NPR Music's 50 Best Albums of 2017

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.

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.

In the wake of their arresting debut album, Big Thief find further beauty in ever harsher realities on *Capacity*. It\'s bound together by singer/songwriter Adrianne Lenker, who’s achingly fragile and coldly confident within the same song, as she shares vivid, intimate details of kisses, crashes, and a long-lost brother. Stark acoustic numbers like \"Pretty Things\" and \"Coma\" glow with a warm, vintage sheen, making them timeless, while expansive heartland rocker \"Shark Smile\" gives Lenker\'s wraith-like presence room to truly soar.

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.

Four years after Lorde illuminated suburban teendom with *Pure Heroine*, she captures the dizzying agony of adolescence on *Melodrama*. “Everyone has that first proper year of adulthood,” she told Beats 1. “I think I had that year.” She chronicles her experiences in these insightful odes to self-discovery that find her battling loneliness (“Sober”), conquering heartbreak (“Writer in the Dark”), embracing complexity (“Hard Feelings/Loveless”), and letting herself lose control. “Every night I live and die,” she sings on “Perfect Places,” an emotionally charged song about escaping reality. “I’m 19 and I\'m on fire.\"

2014’s 'Too Bright' showcased Mike Hadreas stepping out saucily onto a bigger stage, expressing, with the production help of Portishead’s Adrian Utley, emotions arranged all along the slippery continuum from rage to irony to love. Here in 13 new ferocious and sophisticated tracks, Mike Hadreas and his collaborators blow through church music, makeout music, an array of the gothier radio popular formats, rhythm and blues, art pop, krautrock, queer soul, the RCA Studio B sound, and then also collect some of the sounds that only exist inside Freddy Krueger. Tremolo on the electric keys. Nightclubbing. Daywalking. Kate Bushing, Peter Greenawaying, Springsteening, Syreetaing. No Shape was produced by Blake Mills, the man behind Alabama Shakes’ Grammy Award winning album. He added precision and expansion. Some things are pretty and some are blasted beyond recognition. Records like this, records that make you feel like you’re 15 and just seeing the truth for the first time, are excessively rare. They’re here to remind you that you’re divine.

Outgrowing the wild-hearted club anthems that defined her ascent, Kesha sounds reborn on her third album, commanding a set of sonically broad, heartfelt pop. Here, she punctuates the assertive funk of “Woman” with The Dap-Kings’ horn section and sings country-touched harmonies with Dolly Parton. But *Rainbow* is held together by Kesha’s elastic, giggle-to-roar vocal, which sounds best on blasting, jittery confections like “Boogie Feet” and “Learn to Let Go.\"

With guitar strums and spare piano chords, the New Zealand singer/songwriter constructs intimate, haunting transmissions that invoke Joni, Kate, and Nico. Harding freezes birds in flight with the subtle power of her voice on “Swell Does the Skull” and “Horizon.” Additional credit goes to PJ Harvey producer John Parish, who brings out deep color and firmly frames Harding in the present.

Freedom Highway, Rhiannon Giddens' follow-up to her highly praised solo debut album, Tomorrow Is My Turn, includes nine original songs she wrote or co-wrote, a traditional tune, and two civil rights–era songs. She co-produced the album with multi-instrumentalist Dirk Powell in his Louisiana studio, with the bulk of recording done in wooden rooms built prior to the Civil War, over an intense eight-day period. "Giddens emerges as a peerless and powerful voice in roots music," Pitchfork exclaims. It's a "rich collection," says NPR; "hope comes back to life in Giddens' music."

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.

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".

“WE IN YEAR 3230 WIT IT,” Vince Staples tweeted of his second album. “THIS THE FUTURE.” In fact, he’s in multiple time zones here. Delivered in his fluent, poetic flow, the lyrical references reach back to 16th-century composer Louis Bourgeois, while “BagBak” captures the stark contrasts of Staples’ present (“I pray for new McLarens/Pray the police don’t come blow me down because of my complexion.”) With trap hi-hats sprayed across ’70s funk basslines (“745”) and Bon Iver fused into UK garage beats (“Crabs in a Bucket”), the future is as bold as it is bright.

