Welcome back the site’s most cold-blooded annual honour call of congratulatory fluff!
Intro!
The year is about to end: it is time for new JAWs. I don’t know what JAW stands for. It is a new and deeply prestigious award – so much so that 2022 saw just one (!) JAW awarded, for best debut This was because I was too busy screaming into a paper bag last year about how many quality records had come out to pull up my gloves and choose which ones to reward (unless they were from fresh meat). It was a great year!
2023 is an altogether different story: an abundance of chaff and my own arbitrarily higher motivation levels have sustained six (!) JAWs this year! Find out what these are overcompensating for on literally every other year-end list (including the one I will inevitably publish later), but for now get yourselves set for: folk record, pop record, metal record, [[hard/metal/]] grind -corerecord, banger record and EP of the year. There will be no AOTY winner drawn from a pool exclusively made up of LPs because I have just enough grey matter to recognise what a silly idea this is and has always been. There will be no AOTY winner drawn from a pool including all formats because I’ll be dropping an exhaustive year-ranking as a list later – so no redundant double-posts!…
It’s that time once again for you to have your say: voting is now open for the Top 50 LPs of 2023 community feature!
As in years past, we will also be including EPs/Live Albums/Compilations in a separate category.
This will be the first year we’re going to try to pull this off without the forums, so thank you for your patience in learning to love Google forms (where you no longer have to follow that complicated underscore system!).
Ballots will be open for approximately two weeks (a projected cut-off date of Thursday, December 28th around 11:59PM ET).
LP Ballot Rules
If you would like to submit an LP ballot, please review the guidelines before submitting your ballot officially (it’s not a race!):
Your ballot must have exactly 10 LPs on it (please note that the ballot asks for the album name first and not the artist!)
You are allotted 100 points to divvy up across your 10 LPs
Some users liked 10 albums equally, so they’ll assign 10 points to 10 LPs
Some users choose to assign more points to their favorite LPs on the year
The maximum number of points that can be assigned to any one LP is 30
The minimum number of points that can be assigned to any one LP is 1
These are whole-number votes, so do not worry about fractions or irrational numbers
‘Sufjan Stevens is the Picasso of indie folk. He takes the soothing NPR/car commercial sounds we know and love for their warmth and familiarity and says “Nope” and farts in our faces.’ – V. Dreth
Sufjan Stevens is indeed the most ubiquitous, evasive, phlegmatic chameleon of our times (the indie ones), and represents many a thing to many a chum. To Pangea, he represents comfort and joy. To Pheromone, he represents balance and gay. To johnnyoftheWell and MarsKid, he represents being sick to death of the press circuit around which his latest effort Javelin is still running many a lap in this limpest of years. Now, KILL or KEEP has always been about pluralism (usually in the form of severe fucking death), and as a result we are going in! Into Illinois! Everyone has something to say about this one: the songs are endless, the possibilities are infinitesimal and the classic status is, yes sure okay you get it. What will our takeaways be? Will we sync or swim (in the Maynardian sense) as a team? Only Sufjan has the answers…
Rules
The team is johnnyoftheWell and MarsKid and Pangea and Pheromone.
Every song must either be KILLed or KEEPed.
There is no minimum KILL threshold.
Every time a song is KILLed, the KILLer must name a location that Sufjan Stevens should have…
Well, it’s that time of year again when I compose a needlessly elaborate blog post highlighting my favorite (and least favorite) musical happenings of the year. You and your extended family know it as Sowing’s Music Awards, and it’s been an on-and-off tradition for NINE years now, thus proving that I do not quite have the quality of life I thought I did. Take a gander at the past winners, all of whom have been enshrined in immortality:
2014 – Low Roar: 0
2015 – Sufjan Stevens: Carrie & Lowell
2016 – Yellowcard: Yellowcard
*2017 – Manchester Orchestra: A Black Mile to the Surface
2018 – mewithoutYou: [Untitled]
2019 – Lana Del Rey: Norman Fucking Rockwell!
*2020 – Honey Harper: Starmaker
2021 – Iosonouncane: IRA
*2022 – Domestic Terminal: All The Stories Left to Tell
*Denotes AOTYs on years when the SMAs did not formally take place.
WHO will take home the coveted AOTY trophy in 2023 and join such esteemed company? Scroll down to find out, but don’t forget to wipe as you read along, seeing as our data analysis team has determined that bathroom breaks are the best (and most symbolically congruent) time for reading…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the entire month of December 2023. These releases have been condensed into one post as, historically at least, December is a slower time for new musical releases. In the meanwhile, our staff will be working on compiling their highly anticipated “Top Albums of 2023” feature, so stay tuned to see what we anoint as the album of the year. With regards to the below releases, please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums. From our staff and userbase to you, we wish you and your loved ones a safe and happy holiday season. We’ll see you in January!
