Listen To Our 20 Favorite Albums of 2016:
With the end of the year around the corner, let’s check out our 20 Favorite Albums of 2016. Fortunately, musicians and artists were there for us once again, acting as an Advanced Warning System, and some of these selections might be seen as red flags waving high in the air. For instance, New Zealand’s The Dead C continued their thirty year run, but even from a remote island they could see Trouble was here, while Fatima Al Qadiri‘s Brute was titled to reflect back the harmful stereotypes which often dominate our media reporting. Others opted for a more existential tact, with Boy Harsher reminding us Yr Body Is Nothing and The Body responding, No One Deserves Happiness. Sour grapes for swallowing bitter pills, for sure! Maybe, though, you needed your doom and gloom with a bit more black humor. If so, Oozing Wound‘s Whatever Forever should be your mantra, while you wallow in Death Grips‘ Bottomless Pit. Still too negative? Well, let’s welcome in some newcomers to our Favorite Albums list, then. Hippies Wearing Muzzles, MOURN, Jessy Lanza, you guys are the bestest and brightest, so we’ll be counting on you for great music in the days to come! Till then, you have more than enough here to keep you busy through the new year.
20. MOURN Ha, Ha, He (Captured Tracks)
The Catalonian four-piece MOURN released their infectious sophomore LP Ha, Ha, He! this year via Captured Tracks. The album title was taken from William Blake’s “The Laughing Song” poem and it was a perfectly disarming name for this young band’s second release. While the band might only be on the cusp of their 20’s, they play with the kind of chemistry that seems to come from strong friendships and long, productive times spent together. Still “coming of age”? This is the music to do it too!
19. Hippies Wearing Muzzles Plants In Combination (Tsuku Boshi)
Hippies Wearing Muzzles is the work of Denver-based electronic musician Lee Evans and he recently released his Plants in Combination LP via the French label Tsuku Boshi. Evans uses a modular synth set-up and creates a music that blurs the distance between organic instrumentation and synthesized electronic sound. With tones that often echo nature or the sounds of indigenous instruments, Plants in Combination is filled with the beguiling atmosphere of some alternate Fourth World.
18. The Dead C Trouble (Ba Da Bing)
Thirty years of The Dead C and, thankfully, we’re still counting! Returning this past September to Ba Da Bing! to release their 2xLP Trouble, New Zealand’s Bruce Russell, Michael Morley, and Robbie Yeats continue to ruthlessly challenge musical conventions while holding true to a DIY aesthetic that has kept them in good stead for thirty years running. Trouble, recorded in 2013 at Chicks Hotel, and mastered in 2015, finds the group in as irascible mood as ever across its’ five tracks–proving these three cats still have an ax to grind and angst to burn!
17. Black Marble Its Immaterial (Ghostly International)
Chris Stewart returned this Fall with his synth-wave project Black Marble, releasing his second full-length, Its Immaterial, via Ghostly International. Since putting out A Different Arrangement on Hardly Art in 2012, Stewart has relocated from the East Coast to Los Angeles, and the record reflects those transitions–and their difficulties. Discussing the album, the artist explained:
“It’s a lot of psychic turmoil about time, place, and the dissatisfaction that comes with being young and not having control over place, or being old and not having control over time. The record is filled with characters trying to convince themselves, and others, to change, or to see things differently, or to come along with them somewhere. It’s that moment of wanting, between knowing and doing, but frozen in time”.
16. Thee Oh Sees A Weird Exits (Castle Face Records)
It wouldn’t be another year without another great album from John Dwyer‘s Thee Oh Sees and this year you can take either A Weird Exits or An Odd Entrances–both out on Castle Face Records. We flipped a coin and it came up Exits. We’re totally fine with that as its’ a sick slab of psychoactive punk sure to set your wig on fire!
15. Boy Harsher Yr Body Is Nothing (DKA Records)
Boy Harsher’s Jae Matthews and Augustus Muller met at film school in Savannah, GA, and began making music as Teen Dreamz, before settling on their current moniker. Yr Body Is Nothing, out on Atlanta’s DKA Records, is the duo’s first long-player and it turns insatiable longing and existential misgiving into elegantly bitter electro-pop. Fans of artists like HTRK, Tropic of Cancer, and Carla dal Forno will find much to love here!
14. Jessy Lanza Oh No (Hyperdub)
Jessy Lanza‘s Oh No LP came out this past May on Hyperdub Records. Recorded in her hometown of Hamilton, Ontario with production partner, Junior Boys’ Jeremy Greenspan, Lanza combines her infectious vocal delivery with a minimalist electro aesthetic to craft an upbeat, dance floor driven vibe. You can put this one on as you get ready to go out for the night, or after hours, and it will sound like essential listening either way.
13. True Widow Avvolgere (Relapse Records)
Texas stone-gaze trio True Widow released their killer LP Avvolgere on Relapse Records this September. Not only was it one of our favorite records of the year, we can also attest to this band’s live prowess as they turned in a captivating performance this past October at the Highline in Seattle. Devastatingly heavy and seductively melodic, singer/guitarist Dan Phillips, bassist Nicole Estill, and drummer Timothy Starks create a music with a powerful internal gravity capable of drawing you into its’ black hole like a moth to the flame.