IIII+IIII, pronounced “Edgy-Og-Beh” is the title of the nine song debut album from Puerto Rico’s critically acclaimed electronic ensemble, ÌFÉ. Headed by San Juan based African American Otura Mun, himself a Babalawo or high priest in the Yoruban religion, ÌFÉ has captured the imagination and ears of the international community since releasing its first two singles, 3 Mujeres (Iború Iboya Ibosheshé) and House of Love (Ogbe Yekun). Now, following successful European and North American tours, ÌFÉ releases its first full length musical offering, a 45 minute opening ceremony that seems equal parts blessing, adoration, and manifesto. From its opening track to its closing prayer the album conveys a deep sense of spiritual intent, a sureness in its voice and purpose that is both brave and bold while maintaining the vulnerability and unsureness that the most intimate and honest of conversations always require. It’s been clear from the beginning that ÌFÉ is in a space uniquely its own.From the way in which the music is conceived, a live electronic performance, no programming, to its component parts, Cuban Rumba, Sacred Yoruba praise songs, Jamaican Dancehall, and American R&B, to the way it moves seamlessly from English to Spanish to Yoruba, the music is willfully out of genre, yet focused and clear in a way that makes its newness seem rare, compelling. Serene and floating at times, determined, erotic, and raw at others, the music is as improbable as it is natural, a youthful knowing sound, aware of the weight of its voice, the ground that’s been traveled, and the urgency and uncompromising fierceness needed to meet the day.

Sufi trance musicians and rituals – from the depths of the Tunisian desert – in conversation with post-industrial sonics. ‘No theatre or stage or audience. The rûwâhîne have possessed and contorted the bodies of the Banga. Teenagers leap to the floor, their legs arched and tense, glaring transfixed [while] girls dance wildly, … accelerating the rhythm of the hand percussion’ The film opens on a cloud-pressed, bleached-out desert highway and an ominous electronic pulse, a devil of a wind, that you don’t want to shake off. Where are you? The truck in front carries human freight, half-glimpsed, anxious and thoughtful. You’re soon joined by the kind of dark lunar soundscapes familiar from Can, by polyrhythms at once deft and relentless, and then, as the truck reaches the outskirts of the town, by chants that seem to issue from the empty streets themselves. Ifriqiyah was the medieval entity that contained present-day Tunisia, as well as parts of Algeria and Libya: the boundaries, more or less, of the Roman province of Africa. Is this where you are? To get your bearings, you might first have to dive into a basement club somewhere in Southern Europe: Barcelona, perhaps, or Taranto or Palermo. For Ifriqiyya Electrique’s François Cambuzat – a guitarist and field recordist (Turkey, China, Central Asia) – is a veteran of the Mediterranean punk and avant-rock scene, which has always been more politically charged than its counterparts to the north and (far) west. With bassist Gianna Greco, he is one half of Putan Club – or one third when these two fierce and uncompromising players are joined by legend of the NY underground, Lydia Lunch. These are not spaces of comfort but of challenge and confrontation. But let us pull focus again – and this is crucial, bass and guitar and electronics notwithstanding. Ifriqiyya Electrique was formed in the Djerid Desert in southern Tunisia, home to the Banga ritual of Sidi Marzûq. The Banga is a key annual event in the lives of the black communities of the oasis towns of southern Tunisia, descendants of the Hausa slaves transported from sub-Saharan Africa. It is a ritual of adorcism not of exorcism: of accommodating the possessing spirit rather than expelling it. The invitation has been issued by the rûwâhîne themselves, the spirits from whom the record borrows its title, and is taken up primarily in the streets and in private houses. The Banga is a musical tradition for sure, with stark, metallic, cavernous percussion and voices of cool urgency, but should not be felt as such, for it is most defiantly a ritual and remains so on this record. Cambuzat and Greco are joined in live performance by the voices, krakebs and Tunisian tablas of three members of the Banga community, Tarek Sultan, Yahia Chouchen and Youssef Ghazala, with a fourth, Ali Chouchen, providing vocals and nagharat on the record itself. The voices and rhythms are unaltered, of course. What is new here is the conversation the group initiates between guitar, bass and electronics and the rhythms and chants of the Banga – what Cambuzat refers to a post-industrial ceremony. It won’t be an easy listen for purists and propagandists; but if post-industrial ceremony doesn’t describe a large portion of the most challenging music of the last 40 years, what does? In short, the music can only be fully understood in the context of the events that gave rise to it. Happily, Ifriqiyya Electrique is a film and documentary project as much as a band. The footage is astonishing: of wild, ecstatic gatherings that seem, to us, the un-initiates, by turns other-worldly and utterly familiar. It is familiar because we all recognise the need for “new ways of forgetting”, in Cambuzat’s words. But we surely need to remember too. For here is another deep tradition, another precarious music, on the brink: a vital part of a Sufi culture being pressed on all sides by the forces of reaction. Ifriqiyya Electrique will not be lamenting its passing – because they will refuse to let it pass. ‘This is, then, most certainly not a “world music” project (still less an ethnomusicological one), but a wild process of improvisation and re-composition that brings traditional instruments face to face with computers and electric guitars… [My work] is driven towards elevation, sweat, blood, poetry and tears – not to some pretty colour postcard’ — François R. Cambuzat / Ifriqiyya Electrique

After his breakthrough *Lost in The Dream*, Adam Granduciel takes things a step further. Marrying the weathered hope of Dylan, Springsteen, and Petty with a studio rat’s sense of detail, *A Deeper Understanding* feels like an album designed to get lost in, where lush textures meet plainspoken questions about life, loss, and hope, and where songs stretch out as though they\'re chasing answers. For as much as Granduciel says in words, it’s his music that speaks loudest, from the synth-strobing heartland rock of “Holding On” and “Nothing to Find” to ballads like “Clean Living” and “Knocked Down,” whose spaces are as expansive as any sound.