– List of Releases: December 1, 2023 –
Bjørkø: Heartrot
Genre: Metal/Experimental Label: Svart Records
CZARFACE: Czartificial Intelligence
Genre: Hip-Hop Label: Silver Age
Full of Hell and Nothing: When No Birds Sang
Genre: Hardcore/Shoegaze Label: Closed Casket Activities
Health: Rat Wars
Genre: Noise Rock/Electronic Label: Loma Vista
Neil Young: Before And After
Genre: Folk/Rock/Country Label: Reprise
Here’s a list of notable new releases for the week of November 24th, 2023. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: November 24th, 2023 –
Burden Of Grief: Destination Dystopia Genre: Melodic Death Metal Label: Massacre Records
I’ve been listening to Chris Whitley for more than 20 years. At first, I was resistant to enjoying his music — how ridiculous we can be. I was in my early 20s, and I met a lanky guy who had grown up in international schools, and had a penchant for open tunings. He spoke in a soft American accent, he played guitar brilliantly, and he was outrageously cool. He leant me a record called Living with the Law and I scoffed at it. The man on the cover looked trapped in that weird, out-of-touch crossroads hangover between the ’80s and the ’90s. At the time, I was discovering indie music — and this seemed the anathema to it. I mocked it, tossed it aside, and dug my heels with immature abandon.
However, I had listened to it. And after hearing it a few times, the hooks were in. The title track truly is one of the great openers of the ’90s — grudgingly, I could not deny the pockets of beauty in the space created by those soft, chalky chord changes. The voice sounds as if it comes from a wagon trail, a passenger exiting a taxi, a shortwave radio, a factory PA, or a campfire hidden in an unending canvas of pine trees. Chris Whitley sounds of the city and the country, and of any age.
Whitley never achieved much fame beyond that album; he always…
Sufjan Stevens has long since passed the point in his career where anything he makes is inevitably going to be discussed in terms of how it relates to his previous works, and given Stevens’ status as one of the rare truly prolific artists to emerge in the last few decades, as well as one of the most lauded, that’s a hell of a lot of material for a new release to stack up to. Yet Javelin does so effortlessly, and already seems destined to reach a similar status as Stevens’ consensus classics. On first brush, both in terms of its sound and in the context of the multiple tragedies that Stevens experienced in the months leading up to its release, the album seems clearly to be a follow-up to his 2015 indie folk masterwork Carrie and Lowell. And this is true, in a way, but further analysis reveals Javelin to have its own identity, even if pretty much every idea it presents has been explored by Stevens at some point in his career. While this is, at heart, a folk album, with most songs featuring prominent acoustic lines as their primary grounding, alongside Stevens’ personal (and often heartbreaking) lyrics and vocals, the reality is more complicated. Most of these songs build gradually over the course of their runtimes, adorned by lush arrangements complemented by electronics which end up dominating significant portions of the tracks, as well as gorgeous, reflective ambient passages. Never as bombastic as much…
Here’s a list of significant new releases for the week of November 17th, 2023. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: November 17th, 2023 –
Aeternus: Philosopher Genre: Death/Black Metal Label: Agonia
Celeste: Epilogue(s) Genre: Black Metal/Hardcore Label: Nuclear Blast
Ceremonial Bloodbath: Genesis Of Malignant Entropy Genre: Death/Black Metal Label: Sentient Ruin
Danny Brown: Quaranta Genre: Hip-Hop/Experimental Label: Warp
Earthside: Let The Truth Speak Genre: Progressive Rock/Metal Label: Mascot Label Group
Emeli Sandé: How Were We To Know Genre: Pop/Soul/R&B Label: Venus Records
Kurt Vile: Back to Moon Beach Genre: Folk/Americana Label:overnite kv incorporated
Iron & Wine: Who Can See Forever Soundtrack Genre: Indie-Folk/Americana Label: Sub Pop
Julie Byrne: Julie Byrne With Laugh Cry Laugh Genre: Folk/Psychedelic Label: Ghostly International
Lacey Sturm: Kenotic Metanoia Genre: Pop Rock/Hard Rock Label: Lacey Sturm
Lil Wayne & 2 Chainz: Welcome 2 ColleGrove Genre: Hip-Hop Label: Polyvinyl
MAUL: Desecration And Enchantment Genre: Death Metal/Hardcore Label: 20 Buck Spin
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of November 10th, 2023. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: November 10, 2023 –
Aesop Rock: Integrated Tech Solutions
Genre: Hip-Hop/Experimental Label: Rhymesayers
AJR: The Maybe Man
Genre: Pop/Rock Label: AJR Productions
Beirut: Hadsel
Genre: Indie-Folk/Rock Label: Pompeii
Broadside: Hotel Bleu
Genre: Alternative / Pop Punk Label: Self released
For me, Thurnin’s new record, Utiseta, is easily one of the best albums of the year. Coming as a recommendation, Thurnin’s sophomore album blindsided me with its incredibly astute songwriting, rich instrumentation, and resonant Pagan aesthetics. Given my obsession with this LP since its release in September, it seemed only logical I get some discourse going with Jurre Timmer – the project’s mastermind – to discuss the thought processes behind the project, his sudden success with Thurnin’s debut LP Menhir back in 2021, and how he approached moving forward with a successor.
