Fopp's Best Albums of 2016

The songwriter transfigures personal tragedy into growling, elemental elegies. On his latest collaboration with the Bad Seeds, Nick Cave pulls us through the gorgeous, groaning terrors of “Anthrocene” and “Jesus Alone” only to deliver us, scarred but safe, to “I Need You” and “Skeleton Tree,” a pair of tender, mournful folk ballads.

Atomic, the new album by Scottish experimental rock legends Mogwai, is composed of reworked versions of the music recorded for the soundtrack to director Mark Cousin's acclaimed documentary Atomic: Living In Dread and Promise, which first aired on BBC Four last summer. Constructed entirely of archive film, Atomic is an impressionistic kaleidoscope of the horrors of our nuclear times – protest marches, Cold War sabre-rattling, Chernobyl and Fukishima – but also the sublime beauty of the atomic world, and how x-rays and MRI scans have improved human lives. Mogwai's soundtrack encapsulates the nightmare of the nuclear age, but its dreamlike qualities too. It is the latest in the band's series of impressive soundtracks and scores, following acclaimed albums Les Revenants (The Returned) and Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait. Cousins says of Atomic, the film: "I'm a child of the nuclear age, and in my teens I had nightmares about the bomb. But physics was my favorite subject in school, and I nearly studied it at university. Learning about the atomic world excited me. It was like abstract Star Wars." Mogwai's Stuart Braithwaite says: "The Atomic soundtrack is one of the most intense and fulfilling projects we've taken on as a band. Ever since we went to Hiroshima to play and visited the peace park this has been a subject very close to us. The end results, both the film score and the record are pieces I'm extremely proud of."

A haunting tale of tragedy, devotion, and self-discovery, Natasha Khan’s fourth LP pairs spare, gothic pop with a narrative centered around its title character as she reckons with losing her fiancé on their wedding day. From the saturnine swell of “Never Forgive the Angels” to the gauzy catharsis of “I Will Love Again,” it’s her most ambitious and captivating effort to date.

Over the past four years, North-East siblings Peter and David Brewis have threaded their way through one extra-curricular project after another but were inevitably drawn back to working together on their own songs. "As much fun as we might have had on our own or collaborating, we missed just spending time in the studio, the two of us, trying things out and playing together." explains David. The space that Field Music vacated in those four years still appears to be empty. No one else really does what Field Music do: the interweaving vocals, the rhythmic gear changes, the slightly off-chords, but with the sensibility that keeps them within touching distance of pop music. But with Commontime, Field Music show off their unashamed love of choruses in a way they’ve only hinted at before. Written and recorded in spontaneous bursts over six months in their Wearside studio, Commontime is built around the brothers playing and singing together again, but also features a wider array of players, including original Field Music keyboardist Andrew Moore, Peter's wife Jennie Brewis and new member of the live band Liz Corney on vocals, plus a panoply of other players. “We wanted to embrace being a duo and, perversely, that made us feel more comfortable about all of those conspicuous cameos” reveals David. Over the fourteen songs of Commontime, real life conversations are replayed, acquaintances come and go, hard won friendships are left to drift and diffuse snap shots of the everyday are pulled together into what must rank amongst Field Music’s best works to date.

Astronaut Meets Appleman explores the tension and harmony between tradition and technology and between analogue and digital philosophies. It arrives replete with a chamber-rock rabble and then some: harps and bagpipes come as standard, as does silence.

DJ Shadow, widely acknowledged as a crucial figure in the development of experimental, instrumental hip-hop, will return with ‘The Mountain Will Fall’ worldwide on June 24 via Mass Appeal Records [and Believe Digital in France], his first full length release since 2011. The 12-track album finds DJ Shadow exploring new realms in addition to the deep samples and kinetic soundscapes that helped to launch his career 20 years ago. On ‘The Mountain Will Fall’ he’s shifted further toward original composition, a vast experimentation of beats and textures, synthesizers and live instruments including horns and woodwinds. The album features Run The Jewels, Nils Frahm, Matthew Halsall, Ernie Fresh and more.