On her first proper album as Jay Som, Melina Duterte, 22, solidifies her rep as a self-made force of sonic splendor and emotional might. If last year's aptly named Turn Into compilation showcased a fuzz-loving artist in flux—chronicling her mission to master bedroom recording—then the rising Oakland star's latest, Everybody Works, is the LP equivalent of mission accomplished. Duterte is as DIY as ever—writing, recording, playing, and producing every sound beyond a few backing vocals—but she takes us places we never could have imagined, wedding lo-fi rock to hi-fi home orchestration, and weaving evocative autobiographical poetry into energetic punk, electrified folk, and dreamy alt-funk. And while Duterte's early stuff found her bucking against life's lows, Everybody Works is about turning that angst into fuel for forging ahead. "Last time I was angry at the world," she says. "This is a note to myself: everybody's trying their best on their own set of problems and goals. We're all working for something." Everybody Works was made in three furious, caffeinated weeks in October. She came home from the road, moved into a new apartment, set up her bedroom studio (with room for a bed this time) and dove in. Duterte even ditched most of her demos, writing half the LP on the spot and making lushly composed pieces like "Lipstick Stains" all the more impressive. While the guitar-grinding Jay Som we first fell in love with still reigns on shoegazey shredders like "1 Billion Dogs" and in the melodic distortions of "Take It," we also get the sublimely spacious synth-pop beauty of "Remain," and the luxe, proggy funk of "One More Time, Please." Duterte's production approach was inspired by the complexity of Tame Impala, the simplicity of Yo La Tengo, and the messiness of Pixies. "Also, I was listening to a lot of Carly Rae Jepsen to be quite honest," she says. "Her E•MO•TION album actually inspired a lot of the sounds on Everybody Works." There's story in the sounds—even in the fact that Duterte's voice is more present than before. As for the lyrics, our host leaves the meaning to us. So if we can interpret, there's a bit about the aspirational and fleeting nature of love in the opener, and the oddity of turning your art into job on the titular track. There's even one tune, "The Bus Song," that seems to be written as a dialog between two kids, although it plays like vintage Broken Social Scene and likely has more to do with yearning for things out of reach. While there's no obvious politics here, Duterte says witnessing the challenges facing women, people of color, and the queer community lit a fire. And when you reach the end of Everybody Works, "For Light," you'll find a mantra suitable for anyone trying, as Duterte says, "to find your peace even if it's not perfect." As her trusty trumpet blows, she sings: "I'll be right on time, open blinds for light, won't forget to climb."

A vertiginous, gone-viral stage dive at 2017’s Rolling Loud Festival upheld Uzi’s claims to being a “rock star.” On *Luv Is Rage 2*, he engages one of rock’s other key tropes: peering into the abyss. With his sharply melodic flow, he makes plenty of allusions to his success, comparing his diamonds to Pharrell’s over the video-game bleeps of “For Real” before trading triumphant verses with the man himself on “Neon Guts.” However, he also peels back some layers of an unsettled soul, confronting the pain of a broken relationship on “Feelings Mutual” and “XO TOUR Llif 3.”

Sylvan Esso’s sophomore album, What Now, is the sound of a band truly fulfilling the potential and promise of their debut. Everything has evolved - the production is bolder, the vocals are more intense, the melodies are more infectious, and the songs shine that much brighter. However, it is also a record that was made in 2016 - which means it is inherently grappling with the chaos of a country seething inward on itself, the voices of two people nestled in studios around the country who were bemused by what they looked out and saw. It’s an album that is both political and personal, and blurs the line between the two – What Now describes the inevitable low that comes after every high, fulfillment tempered by the knowledge that there is no clearly defined conclusion. What Now asks where we go as a culture when standing at what feels like a precipice. It’s a record about falling in love and learning that it won’t save you; about the oversharing of information and the fine line between self-awareness and narcissism; about meeting one’s own personal successes but feeling the fizzling embers of the afterglow rather than the roar of achievement; about the crushing realization that no progress can ever feel permanent. It is an album that finds its strength in its own duality. But at its core, What Now is an album of the finest songs this band has ever written- produced masterfully, sang fearlessly- to articulate our collective undercurrents of anxiety and joy.

