musicOMH's Top 100 Albums of 2013

Critical acclaim for Pale Green Ghosts... “It's hard to imagine a more enjoyable and rewarding hour of music being released this year than Pale Green Ghosts: self-obsessed but completely compelling, profoundly discomforting but beautiful, lost in its own fathomless personal misery, but warm, funny and wise. - The Guardian – 5 Stars ***** "an exhilarating musical progression… "Pain it is a glacier… creating spectacular landscapes," he sings on ‘Glacier’: a truth his career makes self-evident.” - The Independent On Sunday – 5 Stars ***** “An album that, rather than juggling empty pop–song clichés, opts to expose the rawest emotional nerves: truth and beauty, rather than lies and blather.” - The Independent – 4 Stars**** “The abrupt changes between lush vintage balladry and stark electro ensure that Pale Green Ghosts is not as instantly cohesive as Queen Of Denmark. But it is arguably more satisfying, in its artistic courage, its refusal to meet expectations, and its willingness to paint a brand new picture of a gay demi-monde where the triumphs and tragedies have a deeper resonance than simple melodrama or camp… A masterpiece” - UNCUT – 8/10 “Several of the tracks here top the majesty of those on the debut… a bold, distinctive and genuinely excellent record” - Clash – 9/10 “Grant’s rich voice dovetails beautifully with the silvery synths of ‘GMF’ and ‘Vietnam’… This is audacious stuff from one talented motherfucker.” - NME - 8/10

With multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis replacing Mick Harvey as his primary foil, Nick Cave finds his songs developing along the lines of his soundtrack work on *Push the Sky Away*. The mood is subdued, yet intense, as it forces Cave to sing from his deepest register and leads to some of his best work. Nowhere is it more effective than on the haunting “Wide Lovely Eyes,” where Cave and a Fender Rhodes keyboard provide the drama. The album is pure simmering genius, where life occurs in the shadows.

Since The National\'s 2001 debut, the world-weary baritone of frontman and songwriter Matt Berninger has become one of the most compelling voices in Brooklyn’s well-groomed indie scene, begging comparisons to darkly tempered rock outsiders like Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen. The follow-up to 2010’s celebrated *High Violet* is a set of beautifully produced contemplations on shadowy love, self-destruction, and urban ennui. Chipper? Hardly. But songs like “Demons,” “Heavenfaced,” and “I Need My Girl” are impossible to shake.

In January 2012, following a twenty-two month tour to promote the band’s previous record, High Violet, guitarist Aaron Dessner returned home to Brooklyn, where the fitfulness of his newborn daughter threw Aaron into a more or less sustained fugue state—“sleepless and up all the time,” as he puts it. Punch-drunk, he shuffled into the band’s studio (situated in Aaron’s backyard), where he amused himself writing musical fragments that he then sent over to vocalist Matt Berninger. Recalls Matt of Aaron, “He’d be so tired while he was playing his guitar and working on ideas that he wouldn’t intellectualize anything. In the past, he and Aaron’s twin brother, Bryce would be reluctant to send me things that weren’t in their opinion musically interesting—which I respected, but often those would be hard for me to connect to emotionally. This time around, they sent me sketch after sketch that immediately got me on a visceral level." From beginning to end, Trouble Will Find Me possesses the effortless and unself-conscious groove of a downstream swimmer. It’s at times lush and at others austere, suffused with insomniacal preoccupations that skirt despair without succumbing to it. There are alluring melodies, and the murderously deft undercurrent supplied by the Devendorfs. There are songs that seem (for Matt anyway) overtly sentimental—among them, the Simon & Garfunkel-esque 'Fireproof', 'I Need My Girl' (with Matt’s unforgettable if throwaway reference to a party “full of punks and cannonballers”) and 'I Should Live In Salt' (which Aaron composed as a send-up to the Kinks and which Matt wrote about his brother). While a recognition of mortality looms in these numbers, they’re buoyed by a kind of emotional resoluteness—“We’ll all arrive in heaven alive”—that will surprise devotees of Matt’s customary wry fatalism. Then there are the songs that Aaron describes as “songs you could dance to—more fun, or at least The National’s version of fun.” These include 'Demons'—a mordant romp in 7/4, proof that bleakness can actually be rousing—and the haunting 'Humiliation' in which the insistent locomotion of Bryan’s snarebeat is offset by Matt’s semi-detached gallows rumination: “If I die this instant/taken from a distance/they will probably list it down among other things around town.” Finally there are songs—like 'Pink Rabbits' and the lilting 'Slipped' (the latter termed by Aaron “the kind of song we’ve always wanted to write”)—that aspire to be classics, with Orbison-like melodic geometry. In these songs, as well as in 'Heavenfaced', Matt emerges from his self-described “comfort zone of chant-rock” and glides into a sonorous high register of unexpected gorgeousness. The results are simultaneously breakthrough and oddly familiar, the culmination of an artistic journey that has led The National both to a new crest and, somehow, back to their beginnings—when, says Aaron, “our ideas would immediately click with each other. It’s free-wheeling again. The songs on one level are our most complex, and on another they’re our most simple and human. It just feels like we’ve embraced the chemistry we have.”