12. Heimat Heimat (Kill Shaman Records)
Kill Shaman Records sure brought us some far out drift with the release of the debut self-titled LP from Heimat. Featuring two label alumni, the French musicians Olivier Demeaux of Cheveu and Armellie Oberle of The Dreams, the pair mixed “afro-beat rhythms, cinematic soundscapes, and post-punk aggression” into 10-tracks of otherworldly pop. Throw in an amazing album cover by Russian outsider artist Alexander Lobanov, and you’ve got one of the most interesting records of 2016.
11. Lorelle Meets the Obsolete Chambers (Captcha Records)
Once again, Lorelle Meets the Obsolete is back on our Favorite Albums list! Institutional bias? No, just a deep love for the duo’s smoldering brand of psych music. Chambers (Captcha Records/Sonic Cathedral) was recorded at the band’s studio in Ensenada, Mexico, mixed by Chicago psych guru Cooper Crain (Cave, Bitchin Bajas), and mastered by Mikey Young (Total Control/Eddy Current Suppression Ring). Lorena Quintanilla and Alberto González are in good stead here and the result is an album capable of pummeling in grand fashion or lulling you into a slow dissolve. Or, maybe you like it both ways at the same time. And that’s totally fine by us!
10. SUMAC What One Becomes (Thrill Jockey)
SUMAC started in 2014 as a way for musician Aaron Turner (Mamiffer, Old Man Gloom, ex-Isis) to create “the heaviest music of his career”. Since expanding into a trio that year, the band’s nuanced explorations of the darker side of metal have set a high watermark for what is possible with titanic low-end and an experimental approach to structure. Joined by drummer Nick Yacyshyn (Baptists) and bassist Brian Cook (Russian Circles, ex-These Arms Are Snakes, ex-Botch), on the band’s 2016 LP offering What One Becomes (Thrill Jockey) the group questions “fabricated structures of identity” and deals with “the sustained presence of anxiety” as our current living condition. You can read Live Eye Tv’s review of the album, here.
9. patten Ψ (Warp Records)
The UK electronic producer patten added his visual collaborator Jane Eastlight into the musical fold back in 2014. First performing at Warp25 in Krakow, Poland, the duo would go onto perform a short run of shows exploring their deconstructed club music with a stark and intense visual show. This year the pair released their Ψ LP on September 16th via Warp Records. Discussing the album, the duo explained:
“There were atmospheres, palettes and textures we were interested in looking at and distilling on Ψ – like the grinding city sounds of Industrial music, the bass weight of UK dance’s Hardcore Continuum, the emotive drive of 80s Goth, the techy weirdness of current pop music like Rihanna, the sonics of modern club like Grime, Footwork and Techno. We wrote in a very open way, allowing these elements to naturally interact in what we were doing.”
While you’re at it, don’t miss patten’s video for the album’s title track, “Epsilon“, as it’s one of our favorite videos of 2016!
8. Oozing Wound Whatever Forever (Thrill Jockey)
Oozing Wound returned this Fall with another obliterating platter of head shredding metal, Whatever Forever, out this past October on Thrill Jockey. Guitarist-singer Zack Weil laid down the skinny on the new record:
“…we went back to the plant and reformulated this batch of ooze to be so potent that it had to be spread over three (3?!) sides of vinyl. You want fast shit? We got it! You want slow shit? We got it! You want weird shit? Fuck yeah, you do. The same people made it, but we all got BETTER at it this time, not worse. In the past we’ve explored what it means to be a band in the twenty-tennys (Retrash), and how life is a pointless pummeling from the pugilist known as existence (Earth Suck). Now we bring you Whatever Forever, a culmination of nihilism, yeah-dude radicalness of the early 90s, and the belief that taking anything too seriously is a guarantee it’ll suck.”
Limited editions of Whatever Forever also came with a comic book from artist Sam Nigrosh, whose ridiculously rad drawings can be seen on the album’s cover above. Oozing Wound’s video for “Diver” was also one of our favorite videos of 2016, so don’t miss it!
7. Raime Tooth (Blackest Ever Black)
This past June, Raime released their 2xLP Tooth via Blackest Ever Black. The London duo continues to craft exquisite, dark-tinged tension using a fierce brand of sonic minimalism as their guide. Combining elements of dub, jungle, and post-rock– like many of the artists on BEB–Raime’s music inhabits its own space between electronic experimentalism and art-rock. Back in 2012, when Joe Andrews and Tom Halstead sat down with Resident Advisor‘s Todd L. Burns to discuss the records and music which influence their sound, the pair’s eclectic collection included psych-leaning Japanese artists like Takehisa Kosugi and Les Rallizes Denudes, doom pioneers Earth, obscure sludge punkers The Sickness, as well as experimental jungle from Omni Trio, techno from Jeff Mills, and grime from Jon E Cash. Unifying those interests around their love for intense sub-bass, cinemagraphic arrangements, and psycho-activating acoustics, Raime continue to create a deeply affecting ambience filled with urban dread and dark beauty.