Nearly 20 years into the band\'s career, The National have reached a status attained only by the likes of Radiohead: a progressive, uncompromising band with genuinely broad appeal. Produced by multi-instrumentalist Aaron Dessner in his upstate New York studio (with co-production from guitarist Bryce Dessner and singer Matt Berninger), *Sleep Well Beast* captures the band at their moody, majestic best, from the propulsive “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness” to “Guilty Party,” where Berninger’s portraits of failing marriage come to a sad, gorgeous, and surprisingly subtle head.

Sleep Well Beast was produced by member Aaron Dessner with co-production by Bryce Dessner and Matt Berninger. The album was mixed by Peter Katis and recorded at Aaron Dessner’s Hudson Valley, New York studio, Long Pond, with additional sessions having taken place in Berlin, Paris and Los Angeles.

Elegant and emotional in equal measure, La Santa Cecilia continue to raid the past, drawing on the sensual precision of Argentinian tango, the laidback sway of Brazilian jazz, the rousing drive of Mexican folk, and more. Playing with both poise and panache on *Amar y Vivir*, the band weaves intoxicating webs of classical guitar melody on \"Ódiame,” and scores an imaginary melodrama with the lonesome strings of “Como Dios Mando.” But with a voice that’s both sweet and stormy, it’s the dynamism of frontwoman Marisol Hernandez that elevates the album beyond chic homage, tapping deep reserves of passion on duets like “Ingrata” and solo showcases like “Mar y Cielo.”

On her early albums, Lee Ann Womack made her home in the country mainstream, but her sound has grown increasingly idiosyncratic over the years. Here, she\'s closer to the bone than ever before. Sometimes she\'s downright ominous, on dark, gritty cuts like \"All the Trouble.\" Sometimes she taps her inner Bobbie Gentry on R&B-tinged tunes like the luxuriantly grooving \"He Called Me Baby.\" And when she leans those golden pipes into a spare, intense version of the country classic \"Long Black Veil,\" she shows she\'s holding her roots closer than ever.

With the first song of his 2014 masterpiece, Dark Comedy, Open Mike Eagle reintroduced himself by defining his style: “I’m bad at sarcasm so I work in absurdity.” On that album, Mike deconstructed our overstimulated and over-surveilled society with ease and caustic wit. But what do you do when the world warps and bends into a shape so absurd that it can no longer be exaggerated? Brick Body Kids Still Daydream is a searingly political record for systolic political times. It chronicles the life cycle of the Robert Taylor Homes, a housing project on the South side of Chicago that was demolished completely ten years ago. Families that had lived under the same roof for three generations were forced to scatter, condemned by bureaucrats and faceless cranes and public indifference. Mike Eagle brings the Robert Taylor Homes back to life--literally, with arms and eyes and a head like the dome of a stadium--and fights until the last brick is made to crumble. As always, Mike slips in and out of various grey areas; on the opener “legendary iron hood,” he raps, “you think it's all good, but it's really a gradient.” The nostalgia (“95 radios”) is a little bit painful, the triumph (“hymnal”) comes through painstaking, incremental work. Everything needs to be earned, even the radio signals that are picked up through tinfoil wrapped on children's hands. The thesis becomes fully formed on “brick body complex,” where the hook is a towering statement of identity: “Don't call me ‘nigga,’ or ‘rapper,’ my motherfucking name is Michael Eagle.” But this is not a departure from the man-as-building conceit--the flesh and blood and brick and mortar are inextricable. In case there was any ambiguity about the political and cultural forces that lead to the Robert Taylor Homes’ eventual destruction, Brick Body Kids Still Daydream ends with perhaps the most powerful song of Mike Eagle’s catalog to date. “my auntie’s building” is a tour de force. “They say America fights fair,” he raps. “But they won't demolish your timeshare.” This is the point: the decay and eventual destruction of public housing--and of the physical lives of Black Americans generally--has been normalized in a way that should be grotesquely absurd. “They blew up my auntie’s building / Put out her great-grandchildren / Who else in America deserves to have that feeling? / Where else in America will they blow up your village?” Production comes courtesy of Exile, Toy Light, Andrew Broder, Illingsworth, DJ Nobody, Kenny Segal, Caleb Stone, Lo-Phi, Elos, and Has-Lo, who produces and guests on “95 radios.” “hymnal” also features a superb turn from Sammus, who maintains the same rhyme scheme throughout her defiant verse. As grave as the album’s stakes are, it's still anchored by Mike Eagle’s irrepressible sense of humor. (His live comedy show, The New Negroes, is upcoming via Comedy Central.) “no selling” is a hilarious take on practiced indifference, and “TLDR” bridges the economic gap with withering wit: “If you was rich and ‘bout to be broke, I can coach you / ‘Cause I can show you how to kill a roach with a boat shoe.” Eagle has earned rave reviews in Pitchfork, the LA Weekly, and wherever brilliant, avant-garde rap is appreciated. Brick Body Kids Still Daydream is his most overtly political work to date, and puts to use all the dazzling technical skills he's perfected over more than a decade at the forefront of rap’s underground. In chaotic and increasingly fractured times, it has a few crucial things to bring to your attention.