There’s an audacity to the way the Arctic Monkeys\' fifth album gathers disparate musical threads—West Coast hip-hop, heavy ’70s rock—into something that feels so assured, inevitable and outrageously enjoyable. From biker-gang stomp of “Do I Wanna Know?” to the bouncing G-funk of “Why’d You Only Call…”, they turn the sounds of their adopted Californian home into a set of can’t-miss instant classics. Seductive, slinky and brimming with nocturnal attitude, *AM* is the sound of a band locating a sonic sweet spot no one else thought to look for.

There are deftly wielded forces of darkness and light at work on Vampire Weekend’s third record. Elegiac, alive with ideas, and coproduced by Ariel Rechtshaid, *Modern Vampires of the City* moves beyond the grabby, backpacking indie of its predecessors. In fact, whether through the hiccuping, distorted storm of “Diane Young” or “Unbelievers”—a sprinting guitar-pop jewel about the notion of afterlife—this is nothing less than the sound of a band making a huge but sure-footed creative leap.

There is an early Daft Punk track named “Teachers” that, effectively, served as a roll call for the French duo’s influences: Paul Johnson, DJ Funk, DJ Sneak. Within the context of 1997’s *Homework*, “Teachers” presented the group as bright kids ready to absorb the lessons of those who came before them. But it also marked Daft Punk as a group with a strong, dynamic relationship to the past whose music served an almost dialogic function: They weren’t just expressing themselves, they were talking to their inspirations—a conversation that spanned countries, decades, styles and technological revolutions. So while the live-band-driven sound of 2013’s *Random Access Memories* was a curveball, it was also a logical next step. The theatricality that had always been part of their stage show and presentation found its musical outlet (“Giorgio by Moroder,” the Paul Williams feature “Touch”), and the soft-rock panache they started playing with on 2001’s *Discovery* got a fuller, more earnest treatment (“Within,” the Julian Casablancas feature “Instant Crush,” the I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-The-Doobie-Brothers moves of “Fragments of Time”). The concept, as much as the album had one, was to suggest that as great as our frictionless digital world may be, there was a sense of adventurousness and connection to the spirit of the ’70s that, if not lost, had at least been subdued. “Touch” was “All You Need Is Love” for the alienation of a post-*Space Odyssey* universe; “Give Life Back to Music” wasn’t just there to set the scene, it was a command—just think of all the joy music has brought *you*. “Get Lucky” and “Lose Yourself to Dance”—spotlights both for Pharrell and the pioneering work of Chic’s Nile Rodgers—recaptured the innocence of early disco and invited their audience to do the same. There was joy in it, but there was melancholy, too: Here was a world seen through the rearview, beautiful in part because you couldn’t quite go back to it. “As we look back at the Earth, it’s, uh, up at about 11 o’clock, about, uh, well, maybe 10 or 12 diameters,” the sampled voice of astronaut Eugene Cernan says on “Contact.” “I don\'t know whether that does you any good. But there\'s somethin’ out there.” This was the Apollo 17 mission, December 1972. It remains the last time humans have been on the moon.

