It’s that time of the year again when we look back on our favorite releases of 2016. Maybe you’re already busily scouring your favorite music sites to get the skinny on what happened over the last twelve months, or maybe you’re like this guy, already predicting what’ll be hot in the coming year(s). Whatever your preference, Live Eye Tv will have enough music and videos to keep you busy all the way into 2017 as we roll out our 20 favorite tracks, videos, and albums of the past year. Today, we start with the songs that kept us going through these unbelievable last twelve months, and whether your a fan of Mass Gothic‘s exhilarating bummer pop, B Boys‘ searching and serrated post-punk, or Jlin‘s dizzying take on Chicago footwork, you’ll find more than enough to keep your ears busy right through the holidaze!
20. Night Moves “Denise, Don’t Wanna See You Cry”
The Minneapolis-based trio Night Moves returned this year to release their sophomore LP Pennied Days via Domino Records on March 25th. Written and recorded by the band’s main members, singer/guitarist John Pelant and bassist Micky Alfano, the new record was also produced by long standing indie mainstay, John Angello (Sonic Youth, Kurt Vile). Sounding comfortably worn in the best of ways, on “Denise, Don’t Wanna See You Cry” the band’s warped, off-kilter approach to song-craft adds real charm making this cut sound like an intimate bit of home-recorded bedroom pop!
https://youtu.be/2NZ8fI7PRNM
19. Mass Gothic “Every Night You’ve Got To Save Me”
Noel Heroux‘s Mass Gothic project, with bandmate Jessica Zambri, yielded a self-titled Sub Pop LP this year and the debut was filled with lovable losers like, “Every Night You’ve Got To Save Me“. The pair’s cut-and-paste aesthetic always makes for an exhilarating ride and Heroux has a real knack for off-handed phrases that ring with emotional depth–like banging an old bruise. Need a pick-me-up, a track you can return to night after night while you mop yourself up off the floor of despair, this is the one that will make all your pain seem worth living for! Just like a great song should…
18. MOURN “Evil Dead”
The Catalonian four-piece MOURN followed up the success of their self-titled debut last year with their LP Ha, Ha, He! (Captured Tracks) this past June. The album title is taken from William Blake?s poem ?The Laughing Song? and it’s a perfectly disarming name for the young band’s sophomore release. On this live studio version of “Evil Dead“, the album’s first single, we get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the group as they work through this track’s driving intricacies. Carla P?rez Vas and Jazz Rodr?guez Bueno share guitar and vocal duties, and they confidently lead this cut thru its’ dramatic vicissitudes while bassist Leia Rodr?guez and drummer Antonio Postius provide the song strong bones. 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.
17. Rival Consoles “Lone”
The London-based electronic musician Ryan Lee West, aka Rival Consoles, returned with his 6-track mini-LP Night Melody this past August via Erased Tapes. As the name might suggest, the album is the result of long nights–many spent alone working on music after the break-up of a 13-year relationship with his partner at the time. He explains:
?I found myself, in a silent home, with the days getting dark very early. I?ve never before in my life been affected by the lack of light so much. I just remember it always being night time. I would either make music into the night, go out drinking with friends, or go to parties and dance into the early hours, every day, week after week, month after month, until eventually, the days became brighter again.?
The track “Lone” had been kicking around since 2014, around the time West was working on his Sonne EP. Struggling to find the right balance between this song’s desire for forward motion and a prevailing condition of inertia, it combines brittle key strikes with the pulsing warm tones of night. Slides in time signature and other rhythmic subtleties eventually congeal into a rousing forward motion, before melting back into the darkness of the early hours.
16. B Boys “Get A Grip”
The Brooklyn post-punk trio B Boys released their 8-track No Worry No Mind EP this past March via Captured Tracks and “Get A Grip” was one of our favorite songs on the band’s urgent debut! Discussing the album with The Big Takeover, the band’s drummer Andrew Kerr explained,
“The songs represent an inward reflection more so than an outward one. What it feels like to live in society but not an analysis of society itself. That?s part of the EP?s dichotomy? this anxiety/internal struggle juxtaposed with a theme of meditation”.
“Get A Grip”‘s intensity is built around a fast revolving guitar line that cuts to the quick before breaking out in jangled flourishes. Meanwhile, a driving backbeat moves this cut forward with headlong intensity while pressing vocals alternate around the track’s riveting guitar work.
15. RP Boo “The King” RP Boo‘s ready to be the king! As the godfather of Chicago’s juke and footwork scene, the dancer turned producer has been critical in shaping these genres since the 90’s. Now that footwork has been around the world, so to speak, and even lost its’ preeminent ambassador in DJ Rashad, the genre’s had time to think about itself apart from the “battlegrounds” and parties which birthed the scene. Seems to me RP Boo has always been a thinking man, a mad scientist working beats and samples into rough and kinetic shapes, and as footwork continues to stake its’ claims on the cultural landscape, the producer is once again at the forefront pushing the genre into new territory.
