELL – Full of Hell and Merzbow
Genre: Metal
Maryland hardcore act Full of Hell have successfully collaborated with the music’s most impenetrable act, Merzbow. Collectively, they deliver the most ingenious LP the rock underground has seen this year, allowing harsh noise to add a deeply satisfying crunch to gruesome shapes of extreme metal.
- Ben Frost – Aurora
Genre: Experimental
Unabating in his execution, Australian sound artist Ben Frost perfects his meticulous compositional passion through his eleventh studio endeavor, Aurora. The environment he creates is one of freezing barren landscapes plagued by seething synthesizers and bombastic percussion, throbbing in volume and pace, never allowing a moment of breath.
- Freddie Gibbs & Madlib – Piñata
Genre: Hip-Hop
Hip-hop has seen a breakthrough year in terms of collaborations, the first of which arrived in March as up-and-coming Indiana MC Freddie Gibbs teamed up with praised California DJ/producer Madlib. The product is immediate cohesion, Madlib’s grainy urban electronics providing a gritty background for Freddie Gibbs’s day-to-day portrait of the life of a street-level gangster.
- Pharmakon – Bestial Burden
Genre: Experimental
Sacred Bones records put their cred as an exporter of refined indie rock on the line when they released the first full-length LP from Brooklyn noise/experimental music baroness, Margaret Chardiet, aka Pharmakon, in 2013. Inspired by the painful surgical removal of an organ cyst, Bestial Burden shows Chardiet applying brittle, metallic tension to an acceleratingly haunting and personal breed of extreme soundplay.
- Run the Jewels – Run the Jewels 2
Genre: Hip-Hop
Killer Mike and El-P, two MC’s equally creative, ambitious, and full of uncompromising artistic viscera displayed a brilliant, truly collaborative partnership as Run the Jewels on their 2013 debut mixtape. On their second full-length project, Run the Jewels are a venomously pissed-off reaction to society’s social dogma, ready to tear down politicians, imposters, and the willfully ignorant with a point-blank assault of clever and unmerciful lyrics backed by impeccably darkening explosive production.
- The Men – Tomorrow’s Hits
Genre: Rock
The Men have continually remained one of Brooklyn’s busiest acts, consistently releasing thoroughly enjoyable LP’s full of energetic, cathartic scuzz-rock in ever-varying palettes. Tomorrow’s Hits sees The Men approaching the sense of youthful velocity and abandon that their early work always seemed to be purposefully suppressing, complete with rock-solid and terse songwriting, jangling, distorted riffage, and earworm hooks that border
- Flying Lotus – You’re Dead!
Genre: Electronic
After the release of 2008’s Los Angeles and 2010’s Cosmogramma, there was no doubt that Steve Ellison, known as Flying Lotus, was going to be the star producer of the new decade, his existing discography expressing an unhindered creative fearlessness . With it’s dizzying compositional complexity and colorful, futuristic sheen, You’re Dead! is Flying Lotus at his best, exploring life, death, and limbo through a fresh and abstract realm of twisted experimental music.
- Sun Kil Moon – Benji
Genre: Folk
The difference between Sun Kil Moon and your typical post-band solo project is that Mark Kozelek, formerly of the Red House Painters, is not just making albums to pay the rent. 2014 saw the release of Benji, Kozelek’s 6th and best record thus far, which he treats as his musical diary where he outlines, in extreme detail and beautiful fashion, the life and demise of family, friends, relationships, and innocence to craft the most brilliant and emotionally conducive folk album of the year.
- Swans – To Be Kind
Genre: Experimental rock
Unlike your average comeback, Michael Gira, now 32 years into his career, has created his most effective and lasting work following the return of his industrial brainchild, Swans, in 2010. To Be Kind relentlessly delivers torment through cacophonous instrumentation, slow-burning crescendos, tortured vocals, and sheer soul-shattering volume, cementing itself as the most impenetrable pillar of Swans’ catalog and reminding listeners that sonic barriers always need to be broken, and that no-one does it better than them.