Compared to the organic folktronica of Jon Hopkins’ preceding strum ‘n’ bass album, *Diamond Mine*, 2013’s *Immunity* is a departure in both music style and sonic texture. The former built an imaginative balance from the contrasts of electronic soundscapes rubbing against the grain of wood and wire. But with *Immunity*, Hopkins’ yin and yang swirl sublimely. The opening song, “We Disappear,” somehow makes techno sound light and breezy. On paper, the stuttered beats, rusty percussion, and deep bass should sound angular and abrasive. But under Hopkins’ touch, the elements here combine to sooth the senses with a feel that’s similar to reclining in a leather seat in the first-class section of a 747. “Open Eye Signal” follows, with more downplayed rhythms and tones gently pulsing and droning alongside what sounds like brushes on a snare drum. “Breathe This Ear” returns us to a time in the mid-\'90s when British shoegazers like Slowdive were collaborating with the ambient electro backdrops of Seefeel. “Collider” brings some innovation to this marriage with cleverly collaged samples of singer Lisa Elle (Dark Horses).

A powerful, multi-faceted beast, packed with the most aggressively dancefloor-focussed music Hopkins has ever made, Immunity is about achieving euphoric states through music. Inspired by the arc of an epic night out, the album peaks with Collider, a huge, apocalyptic, techno monster and dissolves with the quiet, heartbreakingly beautiful closer, Immunity, a track featuring vocals from King Creosote which could sit comfortably alongside the gems of their Mercury-nominated collaboration, Diamond Mine. Immunity is a confident, dramatic record defined by an acute sense of physicality and place.  It feels like the hypnotic accompaniment to a journey of creativity, a trip inside Hopkins’ mind, using analog synthesis alongside manipulations of physical, real-world sounds to make dance music that feels as natural and unforced as possible.

James Blake\'s second studio album, *Overgrown*, is a hypnotizing foray from an artist whose influences have grown from the subtle, futuristic textures of his eponymous 2011 debut to embrace everything from gospel choirs to post-dubstep. On *Overgrown*, Blake further expands his omnivorous influences and yields eclectic results—from a hip-hop track featuring RZA (\"Take a Fall for Me\") to a piano ballad that foregoes synths and electronics entirely (\"Dlm\"). *Overgrown* is challenging but accessible, confidently pacing through a multifaceted garden blooming with complex electronic layers, styles, and emotions.

The main feeling that Kevin Shields felt upon the release of *m b v* in 2013 was relief. The process of making his band’s third album—and first since 1991’s era-defining *Loveless*—had begun almost two decades before, and, after a last-minute race to complete it before a planned tour, it was done. “We had a six-month tour in front of us and we literally just finished it in time,” Shields tells Apple Music. Continuing a theme begun by *Loveless* and 1988’s *Isn’t Anything*, Shields compromised nothing on *m b v*. This time, though, it was a totally independent production, all on him. “I spent about £50,000 mastering it,” he says. “If we were with a record company, they would have been going absolutely crazy, but we paid for it ourselves and we put it out ourselves and we made a lot more money than we would’ve made if we’d put it out on a label.” *m b v* began back in 1996. The band’s classic lineup had started to disintegrate, with drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig and bassist Debbie Googe departing. Perhaps in a reflection of this unsettling period, Shields began to approach songwriting in a much more experimental manner. “I went on this process of recording a lot of ideas in a purposely abstract way,” he says. “I wasn’t trying to write a song with a beginning and an end. Instead of writing a part in a song, I’d record it and then record another part. I was doing the writing process and the recording process at the same time but in different ways. It might be weeks between a verse and a chorus…well, I don’t do choruses.” The idea was that eventually these ideas would form a coherent whole that would be a new my bloody valentine record, but the project stalled in 1997 when Shields ran out of money. “And then I started hanging out with Primal Scream and I kind of drifted into that world, which was fun for quite a while.” It wasn’t until Shields was remastering the band’s back catalog in 2006 that he listened back to the unfinished sessions. “I realized it was actually better and more relevant than I thought it was,” he recalls. “I’d kind of forgotten about the more melodic parts of it and realized they were quite strong. I thought, ‘I should finish this and make it into an album.’” It was a freeing process, Shields says, filled with lots of “crazy shit.” At one point, they paid to fly people from England to Japan with proofs of the artwork because they didn’t trust just seeing it on a computer. “We were literally throwing money at it to make sure it was as good as possible,” he says. “Every single penny was justified.” By the end, Shields felt vindicated. “We did it our way and it was perfectly good.” No my bloody valentine record ever sounds of its time—they all sound like the future. But there is something especially reinvigorating about listening to their third album, perhaps because of how unlikely its release seemed at points. To hear Shields still erecting signposts on where guitar music can go on the sensational closer “wonder 2,” which sounds like a rock band playing drum and bass from inside the engine of a 747, or the slo-mo sway of “if i am” is to be reminded that this is a visionary at work. One of the central themes of *m b v*, says Shields, was a strong sense of everything coming to an end. He thinks that’s why it still resonated when he listened back in 2006, the feeling growing as he recommenced work on it in 2011 and even more so now. “We’re in a cycle of the world of things coming to an end and moving into a new phase,” he says. “The record is more relevant as every decade goes by.”

Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke delivers a brilliantly colored robotic carnival with his latest extracurricular endeavor, Atoms for Peace. Joined by a cadre of collaborators who supported his 2008 solo project—Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, Brazilian percussionist Mauro Refosco, and drummer Joey Waronker—Yorke first led the group on an unstructured jam session. Then he spliced, manipulated, and reconstructed the recordings with the help of longtime Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich. The psychedelic result is *Amok*: a set of funky, doctoral-level laptop rock that groove as hard as anything Yorke has ever made.

Big Inner is Matthew E. White's debut album, a timeless record told in seven songs that mingle memory with the rawness of any given human moment.

The incredible 6th studio album from experimental electronic-post-rock legends 65daysofstatic 'Wild Light' sees them return with their hybrid of pulsating beats, shattering crescendos and delicate melody in a new form. The band have crafted an other-wordly record that stands apart from their catalogue, whilst being quintessentially 65. Never repeating themselves across 6 albums, 65daysofstatic remain a unique and spectacular act amongst their peers. Watch the album teaser video here: vimeo.com/71209502 Check out 65daysofstatic's previous releases here: birdsrobe.bandcamp.com/album/we-were-exploding-anyway-heavy-sky-deluxe-edition birdsrobe.bandcamp.com/album/the-destruction-of-small-ideas-deluxe-edition birdsrobe.bandcamp.com/album/one-time-for-all-time-deluxe-edition birdsrobe.bandcamp.com/album/the-fall-of-math-deluxe-edition

On *Wenu Wenu*, Syrian singer Omar Souleyman brilliantly blends old-school *dabke* music with modern influences to create an irresistible amalgam. Serpentine oud lines mix with snaky synthesizers until you’re not sure which is which; a similar sleight of hand occurs between the traditional Eastern percussion and electronic beats. At the center of it all is Souleyman’s singing, so perfectly enmeshed in the driving feel of dance tunes like \"Ya Yumma\" and \"Warni Warni\" that it, too, is difficult to separate from its surroundings.

On her sixth studio album, the incomparable Neko Case returns to the exquisitely dark, structurally complex, yet unfailingly lovely songwriting that made her 2006 landmark *Fox Confessor Brings the Flood* so transcendent. “Night Still Comes” is Case at her most achingly gorgeous, even while singing tormented lyrics reminiscent of Fiona Apple’s “Every Single Night” (“My brain makes drugs to keep me slow… but not even the masons know what drug will keep night from coming”). “Bracing for Sunday” finds Case singing matter-of-factly about murdering the man responsible for a friend’s death. “Nearly Midnight, Honolulu” is an appalled a capella lullaby to a child Case witnessed being viciously berated by his mother, while the darkly baroque “Afraid” gives us the gift of Neko covering Nico, the former Velvet Underground muse. Still, the album is not without lighter moments such as plaintive love song “Calling Cards” or the resilient, horn-swirling closing track, “Ragtime.”

