52/13 - I'm Clearing Zones Like I'm Indy Jones

It is the last Monday of the year. And what a year! As far as new music is concerned, I think 2013 is one of the best years I've lived through. It's offered so much goodness, I'm not even gonna bother sticking to the Top5-format in bookending it. So without further ado, here are my two top 10s of the year gone by:

TOP 10 ALBUMS 2013

Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City

After all, a perfect pop album is a rare thing. For once they managed to mix it all in exquisitely balanced measures: intellectual cleverness and emotional resonance; complex arrangements and catchy melodies; popcultural references and spiritual longing. There is nothing here not to love.

James Blake - Overgrown

The sound of loneliness perfected once again. The beauty of the world at its most piercing. The release of a masterfully crafted beat.

Savages - Silence Yourself

Finding a new favourite band is wonderful. It's more than music. It's that feeling of, yes, this is now, this is mine, ours. These guys know exactly what they're doing, and I'm with them all the way. Awe, trust, power. Then; catching them live. Getting blown away. Feeling like this is what it would have been like if I'd been at one of those legendary gigs of the bands and musicians who passed long before I had the chance to see them. Knowing that this is something I will talk and brag about for a long time yet. Knowing that Savages will make more music, and they're just not the kind of band that will conform or falter. Ever.

Run The Jewels - Run The Jewels

Last year they separately released one of 2012's best albums, and one of 2012's best songs. This year they joined forces for the least laid-back victory lap ever. No other rapper came close, in my book. Sure, Kendrick's Control-verse was fierce, but this album is like that verse stretched out for forty minutes, and delivered by two, equally ruthless and relentless voices. And the music! Ohmagahd. There's dronestrikes, there's guitarsolos, there's dolphins... If the rhymes did not have me so pumped up and razorfocused, my jaw would drop to the ground in pure sonically induced astonishment.

Darkside - Psychic

One of our time's great geniuses of sound strikes again, in another new constellation. This might be Nicolas Jaar's finest production yet. It's certainly the most impressive, album-wise. A fearlessly composed journey, from the first spacey drone, to the last echoing note. Music for an altered state of mind.

The Knife - Shaking the Habitual

Nothing else sounds like the Knife. Not even the Knife. Noone else dares to make music as weird, political and sincere as this. Not much makes me hopeful about the world's destiny. But listening to this does. We can do whatever we want. We can create new ideas. We can change the world. We will.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Push The Sky Away

The phantom menace. Skeletal incantations that seem to encompass the dark history of the world within its tiny minimal walls. Repetition and fragmentation in a classical, modern and postmodern song-cycle.

Daft Punk - Random Access Memories

Easy to sing along to. Easy to get lost in. Easy to pick apart in pieces, and still enjoy immensely.

Julianna Barwick - Nepenthe

I'm of the old-fashioned opinion that albums should be enjoyed as a full package. I still buy cds. Some albums really make it worth it. An elegantly designed cover, a series of atmospheric photographs inside the sleeve, a list of beautifully titled songs. It all adds up. To a subtle, sublime and seductive whole.

Janelle Monáe - The Electric Lady

It's just one amazingly great tune after another. On a concept album about a cyborg rebel. It's almost too much to take in. Which is why I know I'll keep listening to it and rediscover it for years.

And here's a string of other albums I've enjoyed this year, that would've easily made top 10 of any lesser music-year: Sigur Rós - Kveikur, Atoms for Peace - Amok, Earl Sweatshirt - Doris, Arcade Fire - Reflektor, The National - Trouble Will Find Me, Julia Holter - Loud City Song, Iron & Wine - Ghost on Ghost, Oneohtrix Point Never - R Plus Seven, Kanye West - Yeezus, Queens of the Stone Age - Like Clockwork, Arctic Monkeys - AM, Junip - Junip

TOP 10 SONGS 2013

Darkside - Golden Arrow

Orgasmic build-up of the year

James Blake - Retrograde

Voice-scaling of emotional mountaintops of the year.

Janelle Monáe ft. Miguel - Primetime

Retro-futuristic powerballad of the year. Is that ok? Yes. Yes it is.

Vampire Weekend - Step

Joyously melancholic meta-pop of the year.

The Knife - Raging Lung

Post-patriarchal, anti-capitalist marching song of the future.

Savages - Strife

Invincibility song of the year.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Sacrilege

Plead and pray of the year.

Daft Punk - Get Lucky

Irresistible even-my-mum-loves-this megahit of the year.

Arcade Fire - Here Comes The Night Time

Genius tempo-change of the year.

David Bowie - Where Are We Now?

Saddest song of the year.

Oh and Queeblo released his first song this year too... And tbh, it might be the best of the bunch.

51/13 - Look, there lies in the dark stable...

