Work. A lot of work. Writing this post requires a lot of work. Scrobbling my Last.fm chart, looking for the names in my iTunes list, confirming all my choices with Spotify and Deezer. Sweat and tears for compiling my personal list of the best music of year 2013.
I have to admit that this was a great year for music, full of many amazing sounds. People that say rock (and music) is dead are lazy and fu**ing stupid. During 2012 the best music was related to rap & soul genres (I’m thinking about Frank Ocean and Kendrick Lamar), but the last 12 months of my musical journey have been strongly marked with electronic music in all its forms.
Ok, here we go with my personal list: best first 6 albums and some other advices to listen to. At the end of the post you can also find a Spotify playlist to share. It’s my taste, please don’t hate me if you dislike it…
6 – The field – Cupid’s Head – web | facebook
Minimal electronic music at its best, that’s to say: ready for the dancefloor. Alex Willner from Sweden has a terrible identity on the web (if you need a digital campaign, please call me…), but this album (with a perfect title) makes you dance without looking like an idiot. There are not so many videoclips about this album (sigh), so please watch this still image-based video below and open you ears 🙂
5 – King Krule – 6 Feet Beneath The Moon – web | twitter
Archy Marshall: born 24 August 1994 (!!!) in UK. A voice for jazz, soul and dark. A face for punk. If you put this album in background, you’ll repent, because this voice was not born to play a secondary role. If we are lucky this boy will compose great music for the next 20 years. Crossing fingers. Watch the official video and have a smile, just matching the title Easy easy with Archy & friend’s clothes…
4 – Boards of Canada – Tomorrow’s Harvest – web | facebook | twitter
I never went crazy for their previous albums, but it was my fault, I never put my ears in the right direction of this kind of electronic music. The right keyword to use here is soundscape. A lesson of elegance and style for the modern electronic musicians. I would like to have their hard disks, to see the way they record, process and build sounds. This music is gold for video makers and directors. Don’t listen to this album if you have not a proper sound system or headphones. Respect.
3 – Volcano choir – Repave – web | facebook | twitter
Pick a band of great (indie & post rock) musicians. Call Justin Vernon to sing. The result is exactly what you can expect. Very simple. An electric version of Bon Iver, with more guitars, drums, electronic signals, sound effects. But always with the same goal: the creation of a song. I have not so many things to say about this album, save that these guys succeeded in making me love Comrade, a song with massive use of pitch shifting effect in the voice (that voice, you know…). For this song I prefer to link a more emotional version: a live performance for City of music, where the band played in an old tannery.
2 – Local natives – Hummingbird – web | facebook | twitter
Are you fed-up with people like Mumford & sons, Fleet foxes and so on? After the first Gorilla Manor, I would have never bet on a new album like this by Local natives. These guys have hearts. Their hearts are bleeding, but in a gentle fashion. Indeed, these songs were composed during some dramatic events occurred to some members of the band. This is indie-soul music. I still feel emotions are violently coming up before playing these songs in my heapdhones during the night.
1 – Jon Hopkins – Immunity – web | facebook | twitter
F**k, this album is an heart-breaker to me. I don’t know how many times I listened to it. Jon is my hero for this year. The reverberated piano in Abandon Window. The beat of We Disappear. The rising tempo of Open eye signal. The never-ending melancholia of Immunity. But, above all, the simple but effective storytelling in the videoclip of Collider. If you really love someone you better dance (and making other cool things) while listening to this album together.
Minor albums
Here I propose a small list of some albums to listen which are not in the best 6:
- Tim Hecker – Virgins – web
- Darkside – Psychic out – web
- Colin Stetson – New History Warfare Vol. 3: To See More Light – web
- These new puritans – Field of Reeds – web
- Cold war kids – Dear Miss LonelyHearts – web
- Rhye – The fall – web
- Waxahatchee – Cerulean Salt – web
- Toro Y moi – Anything in Return – web
- Baths – Obsidian – web
- Everything everything – Arc – web
- Chvrches – The Bones of What You Believe – web
From the past
I feel ashamed not to have listened to this band in the 80s, but U2 and other bands controlled my mind during those dark days. I re-discovered it thanks to Mid air, last album by their singer Paul Buchanan. They were called The Blue Nile and were the perfect pop band. Please give them a chance to enter your mp3 player.
Extra: Spotify playlist
Friends of music
I want to dedicate this post to all my friends who love music like me, with whom I often spend my time talking and discussing about the next big thing in music. They know who they are…