FACT's 50 Best Albums of 2017

French artist Colleen is fearless in her willingness to explore new sounds and new ways of creating music as a solo performer. On her new album A flame my love, a frequency she introduces the most drastic change to her music since she began singing on her fourth album. A chance encounter with a Critter and Guitari synthesizer at King Britt’s Philadelphia studio on the Captain of None album tour cracked the compositional model wide open. Colleen bought a Critter and Guitari Pocket Piano with the aim to use it through a newly-acquired Moog filter pedal to create new and interesting rhythms to accompany her voice and viola da gamba. But it turned out the sounds of this viola and rhythm combination was not what she was looking for, so in typical Colleen fashion, she set the viola da gamba aside altogether and picked up an additional Critter and Guitari synth, the Septavox, dug out her her trusted Moog delay and dove right in. Words used to describe her muse Arthur Russell are equally applicable to Colleen (multi-instrumentalist Cécile Schott). Schott’s compositions can be in turn pop or experimental, vocal or instrumental, and acoustic or electronic. She has drawn on baroque sounds of a classical instrument using the most modern pedals and looping techniques. Shape shifting as she does, the pieces are always distinctly her strong and utterly unique musical voice. A constant across Colleen’s albums are delicate extended melodies, minutely detailed soundscapes, and explorative unbounded compositions. Colleen’s work is a direct result of her core belief that in order to keep growing as an artist, you need to continue to be willing to experiment and to embrace drastic changes. The music of A flame… is the closest Colleen has come to a concept album, a reflection upon one year in her life that began in the Autumn of 2015. The album‘s central theme is the inescapable fact that life and death always walk hand in hand. Schott is an avid bird watcher and her home and studio on the coast of Spain allow for frequent trips out into the wilds. As any naturalist knows, extreme beauty and vitality go hand in hand with brutality. This symbiosis was made more personal when, on the way back from visiting a very ill relative in France, she decided to spend the night in her former home of Paris in order to take her viola bow for repair at a luthier in the Republique area. It was late afternoon and she remembers the beauty of Paris and people sitting and enjoying the cafés. That was November 13th and a mere 4 hours later these very same cafés were the scene of utter terror and death. A few weeks after the events, Colleen started composing the songs that make up the album. She recorded each song live with minimal edits and vocals were recorded without overdubs, creating a symbiosis between the machine and the performer that mirrors the album’s core concept. The personal narrative of the year in question yields a more vulnerable sound than any previous recordings by Colleen. “Separating” is an emotional response to being overwhelmed by the inevitability of death. Feelings of fear are never far from feelings of joy as they are in “Winter dawn” with its propulsive thump and ominous lyrics “I came home with a fistful of fear,” that manage to shift towards hope with “Love alone is your home.” Joy and hope are strongly present throughout the album, the catalyst that lifts us out of the darkness as inevitably as night to day. We are shown the wonderment of “Another world,” and through the metaphors of light, shown joy as in the title track. A flame my love, a frequency is an album that finds optimism in the face of tribulation, a meditation on humanity’s ability to prevail. It is a beautiful, complex album by a singular and remarkable musician.

Until a late flurry of percussion arrives, doleful guitar and bass are Solána Rowe’s only accompaniment on opener “Supermodel,” a stinging kiss-off to an adulterous ex. It doesn’t prepare you for the inventively abstract production that follows—disembodied voices haunting the airy trap-soul of “Broken Clocks,” “Anything”’s stuttering video-game sonics—but it instantly establishes the emotive power of her rasping, percussive vocal. Whether she’s feeling empowered by her physicality on the Kendrick Lamar-assisted “Doves in the Wind” or wrestling with insecurity on “Drew Barrymore,” SZA’s songs impact quickly and deeply.

From the creator of Deep Reggaeton and the hit record ​"​¡Estéreo Bomba! Vol. 1​"​, DJ Python, returns with the first masterful full length album "Dulce Compañia". Comprised of eight ethe-real, banging hits of the most unique and thought provoking calibre - mixing Deep House, Shoegaze, Trance, and of course, Reggaeton - these songs-not-tracks slide over the Dembow in the unique way only Python can dream up. Rated E for Everyone.