The decision to record *The Invisible Way* at Jeff Tweedy\'s Chicago studio helped ensnare Tweedy for the producer role and make this album the most singer/songwriter–like album of Low\'s slo-core career. Mimi Parker handles five lead vocals (previously unheard of), with \"Waiting\" giving longtime fans an idea of what Americana ballads would sound like done the Low way. Of course, the Low way in 2013 is but a distant non-echo of the band\'s heavily reverbed past, where the beauty was in the mystic tones that sounded as if they were bouncing off of a cathedral\'s walls. Low\'s songs have been slowly rising to the surface with instrumental and vocal parts more clearly defined, but never quite like this. \"Clarence White\" could be a tribute to the former Byrds member, but the lyrics suggest something less quantifiable. \"So Blue\" actually threatens to *cruise* before the band falls away to better expose the harmonies. \"Just Make It Stop\" sounds like an AM radio piano-based pop tune. \"Holy Ghost\" mixes gospel and the blues as only Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker can design it.

We here at Sub Pop are honored to have our name attached to The Invisible Way, Low’s tenth album in 20 years as a band. Rather than put together our own, inevitably-inadequate description of the album, we will let Low’s Alan Sparhawk do the talking: “While driving though Chicago, on tour, we stopped finally to visit Wilco at their studio, The Loft. They had invited us to come check it out several times over the years, but this would finally be the day. It’s a great place—a sea of instruments in a relaxed, open working environment. It’s cool, but what really converted us was hearing the new Mavis Staples tracks they were working on: big, simple, raw, and intimate. Plans were made then and there. ’Don’t break my Grammy streak.’ We have worked with many of the great engineer/producers. Jeff Tweedy has been on our side of the microphone for over 25 years, however with engineer (and fellow Grammy winner) Tom Schick, he has of late become a formidable and eclectic producer. He spoke a language we understood, but then took us effortlessly into the mystery. We’ve made many records, and you know our M.O.: slow, quiet, sometimes melancholy, and, we hope, sometimes pretty… How is this different from any other Low record? - Mimi sings lead on five of the eleven songs (she usually only does one or two, despite being a fan favorite). - Piano, lots of piano… and an acoustic guitar. - Songs about intimacy, the drug war, the class war, plain old war war, archeology, and love. Thank you for your time again and please enjoy what we made. I think it’s beautiful.”

At just 16 years old, New Zealand pop singer Ella Yelich-O’Connor—d.b.a. Lorde—captured the top of the pop charts with the smart and wise-beyond-her-years single “Royals,” where she trashes modern pop and hip-hop’s obsession with materialism in favor of a world of love, friendship, and ideas. It’s the best Morrissey song he never wrote. Her earlier *The Love Club EP* primed audiences for what they’d be hearing, but nothing could prepare one for the actual excitement of her debut album’s best cuts. Lorde’s co-conspirator/producer/writer Joel Little ensures that songs like “Tennis Court,” “Ribs,\" and “Buzzcut Season” never lose their way. This is sharp, inspired pop music that knows how much fun it can be to play up to type and then spin things on their heads for a new conclusion.

With her second full-length album, Janelle Monáe continues the imaginative narrative of her futuristic alter-ego Cindi Mayweather. This storyline started on Monáe\'s debut EP, *Metropolis: The Chase Suite*, and continued though the acclaimed 2010 full-length *The ArchAndroid*. The richly detailed tunes on *The Electric Lady* continue the story of Mayweather—a femme android superhero—through a funk-infused power struggle in the city of Metropolis. And even though Monáe’s concept is elaborate, hard-grooving tunes like “Q.U.E.E.N.” (feat. Erykah Badu), “Electric Lady,” and “Dance Apocalyptic” are undeniably magnetic and stand on their own merits. Tracks like “We Were Rock n\' Roll” and “It\'s Code” demonstrate Monáe’s gift for weaving influences of classic soul and exploratory funk (think Funkadelic and Nona Hendryx) with crisp neo-soul production and rock guitar flourishes. Prince makes a guest vocal on an album highlight—“Givin Em What They Love”—while reflexive ballads like “PrimeTime” (feat. Miguel), “Can’t Live Without Your Love,” and “What an Experience” feature some of Monáe’s most personal songwriting to date.

