NME's Best Debut Albums of 2016

Blossoms make a romantic, earnest form of melodic rock, and their debut album is a collective raid on their formative influences, from ‘90s British indie (“My Favourite Room”) to ‘80s electro-pop (“Honey Sweet”). “Texia” is all yearning emotion over propulsive bass, while “Blow” is a doomed romance with a Doors-like sulk. Their range is clear in the jump from the featherlight sparkle of “Charlemagne” to the dark glam stomp of “At Most a Kiss,” showcasing a band in thrall to the expressive possibilities of pop.

KAYTRANADA\'s debut LP is a guest-packed club night of vintage house, hip-hop, and soul. The Montreal producer brings a rich old-school feel to all of these tracks, but it’s his vocalists that put them over the edge. AlunaGeorge drops a sizzling topline over a swervy beat on “TOGETHER,” Syd brings bedroom vibes to the bassline-driven house tune “YOU’RE THE ONE,” and Anderson .Paak is mysterious and laidback on the hazy soundscape “GLOWED UP.” And when Karriem Riggins and River Tiber assist on the boom-bap atmospheres of “BUS RIDE,\" they simply cement the deal.

Singular adventures in pop oddness, recorded in a nuclear bunker in the east of England. Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth’s debut has many childlike charms: over-sweetened teenage-witch vocals; liberal use of glockenspiel and recorder; and a low-boredom-threshold flightiness that carries the pair from dimly-lit trip-hop (“Deep Six Textbook”) to sinister folk (“Chocolate Sludge Cake”), and lo-fi rave and hip-hop (“Eat Shiitake Mushrooms”). There’s nothing infantile about their execution though, and they layer sound and ideas into enrapturing melodies with skill and fearlessness.

Immersed in music right from the start of his life, both at home (his parents fronted the pop band, The Regents; his father went on to produce early Acid House records) as well as in the musical hotpot that was his native North West London, Cut and Paste is a heady melange of the many musical styles Oscar Scheller absorbed growing up. You can hear the clear influence of a West London upbringing in the bashment rhythm of “Be Good” or the dub bassline and echo of the anthemic, uplifting “Good Things”. You’re hit by the boom-bap breakbeat of his beloved mid-90s hip hop on “Breaking My Phone” and “Beautiful Words”, before swooning to his more tender side on “Only Friend”, where Oscar is joined by Marika Hackman for a gorgeous duet over a sea of bubbling synths, or “Fifteen”, an addictive love song, ragged at the edges and wearing its heart defiantly on its sleeve. Despite the wide range of influences on display, the album is unified by Scheller’s beautiful baritone vocal and his keen ear for a melody. And although self-produced, the resulting album by no means contains the average lo-fi, crackly sound one might expect from someone tagged as a “bedroom producer”. Choosing the strongest songs from the demos that originally attracted Wichita to his music, Scheller set about re-recording the vast majority of the elements at home – not missing the opportunity to step into a proper studio to add live drums (played by his drummer, Aramis Gorriette), alongside his own drum machine programming and sampled breaks for the first time. These new recordings were then passed on to Ben Baptie (Adele, Mark Ronson, Lianne La Havas, Albert Hammond Jr. etc.) to be mixed and to have the dub-influence turned up further with the subtle echo effects that you can hear throughout if you listen carefully. Overall, Cut and Paste is the sound of a new musical prodigy well and truly arriving, and a more than worthy addition to the lineage of eccentric, classic British pop.

Public Access T.V. wave the New York rock flag hard on their 2016 debut, *Never Enough*, drawing a line in the sand with the swaggering \"I Don\'t Wanna Live in California.\" There\'s more than a little of The Strokes\' laconic cool in their mix, but the synth purrs of \"Patti Peru\" show they\'ve also studied The Cars and Weezer. On \"End of an Era,\" frontman John Eatherly rolls his eyes at the idea that rock could ever die, unleashing a massive, hip-swiveling groove with the zeal of a true believer.