Released within two weeks of his 2017 self-titled project, *HNDRXX* is a master statement of soulful, sly R&B from the Atlanta rapper. If *FUTURE* echoed the spontaneity and double-time flow of his now-classic mixtapes, the follow-up is stacked with anthems that are calibrated for a massive mainstream audience. Two marquee cameos—The Weeknd and Rihanna—add extra star power, but highlights like “Damage,” “Incredible,” and “Fresh Air” are all about Future’s brilliant mix of brutal honestly and unchecked hedonism.

No MC represents the fluidity and versatility of UK rap better than Momodou Jallow. While the vivacious “Did You See” cements his position as a captain of London’s Afrobeats scene, he constantly escapes pigeonholing on this magnetic debut. The title track offers sax-topped G-funk, “Leave Me” sets brooding guitar riffs to trap beats, and “Plottin” recalls UK garage’s melodic glory days. Over those sounds, J Hus switches from staccato belligerence and joyful bravado to downbeat reflection without missing a beat—or the chance for a sharp punchline.

Returning with his first album in 13 years, Errorsmith’s ‘Superlative Fatigue’ long-awaited release on PAN arrives as his perhaps most optimistic record yet. Placing a strong emphasis on spectral exploration, the tracks tell an inherent story and span a musical arc with his recognisable synthesised tones, computerised vocal effects and timbral changes in motion. In comparison to his previous productions, Errorsmith (Erik Wiegand) sees the release as less abstract, harsh or aggressive: “I would say it is rather accessible and cheerful; at times ridiculously cheerful but still very sincere and emotional.” He suggests. “I find it touching when this little android raises its pitch at the end of ‘Lightspeed’ or the android catching its breath in ‘My Party’ for instance.” The album title, ‘Superlative Fatigue’ reflects this tension between an over-the-top, hysterical emotion, against more deeply felt expressions or realness. Besides collaborating with the likes of Mark Fell, to Berghain resident Fiedel as MMM, and Soundstream as Smith N Hack, Wiegand has released a string of seminal dancefloor tracks. Building his own instruments using modular software synthesizers is a large part of his work. Where almost all the sounds in the LP were created with his synth, ‘Razor’, (a synthesizer plug-in he developed for Native instruments, released in 2011) or slightly modified versions of it. Premiered at Unsound Festival last year, this new material he has developed since has finally taken form in this epic full-length. The album is mastered by Rashad Becker, featuring artwork by James Hoff and layout by Bill Kouligas.

Planet Mu are very excited to announce Jlin's long awaited second album “Black Origami”. A percussion-led tour de force, it's a creation that seals her reputation as a unique producer with an exceptional ability to make riveting rhythmic music. “Black Origami” is driven by a deep creative thirst which she describes as “this driving feeling that I wanted to do something different, something that challenged me to my core. Black Origami for me, comes from letting go creatively, creating with no boundaries. The simple definition of origami is the art of folding and constructing paper into a beautiful, yet complex design. Composing music for me is like origami, only I'm replacing paper with sound. I chose to title the album "Black Origami" because like "Dark Energy" I still create from the beauty of darkness and blackness. The willingness to go into the hardest places within myself to create for me means that I can touch the Infinity.”  Spirituality and movement are both at the core of “Black Origami”, inspired largely by her ongoing collaborations with Indian dancer/movement artist Avril Stormy Unger whom she met and collaborated with at her debut performance for the Unsound festival – ”There is a fine line between me entertaining a person and my spirituality. Avril, who collaborates with me by means of dance, feels the exact same way. Movement played a great role in Black Origami. The track "Carbon 7" is very inspired by the way Avril moves and dances. Our rhythms are so in sync at times it kind of scares us. When there is something I can't quite figure out when it comes to my production, it’s like she senses it. Her response to me is always "You'll figure it out". Once I figure it out it's like time and space no longer exist.”  Similar time shifting/folding/disrupting effects can be heard throughout the record – especially on “Holy Child” an unlikely collaboration with minimalist legend William Basinski. She also collaborates again with Holly Herndon on “1%”, while Halcyon Veil producer Fawkes' voice is on “Calcination“ and Cape Town rapper Dope Saint Jude provides vocals for “Never Created, Never Destroyed“. Jlin will be touring extensively this year and is currently lining up appearances including Sonar festival. She also has plans to collaborate with acclaimed UK choreographer Wayne McGregor who played her music recently on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs and described her music as “quite rare and so exciting".