Cornetist Ron Miles brought four colleagues—each a towering jazz talent—to his home in Denver to record *I Am a Man*, and the relaxed, creative spirit they summoned pervades the music. Having already documented his trio with guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Brian Blade, Miles expands the frame, adding pianist Jason Moran and bassist Thomas Morgan, giving the music weight and heightening its improvisational reflexes. Miles’ compositions, even at their most involved, give an enticing sense of space and simplicity.

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

On Antisocialites, Alvvays dive back into the deep-end of reckless romance and altered dates. Ice cream truck jangle collides with prismatic noise pop while Molly Rankin's wit is refracted through crystalline surf counterpoint. Through thoughtful consideration in basement and abroad, the Toronto-based group has renewed its Scot-pop vows with a powerful new collection of manic emotional collage.

The stunning, self-titled fourth album from the Kentucky singer, songwriter, and guitarist Joan Shelley began, surprisingly, with a fiddle. In the summer of 2014, Shelley fell for “Hog of the Forsaken,” a bowed rollick at the end of Michael Hurley’s wayward folk circus, Long Journey, then nearly forty years old. Hurley’s voice, it seemed to Shelley, clung to the fiddle’s melody, dipping where it dipped and climbing where it climbed. This was a small, significant revelation, prompting the guitarist to trade temporarily six strings for four and, as she puts it, “try to play like Michael.” That is, she wanted to sing what she played, to play what she sang. She tried it, for a spell, with the fiddle. “Turns out, I wasn’t very good at fiddle,” remembers Shelley, chuckling. “But I took that idea back to the guitar and tried that same method. I did it as a game to make these songs, a way to find another access point.” But that wasn’t the end of the trials. After collaborating and touring with ace guitarist Nathan Salsburg for so many years, Shelley decided to put her entire guitar approach to the test, too. Each day, she would twist and turn into a different tuning, letting her fingers fumble along the strings until the start of a tune began to emerge. After playing the songs of her phenomenal third album, the acclaimed Over and Even, so many nights during so many shows, the trick pushed her hands out of her habits and into a short, productive span that yielded most of Joan Shelley. It’s fitting that the set is self-titled. These are, after all, Shelley’s most assured and complete thoughts to date, with lyrics as subtle and sensitive as her peerless voice and a band that offers support through restraint and nuance. In eleven songs, this is the sound of Joan Shelley emerging as one of music’s most expressive emotional syndicates. To get there, Shelley had a little more help than usual. In December 2016, she headed a few hours north to Chicago, where she and Salsburg joined Jeff Tweedy in Wilco’s Loft studio for five days. Spencer Tweedy, home from college, joined on drums, while James Elkington (a collaborator to both Tweedy and Salsburg) shifted between piano and resonator guitar. Jeff added electric accents and some bass, but mostly, he helped the band stay out of its own way. “He was protecting the songs. He was stopping us before we went too far.” she says. The Loft proved essential for that approach, as it was wired to capture every musical moment, so no take was lost. If, for instance, some magic happened while Spencer Tweedy added drums to a tune he’d never heard, or while Elkington tinkered behind a piano, the tape was rolling. Indeed, half of these songs are first takes. “The first time is always the best. That’s when everyone’s on the edge of their seats, listening to not mess it up,” Shelley says. “They’re depending on each other to get through it.” Shelley’s music has never been experimental, at least in some bleeding-edge sense of the word. And she’s comfortable with that, proud of the fact that her simple songs are attempts to express complex emotion and address difficult question about life, love, lust, and existence itself. During “The Push and Pull,” for instance, she precisely captures the emotional tug of war as two people struggle to codify a relationship, her voice perking up and slinking down to illustrate the idea. For “Go Wild,” she wrestles with principles of independence and dependence, forgiveness and freedom, her tone luxuriating inside the waltz as though this were a permanent state of being. These are classic ideas, rendered brilliantly anew. But in their own personal way, these songs are experimental and risky, built with methods that pushed Shelley out of the comfort zone she’s established on a string of records defined by a mesmerizing sort of grace and clarity. The shifts are not so much major as they are marked, suggestive of the same steady curiosity and rumination that you find in the pastoral pining of “If the Storms Never Came” or the subtle romance of “Even Though.” From genesis through gestation and on to execution, then, these songs document transitions to destinations unknown. “I don’t have a concept, and I don’t know the meaning until much later. Whatever I am soaking up or absorbing from the world, there will be songs that reflect all those thoughts,” Shelley says. “I keep my songwriting alive and sustainable by trying to be honest about how it came out—these are all its jagged edges, and that’s what it is to be human.”

