2k15 (2)
A constantly updated list of albums on my radar for 2015. |
| 1 |  | Drake
If You're Reading This It's Too Late
"“This” is a mixtape, probably an album, but ultimately a paradoxical assertion of Drake’s branded identity, one that seeks to underwhelm itself as a coy strategy for its own creative manipulation. That is to say, “This” is a put-on hyper-drama — a commanding iteration of Drake’s brand space — a meme, a mixtape, loaded with content, delivered at $11 for the consumer to fully, literally consume." [maybe the title is a dig at Cash Money / Birdman -- Cash Money drama, Drake wants out, etc. etc.]
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/drake-if-youre-reading-this-its-too-late |
| 2 |  | Drake and Future
What a Time to Be Alive
"The masterfully pre-meditated result is a populist offering, a retail album styled as a mixtape. It’s Future’s void and Drake’s reflection: a diamond-encrusted infinity mirror. To listen to the surprise and familiar world of #FBGOVO is to listen to a brand merger that works, 100%." [TMT]
"What a Time to Be Alive materialized on Sunday, and the mixed results won't surprise anyone who has already noted the decided lack of chemistry between these two. Many tracks are just Future songs with Drake verses tagged on (Future gets almost double the airtime), and Drake often sounds out of his element." [P4K]
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/what-time-be-alive-future-drake
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21102-what-a-time-to-be-alive/ |
| 3 |  | Dr. Dre
Compton
"Dr. Dre wants it both ways ... a glaring contradiction, a meeting of the vague desire to heal Compton’s wounds with the less-than-vague desire to gain the kind of profit that feeds into the system responsible for opening these wounds in the first place." [TMT]
"For a guy who's been helplessly coddling music in private for years, Compton ended up being a bit of a rush job. And yet, that haste helps the album sound more of-the-moment and free-flowing." [P4K]
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/dr-dre-compton
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20935-compton/ |
| 4 |  | Dr. Yen Lo
Days With Dr. Yen Lo
"The album and the twist-filled noir [The Manchurian Candidate] share a paranoiac atmosphere: Tension is everywhere and nowhere in particular. Nothing turns out right; no one breaks the shackles that held them without a scar or much worse." [P4K]
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20561-days-with-dr-yen-lo/
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/dr-yen-lo-days-dr-yen-lo |
| 5 |  | Dungen
Allas Sak
"It’s hard to listen to Tame Impala’s Innerspeaker and Lonerism without hearing some parallels to the Swedish band, particularly in the sense of rhythm and the doubled upper-register vocal melodies." [these guys sing in Swedish which is the only reason I would like them]
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20949-allas-sak/ |
| 6 |  | Earl Sweatshirt
I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside
"[B]oth fluid and all angles, vacillating between naked introspection and pushing us as far away as possible. He sounds deadly serious and self-effacing at the same time, and his rocky, withdrawn psychology is more visible, and easier to trace, than ever."
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20422-i-dont-like-shit-i-dont-go-outside/ |
| 7 |  | easyFun
Deep Trouble
" Is the plane crash serious? Is the music something to identify with? Is this EP easy?"
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/chocolate-grinder/listen-easyfun-deep-trouble |
| 8 |  | EEK
Kahraba
"Not only does Islam Chipsy’s debut album offer a breathtaking ride through Egypt and its flourishing Shaabi scene, but its manic, unrelenting, and downright senseless energy stands as an exotic mirror of our own wanton societies."
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/eek-kahraba |
| 9 |  | Egyptrixx
Transfer of Energy (Feelings of Power)
"Standing out on Transfer Of Energy [Feelings Of Power] are its aesthetic, textures and moods. Psutka's intent seems to be the conveying of these things, as faithfully as possible, using resources taken from club settings. It makes sense then, why the textures are so sharp and vivid, physical and highly tangible; each and every mineral is refined into its rawest essence before being repurposed."
http://thequietus.com/articles/17260-egyptrixx-transfer-of-energy-feelings-of-power-review |
| 10 |  | Elysia Crampton
American Drift
"Her debut album American Drift evokes her compositional originality as an impact event begetting the utter sadness of oppressed history: a Shenandoah no longer native, an enslaved history painted over, an unseen crunk a capella, a “Rock of Ages” now in Plymouth rather than under the wing of a Pterodactyl."
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/elysia-crampton-american-drift |
| 11 |  | Eyeliner
Buy Now
"But whereas Eyeliner has previously been about negotiating tacky, throwaway commercial samples and repackaging them, Buy Now has been pumped full of soul to give it an almost frightening feeling of sincerity." [his own breed of corporate boogie]
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/2015-third-quarter-favorites?page=2 |
| 12 |  | Felicia Atkinson
A Readymade Ceremony
"Felicia Atkinson’s music brings an avant-garde compositional practice to the phenomenological aspects of sound: its process of recording, its playback, and the listener’s perception of space. A Readymade Ceremony is breathy, scratchy, and intimately placed music, a suite of rough hewn distortions and musique concrète that perform for their lyrics, near-theatrically so at times and in intimate nearness to the listener."
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/felicia-atkinson-readymade-ceremony |
| 13 |  | FKA Twigs
M3LL155X
"All of which is to say that the EP takes the ur-feminist mantra of "the personal is political" as a starting point. Indeed, after the tiresome reams of "is she or isn't she?" thinkpieces dissecting Beyoncé, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Taylor Swift and other figures that commodify feminist rhetoric, twigs makes the strongest case for the feminist pop star proper, standing up (for now) to the checklist scrutiny of "ur fav is problematic" culture."