Visible Cloaks’ Reassemblage is a collection of delicately rendered passages of silence and sound that invokes – and invites - consciousness. The foundation of the duo's second album could be described as translingual or polyglottal, working within an eastern / western feedback loop of influence, Fourth World ambiguity, and the universality of human emotion. For More Info: shop.igetrvng.com/collections/all/products/rvngnl37

Violinist and vocalist, Sudan Archives writes, plays, and produces her own music. Drawing inspiration from Sudanese fiddlers, she is self-taught on the violin, and her unique songs also fold in elements of R&B, and experimental electronic music. Sudan Archives grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she "messed around with instruments in the house" and took up violin in the fourth grade, eventually teaching herself how to play the instrument by ear. When she discovered the violin playing style of Northeast Africa, her eyes opened to the possibilities of the instrument. "The way they played it was different from classical music. I resonated with the style, and I was like, 'Maybe I can use this style with electronic music,'" she says. This fusing of folk music and electronic production was the turning point for Sudan. "I started mixing my violin into beats,” she says, “It wasn't complicated — I'd just sing straight into the iPad." She honed her at-home style after moving to Los Angeles aged 19 to study music technology, and after a chance encounter at a Low End Theory party with Stones Throw A&R and Leaving Records owner Matthewdavid, she signed with Stones Throw. At the very start of her musical career, she's already won plaudits from the likes of the New York Times and Pitchfork, and played live at experimental festival Moogfest. Her EP Sudan Archives is an extraordinary debut statement from a singular artist. Over six tracks, Sudan Archives layers harmonies, violin figures and ethereal vocals, grounding them all with the hip-hop beats.

ORDER A PHYSICAL COPY HERE: www.pwelverumandsun.com P.W. ELVERUM & SUN box 1561 Anacortes, Wash. U.S.A. 98221 WRITTEN AND RECORDED August 31st to Dec. 6th, 2016 in the same room where Geneviève died, using mostly her instruments, her guitar, her bass, her pick, her amp, her old family accordion, writing the words on her paper, looking out the same window. Why share this much? Why open up like this? Why tell you, stranger, about these personal moments, the devastation and the hanging love? Our little family bubble was so sacred for so long. We carefully held it behind a curtain of privacy when we’d go out and do our art and music selves, too special to share, especially in our hyper-shared imbalanced times. Then we had a baby and this barrier felt even more important. (I still don’t want to tell you our daughter’s name.) Then in May 2015 they told us Geneviève had a surprise bad cancer, advanced pancreatic, and the ground opened up. What matters now? we thought. Then on July 9th 2016 she died at home and I belonged to nobody anymore. My internal moments felt like public property. The idea that I could have a self or personal preferences or songs eroded down into an absurd old idea leftover from a more self-indulgent time before I was a hospital-driver, a caregiver, a child-raiser, a griever. I am open now, and these songs poured out quickly in the fall, watching the days grey over and watching the neighbors across the alley tear down and rebuild their house. I make these songs and put them out into the world just to multiply my voice saying that I love her. I want it known. "Death Is Real" could be the name of this album. These cold mechanics of sickness and loss are real and inescapable, and can bring an alienating, detached sharpness. But it is not the thing I want to remember. A crow did look at me. There is an echo of Geneviève that still rings, a reminder of the love and infinity beneath all of this obliteration. That’s why. - Phil Elverum Dec. 11th, 2016 Anacortes

13 nuggets from Gavsborg & Time Cow recorded December 2016 to June 2017. Number 7 in Rolling Stone's Electronic Albums of 2017 Top 20 FACT mag albums of 2017 Pitchfork, Resident Advisor, Vinyl Factory & XLR8R best of the year albums of 2017

Kehlani Parrish reached the release of her debut album the hard way—dues paid in a teen pop band and on *America\'s Got Talent*, various personal struggles—but it’s helped sharpen her silky R&B with a bewitching edge. She can do radio-friendly summer jams (“Distraction” and “Undercover”), but really comes alive when the Sweet and Sexy gets outmuscled by the Savage. “Not Used to It” hits deep, while “Too Much” and “Do U Dirty” are gloriously lewd and completely brilliant.