*Here* finds the Scottish indie veterans doing what they do best. Their 10th full-length is a beautifully crafted set of chiming guitars and poignant reflection that borders on the bittersweet—from the psychedelic sadness of “I Was Beautiful When I Was Alive” to the autumnal strums of “The Darkest Part of the Night,” a song whose end we always dread.

Emerging from the distant light we have a new double LP from our own John Dwyer's Thee Oh Sees. The first studio recordings to capture the muscular rhythm section of double drummers Ryan Moutinho and Dan Rincon with ringer bassist Tim Hellman cracking spines, the groove and bludgeon we've come to expect from the live shows is captured seamlessly here - they go from zero to head-splitter from the get-go and on the rare occasions they do let up on the gas a bit, we're treated to some locked-in hypnotizers, too. The guitar sounds more colossal and ethereal at the same time, riding roughshod over the vacuum sealed rhythm section, spiraling skywards, and diving into the emerald depths so quick your guts tingle. Synths, strings and smoke soaked things crawl behind the scenes to make an extra far-out party platter.

The difference between Charles Bradley and a so-called soul revivalist is that, for Bradley—who was 67 when the third and final album of his lifetime, *Changes*, came out in 2016—soul never died in the first place. Like the work of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings (whose affiliates the Menahan Street Band provide most of Bradley’s musical backing), *Changes* doesn’t sound like a lost ’60s album so much as a found one, retouched and dusted off, sonically saturated in a way that wouldn’t’ve been possible 50 years ago. And while Bradley spent years as a James Brown impersonator, his delivery has more in common with what you heard in the balladry of Otis Redding: pained and reflective (“Changes”) but resilient (“Good to Be Back Home”) too—the sound of everything to give and nothing left to lose.

Radiohead’s ninth album is a haunting collection of shapeshifting rock, dystopian lullabies, and vast spectral beauty. Though you’ll hear echoes of their previous work—the remote churn of “Daydreaming,” the feverish ascent and spidery guitar of “Ful Stop,” Jonny Greenwood’s terrifying string flourishes—*A Moon Shaped Pool* is both familiar and wonderfully elusive, much like its unforgettable closer. A live favorite since the mid-‘90s, “True Love Waits” has been re-imagined in the studio as a weightless, piano-driven meditation that grows more exquisite as it gently floats away.

Spectral visions haunt Agnes Obel’s remarkable third studio album. You can hear them in the wraithlike harmonies that shadow her mournful vocal melody on “It’s Happening Again,” in the eerie celestial layers of the stately “Trojan Horses,” and in the discombobulating sonic textures and claustrophobic lyrics of “Stretch Your Eyes.” Obel is fully in charge of these spirits, engaging them both aesthetically (her arrangements are uncharacteristically complex and captivatingly strange) and thematically, as she explores concepts connected to mortality, identity, and privacy.

After the dark emotion of *Boys Outside* and the politically inflamed *Monkey Minds In the Devil’s Time*, *Meet the Humans* finds the former Beta Band man in a comparatively settled mood. The lyrics tend towards world-weary optimism and, musically, it’s his most fully formed record: elegant folk-pop enhanced by dub, hip-hop, house and a richness encouraged by his producer, Elbow’s Craig Potter. Laced with beauty, majesty, anger and euphoria, “Planet Sizes” may even be the best four minutes of Mason’s enthrallingly maverick career.

Meet The Humans is Steve Mason's third solo album and is arguably his most complete work to date, incorporating aspects of dance, pop, folk, dub, and deep house to create a compelling listen.