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20985-m3ll155x/ |
| 14 |  | Future
DS2
"Future un-/self-consciously leans on habit, a routinized and exhausting glorification of (self-)violence, that on DS2 comes closest to piercing the internal emotional logic of his music. His body and being have been refigured as a montage of drugs and money"
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/future-ds2 |
| 15 |  | False
Untitled
"With Untitled, False expand on their sound without diluting it, proving they are worthy of their promise and making good on the tantalizing glimpses of their earlier works." [black metal debut proper]
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20699-untitled/ |
| 16 |  | Galcher Lustwerk
Parlay
"[100% Galcher's] confident effervescence, sublime charm, and undeniably hypnotic vocal delivery should soundtrack only the most transcendent night drives and party comedowns well into the next decade, as only the best deep house cuts can." [selections from 2013's 100% Galcher mix]
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/2015-third-quarter-favorites?page=2 |
| 17 |  | Galcher Lustwerk
I Neva Seen
"[100% Galcher's] confident effervescence, sublime charm, and undeniably hypnotic vocal delivery should soundtrack only the most transcendent night drives and party comedowns well into the next decade, as only the best deep house cuts can." [selections from 2013's 100% Galcher mix]
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/2015-third-quarter-favorites?page=2 |
| 18 |  | GFOTY
Cake Mix
"This one guy on Twitter said he saw me out once and I was way smaller then he imagined and to ‘never meet your heroes’ or something like that and I mean like I’m 169cms (5’5”) and I wear high shoes all the time too so like HOW TALL DID HE WANT ME TO BE? So I guess - yeah it’s kinda inspired by that guy on Twitter primarily. So I guess cake has nothing to do with the mix apart from me making cakes and stuff." [statement from GFOTY]
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/news/gfoty-releases-cake-mix-on-pc-music-gets-us-hard |
| 19 |  | Godspeed You! Black Emperor
'Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress'
"Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress contains music of a more recent vintage, which is potentially significant because following Godspeed has always meant grappling with a basic question: When you have one of the most distinctive sonic profiles in music—that trademark quiet/loud mix of soaring guitars, epic strings, and field recordings—how important is it to branch out beyond it? Do we want a Godspeed album that sounds like anything but Godspeed?"
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20334-asunder-sweet-and-other-distress/
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/godspeed-you-black-emperor-asunder-sweet-and-other-distress |
| 20 |  | Hafdís Bjarnadóttir
Sounds of Iceland
"Travelling from the southwestern part of Iceland up to the eastern fjords, she focuses on the aural planes that define her home country while avoiding any sound directly derived from human beings. As opposed to recording her journey, Bjarnadóttir details specific areas, where she takes a sonic snapshot of each location, depicting moments in time that are graceful and uninterrupted."
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/2015-second-quarter-favorites?page=2 |
| 21 |  | Halshug
Blodets Band
"From start to finish, the album is a gasoline-soaked ride through hell. Halshug are relentless in their pace and aggression, giving the listener no time to catch their breath between bouts of punishment." [Danish D-Beat]
http://www.therainbowhub.com/review-halshug-blodets-band/ |
| 22 |  | Helrunar
Niederkunfft
"With their so far five studio albums, Helrunar have established themselves as figureheads of serious Black Metal from Germany inspired by Northern mythology. "Niederkunfft" now marks the beginning of a new era for them - both musically and conceptually."
http://en.prophecy.de/helrunar-niederkunfft.html |
| 23 |  | High on Fire
Luminiferous
"These nine tracks are among the most enthusiastic and bracing of High on Fire’s career, with mammoth riffs and hooks spurred on by a momentous band. Luminiferous feels like a classic compendium of High on Fire’s successes."
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20651-luminiferous/ |
| 24 |  | Hiram-Maxim
Hiram-Maxim
"Pink Floyd-esque progressive rock nuances and Oxbow-style weirdness... Noisy, psychedelic and just plain odd."
https://aqualamb.bandcamp.com/album/hiram-maxim |
| 25 |  | Holly Herndon
Platform
"As Herndon sees it, though, the laptop is a “hyper-emotional instrument,” one with “more emotional content than a violin could ever dream of.” Platform explores the effects of long-term laptop companionship on both body and soul, as it intervenes between humans and mediates their emotional experiences with the world"
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/holly-herndon-platform |
| 26 |  | In Medias Res
リンキンパーク Quindecim
"リンキンパーク means Linkin Park in Japanese."
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/media-res-quindecim-triginta-septem-and-viginti-sex |
| 27 |  | In Medias Res
リンキンパーク Viginti Sex
"リンキンパーク means Linkin Park in Japanese."
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/media-res-quindecim-triginta-septem-and-viginti-sex |
| 28 |  | In Medias Res
リンキンパーク Triginta Septem
"リンキンパーク means Linkin Park in Japanese."
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/media-res-quindecim-triginta-septem-and-viginti-sex |
| 29 |  | I-LP-O In Dub
Communist Dub
"[A] 'statement against technocracy and the erosion of human community,' utilizing Jamaican dub and ska as a 'strategy as opposed to genre — the precise manipulation of sound and the removal of all extraneous material to create a disorientating landscape of austere spaces.'"
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/i-lp-o-dub-communist-dub |
| 30 |  | ILOVEMAKONNEN
Drink More Water 5
"Perhaps it’s easy for young people to see themselves in Makonnen because many of them grew up spending their nights the same way: devouring every bit of culture in sight whether it’s the Killers’ greatest hits or old episodes of "Dragon Ball Z", drowning themselves in tabs they never get around to reading. A few clicks away from some kind of fame, whether it’s 15 minutes on Twitter or a top 15 hit on the Billboard charts: that’s life if you came of age on the Internet, and Makonnen’s no different."
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20473-drink-more-water-5/ |
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