Yep. There were some awesome releases in February. From contemplative rap, to crazy idiosyncratic Jazz Funk via a long, long folk album, it's been a good ride. Any month with a top 6 is a great month. It means I can't bear to drop something off the list into the doldrums of The Rest section. Albums in 3rd and 4th in these months would possibly be top in other lists. The top 4 from February were greatly enjoyable, and all of them represent widely different styles of music. This blog's already too long, so here we go:
The Rest:
Big Sean - I Decided. - C
Dirty Projectors - Dirty Projectors - C
Omar Rodríguez-López - Chocolate Tumor Hormone Parade - B
Omar Rodríguez-López - Ensayo de un Desaparecido - C
Xiu Xiu - FORGET - C
The Best:
01: Jonwayne - Rap Album 2 - A
Comeback albums are volatile currency. There's an inordinate amount of pressure on the artist to deliver. It's an illustrative microcosm of human nature that a time on the sidelines raises this brand of sneery expectation. It's our shameful desire to see people who have got themselves out of a pit fall straight back in. I'd like to think that a slightly stronger desire in us is the one that wants to see people overcome that expectation. And with that in mind, after a tough ride through alcohol abuse and a career hiatus during which he thought he may never get back in the game, it's awesome to see Jonwayne drop an impressive early contender for one of the top Hip-hop albums of 2017.
Rap Album 2 is a stoic meditation on personal struggle. It's one man's diary, a document of human experience. Initially you notice the subtle, styled beats and lack of hooks through the record, and you realise - In the best way possible - This ain't gonna be top 40 radio. Jonwayne's flow and rapping lends itself to the music and fits smoothly over the top. His lyrics are nakedly honest, they tell us all we need to know about his journey through the last few years. He talks about it all with gravitas and a lack of bitterness that suggests he's moving past the tough times, and is now able to reflect on exactly how he feels. It makes Rap Album 2 exclusive and personal, but it also makes it mature.
Listen to Out Of Sight, Human Condition, and the magnificent final track These Words Are Everything. These are heavy philosophical verses. They are wide open windows into Jonwayne's life. He's given us an open door to his past few years, lyrically concise and musically unique. Rap Album 2 is listenable, enormously relatable, and easily makes the top of the list of a very good month of releases.
02: Sampha - Process - A
Process was one of the most hotly anticipated releases for 2017, and something I'd had on my list for some time. Sampha's virtuous Soul vibes ripple delicately across this project, and it's fair to say that the hype was justified - Process is a grand, eloquent Pop/Soul project, brimming with pathos. The music is densely layered, yet simultaneously light and easy to listen to. It washes over you in waves. From the first listen, Sampha's budding musical prowess shines out, and from front to back, Process is a sweet journey.
There's something about honest British songwriters that popular music institutions love right now, more than usual, and Sampha slots into that mould very well. The obvious single Blood On Me is as off-the-shelf alt-mainstream as it gets - It's got that pealing intensity that will keep it on Radio 1's playlist for months. The rest of the album is decked out with emotionally charged concise pieces, each one forming a vital part of the picture. There's no filler on Process.
One song I can't get out of my head is (No One Knows Me) Like The Piano, a sparse piano/vocal tune about the piano in Sampha's mother's house that he learned to play on. There's so much love and tenderness in that song, it threatens to go too schmaltzy here and there, but never goes over the edge. It's a solo performance worthy of someone far more accomplished than a songwriter, on his full length debut, and even though it sets a high benchmark for Sampha, it's obvious he should be able to surpass it with little effort. Process is a sheen-polished debut from an artist with bags of potential.
03: Thundercat - Drunk - A
This was one of my most anticipated releases of the year. I'd known Thundercat was gearing up for a release from his Twitter activity for some time, (follow him if you like random bursts of nutty craziness on your timeline) and so have been adequately prepared for Drunk and it's whacked-out funk-bass and jazzy twiddlings.
Thundercat's greasy pawprints are all over modern music. He's directly orchestrated big chunks of recent albums by Flying Lotus, Chuldish Gambino and Kamasi Washington, to name just three of the 2 dozen projects he's featured on since the mid-00's. That's before you count the decade he's spent as bassist for Sucidal Tendencies. Now he's put out his own full length. Dude's prolific.
Drunk is a murky set of 23 short tracks, Jazz, Funk, Pop and experimental pieces, strung together by Thundercat's superlative weirdness. There's a radio-friendly double header in the centre with Friend Zone and Them Changes, certainly playable at any given late-night party, but then there's songs like Captain Stupido that are probably best kept to the headphones. Thundercat's aforementioned co-conspirator Flying Lotus provides production on the majority of the album, and with a guest spot from Kendrick Lamar, (who else) Drunk is all the top boys of the cerebral beats world coming together to create something that is purely fantastic.
04: Sun Kil Moon - Common as Light and Love Are Red Valleys of Blood - B
I once listened to this on a 2 hour train journey. It was perfect. Watching the green fields and isolated trees of the English countryside silently roll across the mid-spring vista, with the droney folk of Common as Light and Love Are Red Valleys of Blood painted through it all made for one of the nicest transitions from London to the north I've ever had, and let me tell you, I've had A LOT of those. The album finished after I got off the train. That's how goddamn long it is. I think that's what detracts from the quality for me - It'd be an A with just 1/4 of the length taken off. Mark Kozelek's world is interesting, but it's not that interesting. His mumbling gets drowned out by most ambient noise and it's hard to catch the thread of the stories once they're lost.
I do love the wandery subject matter though, Light and Love is about politics, serial killers, musical heroes, it has a requiem for a friend who passed away. It's a loose concept album, based around 6 months of travel, the monologues and paragraphs in Kozelek's notebooks (surely he has sackfuls of them) somehow shaped into some level of cohesion and written into songs. There's no track under 5 minutes on this record, which gives you a good heads-up of how epic it is. While some of the content is hard to justify, (a 9 minute song called Chili Lemon Peanuts, anyone?) Light and Love contains some beautifully written stories and bravely honest moments. It's worth the ride if you have a couple of hours for a daydream.
Sun Kil Moon aren't exactly a chart-busting prime time act, so I couldn't find any Youtube video for this album, official or otherwise. Listen to Bergen To Trondheim, Butch Lullaby and God Bless Ohio to get a good feel for this one.
05: Stormzy - Gang Signs And Prayer - B
Unlike Wiley's Godfather from earlier this year, Stormzy tries out some wider ideas on Gang Signs And Prayer that elevate the scope of the project beyond Just Another Grime Album. This is nowhere near as cohesive, though. The off-brand tracks are probably the direction Stormzy wants to go - His reflective moments on Prayer are what kept me coming back, Blinded By Your Grace, 21 Gun Salute and 100 Bags are all worthy highlights, whereas intended bangers like Bad Boys and Big For Your Boots are a little flat and tacked-on.
That's not to say it detracts from the overall experience - This is Stormzy's first full-length release, and he's obviously put an enormous amount of love and effort into it's execution. Prayer is a statement on life, music and the world. In spite of some fairly derivative content, it's a great record, and in the end it is a statement worth making. It'll be exciting to hear his next release, and to see how his career pans out. Cigarettes And Cush is a massive tune, by the way.
06: Crystal Fairy - Crystal Fairy - B
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