An alt-rock institution finds sure footing and fresh starts with producer Danger Mouse. For a big-ticket band, the Chili Peppers remain appealingly stripped-down, mixing their lean, punky approach with disco (“Go Robot”), golden-age hip-hop (“The Getaway”), psychedelia (“This Ticonderoga,” “Detroit”), and slow-burning funk (the Elton John-featuring “Sick Love”). As with the rest of the band’s post-*Californication* phase, the sound remains rhythmic (credit the skeleton-key wrecking crew of Flea and drummer Chad Smith) but the mood is melancholic, introverted, and a little lovelorn—the reflections of party boys reckoning the bittersweetness of middle age.

Rich in delicate textures and rough-trundling beats, Moderat\'s third LP sustains their reputation for crafting electronic works with a human touch. This time, Apparat provides a plethora of emotive multi-timbre vocals that reach out from the ether he has dreamed up with fellow Berliners Modeselektor. The mix is hypnotic over the stutter-step of \"Running,\" and made woozy by the glitchy distortions of \"Reminder.\" But “Intruder”—with its melodramatic piano hits, luminous synth chords, and Reichian rhythms—exemplifies the album\'s gauzy air of mystery, with lyrics depicting an alternate world that emerges only in sleep.

The feelings of isolation and disenchantment Scott Hutchison suffered after moving from Glasgow to L.A. two years ago ring through his band’s fifth album. Co-produced by The National’s Aaron Dessner–who knows a thing or two about gently anthemic, adventurously textured alt-rock–*Painting of a Panic Attack* frames Hutchison’s anxieties within stately tapestries of soaring melodies, staccato rhythms, jagged riffs, and electronic flourishes. Venturing into shoegazing’s fluting hypnotics, the sweet sorrow of “Get Out” encapsulates the restraint that ensures everything here is emotionally charged without being overdramatic.

Bon Iver’s third LP is as bold as it is beautiful. Made during a five-year period when Justin Vernon contemplated ditching the project altogether, *22, A Million* perfects the sound alloyed on 2011’s *Bon Iver*: ethereal but direct, layered but stripped-back, as processed as EDM yet naked as a fallen branch. The songs here run together as though being uncovered in real time, with highlights—“29 #Strafford APTS,” “8 (circle)”—flashing in the haze.

'22, A Million' is part love letter, part final resting place of two decades of searching for self-understanding like a religion. And the inner-resolution of maybe never finding that understanding. The album’s 10 poly-fi recordings are a collection of sacred moments, love’s torment and salvation, contexts of intense memories, signs that you can pin meaning onto or disregard as coincidence. If Bon Iver, Bon Iver built a habitat rooted in physical spaces, then '22, A Million' is the letting go of that attachment to a place.

Insidious synths light up the Anglo-American duo’s spry fifth record. The Anglo half—Jamie Hince—sought solace in synths and electronica after a gnarly time with the tendons in his left hand left him questioning his guitar-playing future. This enforced sonic detour has rejuvenated his band. “Doing It to Death” melds the pair’s trademark lascivious guitars and fevered Alison Mosshart vocal with spare and hypnotic beats, the writhing “Days of Why and How” has dancehall inflections, while “Impossible Tracks” is an exultant gospel guitar blowout.

Ash & Ice is the follow-up to 2011’s critically-lauded Blood Pressures and was five years in the making in part due to Jamie Hince’s five hand surgeries. The 13 songs on Ash & Ice are more understated, less tempestuous and more affecting because of that, exposing the kind of push-pull you feel when you find yourself in a complicated but all-consuming relationship.

Neko Case, k.d. lang, and Laura Veirs are a bewitchingly lovely folk-rock supergroup. On their debut album as case/lang/veirs, the singer/songwriter titans combine their distinctive vocals and beguiling melodies. The songs on which Case takes lead (like the gorgeous opening track “Atomic Number”) are girded with poignant melancholy, while lang’s tracks (the yearning “Blue Fires” is one such highlight) are as smooth and seductive as her legendary croon. Veirs brings a clever indie-rock sensibility to the warm, wonderful “Best Kept Secret.” With its luminous harmonies and lush arrangements, *case / lang / veirs* is a thing of beauty.