Playboi Carti arrived at a time when mumble rap was boosting hip-hop’s bottom line, making it a ubiquitous but captivating innovation in music. On later releases like 2018’s *Die Lit*, Carti would tip a hat to his humble beginnings, priding himself on his ability to build wealth and buy his mom a house “off that mumbling s\*\*t.” This self-titled 2017 mixtape was the beginning of Carti laying that very foundation. Born Jordan Terrell Carter in Atlanta in 1996, the rapper and singer takes a wide-eyed, unconstrained approach to creating—not unlike the stylistic technique he employed with his breakthrough 2015 single, “Broke Boi.” After Carti sprinkled a smattering of official and unofficial songs across the internet in the mid-2010s, his star power grew exponentially, thanks to fans who couldn’t get enough of his creative appeal. *Playboi Carti* is propelled by Carti’s sheer charisma and trend-setting persona. The artist, known globally for his unique fashion sense and an affinity for all things divergent, uses this radical mixtape as a launchpad for his brand of unconventional self-expression. The project is buoyed by repetitive chants and earworm phrases that stretch themselves into trance-inducing anthems and mantras, custom made for a new generation of ragers and moshers. “Magnolia,” the smash single produced by frequent collaborator Pi’erre Bourne, was Carti’s moment of arrival in the mainstream, thanks in large part to his breezy rapping style. Playboi Carti’s songs, lyrics, and ad libs have embedded themselves into the broader pop culture landscape, but don’t get confused: On “Half & Half,” he lets it be known that “This is not pop, this some rock.” Equally inspired by the unapologetic air of hip-hop and the irreverent attitude of rock ’n’ roll, he dedicates *Playboi Carti* to the merging of the two influential genres. The punk-inflected hit “Wokeuplikethis\*” featuring Lil Uzi Vert shows the MCs directly addressing copycats and simultaneously flexing in their imitators’ faces. Lyrical minimalism is the ace up Playboi Carti’s sleeve, and he strategically plays his cards to bring us into his complex sonic universe.

R&B singer Kelela’s deeply personal debut LP does just what it says on the label. Over beats from Jam City, Bok Bok, Kingdom, and Arca—which swerve from warped and aqueous to warm and lush to icy and danceable—Kelela turns her emotions inside out with a sultriness and self-assuredness that few underground artists can muster. She’s tough and forthright, tender and subdued on songs about breakups (“Frontline”), makeups (“Waitin”), and pickups (“LMK”)—and the way she spins from one mode to the next is dizzying in the best way possible.

This is generous music, tactile and febrile. It carries its creator’s traces — her joys, her sorrows, the sounds that make her dance — and happily gives them over to the listener, so that they may create their own mesh of associations, find their own moments of uplift and stillness within its dislocations. A viral transfer of bricolage; music for swaying bodies and grinning faces. (TINY MIX TAPES) (Nídia) has a keen instinct for moving tracks beyond their percussive elements, fluid melodies and hypnotic brass samples leaving the listener unable to sit still. (THE WIRE) With her own strain of batida music, the Portuguese-born, Bordeaux-bred producer Nídia offers a debut album of mind-bending complexity. (PITCHFORK album review) I doubt there will be many more infectious club records than this released this year. (THE QUIETUS album review) The album offers a no-holds-barred distillation of the riotous energy that has punctuated all of her music and DJ sets over the last couple of years. Lead track ‘Sinistro’ is a smoky sub-100BPM collision of percussion, as adept at getting a dancefloor moving as any speedier Príncipe cut. (THE QUIETUS track review) Her unmistakable taut looped drums are still a force to be reckoned, with some of the album’s best moments built around ideas of repetition and precision, but there’s also a mysticism that wafts around its darker corners, betraying an almost devotional fervor. (FACT) “Sinistro” doesn’t draw you in not by virtue of its rhythm or groove, because it has almost neither of those qualities. Rather, the song shows that Nidia’s music, magnetic as it is, no longer needs to fit into the grid of the dance floor, and can exist all in its own space. (PITCHFORK track review) + "One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation, compassion”, Simone de Beauvoir once offered. Nídia has embraced as much as conducted her path on earth so far by means of her senses and her acute intuition, learning from the positive and negative sides of experience, contemplating the marvel of the human spirit, ever inspired by her own curiosity for the unveiled. Her music sounds to us as the perfect expression of her attitude in life. More than appropriate intro titled "Mulher Profissional". It's a shout of empowerment, setting the pace for what is indeed a highly energized album. Listen closely and you will spot production skills that are beyond the standard of dance music genres, running wild but with a definite sense of purpose. This sounds like Africa taken (further more) into the future by command of a rogue mind - we'll save you the thrill of translating the album's title. The hint of nostalgia possibly detected on a title such as "I Miss My Guetto" is quickly obliterated by a sort of hunger for the future, what's to come, but also what's already bubbling feverishly. It's as if Nídia is hit from every side and everything is so exciting that she just has to incorporate all manner of sights and sounds into her productions. Tracks are kept generally short. They are strong, compact entities that announce the coming of something else - "Biotheke", for example, soundtracks a parade of Tripods if such an event could fit the narrative in "War Of The Worlds". The LP ends - whenever the listener chooses - with the locked groove ‘Indian’. The CD version has 3 bonus tracks, including recent live favorite, the slow & sensuous burning ’Sinistro’.