“The King” is off the musician’s The Ultimate EP out this past November via Planet Mu. Borrowing a sample from Fresh, and working it into the dust, what really stands out is this track’s stark take on footwork. It’s like the mad scientist, in having to perform emergency surgery on the genre, drained it of most of its’ blood, slowing the BPMs while leaving only the vitals to beat and tick with their inimitable energy. The result is a thrillingly pure distillation of footwork that showcases the syncopated and frenetic rhythmic patterns at its’ core while making use of moody bass oscillations and haunted strings to create “The King”‘s tense and ominous mood.
14. Jessy Lanza “It Means I Love You”
Jessy Lanza followed up the chic and moody electro-pop of her 2013 LP Pull My Hair Back with a brand new long-player called Oh No this past May via 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, dancefloor-driven vibe. “It Means I Love You” was the album’s first single and here it is performed live for Canada’s CBC Music. Joined on synth and effects by Greenspan, and with some amazing live drumming from Tori Tizzard, it’s a real treat to see the trio play the track live. While it’s sometimes easy to imagine electronic forms like house and techno are made mostly by machines, here Lanza reminds us that is not her agenda at all. These are human-generated, electronic jams, and it’s exhilarating to see the process–especially when the track launches into its’ hyper-kinetic footwork influenced rhythms.
13. Boy Harsher “Yr Body Is Nothing”
Jae Matthews and Augustus Muller make darkly shaded electro-pop under the moniker Boy Harsher, and the duo released their debut LP Yr Body Is Nothing this past June via Atlanta’s DKA Records. The pair met at film school in Savannah, GA and began making music as Teen Dreamz, combining Matthews storytelling with Muller’s ambient soundscapes.
As the project developed musically and creatively, the two took the name Boy Harsher, releasing their Lesser Man EP on Night People in 2015, as well as last year’s 12″ Pain via Or?culo Records. Yr Body Is Nothing will be the duo’s first long-player and fans of artists like HTRK, Tropic of Cancer, and Carla dal Forno will find much to love here!
“Yr Body Is Nothing” features Muller’s muscular rhythms and driving bass and they cast a dark pallor over the proceedings. Singer Jae Matthews adds androgynous and narcotic vocals that flicker like shadows across the cut, and though ethereal, they have a mesmerizing power!
12. Pissed Jeans “The Bar Is Low”
Pissed Jeans frontman Matt Korvette sings, “The speed of evolution is getting slower” on the band’s recently released track “The Bar Is Low“, and, in lieu of recent social/political developments, this is more than just a sarcastic turn of a phrase. Unfortunately, it’s our cultural reality. Thankfully, though, we still have bands like Pissed Jeans using their irreverent humor and biting wit to reflect back to us some of the ugly conditions of this new modern life. On “The Bar Is Low”, the group takes aim at the kind of neanderthal male attitude exemplified in Billy Bush and Donald Trump’s now infamous exchange, but, really, it cuts deeper than that by demanding all men examine their attitudes towards women. Korvette explains:
“It seems like every guy is getting outed across every board of entertainment and politics and music. There?s no guy that isn?t a total creep. You?re like, ?No, he?s just a dude that hits on drunk girls and has sex with them when they?re asleep.? Cool, he?s just an average shithead.”
Indeed, the bar has lowered when “average shitheads” are normalized and elected president and the four guys in Pissed Jeans are not about to let us forget that!
11. Jlin “Downtown”
Jerrilynn Patton, aka Jlin, is an electronic producer from Gary, Indiana, and her 2015 LP Dark Energy (Planet Mu) was one of our favorite albums of last year. This past June the musician returned with a new track for Adult Swim‘s Singles Program called “Downtown“, and it further demonstrated her ability to transcend the genre of footwork while putting her own unique signature on the form. Densely rhythmic, “Downtown”‘s kinetic beat patterns are slowed and sped up at will, as Jlin tricks out her drums with intricate flourishes while adding a juke-like vocal sample just to make sure no one’s getting their nose too high in the air!
10. Raime “Dead Heat”
The UK production duo Raime returned this past June with their 2xLP Tooth via Blackest Ever Black. “Dead Heat” was the first single from Joe Andrews and Tom Halstead‘s release and it seamlessly blends a tightly wound and angst-filled guitar line with a meticulous and minimal dub aesthetic. Even when only working with two or three sonic elements there’s an extreme sense of detail here that borders on the violent. Cavernous bass blasts and piercing, bird-like cries add drama to this track’s hard-hitting percussive elements while a guitar desperately circles in an effort to ward off what sounds like a bad moon rising.