It is christmastime, and it's time for a touch of spirituality on the blog. A slightly secular selection of seasonal atmosphere, and a pre-taste of next week's yearly summary:

Julianna Barwick - Forever

A building bliss

Julia Holter - He's Running Through My Eyes

Oh, this time my stubborn mind will take his love seriously. 

But when the summer’s over, will he remember winter words?

Do men’s hearts grow old, Lullaby? 

He’s running through my eyes.

James Blake - Life Round Here

Actually this is too sad to be christmassy. But there's something in the notes used that makes it fit. Except when they break and distort, but then again, that's the best part of the tune.

Vampire Weekend - Worship You

And this one is actually about US foreign policy according to the author. But it's a bit about religion too I guess.

J.S. Bach - Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248: Part two, for the second day of christmas - No. 17 Chorale: "Schaut hin, dort liegt im finstern stall"

But this. This is sacral and christmassy all in one!

And to top it off, the year's best christmas video:

50/13 - I Let It Out, I Couldn't Let It In

Last list from Scotland this year. I'm off home to Sweden this evening. Tunes are a collision of past and future.

Bob Dylan - Copper Kettle

I wanted to have the version on Another Self Portrait, which is slightly less over the top with the arrangement, but this one works too. It's the pastoral bliss of the lyrics that's the main thing anyway.

We'll just lay there by the juniper, while the moon is bright
Watch them jugs a-filling in the pale moonlight

Steve Mason - I Let Her In

This christmas shall bring peace of mind.

Serge Gainsbourg - Cargo Culte

The culmination of a fantastic album and the best stop-then-start-trick in the book.

Dawn of Midi - Io

Was introduced to this band via Radiolab, and still haven't actually had time to listen to the whole album. But I know I'm gonna love it. Because it begins like this. And there's 40 more minutes of this. I mean; even the first few seconds are enough to sell me. When something starts like that; like a small stone meteor hurled towards you from deep empty space, you can't but keep your eyes on it, transfixed, while it picks up speed, grows in your field of vision, spins, gives off sparks, and hits the atmosphere in a cloud of fire...

The Mountain Goats - Woke Up New 

...and then you wake up. Fresh, but empty. Confused. What's this winter to bring?

49/13 - It's Been Building Up Inside of Me For I Don't Know How Long

Big Boi - Night Night

The boys will drop their jaws in awe, for here comes something new

Solange - Losing You

It's taken me a little while to come around to the younger of the Knowles sisters, but this week I fell head over heels for this here song. Much thanks to its nostalgic shimmer, and this beautiful evocative video:

Hugh Masekela - Bring Him Back Home

Well, it's all been said this week. What a brilliant guy. I remember when I first heard this song on the bootleg of the Graceland African Concert, and it just struck me as so powerful; that just seeing someone take a walk with his wife in his hometown would be counted as a victory.

The Beach Boys - Don't Worry Baby

Been watching the 5th season of Misfits, and this wonderful song came on. Made me all gushy inside.

Portishead - Over 

Beth Gibbons is one of my favourite singers of all time, and this is one of my favourite live albums of all times. Strangely enough, since it does nothing a live album is expected to do: it doesn't expand on the songs, it doesn't include any rarities or covers, it doesn't even fill the spaces in between songs with applause. It's just a perfect collection of compositions, with small but extremely powerful little tweaks of atmosphere. Like how the beat really crashes into this one, how Beth's voice suddenly rise and reverberate towards the end, and how the strings build up on all sides – all components that build towards that final moment when the lone guitar notes ring out in a tense space where you sense, but not quite yet hear, an absolutely awestruck audience.

48/13 - We'll Meet On Edges, Soon, Said I

A list for the little moments in between; the flailing attentions; the steps from home to where you're going.

Múm - A Little Bit, Sometimes

Múm, masters of the tiny universes. Sometimes veering into cutesy, but often balancing it out just right with vaguely threatening backdrops.

Pink Floyd - Wots ...Uh The Deal

Pink Floyd's in-between period – after Syd Barrett crashed and burnt but before Dark Side Of The Moon made them a stoner arena band – is full of little gems. On the two soundtracks, More and Obscured By Clouds, especially, they perfected a certain kind of warm and gauzy impressionist songwriting. See Green Is The Colour, Cymbaline, Burning Bridges and Stay for more in a similar vein. Perfect music for lazy days of contemplating nature.

The Hollies - My Back Pages

For a 60s boy band this Dylan-cover has a brilliant production. The bass sound especially is kind of special.

Del Shannon - Keep Searchin'

Two things that set this apart from Del's numerous other surf-pop songs: The awesome high-pitched vocals in the end, and, even more than that; the ridiculously over-the-top handclaps in every chorus. They're like clumsy seal-claps, amplified in an echo chamber. I love them.

Beyoncé - End Of Time

The brass. The bounce. The Bey.


I also want to include Eminem's new video. I don't know if I think it's good or not, but I am a sucker for rapid raps, and this pretty much sets a new bar...