The album that finally reveals a superstar. Sampha Sisay spent his nascent career becoming music’s collaborator à la mode—his CV includes impeccable work with the likes of Solange, Drake, and Jessie Ware—and *Process* fully justifies his considered approach to unveiling a debut full-length. It’s a stunning album that sees the Londoner inject raw, gorgeous emotion into each of his mini-epics. His electronic R&B sounds dialed in from another dimension on transformative opener “Plastic 100°C,” and “Incomplete Kisses” is an anthem for the broken-hearted that retains a smoothness almost exclusive to this very special talent. “(No One Knows Me) Like the Piano,” meanwhile, makes a solid case for being 2017’s most beautiful song.

With the release of her debut album, Nabihah Iqbal makes two big announcements. Firstly, that she’s leaving her old Throwing Shade moniker behind. By embracing the name she was born with, she proudly wears it as a female British Asian artist making electronic music. Secondly, that she will be releasing her album on Ninja Tune. Incorporating live instrumentation more than before, ‘Weighing of the Heart’, takes on a bolder, more inclusive sound than her previous releases. Channeling influences from the likes of CAN and Bauhaus, she melds moody, propulsive basslines with shimmering synth atmospheres. The title alludes to an Ancient Egyptian myth about judgement and the afterlife, the concept of which underlies various ideas that are explored throughout the album. The album’s intertwining styles are underpinned by Iqbal's writing, drawing on themes of existential doubt, pondering the struggles and pleasures which mark day-to-day life. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the lead single ‘Something More’ - released today - her subdued vocals exploring the feeling of being eternally unsatisfied with what you’ve got. In addition to her music production, Nabihah has hosted a bi-weekly show on NTS since 2013, exploring the musical traditions of different countries. She has also received several commissions from other corners of the arts: she recently took part in a group performance as part of the Barbican’s Basquiat retrospective and collaborated with Wolfgang Tillmans at his major Tate Modern exhibition. She’s received plaudits from publications including Pitchfork, ­The Guardian, The Fader and Complex. She has also had radio support from Huw Stephens, Monki, and Toddla T on Radio 1, Jamz Supernova on Radio 1Xtra, Gilles Peterson on Radio 6Music and Zane Lowe on Beats 1.

English producer Actress has always struck a brilliant balance between body and head, offering high-concept deconstructions of techno idioms without forgetting important stuff like the beat. His fifth album—a semi-surprise after having announced his retirement—goes further down his hazy, retro-futuristic rabbit hole, offering left-field takes on garage (“DANCING IN THE SMOKE”), electro (“RUNNER”), and straight-up house (“THERE’S AN ANGEL IN THE SHOWER,” “X22RME”). It respects conventions while stretching them to their limits.