“I feel weird,” repeats Stephen Bruner on “Captain Stupido”. That’s encouraging because the leftfield moments have always lent his jazz/funk/soft-rock fusions singular charm—even here when he meows through “A Fan’s Mail (Tron Song Suite II)”. By those standards, the melancholy “Walk On By”, with its pensive verse from Kendrick Lamar, and “Show You the Way”—co-starring soft-rock icons Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins—feel irresistibly straightforward, but their velvet melodies are as beguiling as Bruner’s falsetto harmonies.

After years of strong guest features and acclaimed mixtapes, North Carolina MC Rapsody comes into her own with her ambitious second LP, *Laila\'s Wisdom*. Backed by a slew of vintage samples and soulful live instrumentation, Rapsody flaunts unhurried flow, consummate storytelling skills, and a knack for memorable choruses on songs like \"Pay Up,\" revealing her frustration with deadbeat dudes over slinky electric guitar and the swirling \'70s funk of \"Sassy.\" Longtime compatriot Anderson .Paak delivers the hook on the languid \"Nobody,\" and Kendrick Lamar, Rapsody\'s original cosigner, elevates the woozy, psychedelic \"Power.\"

On his stunning debut, Tyler Childers embraces the same cosmic country sound of coproducer Sturgill Simpson, mixing dusky twang and badass attitude. The songs of the Kentucky singer/songwriter are filled with seriously flawed characters. On “Banded Clovis” the jailed narrator recalls killing a friend while under the influence of “pills and the powder” over an Indian arrowhead they’d found together. On the bluegrass-steeped title track he pleads with his lover for help, certain she’s the only thing standing between him and hell.

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

For her fifth album, Malian singer Oumou Sangaré took an experimental approach to her sound while maintaining her bold and outspoken storytelling. With production from French trio A.l.b.e.r.t., *Mogoya* sees Sangaré fuse traditional instruments with synth and electronica as she addresses issues affecting her people, from emigration to politics and mortality and loss. “My album *Mogoya* was a beautiful experience,” she tells Apple Music. “It was an opportunity for me to add some electronic elements to my Wassulu sound. It’s an album that opened up new roads, and you can hear the continuity of that in my newer music.”

The music of London producer Mr. Mitch is tough to pin down: Too beat-oriented to be ambient. Too sensitive for grime. Too abstract for R&B. It just might stand alone. A more song-oriented effort than 2014’s *Parallel Memories*, *Devout* chronicles such unsexy subjects as marital fidelity (“Pleasure”), familial self-sacrifice (“My Life”), and the growing pains of parenthood (“Priority”) in a way that feels rich, understated, and totally idiosyncratic—grime for grownups, maybe.

Miles Mitchell aka Mr. Mitch releases his second album ‘Devout’ in April. It’s about love, loyalty, family and the start and end of relationships, with an overarching theme about becoming a father, all delivered with warmth and emotion. Miles even sings and so does his eldest son Milo on one track. About the theme he says, “we all know the stereotype of the black dad with multiple children from multiple partners who is absent from the child’s life, we see it consistently in popular culture. I want to champion the alternative, which to me is just normal.” As well as being a producer Miles is the co-founder of the Boxed nights, which have been a tight incubator of a music scene dedicated in the main to re-thinking and expanding what grime means, especially instrumental grime. Mitch has always taken it further than most in a unique direction, defining his music led by his own personality rather than deferring to a scene consensus. An early example was his development of ‘peace edits’ in response to the aggressive ‘war dubs’ craze amongst other grime producers, around the time of his first album. Production-wise Mr. Mitch has always been a minimalist at heart, pushing detailed sound and melody around in space, but on Devout everything is more ambitious, emotive and polished, taking his music in an epic and well defined pop direction, albeit from a sideways angle, re-imagining what an album by an underground producer can be. Devout’s cast of male and female allies, MC’s and singers each deliver songs that cast perspective around the album’s theme. Mr. Mitch sets the scene with the graceful honesty of the piano led intro, then P Money drops a heartfelt and emotional lyric about the charge of love and responsibility experienced on becoming a dad. Denai Moore’s song ‘Fate’ is open about being sceptical in allowing yourself to fall for someone at the start of a relationship, while Palmistry’s track ‘VPN’ explores his feelings after separation. The warm centre of ‘Devout’ is ‘My Life’s heart-tugging Sakamoto-like melody and bent keys, with Miles gently intoning “It’s yours” and final song ‘Oscar’ tells a newborn his brother will be an elder brother. Devout is a beautiful, grown-up pop record with its foundation in grime. (Artwork by Nic Hamilton)