9. Marissa Nadler “Janie In Love”
Marissa Nadler‘s Strangers LP came out in May via Sacred Bones. Nadler reported on her Facebook page at the time that the record was recorded once again in Seattle with producer Randall Dunn (Sunn O))), Earth, Wolves In the Throne Room). She added that “many of the players” on her 2014 LP July returned to work on the upcoming album–as well as “new collaborators (and new sounds).” “Janie In Love” features lush, layered instrumentation, with Dunn’s skilled production yielding darkly detailed low end, while Nadler’s gorgeous and narcotic voice shines throughout.
8. patten “Sonne”
The UK electronic producer patten has added his visual collaborator Jane Eastlight into the musical fold to make the project a duo. First performing back in 2014 at Warp25 in Krakow, Poland, this year the pair released their ? LP via Warp Records. In discussing the album, the duo explained:
“There were atmospheres, palettes and textures we were interested in looking at and distilling on ? – 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.”
“Sonne” features razor sharp percussion, cavernous bass, and acidic synth lines, while Eastlight narrates the track with a vacant, noir delivery.
7. Xiu Xiu “Falling”
Hard to think of a better choice than Xiu Xiu to reimagine Angelo Badalamenti‘s classic Twin Peaks soundtrack! After being commissioned by Australia’s Gallery of Modern Art to perform interpretations of the classic tracks for their David Lynch: Between Two Worlds exhibition, Jamie Stewart and Co. went on to perform the songs during select concerts around the world–including the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in LA and London’s Saint John-at-Hackney church. Following the success of those shows, the band recorded their reinterpretations as Plays The Music of Twin Peaks. Produced by Jherek Bischoff (Amanda Palmer, Ariel Pink), and mixed by Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier, the album came out on Record Store Day via Polyvinyl in North America and Bella Union in the UK/Europe. Our first listen in on the release was “Falling“, the Julee Cruise track made iconic as the Twin Peaks‘ theme song. Might have been daunting for a male singer to approach Cruise’s light as air vocal delivery, but Stewart possesses a voice like few others. Boldly reimaging the track, he moves between registers and styles as only he can, adding additional dimensions to the song’s sublime naivete.
6. The Range “Five Four”
NY-based musician and producer The Range released his Potential LP on March 25th via Domino. The effort found James Hinton exploring his love for early UK grime and electronica, and it joins his dynamic compositions with emcees he discovered while exploring off-the-beaten path on YouTube. “Five Four” features the London-based grime vocalists Ophqi and Super Thought, who also star in this video for the track directed by Daniel Kaufman. Appearing as ambassadors, Ophqi and Super Thought led us on an intimate tour through their neighborhood, giving us a glimpse into the everyday realities that inform their lyrics.
5. Death Grips “Trash”
Last year Death Grips canceled an upcoming tour and told us they were done as a band–before going on to release a barrage of music including one of our favorite records of 2016, Bottomless Pit (Harvest, Third Worlds). “Trash” comes out of the gate on sea legs, as a two-note synth line wobbles back and forth while razor sharp snare patterns chase their tails. MC Ride unleashes a tangle of surreal poetry and while it’s sometimes difficult to find a straight line thru his maniacal tirades, here he makes it clear–garbage in, garbage out.
4. Ty Segall “California Hills”
Before California dries up into a desert or crumbles into the ocean, who better than Ty Segall to point out the noxious cloud around its gilded dream! On “Californian Hills“, Segall informs us that the Golden State is where Western Civilization has come to die, so pull up a seat, grab some popcorn, and enjoy the show. You can find this track on Ty Segall’s Emotional Mugger LP, out now on Drag City.
3. The Body “Two Snakes”
Not one, but “Two Snakes“…yikes! None’s enough for me. The Body, released their No One Deserves Happiness LP on March 18th via Thrill Jockey, and it featured this blackened bit of horror “pop”. “Two Snakes” might have started with a bass-line inspired by Beyonc?, but it’s been reworked into something far more tortured and gut-wrenching.
2. Clipping “Baby Don’t Sleep”
Noise rap trio Clipping. released their Splendor & Misery LP on September 9th via Sub Pop/Deathbomb Arc. Billed as an “Afrofuturist, dystopian concept album that follows the sole survivor of a slave uprising on an interstellar cargo ship, and the onboard computer that falls in love with him”, it’s another intriguing chapter in the band’s growing discography.
“Baby Don’t Sleep” featured gritty noise, and Diggs’ mesmerizingly twisted word flow.
1. Fatima Al Qadiri “Power”
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 at the time, Al Qadiri explained the title of her new 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.”
Squarely focused on the issues of social injustice, what she called “the atmospheres of rage and despair”, the musician went on to explain that her forthcoming work was about, “the subject of protest”.
The album’s first single, “Power“, featured the voice of Sgt. Cheryl Dorsey, a retired LAPD Sargent who speaks on issues of police violence and ethics; but the track’s most striking element was the way in which it mirrored those difficult issues sonically. Like our constantly looped news cycle, “Power” created a tensely charged and claustrophobic environment, reflecting daily violence with sounds of shattering glass and booming percussives–while mournful synths created an atmosphere of urban melancholy and decay.