Actress, real name Darren Jordan Cunningham, known to friends as DAZ, returns with a new album, now on Ninja Tune and a new music system called “AZD” (pronounced “Azid”), a chrome aspect journey into a parallel world. An artist who has always preferred to make music than to talk about it, in “AZD” he has achieved another remarkable landmark, one which is as resistant to interpretation as it is demanding of it. Following on from his previous albums, R.I.P, Splazsh and Hazyville, an epilogue poem attached to the press release for Ghettoville was construed by media, commentators and spectators that Cunningham had retired. This led him to conceptualise this mass of conclusion as the key to ‘Giving power back to identity.’ So a few pointers, or possible ways to think about “AZD”. The album is themed around chrome – both as a reflective surface to see the self in, and as something that carves luminous voids out of any colour and fine focuses white and black representing the perfect metaphor for the bleakness of life in the Metropolis as suggested by Anish Kapoors Cloud Gate. Another way to approach would be through the art of James Hampton and Rammellzee (who inspired “CYN,” which Cunningham also sees as a vision of New York in reverse…) – both of whom, though of different generations of the African-American slave diaspora, created art through “Sourcing castaway materials from their environment and reinterprating them into absolute majesty given from the fourth dimension.” There is also the career-long influence of the Detroit techno pioneers, something which becomes clear on this album “there is a contrast in the type of glow or reflection”. Alternatively, you could write your PhD thesis on Jung’s Shadow Theory and AZD: “Lots of ideas come from dreams, this isn’t new, but sometimes the conscious mind starts to meld into the universal consciousness through constellation tunnelling.” If that sounds too taxing then you could always fall back on Star Wars and, in particular, the Death Star: “It has a dark dystopian backdrop, with highly sophisticated technology, but it is fading into the ether, still holding on and emitting a powerful energy. The music remaking the embers, binding them together and pulling them apart again.” Alternatively, just listen. That “glow” Cunningham talks about makes this in some ways more immediate than previous Actress releases. Take lead single, “X22RME” (pronounced “Extreme”) which elegantly plays between the lines of Oriental classic rave and Balinese warehouse Techno machined in a Rotherhithe lock up welding the grooves into a seamless cracked joint. At the other end of the spectrum is “Faure in Chrome,” a byproduct or development from his collaboration with the London Contemporary Orchestra, in which he “repatterns” aspect of Faure’s Requiem into a piece which sounds like the very institution of classical music being encased in electronic ice and scanned through a high frequency bandwidth. In between are gems like “Runner,” a personal re-soundtracking of Blade Runner “its from the deleted Fade Runner scene where AZD in a Peckham Cafe realises his barber has over the years etched a faded scroll into his head using early 80s African synthpop as a vexing serum“, or “Falling Rizlas,” an alienated music-box ballad. It’s a remarkable piece of work, that harks back both to Actress’ previous productions and to earlier iterations of the (broadly conceived) “techno” project without being beholden to anything but Cunningham’s forward-facing, individual and disembodied vision. As if the record itself isn’t enough, Cunningham is currently preparing a new live show, to be debuted at as part of Convergence at Village Underground on March 24th. Presented as AZD, Cunningham says it “will be a test frame for linking circuits using various forms of language — Midi globalised language, Lyrical language, Tikal Graffiti code and various other Synthesiser language — to create one intelligent musical instrument called AZD, if successful it will produce the first translucent, non-soluble communication sound pill synergised through impressionistic interpretations of technological equipment. This is the music vitamin of the Metropolis.” The simplest you could say about “AZD” is that it’s art – the unique creation of a unique mind. There will be few more distinctive, brilliant or visionary suites of music released in 2017. Call him what you will, this is the year that Darren ‘Daz’ Cunningham - aka Actress, aka AZD – asserts more clearly than ever before his complete independence.

Since emerging onto the scene in 2014, Moses Sumney has ridden a wave of word-of-mouth praise, hushed recordings, and dynamic live performances. It's an organic, patient ascent all too rare in today's musical climate. In a voice both mellifluous and haunting, Sumney makes future music that transmogrifies classic tropes, like moon-colony choir reinterpretations of old jazz gems. His vocals narrate a personal journey through universal loneliness atop otherworldly compositional backdrops. Following the self-release of his debut cassette EP, Mid-City Island, and 2015's 7", Seeds/Pleas, Sumney has performed around the world alongside forebears like David Byrne, Karen O, Sufjan Stevens, Solange, James Blake and more. With his 2016 Lamentations EP, The California and Ghana-raised troubadour widened the spectrum of his heretofore "bedroom" music, incorporating songs that feature more elaborate production and evocative songwriting. Now his inspired ascent continues. His proper debut album, Aromanticism is a concept album about lovelessness as a sonic dreamscape. It seeks to interrogate the social constructions around romance. The debut will include the devastating, billowing synths of "Doomed,” which in a way serves as the album’s thesis statement, as well as new versions of standouts "Lonely World" and "Plastic.” It’s a deliberate, jaw-dropping statement that can leave you both enlightened and empty.

Pushing past the GRAMMY®-winning art rock of 2014’s *St. Vincent*, *Masseduction* finds Annie Clark teaming up with Jack Antonoff (as well as Kendrick Lamar collaborator Sounwave) for a pop masterpiece that radiates and revels in paradox—vibrant yet melancholy, cunning yet honest, friendly yet confrontational, deeply personal yet strangely inscrutable. She moves from synthetic highs to towering power-ballad comedowns (“Pills”), from the East Coast (the unforgettable “New York”) to “Los Ageless,” where, amid a bramble of strings and woozy electronics, she admits, “I try to write you a love song/But it comes out a lament.”

