Cucina PoveraHiljaNight School
Hilja is an album that takes time to reveal itself, at first appearing inaccessible, strange or disorganised. Given space though, and without the expectation of constant stimulation, Cucina Povera has put together a collection that rewards you for listening carefully to the wonderful sounds that live among the silence.
Darren HaymanThankful VillagesAudio Antihero
The Thankful Villages that Hayman has spent the last few years visiting, recording songs about, and shooting films in, are the places in the UK in which all the servicemen returned from the conflict alive. Remarkably, there are only 54 (at last count) out of 60,000 settlements which lost young men. So instead of a musical parade of songs about the war, Hayman has chosen instead to create thoughtful meditations on rural life, change, and lost ways of being. “We are not spending half an hour saluting our troops,” he says. “There’s the war – the subject on the surface – but what’s underneath is what I’m really writing about.”
SekundenschlafBlackest Ever Black
Making their debut on Blackest Ever Black, the story behind тпсб is a confused one. Past material was said to have been recovered from a Russian hard drive purchased off eBay, but now the work of the project, Blackest Ever Black says, simply has an ”unclear authorship”. What is clear though is the fuzzy, almost lo-fi excellence that lies within Sekundenschlaf.
Bas JanYes I JanLost Map
It’s rarely easy to parse just one feeling from these songs, there’s usually two or three or more, spinning in circles and overlapping. Like: Isn’t life disappointing? Or maybe you’re what’s disappointing. Isn’t life stressful? But also fun and wonderful, so full of possibilities! Let’s have a dance and a cuddle and a good fuck, and isn’t the sky beautiful tonight?
Ben VinceAssimilationWhere To Now?
Overseeing a cast of collaborators that includes Micachu, Rupert Clervaux and Cam Deas, Ben Vince pulls proceedings together on Assimilation via his stunning saxophone arrangements. It’s a set-up which sees him thrive off the contributions of his co-conspirators, from the sleazy skronk of opener ‘Alive & Ready’, which features the shapeshifting vocals of Merlin Nova, to the more minimal, lithe territory of the Micachu-featuring ‘What I Can See’ which pairs little more than Vince’s sax, Mica Levi’s low register vocal and a healthy dose of reverb.
Cardi BInvasion Of PrivacyAtlantic
Invasion of Privacy finds a rapper in her prime, cleverly shaping her own stardom and – hopefully – carving out a path that continues to usher female MCs into the mainstream. Shamelessly sexual, caustically comic and with breathtaking flow, Cardi B stands proud as one of trap’s finest.
Goat GirlGoat GirlRough Trade
This is a young album, an antidote to all the articles about house prices, feckless millennials or smashed avocados on sourdough. This is just a document of being young and uncertain and trying not to be a wanker and trying to have a good time in a city which makes all of those things extremely difficult.
EartheaterIrisiriPAN
Irisiri is an album that explores the concepts of femininity, technology and the how many non-conforming bodies end up falling between the cracks in the seemingly implacable poles of gender, sex and the human. All her songs display seemingly disparate contrasts of surrealist wordplay, with organic, fragile tones and cold, machinist grind, as she pieces and stitches them into idiosyncratic little monsters that at times bewilders, but ultimately beguiles you with their curiosity and playfulness.
Pig DestroyerHead CageRelapse
Pig Destroyer never really bought in to the globally minded ‘anti’ politics of grindcore’s originators. Instead they sought out a horrifying perspective on the dangers of the male psyche. But writing that “semen tastes like gunmetal”, and about “twinkling bits of glass stuck in her face”, gets old… Head Cage moves them into the middle of the 21st century culture wars.
Deena AbdelwahedKhonnarInFiné Music
The lyrics, which are mostly sung in Tunisian Arabic, see Abdelwahed exploring subjects of inequality in her native casting a critical eye over the police state and gender inequality. ‘Tawa’ combines traditional instrumentation with club-ready drum machines while ‘Fdiha’ is a heavy-hitting chugger that calls to mind some of the output of the Night Slugs camp. This ear for building dancefloor-focused grooves continues through much of Khonnar as Abdelwahed pushes against the notion that socially-conscious statements are best held at arm’s length from such conventions.