New Yorkers Julia Cumming, Jacob Faber, and Nick Kivlen conjure up a far-out swirl of psychedelic wonderment and freewheeling riffs on a debut beaming with easy confidence. For an album valourizing so many genres, however, there’s no spirit of diluted imitation. *Human Ceremony* fizzes with invention, from “Wall Watchers”’ fuzzy rock crunch to the sublime, sail-away soul of “I Want You to Give Me Enough Time.” Elsewhere on an endlessly inventive set there’s hypnotic dream pop (“Easier Said,” “Creation Myth”) and irresistibly melodic freak-outs (“This Kind of Feeling,” “I Was Home”).

Sunflower Bean find magic within friction. The New York trio’s full-length debut album, Human Ceremony [Fat Possum Records], emerges at the intersection of dreamy modern psychedelica and urgent fuzzed-out bliss. That push-and-pull colors the aural tapestry of these three musicians—Jacob Faber [drums], Julia Cumming [vocals/bass], and Nick Kivlen [vocals/guitars]. “Everything comes from a conflicting interest,” affirms Nick. “We love dream pop, but we also really love rock ‘n’ roll. It’s those two spectrums.” “You’re allowed to obsess over Black Sabbath as well as The Cure,” adds Julia. “It’d be boring if everything was just one way or the other.” That diversity defined the group’s approach since Nick and Jacob started jamming back in high school. They would hole up in Jacob’s Long Island basement for hours on end, channeling this vast cadre of influences. Julia’s addition would only expand that creative palette further in 2013. Through constant gigging around New York, Sunflower Bean sprouted into a sonic enigma, boasting a fiery musical call-and-response that serves as a centerpiece, giving the music what Jacob refers to as a “lyrical aspect” between the guitars, drums, and bass. They transferred this multi-headed energy into their 2015 Independent EP, Show Me Your Seven Secrets. At the same time, this distinct alchemy enchanted ever-growing audiences live. By the time, they entered the studio for Human Ceremony, Sunflower Bean had a lively aural cauldron from which to draw. They took the summer of 2015 off and retreated to Jacob’s basement to write together. Taking the ideas out of the basement, they hit a Brooklyn studio with producer Matt Molnar [Friends] and tracked eleven tunes in just seven days. Whereas the EP was recorded after Sunflower Bean played 100 shows in one year, Human Ceremony showed the band’s studio side with richer soundscapes, overdubs, and music that had yet to be debuted live. On the lead track “Easier Said,” Julia’s delicate vocals glide over a lilting clean guitar that spirals off into a vibrant hum. Sunflower Bean’s spell is cast on Human Ceremony. “When you’re in a band, you always dream about the first record,” Julia concludes. “It’s that moment where you explore everything that’s been inspiring you.”

Swet Shop Boys pollinate contemporary hip-hop and R&B with South Asian style. Producer Redinho peppers “Tiger Hologram” with Qawwali hand claps and Bollywood tablas, while rappers Heems and Riz MC use “Phone Tap” and “Shoes Off” to convey the culture of fear and suspicion imposed on brown-skinned people worldwide. Intensely political but fiercely entertaining, “T5” is easily the best song about airport security harassment every written.

Michael and Brian D’Addario welcome you into the ecstatic and wonderfully odd world of The Lemon Twigs. Their debut album is a joyous treasure trove of musical curios, from the baroque surf-pop of opener “I Wanna Prove to You” to “Hi+Lo”’s kaleidoscopic rock opera. “These Words,” meanwhile, is a barmy alt-anthem so fabulous it indulges itself a mid-song xylophone solo. Which almost perfectly sums up this endlessly exciting record.

Whitney’s debut is a haunting set of ‘60s guitar pop. Taking pages from Byrds ballads (“Light Upon the Lake”), pre-psychedelic Beatles (“Golden Days”), and the more placid side of soul (“Dave’s Song”), the duo—comprising former members of Smith Westerns and Unknown Mortal Orchestra—sound cheerful but bittersweet, muted by a sense of melancholy that gives drummer/vocalist Julien Ehrlich’s falsetto a sneaky, surprising depth. Even the album’s most upbeat moment, “The Falls,” feels less like it’s looking forward to something, and more like it’s looking back.