Released by Important Records on April 21, 2017. "Patterns Of Consciousness is the powerful second full length album from analog synth composer Caterina Barbieri. Gorgeous high resolution analog textures and algorithmic melodies unfold under Barbieri's careful control, exploring the basic nature of sound and consciousness. These pieces are minimal in arrangement but maximal in presence asserting Barbieri as a unique voice in contemporary electronic music composition. Highly recommended to fans of Alessandro Cortini and Eleh." (Important Records) "Patterns Of Consciousness finds Caterina Barbieri at her best, elegantly moving between melodically pleasant yet twisted sequences and comforting, reassuring sonic spaces. Every piece, while given a singular identity, is part of the bigger picture: a work of art that will push you, pull you, and then eventually leave you with your back against the wall once you get to the last track. " Alessandro Cortini (Nine Inch Nails) "Shows off her knack for compositional contortion, bending fibrous synth lines around one another in mammoth, labyrinthine braids, which breathe and collapse in swimming fractal-like arrangements." Thump "A pattern creates a certain state of consciousness. Once it is created, the pattern stands as an object exactly like the sound waves which generate it. We are at the same time inside and outside of the object. While being it, we observe it. Over time we become familiar with the inner structure of the pattern. We decode its gravitational centres, where our psycho-motor attention is attracted, where everything seems to be drawn. When a change in the pattern occurs it causes a perturbation of the previously established field of forces. This causes consciousness to fracture, potentially unfolding layers of perceptions we weren't aware of or simply suggesting that we access only a fraction of our psychic potential. The layered nature of consciousness and the relativity of perception are some of the biggest secrets we can experience through sound." Caterina Barbieri

Ariel Pink is one of those artists who doesn’t change their style so much as drill deeper into it with every album. Retreating from the studio sound of his recent breakthroughs into the murk of his early recordings (see 2004’s classic *The Doldrums*), *Dedicated to Bobby Jameson* is a strange, phantasmagoric experience, by turns creepy (“Santa’s in the Closet”), pretty (“Feels Like Heaven”), and something unsettlingly in-between (“Do Yourself a Favor”). As always, Pink loves a weird joke, but the prevailing mood is one of loss—of hearing something fade away in haunting real time.

BUY VINYL (LIMITED EDITION) NOW @ bit.ly/3ASonqh

Lil B goes back to the ‘80s on this 27-track album full of retro West Coast electro-funk grooves. The thumping drums of “Bad Mf” hark back to L.A.’s World Class Wreckin’ Cru, and the throwback minimalist beat of “Hip Hop” provides the bedrock for a wistful ode to a bygone era of rap. But those well-chosen references never overshadow The BasedGod’s distinctive style, with cuts like the swaggering, squelchy “Go Senorita Go” colored by his trademark wacky humor.

After the storm comes a clearer, brighter morning. In 2015, Björk channelled a painful breakup into the dark, tumultuous *Vulnicura*. On this follow-up, she turns toward warmth and optimism. With flutes and harps weaved around glitchy electronics and sampled voices, her music is as expressive and unique as her vocals. “The Gate” welcomes love back into her heart amid a hymnal, delicate soundscape, and the sense of a new dawn is accented in the birdsong that hops across graceful flute melodies on the title track. “Sue Me” returns to the sorrow and recrimination of broken love, but where there was once vulnerability and despair, Björk now seems charged with resilience.

Utopia is the ninth studio album by Icelandic singer-musician Björk It was primarily produced by Björk and Venezuelan electronic record producer Arca and released on 24 November 2017 through One Little Independent Records. The album received critical acclaim from music critics for its production, songwriting, and Björk’s vocals, and later received a nomination for Best Alternative Music Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, becoming Björk’s eighth consecutive nomination in the category. Utopia is an avant-garde and folktronica album. With fourteen tracks in total, the album clocks in at 71 minutes and 38 seconds, making it the longest of Björk's studio albums to date. Björk began working on Utopia soon after releasing Vulnicura in 2015. Upon winning the award for International Female Solo Artist at the 2016 Brit Awards, Björk did not appear as she was busy recording her new album. In an interview published in March 2016, Björk likened the writing to "paradise" as opposed to Vulnicura being "hell... like divorce." Speaking to Fader in March 2017, filmmaker and collaborator Andrew Thomas Huang said that he had been involved with Björk on her new album, stating that "quite a bit of it" had already been written, and that the "new album's gonna be really future-facing, in a hopeful way that I think is needed right now."