Best known for ethereal and atmospheric post-rock, Sigur Rós\'s seventh studio album, *Kveikur*, makes a bold departure from that sound in favor of tracks that are darker, heavier, and louder. Filled with industrial crunches, cymbal crashes, and moody synths, *Kveikur* is both stunningly aggressive and intricate. The band\'s signature sounds—Jonsi\'s featherweight falsetto and bowed guitar—ring out across each song like a church bell in a thunderstorm. The impenetrable weight of tracks like \"Brennistein\" makes its uplifting songs (\"Stormur,\" \"Rafstraumur\") glow with transcendent warmth. All told, *Kveikur* is an exceptional achievement—simultaneously harrowing, heavy, and beautiful.

On her fifth album, *Beautiful Africa*, Malian singer/songwriter and guitarist Rokia Traoré deftly combines the traditional music of her homeland with rock and other genres. The album is produced by John Parish, best known for his work with take-no-prisoners British vocalist P.J. Harvey. The various elements—driving riffs and delicate picking, gentle pop-flavored singing and Islamic vocalizations, psych-like vibes and desert-blues chugs, lyrics in various languages—play off one another nicely. The n’goni (a West African string instrument)—expertly played by Mamah Diabaté—has a starring role; female backup vocals are another key element. One of the most exciting tunes is “Kouma,” where drummer Sebastian Rochford lets loose and electric guitar gets down and dirty. “Sarama” has the soothing quality of mellow folk-rock colored by n’goni runs and quiet percussion. On the lengthy “N’Téri,” Traoré intensely intones line after line over low-key acoustic bass, n’goni, guitar, and drums. Then in the last section, the band picks up the tempo as Traoré and the backup singers engage in call and response before coming together in delightful harmony.

Boards of Canada return to album-making with a meticulously realized creation that both fascinates and disturbs—often simultaneously. *Tomorrow’s Harvest* marks how far the Scotland-bred duo has come since starting on the fringes of ‘90s electronica. Dark shadings and ominous textures have largely replaced the more pastoral atmospherics of earlier releases like 2002’s *Geogaddi*; the tone of these tracks suggests sinister forces hovering behind the facades of a futuristic cityscape. “Gemini,” “Collapse,” “Nothing Is Real,” and similar cuts unfold with a sense of mounting tension conveyed by jittery keyboard figures and furtive pulsations. At times—especially in “Palace Posy”—the duo achieves a Teutonic pop grandeur. There are lighter moments too, such as “Jacquard Causeway” (built around a woozy loping beat) and “New Seeds” (almost cheerful with its funk-tinged groove). More typical, though, are moody, insinuating pieces like “Telepath” and “Uritual,” which suggest soundtrack excerpts from long-lost sci-fi films. Boards of Canada render these aural visions with cool intelligence and hints of deadpan humor.

Defying expectations again, These New Puritans veer away from punk and electronica toward something more challenging on their third album, *Field of Reeds*. Band mastermind Jack Barnett builds these tracks out of diverse components, pairing the exotic textures of a magnetic resonator piano with austere brass lines, eerie chorale vocals, and sound effect samples. Barnett’s brother George plays a crucial role in holding the sometimes diffuse arrangements together with complex, jazz-tinged drumming. The result is a compelling song cycle. It can be jarring in its neoclassical contours, yet it\'s redeemed by an otherworldly grace. Between the disturbing atmospherics of “The Way I Do” and the darkly massed vocals of the title track is a musical journey that hints at extreme states of exaltation and despair without dispelling its air of pervasive mystery. The jittery syncopation of “Fragment 2” gives way to the dissonant art-song balladry of “V (Island Song)” and the rippling flow of “Organ Eternal.” Jack Barnett’s smoky murmur is enriched by the light, sweet tones of Portuguese singer Elisa Rodrigues.