The folktronica icon once more muddies her guitars with gauzy beats. After latterly charting a traditional folk-rock course, *Kidsticks* represents a sharp—and welcome—sonic left-turn. Or rather a sonic reverse. Aided by some taut production from Fuck Buttons’ Andrew Hung, this is Orton darting down new-but-neighbouring electronic avenues to the ones she conquered in the ‘90s. The textures she builds are mesmeric (see: the restless “Moon” and “Dawnstar”) and there’s a delicacy to her work (synth ballad “1973” and the pastoral “Corduroy Legs”) that’s genuinely refreshing.

2011’s *Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming* was a gargantuan album to add to the canon of gargantuan M83 albums. *Junk* is rather different, but no less thrilling. Out go the blown-out anthems and in their place, nostalgically candied pop, disco and soul gems. It bobs merrily between gloriously indulgent (“Do It, Try It”, “Go!”), gloriously silly (“Moon Crystal” sounds like a ‘70s TV theme), and deeply romantic (“For the Kids”, “Atlantique Sud” and \"Sunday Night 1987”). “Solitude”, meanwhile, is gorgeous, cinematic and blessed with a spellbinding keytar solo. It’s that sort of album.

‘United Crushers’ (March 4 Memphis Industries) is POLIÇA’s third full length release and most remarkable album to date. The band, which includes Channy Leaneagh, dual drummers, Drew Christopherson and Ben Ivascu and Chris Beirden on bass with producer Ryan Olson at the helm, collectively wrote the album in Minneapolis in the winter of 2015 during their first true break from two years of touring. They recorded it at the renowned Sonic Ranch Studios in El Paso, TX, nestled just a few short miles from the US/Mexico border. The new album builds on POLIÇA’s signature synthesizer and percussion-heavy sounds with more complex arrangements and a bigger, crisper hi fi punch due to the new approach they took to writing and recording together, all in the same room. There's a tighter groove to these songs and a more vulnerable quality to them, especially in Leaneagh's singing. Her incredible vocal range is on display throughout, beautifully raw and less electronically effected than on previous recordings. The themes found and explored on ‘United Crushers’ are political and personal, touching on social injustice, self-doubt and isolation, the urban decline and gentrification, overcoming music industry machinations, and finding true and honest love in the wake of it all. Even at its darkest, the record is musically the band's most upbeat and celebratory. It is a weapon meant to empower the weak, the forgotten, and the disenfranchised. ‘United Crushers’ is the follow up to 2013’s ‘Shulamith’ which EW described as being "propulsive enough for dance floors, and dreamy enough for headphones" and MOJO said "proves that intelligent pop music still has the ability to seduce and enthral." Their debut, 2012's ‘Give You The Ghost,’ also garnered international acclaim, with Rolling Stone hailing it as "the sound of heartbreak and celebration happening simultaneously" and Q praising it as "a bewitching, urgent, magical debut." The band has conquered massive festivals around the world from Coachella to Glastonbury in addition to performing on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, Later With Jools Holland and more.