A mainstay of the Chicago jazz scene and an active recent addition to the New York scene, Jaimie Branch is an avant-garde trumpeter known for her “ghostly sounds," says The New York Times, and for "sucker punching" crowds straight from the jump off, says Time Out. Her classical training and “unique voice capable of transforming every ensemble of which she is a part” (Jazz Right Now) has contributed to a wide range of projects not only in jazz but also punk, noise, indie rock, electronic and hip-hop. Branch’s work as a composer and a producer, as well as a sideman for the likes of William Parker, Matana Roberts, TV on the Radio and Spoon, is all on display in her debut record Fly or Die – a dynamic 35-minute ride that dares listeners to open their minds to music that knows no genre, no gender, no limits. “It’s a true joy to listen to Jaimie Branch’s Fly or Die. Jaimie’s masterful trumpet playing sits at the helm of this gorgeous record, richly supported by a stellar cast of musicians, and upheld by strong and provocative composition.” – Sarah Neufeld (Arcade Fire) "Super out tunes that continually open new doors to strange, sweet, and psychedelic grooves. Band is constantly cracking some ancient alien code here. Seamless and effortless compositions from Branch. An absolute “must jam” for anyone interested in the future of mind expansion." – Ryley Walker “Fly or Die Fleet footed solar cry Breath of a neon dragon Stomping Whaling Kryptonite Delicate as thin ice on the rim of a red rose petal Shatters all Fresh as the beginning after the end of the world Sonic sowing New clay Pot of gold Die or Fly You choose” – Rob Mazurek In January of 2016, Jaimie Branch launched a monthly free jazz series with a new ensemble at Brooklyn’s now debunked Manhattan Inn. Sharing the first night of her series with a trio on tour from Chicago (Nick Mazzarella, Anton Hatwich and Frank Rosaly), the trumpeter Branch assembled a quartet to match: cellist Tomeka Reid, bassist Jason Ajemian, and drummer Chad Taylor. Between visitors and expats, it was a night of performers exclusively from The Windy City. “I wanted New York to hear what Chicago sounds like,” says Branch. Though the format that first night was free, by the time International Anthem family returned to New York to record her in June, Branch had refined her improvised melodies into a suite of themes for to be played by that same quartet. Engineers David Allen & Dave Vettraino recorded the band over an afternoon at Branch’s sister Kate’s apartment in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Branch post-produced those recordings, added overdubs, blended in live takes, cut and stitched the music into its final structure at Vettraino’s home studio in Chicago in July. The finishing touch was her totally bizarre, totally brilliant commissioning of acoustic guitar overdubs by Chicago friend Matt Schneider (Moon Bros). His brief classical plucking of strings, the epilogue in “…back at the ranch,” perfectly caps the dynamic manic-depressive journey in true Jaimie Branch fashion. She's making light of a heavy situation. Regardless of a relatively prolific and consistent decade-plus career performing, composing and collaborating with a lengthy list of jazz world notables, this album is Jaimie Branch's first final work as a leader. Over a dozen friends from Chicago to New York came together under her direction to bring it into being, and the genuine depth of character present in every element makes it well worth the wait. A categorical movement of courageous ascent, Fly or Die conveys a lifetime of experience in a singular suite.

Alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón and his quartet draw on vast common experience to execute music of harrowing difficulty on *Típico*. On “Academia,” Zenón and pianist Luis Perdomo tackle unison lines that seem all but impossible in their fast-shifting polyrhythmic detail. Bassist Hans Glawischnig and drummer Henry Cole are able to sound relaxed as they attend to every shifting meter in these complex pieces. Zenón covers rich and varied compositional ground, informed by his Puerto Rican heritage and his jazz immersion in equal measure.