Don\'t get the wrong idea—just because Julia Holter has expanded her sound and her scope for her third album, *Loud City Song*, it doesn\'t mean she\'s leaped ill-advisedly into entirely foreign waters. It\'s not like the electronic art-pop auteur has gone country or something—just that after earning attention with the previous year\'s *Ekstasis* and finding herself on a larger label with more ears angled her way, she decided to open things out a bit. Holter\'s hypnotic, blown-glass vocal tones and gracefully angular, electro-minimalist approach to making music are still the defining factors here, but this album feels richer and more varied than its predecessor. Touches like the jazzy acoustic bass of \"In the Green Wild,\" the staccato horn section punctuating the appropriately titled \"Horns Surrounding Me,\" and the late-night piano languor of \"He\'s Running Through My Eyes\" all enhance Holter\'s approach. When she lays into an ambient-pop version of Barbara Lewis\'s \'60s soul hit \"Hello Stranger,\" it seems like there\'s nothing she can\'t do if she sets her mind to it.

Loud City Song is the new studio recording by Los Angeles based artist Julia Holter. The album is her third full length release in as many years – following 2011’s groundbreaking debut Tragedy and last year’s follow-up, the critically lauded Ekstasis. Her first studio album proper, Loud City Song is both a continuation and a furthering of the fiercely singular and focused vision displayed by its predecessors, taking as it does Holter’s rare gift for merging high concept, compositional prowess and experimentation with pop sensibility and applying it to a set of even more daringly beautiful arrangements and emotionally resonant songs. The songs were coaxed out and finessed as demos in Holter’s bedroom studio and then coalesced into one thrillingly cohesive experience by Holter and co-producer Cole Marsden Grief-Neill and an ensemble of Los Angeles musicians. The result is an album of enormous ambition - taking its cues from the likes of Joni Mitchell and the poetry of Frank O’Hara but forging those inspirations into something resolutely unique.

The British duo F\*\*\* Buttons are probably suffering—to some degree—from the downside to having a name that requires asterisks for certain media outlets. *Slow Focus*, the duo’s third full-length release, shows again that the Buttons—what with all the permutations the name is subjected to—are incredibly good at what they do. Rhythmic machinations push and pull squealing, pinging, whooshing, humming synths and brittle, staccato percussion into a myriad of shapes and forms, and their instrumental prowess shows a keen awareness of how critical it is to put something fresh into each track. Two guys (Andrew Hung and Benjamin Power, who met in art school in England) use a bunch of electronic gear—and other odds and ends—to make some utterly entrancing music, all without lyrics or anything like a “hook.” You can headbang to “Brainfreeze,” zone to “Stalker,” and get robot funky on “Sentients.” You won’t sing along or hum a melody in the shower, but the Buttons have made sure you\'ll remember.

Virgins was recorded during three periods in 2012, mostly in Reykjavik, Montreal and Seattle, using ensembles in live performance. The sound palette of this work is wider, almost 'percussive' and tighter sounding than previous works. While this album remains committed to a painterly form of musical abstraction, it is also a record of restrained composition recorded live primarily in intimate studio rooms. This record employs woodwinds, piano and synthesizers towards an effort at doing what digital music does not do naturally—making music that is out of time, out of tune and out of phase. This follow-up to his Juno-awarded Ravedeath, 1972 album exchanges gristled distortion and cavernous sound in favour of a close, airy, more defined palette. At times it points to the theological aspirations of early minimalist music. But it is not 'fake church music' for a secular age, rather something like an attempt at the sound of frankincense in slow-motion, or of a pulsing, flickering fluorescence in the grotto. Some pieces go off the rails before forming into anything, others eschew crescendo compositional structures or bombastic density while going sideways instead. It points to the ongoing development of Hecker's work. It suggests illusory memories of drug- hazed jams or communal music performance that may have never been performed or been heard. These are mp3s that give confusing accounts either of sound's glowing physicality or of its prismatic evasiveness. It is an offering of music into the void, a gift of digital filler between distractions. Yet hopefully it also stands as a document of the enduring faith in the narcotic, enigmatic function of music as long-form expression.