6. Death Grips Bottomless Pit (Harvest, Third Worlds)
Each Death Grips‘ album has been a potent enigma wrapped inside a prickly “fuck off”! Whether the band was leaking a major label release ahead of schedule, complete with drummer drummer Zach Hill’s erect penis on the cover, like NO LOVE DEEP WEB, or just dropping albums for free with no warning, like Niggas on the Moon ( a “collaboration” with Björk), or the instrumental Fashion Week, the Sacramento-based trio have always acted with complete disregard for “music business” rules. With that said, though, Bottomless Pit might be one of the band’s most “accessible” releases since they kicked things off with 2011’s Exmilitary. Still holding the listener at bay with a stiff arm, while inviting them to come closer with the other hand, Bottomless Pit delivers just the sonic drubbing you’ve hoped to receive from these three punks since the beginning. And, hot damn, if it doesn’t hurt so good!
5. Thug Entrancer Arcology (Software)
This year Ryan McRyhew‘s project Thug Entrancer returns to our Favorite Albums list with his sophomore 2xLP release Arcology, out now on Software. McRyhew first came to our attention with his video for “Death After Life I”, directed and animated by his good friend, Milton Melvin Croissant III. Croissant returns again on the visual side of things, providing the album’s striking cover and videos, and he offers this insight on the themes which drive Arcology:
“What interests us the most in science fiction, or what we find makes the genre successful, is the ability to construct a new universe, culture, and environment. World-building is something we strive for individually in each of our creative practices. The ultimate goal of this collaboration is to use the music of Arcology as a framework to create a universe.”
McRyhew adds, “The album title stems from the idea of a structure or object that is entirely self-sufficient and life-generating with little to no outside influence”, which seems to be an apt metaphor for an album “created in isolation”. While you’re at it, don’t miss Croissant’s excellent video for “Ronin”, one of our favorites of 2016.
4. Exploded View Exploded View (Sacred Bones)
Exploded View pairs the vocalist Annika Henderson with Crocodiles’ producer Martin Thulin, as well as the Mexico City musicians Hugo Quezada (Robota) and Amon Melgarejo (Jessy Bulbo, Nos llamamos). The group came together back in 2014 when Anika was playing a show in Mexico City. Needing a backing band, she assembled one over the internet with the help of local friends. According to her Tumblr page, it was “love at first sight”, with some “passive aggression” thrown in for good measure. The band’s self-titled debut came out in August via Sacred Bones, and it’s a tough pill to swallow. On “Lost Illusions”, she wonders, “Must everything be bought/ From sex, to joy, to experiment?”, before lamenting, “we no longer enjoy the real”. By the track’s end, she’s advising: “Sell your clothes/And sell your soul”. And that’s just how the album starts! Don’t miss Exploded View’s video for “Orlando“, one of Live Eye Tv’s favorites of 2016.
3. Clipping. Splendor & Misery (Sub Pop/Deathbomb Arc)
This year Clipping.‘s rapper Daveed Diggs won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his work in Hamilton–having developed the roles of the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson for the Broadway musical. As if that wasn’t enough, he also joined his bandmates Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson to release the EP Wriggle (Sub Pop), as well as this excellent long-player, Splendor & Misery (Sub Pop/Deathbomb Arc). The later was billed as an “Afrofuturist, dystopian concept album that follows the sole survivor of a slave uprising on an interstellar cargo ship, and the on-board computer that falls in love with him”. Another intriguing chapter in the band’s growing discography, and required listening for your off all your off-planet travels this holiday. While you’re at it, check out Clipping.’s video for “Air ‘Em Out“–one of our favorites in 2016.
2. The Body No One Deserves Happiness (Thrill Jockey)
The Body released their 2xLP No One Deserves Happiness on March 18th via Thrill Jockey. Setting out to make “the grossest pop album of all time”, Chip King and Lee Buford have once again re-imagined their extreme, metal-leaning sonics, and in so doing continue to push their sound in unique, genre-defying ways. For the album, the duo added the services of Seth Manchester and Keith Souza, from Machines with Magnets, the group’s long-time recording studio. In addition, King and Buford are joined by Chrissy Wolpert of The Assembly of Light Choir, as well as Maralie Armstrong. Exuding grave misgivings and extreme gnostic terror, No One Deserves Happiness is like looking down the wrong end of the question, “What is life for?”
1. Fatima Al Qadiri Brute (Hyperdub)
Fatima Al Qadiri‘s Brute LP came out this past March, and it was the artist’s second release for Hyperdub Records. Speaking with Mixmag‘s Deforrest Brown earlier this year, Al Qadiri explained the title of her record this way:
“Brute is a kind of counterpoint to the word thug, and how people over the last two years have been speaking about thugs in the media. I wanted to title the record accordingly.”
Focused on the issues of social injustice, what she called “the atmospheres of rage and despair”, the musician went on to explain that the album was about, “the subject of protest”. Prescient, or with her fingers squarely on the pulse of current conditions, Fatima Al Qadiri’s Brute offered vital social commentary. And, while it’s an important reminder of the role artists play in reflecting back to us our human condition, it was also an intriguing sonic document narrating urban unrest with operatic drama.