Give us a bit of background on yourself.
Jurre: I started doing mostly metal back in 2015, which was when I was really getting into songwriting. I released two albums under a previous project [Algos], but I drifted away from that because it’s a really expensive and difficult genre to produce in if you’re doing everything solo. So after that I shifted my attention and made a doom album under the moniker I, Forlorn, but then all my equipment broke, so I decided to go back to what I had originally started doing, which was acoustic music. I wrote this demo which ended up being “A Lament for the End” – which was the only song on Menhir that was completely improvised – and showed it around to some friends, who encouraged me to go down this path and make more of it. So I set out to make this really chill album without any stress or…
In advance of the release on Friday, November 3rd of their third LP, Summer Moon, all five members of There Will Be Fireworks took some time to answer some questions posed by Sput’s own Sunnyvale. Yes, you’re not going crazy, there was indeed another interview with two members of the band posted on this site last week, but the more the merrier!
For ease of reading, please find the initials of each band member below.
NM – Nicholas McManus (vocals, guitar, synthesisers, piano)
SD – Stuart Dobbie (guitar, piano)
November 3rd, 2023 marks a day many fans doubted would ever come – the release of a long-awaited follow-up album to The Dark, Dark Bright. Anything you can share on how things transpired/how the creative process unfolded between the 2013 release of that record through the finished product of Summer Moon?
NM: A lot has changed for us since 2013! We released The Dark, Dark Bright in November 2013 and played a few shows around that time and in 2014. We had a clutch of other songs at that point that we loved but that just didn’t feel right for The Dark, Dark Bright. And, to be honest, I think we need that little natural break from writing for a bit. We all had a lot of life stuff going on too – starting out in our careers, some…
Here’s a list of significant new releases for the week of November 3rd, 2023. Please note that your idea of “significant” might not align with this list: some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. Genres/labels are best guesses based on cursory Googling and should not be taken seriously. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors. Or don’t, whatever. I’m not your mom.
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of October 27th, 2023. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: October 27, 2023 –
Aegrus: Invoking the Abysmal Night
Genre: Black Metal Label: Osmose Productions
Angie McMahon: Light, Dark, Light Again
Genre: Singer Songwriter Label: Gracie
Autopsy: Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts
Genre: Death Metal Label: Peaceville
Closure In Moscow: Soft Hell
Genre: Alternative / Progressive Rock Label: Self released
This interview was conducted and formatted by user Slex
After a ten year hiatus in which the band remained hard at work, beloved (at least on Sput) alternative rock band There Will Be Fireworks have finally returned with a follow-up to the cult classic The Dark Dark Bright. Ahead of the impending release of Summer Moon on November 3rd I was able to correspond with Nicholas McManus (vocals, synths, guitar) and Adam Ketterer (drums).
The first question I have is, did you guys ever feel burdened by the legacy of The Dark Dark Bright? At least on Sput it was hailed by many as an instant classic, did that shadow ever loom as you guys worked on Summer Moon?
NM: I think it’s all relative. We’re aware that there are these amazing little pockets online that still love The Dark, Dark Bright – and we’re really appreciative of that and humbled by it – but we’re equally aware that in the grand scheme of things we’re a little DIY band self-releasing records to a small audience. To be honest, we kind of thought everyone would have forgotten about us anyway. It wasn’t until we re-released The Dark, Dark Bright on vinyl earlier this year that we realised how many people still cared. There’s a certain freedom that comes from all that. Also, we don’t do this for a living, we’re not actively involved in any scene and we’ve not been playing shows, so for most of the last ten…