Alison CottonAll Is Quiet At The Ancient TheatreBloxham Tapes
Alison Cotton’s album is a highly memorable suite evoking other times and places with a deftness and a lightness of touch. She is an excellent and restrained songwriter, confidently combining instrumental and vocal music to create a recording that delivers much and promises more to come.
Alexander TuckerDon’t Look AwayThrill Jockey
BruceSonder SomaticHessle Audio
Bristol-based Larry McCarthy, better known as Bruce, comes good on years of standout 12” releases on Sonder Somatic. Highlight ‘What’ sees him reach for peak-time dancefloors as a stretched-out vocal sample fuses with gallopins drums, the combination barely letting up intensity across its five-minute run. Elsewhere, ‘Cacao’ drives forward with a menacing bassline that wouldn’t sound out of place on an A Made Up Sound record while tracks like ‘Meek’ and ‘Torn’ see McCarthy exploring lower tempos.
Kali UchisIsolation
The CaretakerEverywhere At The End Of Time Stage VHallow Ground
”The later stages of the project are not going to be that nice,” Leyland James Kirby warned us, two years ago, when he was starting Everywhere At The End Of Time. And it’s true: the work began as crackling loops and samples of, basically, the music from the end of The Shining. It had a spooksome 78rpm echo and a lingering impression of Jack Torrance, but it was warmly melancholy rather than terrifying. Now it’s terrifying. The project tracks the descent of Kirby’s Caretaker persona into dementia, and this is the penultimate part (the final one is released in March). It’s fair to mention the analogy with our descent into Brexit, especially as UK citizen Kirby now lives in Poland, but you don’t need global political parallels to add extra frissons or bonus despair to tracks like ‘Sudden Time Regression Into Isolation’ or ‘Advanced Plaque Entanglements’. Say hello to the abyss; it’s confusing and less beautiful than we were hoping it would be.
GuttersnipeMy Mother The VentUpset The Rhythm
A blizzard of sound and energy, Guttersnipe are in every sense a 21st century band. Unleashed from the always fruitful Leeds underground scene in 2015, these two noise rock miscreants have forged one of the most exciting and exhilarating duo bands currently at work today. Comprised of Urocerus Gigas (guitar, vocals, synth) and Tipula Confusa (drums, vocals, drum synth), Guttersnipe are a bilious concoction of technical prowess and visceral expression, a continual eruption of diametrical forces: Gigas’ flamboyant neo-shredding guitar work is in thrilling contrast to Confusa’s catalytic, whip-cracking drums.
TirzahDevotionDomino
Hazy keyboards and smooth, sweet vocals appreciate a relationship’s easy, small but mighty moments. It sounds like squinting at the beating sun until those pretty, squiggly lines veil your vision, summer sweat hugging your bare arms.
700 BlissSpa 700
DJ Haram’s serrated productions deftly complement Moor Mother’s unique flow, their sharp edges and concussive beats made somehow more brutal by melodic, sometimes delicate touches fostered by Haram’s keen ear for detail. Bernie Brooks and Kristen Gallerneaux
Blocks EscherSomething BlueMetalheadz
In a year that saw Metalheadz re-assert itself as a reliable source for D&B in its various forms, Blocks & Escher’s debut album stood out from everything else. Something Blue folds in the jazz influences of late ‘90s neurofunk on opener ‘Vigil’, while album highlight ‘Sea’ recalls the pairing of Goldie and Diane Charlemagne on the former’s Timeless thanks to Jennifer Hall’s gliding vocal. Closer ‘Something Borrowed, Something Blue’ tugs at the heartstrings with its majestic, soaring synths and techstep-indebted drum breaks.
GnodChapel PerilousRocket Recordings
The album is sequenced like a pulverising futuristic space-rock version of Reign In Blood: bookended by overbearing monolithic structures that initially cast shadows over the relatively hard-to-penetrate middle section. It’s great to finally hear ‘Donovan’s Daughters’ in a home setting. While it still slaps hard – and oh, sweet lord Jesus and all of your apostles, that drop – Raikes Parade’s masterful dub creates abyss-deep currents of echo and sky-scraping vapour trails of reverb.