DJ and producer David Holmes is welcomed to the Late Night Tales fraternity with an evocative collection of personal songs and music, peppered with exclusive new material and rare gems. By now, I think we all know David Holmes, right? There’s acid house Holmes, with bone-rattling Chicago jams and Detroit destroyers; break-digger Holmes responsible for the grittily shaking ‘Let’s Get Killed’ and seminal Essential Mix compilation, and then there’s soundtrack Holmes. His most enduring and vital source of musical inspiration - cinema - plugged into David’s first solo record ‘This Film’s Crap, Let’s Slash the Seats’ and inspired 2000’s ‘Bow Down to the Exit Sign’; created as the soundtrack to a not-yet-made movie. Official soundtracks have been bountiful, including scores for Soderbergh’s Out Of Sight and Ocean’s trilogy, '71, Hunger and Good Vibrations. In a series of personal songs sung by himself, David’s last solo album ‘The Holy Pictures’ explored influences of La Düsseldorf, The Jesus and Mary Chain and early Brian Eno. His Unloved collaboration with Keefus Ciancia and Jade Vincent then took us on a musical journey full of raw 60s pop-noir, psychedelia and French Ye Ye with a contemporary twist. Somehow he’s also found time to produce records by Primal Scream and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Unsurprisingly, for someone au fait with matters cinematic, this Late Night Tales conjures up its own mind-movies. It’s not only packed with the judiciously selected nuggets for which his mixes are noted but also stuffed with original material, including collaborations with BP Fallon and Jon Hopkins and an amazing new reading of 10cc’s ‘I’m Not In Love’ by Holmes-produced Song Sung. In fact, there’s a Celtic thread running through the whole journey with Stephen Rea’s reading of an extract from Seamus Heaney’s AENEID BOOK VI - Elsewhere Anchises. Among the other gems included here are David Crosby’s lush ‘Orleans’, Buddy Holly’s celestial ‘Love Is Strange’ and the Children Of Sunshine’s ‘It’s A Long Way To Heaven’. David Holmes loves music. It’s a way of expressing the sometimes inexpressible or the inconsolable; a questing desire to find out just what is over the next hill. It’s no surprise to learn he’s a keen walker. Always on the move, headphones on, lost in some reverie or piece of music; the soundtrack to his life, the stuff that feeds his imagination. “I walk a lot. It’s amazing for listening to music: your phone or your emails aren’t going and you’re just in the forest listening to music. It’s so intimate. Anyway, I was listening to the KLF’s Chill Out album, which still sounds amazing, but it triggered an idea with concrete sounds through travelling and movement. And one of the things I was trying to do was to use this idea not just break up the moods but also as a metaphor for moving through life and arriving in different destinations or arriving at different stages in different parts of your life. Memory, Love, Living, Family, Friendship, Healing, Death and The Afterworld are some of the themes I wanted to explore within this record. Although these strong themes and tracks are personal to me, I also wanted it to be a great listen that was unpredictable yet had a seamless flow - a journey that was personal to me yet to the listener a great compilation of music that they may or may not have heard before. I hope I’ve succeeded in the later.” David Holmes 2016

Personal pain becomes complex, exultant pop on the British soul star’s stunning second album. Building on the eclectic, strange pleasures of her debut *Sing To The Moon*, Mvula—working alongside Amy Winehouse drummer Tommy Miller—uses her battles with anxiety as the fuel for bruised, neo-jazz ballads (“Show Me Love”) and, perhaps most surprisingly, a few irresistible trips to the dance floor. “Let Me Fall” is a tumbling waterfall of synth, “Phenomenal Woman” packs preposterous funk, and the Nile Rodgers-backed “Overcome” is a certified disco banger.

The follow-up to the band’s acclaimed debut, Breakfast, was written in their Homerton studio and recorded in South London with producer, Dan Carey (Bat for Lashes, Kate Tempest, Nick Mulvey). Watch an exclusive album trailer HERE. The art of songwriting has been the driving force behind Brilliant Sanity, the process of crafting of the immaculate pop song, the dogged pursuit of the perfect hook. The result is an album that appears fastidiously and impeccably made, but also charged with joy. Now a four-piece made up of singer and guitarist Tommy Sanders, his brother Jonny on synths, Pete Cattermoul on bass and Hiro Amamiya on drums, the process of touring has honed Teleman into a spectacular live act and brought about the decision to record the new record in a very live and spontaneous way.

Play it on infinite loop.

*You Want It Darker* joins *Old Ideas* and *Popular Problems* in a trio of gorgeous, ruminative albums that find Cohen settling his affairs, spiritual (“Leaving the Table”), romantic (“If I Didn’t Have Your Love”), and otherwise. At 35, he sounded like an old man—at 82, he sounds eternal.