Whitney make casually melancholic music that combines the wounded drawl of Townes Van Zandt, the rambunctious energy of Jim Ford, the stoned affability of Bobby Charles, the American otherworldliness of The Band, and the slack groove of early Pavement. Their debut, ‘Light Upon the Lake’, is due in June on Secretly Canadian, and it marks the culmination of a short, but incredibly intense, creative period for the band. To say that Whitney is more than the sum of its parts would be a criminal understatement. Formed from the core of guitarist Max Kakacek and singing drummer Julien Ehrlich, the band itself is something bigger, something visionary, something neither of them could have accomplished alone. Ehrlich had been a member of Unknown Mortal Orchestra, but left to play drums for the Smith Westerns, where he met guitarist Kakacek. That group burned brightly but briefly, disbanding in 2014 and leaving its members adrift. Brief solo careers and side-projects abounded, but nothing clicked. Making everything seem all the more fraught: both of them were going through especially painful breakups almost simultaneously, the kind that inspire a million songs, and they emerged emotionally bruised and lonelier than ever. Whitney was born from a series of laidback early-morning songwriting sessions during one of the harshest winters in Chicago history, after Ehrlich and Kakacek reconnected - first as roommates splitting rent in a small Chicago apartment and later as musical collaborators passing the guitar and the lyrics sheet back and forth. “We approached it as just a fun thing to do. We never wanted to force ourselves to write a song. It just happened very organically. And we were smiling the whole time, even though some of the songs are pretty sad.” The duo wrote frankly about the break-ups they were enduring and the breakdowns they were trying to avoid. Each served as the other’s most brutal critic and most sympathetic confessor, a sounding board for the hard truths that were finding their way into new songs like “No Woman” and “Follow,” a eulogy for Ehrlich’s grandfather. In exorcising their demons they conjured something else, something much more benign—a third presence, another personality in the music, which they gave the name Whitney. They left it singular to emphasize its isolation and loneliness. Says Kakacek, “We were both writing as this one character, and whenever we were stuck, we’d ask, ‘What would Whitney do in this situation?’ We personified the band name into this person, and that helped a lot. We wrote the record as though one person were playing everything. We purposefully didn’t add a lot of parts and didn’t bother making everything perfect, because the character we had in mind wouldn’t do that.” In those imperfections lies the music’s humanity. Whilst they demoed and toured the new songs, they became more aware of the perfect imperfections of the songs, and needing to strike the right balance, they eventually made the trek out to California, where they recorded with Foxygen frontman and longtime friend, Jonathan Rado. They slept in tents in Rado’s backyard, ate the same breakfast every morning at the same diner in the remote, desolate and completely un-rock n roll San Fernando Valley, whilst they dreamt of Laurel Canyon, or maybe The Band’s hideout in Malibu, or Neil Young’s ranch in Topanga Canyon. The analog recording methods, the same as used by their forebearers, allowed them to concentrate on the songs themselves and create moments that would be powerful and unrepeatable. “Tape forces you to get a take down,” says Kakacek. “We didn’t have enough tracks to record ten takes of a guitar part and choose the best one later. Whatever we put down is all we had. That really makes you as a musician focus on the performance.” The sessions were loose, with room for improvisation and new ideas, as the band expanded from that central duo into a dynamic sextet (septet if you count their trusty soundman). And that’s what you hear – Whitney is the sound of that songwriting duo expanding their group and delivering the sound of a band at their freest, their loosest, their giddiest. Classic and modern at the same time, they revel in concrete details, evocative turns of phrase, and thorny emotions that don’t have exact names. These ten songs on 'Light Upon the Lake' sound like they could have been written at any time in the last fifty years. Ehrlich and Kakacek emerge as imaginative and insightful songwriting partners, impressive in their scope and restraint as they mold classic rock lyricism into new and personal shapes without sound revivalist or retro. “I’m searching for those golden days.” sings Ehrlich, with a subtle ripple of something that sounds like hope, on the track “Golden Days”. It’s a song that defines Whitney as a band. “There’s a lot of true feeling behind these songs,” says Ehrlich. “We wanted them to have a part of our personalities in them. We wanted the songs to have soul.”