The 11-minute opener lets the audience find its seats and get comfortable as the nasty growl of L.A.\'s Icarus Line moves front and center. This is a band determined to find the step beyond Iggy Pop\'s frightening come-ons and PJ Harvey\'s radical housequakes. \"Don\'t Let Me Save Your Soul\" sounds like a mix of those two influences counterbalancing one another. Elements of Ron Asheton\'s *Fun House*–like psychedelic swirled guitars turn the streetwise blues of \"Marathon Man\" into a well-decided battle of dynamics. A few keyboard and vocal overdubs aside, *Slave Vows* was cut live, with singer/guitarist/producer Joe Cardamone taking the band through the loosely formatted tunes one by one. Whether it\'s the hit-and-run intensity of the two-minute \"No Money Music\" or the extended whirlwind of \"Dead Body\" (which feels like a drive-by on L.A.\'s less traveled streets), The Icarus Line makes rock \'n\' roll sound dangerous again. 

After the alt.storybook rise of “outsider artist” Willis Earl Beal—with his no-fi release *Acousmatic Sorcery* and its rudimentary approach to life and music—it was inevitable that there\'s be a second act, perhaps including a professional studio. Yet *Nobody Knows.* is hardly a hi-fi affair. Sure, beats get a little slicker in spots. “Coming Through,” with Chan Marshall adding ghostly whispers and vocals, includes musical backing that sounds like a primitive garage-soul band adding a legitimate R&B groove, but the Tom Waits–like rawness of the gospel-blues-sex shouter “Too Dry to Cry” isn’t much removed from a few songs on the debut. A heavy, dark reverb adds a sense of menace to the strangely orchestrated “What’s the Deal?” A piano ballad like “Blue Escape” sounds like a man sitting at the back of an empty barroom singing for his own entertainment and spiritual release. It\'s quite excellent if you appreciate such odd-fi happenings.

Like its predecessor, *Gentle Spirit*, *Fanfare* is a love letter to Wilson\'s longhaired, denim-clad countercultural heroes of the early \'70s. In fact, some of them (David Crosby, Graham Nash, Jackson Browne) appear on the album, and others (U.K. folk-rock legend Roy Harper) contribute to the songwriting. Recorded on analog gear—which channels the spirit of the aforementioned artists and the whole post-psychedelic hippie zeitgeist—and clocking in at 78 minutes, *Fanfare* is the ultimate headphone album for the modern era. While the multitalented Wilson played all the instruments on some tracks, everything here has an organic vibe; you can feel the air in the room where the record was made. As Wilson hops from orchestral majesty (the title track) to Crosby-esque folk (\"Her Hair Is Growing Long\"), sunny roots rock (\"Love to Love\"), and epic art rock (\"Lovestrong\"), he displays not only his passion for the sounds of the \'70s but his mastery of them.

After the huge success of his *Trilogy* compilation, The Weeknd, a.k.a. Abel Tesfaye, picks apart the loneliness of his newfound fame on the fraught *Kiss Land*. The songs in his self-described “horror movie” flit between chilly electronics on “The Town,\" skewed sexual politics on the excellent, Portishead-sampling “Belong To the World,” and a pervading sense of ennui, which means that even the lighter moments—like the pop bounce of “Wanderlust” or the Drake-assisted crew anthem “Live For”—are cloaked in a compelling, unshakeable paranoia.

With a voice reminiscent of a young Steve Forbert and unflinching, honest lyrics worthy of Mark Kozelek, the London-based singer/songwriter and illustrator Keaton Henson evokes a private world just a few degrees removed from those of Elliott Smith, Jeff Buckley, Bon Iver, Conor Oberst, and others to whom he\'s often been compared. His own stage fright has made him even more famous among the underground and clued listeners into empathizing ever deeper with his gentle, emotionally true songs. Yet lest you think he\'s all sensitive singer/songwriter, the humor of \"Kronos\" will set the record straight. And where his 2010 debut, *Dear…*, was a beautiful lo-fi expedition, *Birthdays* lets the sound open up ever so subtly. The deluxe edition includes three bonus tracks—\"Milk Teeth,\" \"If I Don\'t Have To,\" and \"On the News\"—that are among the most powerful and most detailed of Henson\'s career to date.