Miguel Zenón’s new album, Típico, is above all a celebration of his longstanding quartet. His past several releases have generally fleshed out that core unit with additional instrumentalists as Zenón has looked outward to explore various aspects of his Puerto Rican heritage. This new album feels more intimate. Its focus stays closer to home, with nods to Zenón’s own personal and professional life as it zeroes in on what makes his band unique. “I was thinking about what this band and the guys in the band mean to me as I was writing the music,” he explains. “I kept going back to this idea of us developing this common language that identifies us as a band.” That language has been developing for more than a decade. Pianist Luis Perdomo and bassist Hans Glawischnig have been with Zenón since the turn of the millennium; Henry Cole joined the band in 2005. Their language is thoroughly fluent modern jazz, with all the instrumental prowess and rhythmic and harmonic complexity that that implies. But the dialect they’ve created together through the years is distinctive. “‘Típico’ refers to something that’s customary to a region or a group of people,” Zenón says. “Or something that can be related to a specific group of people. And when I was writing the music, I was thinking about music that identified us and this band.” Each of the album’s final three tracks, Zenón notes, was composed around a solo or signature rhythmic line that one of the band members had played before. “My approach was more systematic on those three compositions specifically. But the whole record essentially is about representing the sound of the band. The sound of our band.” The album opens with “Academia,” a tune inspired by Zenón’s teaching at New England Conservatory, where he serves as part of the jazz faculty. “One of the great things about teaching at NEC is that I get the opportunity to create a personalized curriculum for each of my private students, depending on their needs and on what I feel they should be working on. So I find myself having to come up with new exercises constantly, in order to keep our interactions interesting and challenging. This composition is built around various harmonic and rhythmic exercises that I developed with some of my more recent students at the school.” The second track, “Cantor,” honors Zenón’s friend and frequent collaborator Guillermo Klein. “Gullermo’s music has a very personal voice, something very unique. With this piece I was trying to convey some of what I feel are his most interesting qualities as a composer, like the lyrical character of his melodies and the very nuanced harmonic movement of his pieces. He also has very particular way of organizing the 3/4 bar, which he breaks down into three bars of 7/8 and one bar of 3/8. The piece touches on this a bit towards the end, sort of as a way of tipping my hat to a great friend and musician.” The third and fourth tracks both stem from Zenón pondering what gives a particular song a folkloric feel. “Ciclo” emphasizes melody and rhythm, Zenón taking “a melody that is meant to sound very folkloric — a bit simpler harmonically and delineating a very specific beat” and building a complex extended cycle around it using smaller, interlocking rhythmic cells. “Típico” approaches its folkloric aims harmonically. “There’s a harmonic cadence that is very common in Latin American music, especially music in the Caribbean. Something that revolves around a minor key and then slides down, going ‘Subdominant Minor – Tonic Minor – Dominant – Tonic Minor.’ A very simple cadence, but one that is very unique and effective. It’s always caught my ear because I’m always on the lookout for things that serve as sort of musical connecting threads, things that makes me feel that the music from all these different countries and cultural expressions is somehow connected and coming out of the same combination of elements. I built this specific composition around this cadence, and called it “Típico” in reference to this Pan-American idea.” “Sangre Di Me Sangre” is a tune the quartet has been playing for a while now, a balladic tribute to Zenón’s 4-year-old daughter, Elena, written before her first birthday. “I was sitting in this park with her,” he recalls. “She was playing around and I sat down and sketched out the song on my notepad.” Zenón wrote the piece first with lyrics, then orchestrated it for the quartet, featuring Glawischnig’s bass both on a sprightly introductory melody played in unison with Perdomo and on a solo meant to convey a singing quality. Glawischnig is also featured on “Corteza,” its melody derived from Zenón’s transcription of his bass solo opening the track “Calle Calma” on the 2009 Zenón album Esta Plena. It, too, has a balladic feel, with lyrical solos from Zenón and Perdomo leading to a closing uptempo restatement of the theme. The Perdomo feature “Entre Las Raíces” (“Amongst the Roots”) is more fiery, emphasizing two key facets of the pianist’s musical personality. The intricate melody he and Zenón whip through together was transcribed from a Perdomo solo on “Street View: Biker,” the opening track on Perdomo’s album Awareness. But this arrangement opens with Perdomo playing wild and free, and Zenón’s alto solo when it comes reveals a free side of his own, veering more toward Ornette Coleman or Albert Ayler. “The piece is very free in terms of the way we deal with the improvised segments,” says Zenón. “Luis always talks about listening to Bud Powell and Cecil Taylor at the same time when he was growing up in Caracas, and always having a foot in this freer, avant-gardish world of jazz. And when you hear him play on that track, it sounds that way. For that piece specifically, he really sounds like he’s 100 percent in his element.” Cole’s playing is suitably free on “Entre Las Raíces” as well, but his featured track, “Las Ramas” (“The Branches,” Cole’s own debut album having been titled “Roots Before Branches”), required more discipline. “I wrote the piece around this figure that he has been developing over the last few years and plays all the time,” says Zenón. “The piece is very difficult to play — sort of like an etude for the drums, pretty much. And I know he worked very hard on it. Even though the original idea came from him, he worked very hard on making it precise and making it clean, and really sounded amazing on this track.” It’s no accident that the final three songs are named for parts of a tree. “I was thinking of the band as a tree,” Zenón acknowledges. “And thinking of myself as the watcher. I mean, I’m part of it also. But mostly I’m observing these amazing musicians night after night, and how together they kind of make up this living organism.” Zenón is onto something with that metaphor. The spotlight cast by Típico illuminates how alive his quartet’s music has always been, while never ceasing to evolve and grow.

Following 2013’s *Paramore*, Hayley Williams became “tired of self-doubt and losing friends” and considered decommissioning the band. It makes this rich, vibrant, defiantly poppy return as surprising as it is satisfying. On an album indebted to the ’80s, there are echoes of Talking Heads (“Hard Times”) and Blondie’s forays into reggae (“Caught in the Middle”), while guitarist Taylor York’s love of Afro-pop informs “Told You So.” Darker moods sit beneath the shiny surface though, and Williams’ lyrics offer compelling studies of frustration and self-sabotage.