In the two years since *To Pimp a Butterfly*, we’ve hung on Kendrick Lamar\'s every word—whether he’s destroying rivals on a cameo, performing the #blacklivesmatter anthem *on top of a police car* at the BET Awards, or hanging out with Obama. So when *DAMN.* opens with a seemingly innocuous line—\"So I was taking a walk the other day…”—we\'re all ears. The gunshot that abruptly ends the track is a signal: *DAMN.* is a grab-you-by-the-throat declaration that’s as blunt, complex, and unflinching as the name suggests. If *Butterfly* was jazz-inflected, soul-funk vibrance, *DAMN.* is visceral, spare, and straight to the point, whether he’s boasting about \"royalty inside my DNA” on the trunk-rattling \"DNA.\" or lamenting an anonymous, violent death on the soul-infused “FEAR.” No topic is too big to tackle, and the songs are as bold as their all-caps names: “PRIDE.” “LOYALTY.” “LOVE.” \"LUST.” “GOD.” When he repeats the opening line to close the album, that simple walk has become a profound journey—further proof that no one commands the conversation like Kendrick Lamar.

On her sophomore album, Japanese Breakfast\'s Michelle Zauner seeks grounding in an unlikely place: outer space. Her evocative metaphors and hefty subject matter find lightness in shimmery, spacey electronics, most potently on the expansive, krautrock-like opener \"Diving Woman.\" She deals with femininity and sexuality in synth-pop reveries like \"Road Head\" and the Auto-Tune-enhanced \"Machinist,\" and cuts deep into trauma (\"The Body Is a Blade\") and grief (\"Till Death\") by finding comfort in ‘90s indie guitar pop, fluttering keyboards, and gentle wafts of mournful horns.

Japanese Breakfast's 'Soft Sounds From Another Planet' is less of a concept album about space exploration so much as it is a mood board come to life. Over the course of 12 tracks, Michelle Zauner explores a sonic landscape of her own design, one that's big enough to contain her influences. There are songs on this album that recall the pathos of Roy Orbison’s ballads, while others could soundtrack a cinematic drive down one of Blade Runner's endless skyways. Zauner's voice is capacious; one moment she's serenading the past, the next she's robotically narrating a love story over sleek monochrome, her lyrics more pointed and personal than ever before. While 'Psychopomp' was a genre-spanning introduction to Japanese Breakfast, this visionary sophomore album launches the project to new heights.

LP edition available now at www.daisrecords.com www.hansonrecords.net

On their debut album, fiery D.C. post-punk outfit Priests cram a record’s worth of drama into opening track “Appropriate” alone; after sprinting out of the gate with a riot grrrl-schooled screech, the song rebuilds into something far more sinister. It’s the first startling moment on a collection packed with sucker-punch surprises: “JJ” spikes its surf-rock surge with playful piano, while the Cure-like title track turns from mournful to cathartic thanks to Katie Alice Greer’s bracing voice, soulful and serrated in equal measure.

Sister Polygon Records SPR-021, out January 27 2017 Produced by Kevin Erickson, Engineered by Hugh McElroy in Washington, DC. Mixed by Don Godwin at Airshow Studio. Mastered by TJ Lipple. All songs written by Priests: Katie Alice Greer, Daniele Daniele, Taylor Mulitz, GL Jaguar. Guest appearances by Janel Leppin, Luke Stewart, Mark Cisneros, Perry Fustero, Brendan Polmer. Cover photo by Audrey Melton

Broadly cut from the synth pop cloth, Maus has fashioned the frosty minimalism of its fabric into a cloak of infinite meaning, genuine grace and absurdist humor over the course of three defining albums since 2006. His fourth album Screen Memories, follows six years after 2011’s We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves, which appeared like a thunderbolt of maniacal energy and turned everyone’s heads. Screen Memories was written, recorded, and engineered by Maus over the last few years in his home in Minnesota. It’s a solitary place situated in the sub-zero winter temperatures creep into the songs as do the buzzing wasps of summer.