Time Out New York's 20 Best Albums of 2014

With its lushness and atmospheric beauty, *Morning Phase* is Beck’s most accomplished (and straightforward) musical endeavor since *Sea Change*. Guitarist Smokey Hormel, bassist/multi-instrumentalist Justin Meldal-Johnsen, and ex-Jellyfish keyboardist Roger Joseph Manning Jr. give *Morning Phase* its finely detailed instrumental warmth.

On her third album, Angel Olsen rides waves of emotional intensity that take her from the depths of despair to the heights of hope. *Burn Your Fire for No Witness* is a worthy successor to her 2012 breakthrough *Half Way Home*, revisiting many of the earlier album’s themes with greater focus and maturity. Tracks like “Forgiven/Forgotten,” “Lights Out,” and “Enemy” probe the subtle torments of love with an unflinching hand. Olsen’s phenomenal vocal range—shifting from murmurs to howls and yodels with impressive control—brings out the expansive vision of “Iota” and the confrontational power of “High & Wild.” The album\'s pervasive angst gives way to a desperate yearning for healing and peace in the convulsive “Stars” and the tender “Windows.” Olsen’s expressive guitar work is lent sympathetic support by bassist Stewart Bronaugh and drummer Joshua Jaeger, who help her leap from the distorted alt-country of “Hi-Five” to the Leonard Cohen–like folk balladry of “White Fire” and the French chanson feel of “Dance Slow Decades.” Finely crafted and fearlessly sung, *Burn Your Fire* smolders with dark brilliance.

On her newest LP, 'Burn Your Fire for No Witness', Angel Olsen sings with full-throated exultation, admonition, and bold, expressive melody. With the help of producer John Congleton, her music now crackles with a churning, rumbling low end and a brighter energy. Angel Olsen began singing as a young girl in St. Louis. Her self-released debut EP, 'Strange Cacti', belied both that early period of discovery and her Midwestern roots. Olsen then went further on 'Half Way Home', her first full-length album (released on Bathetic Records), which mined essential themes while showcasing a more developed voice. Olsen dared to be more personal. After extensive touring, Olsen eventually settled for a time in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood, where she created "a collection of songs grown in a year of heartbreak, travel, and transformation," that would become 'Burn Your Fire For No Witness'. Many of them remain essentially unchanged from their bare beginnings. In leaving them so intact, a more self-assured Olsen allows us to be in the room with her at the very genesis of these songs. Our reward for entering this room is many a head-turning moment and the powerful, unsettling recognition of ourselves in the weave of her songs.

Future Island’s fourth album and debut for 4AD deserves the title *Singles* since it does play out like an album of individual tracks with great commercial potential all joined as one. The Baltimore trio’s powerful sound is based in synths and electric basslines, from J. Gerrit Welmers and William Cashion, respectively. Together, they layer and push forward an orchestrated groove that’s both modern and steeped in the tradition of Philly soul, glam rock, and postpunk. Singer Samuel T. Herring—a stage hound who captures the audience’s imagination with the movements of a boxer—provides a soulful croon on record that can turn into a virile growl. It’s Joy Division as ballet for “Back in the Tall Grass” and Blue Nile/Talk Talk/Roxy Music for the inescapable hooks of “Seasons (Waiting on You),” “Spirit,\" and “Doves.” Producer Chris Coady (known for his work with Beach House and Grizzly Bear) works with Welmers’ synth loops and smartly composed parts until everything meshes together beautifully for a perfect musicality.

On their third full-length, Cleveland-bred outfit Cloud Nothings give joy a hard, sharp edge. “I was feeling pretty good about everything so I just made stuff that made me happy,” says founding member and mild-mannered chief songwriter Dylan Baldi of "Here and Nowhere Else." “I had nothing to be angry about really so the approach was more positive and less ‘fuck everything.’ I just sat down and played until I found something that I like, because I was finally in a position to do that.” Utilizing every possible opportunity to write while on the road for 18 consecutive months following the release of 2012′s "Attack on Memory," Baldi presented an album’s worth of new material to his bandmates with just days before they’d enter the studio with esteemed producer John Congleton. “I’m pretty sure every song was written in a different country,” he says. “It’s the product of only having a couple of minutes here and there.” But Cloud Nothings would enjoy a full week with Congleton at Water Music in Hoboken, New Jersey, followed by three days of mixing at his own studio in Dallas shortly thereafter. The result is Cloud Nothings, refined: impossibly melodic, white-knuckle noise-rock that shimmers with sumptuous detail, from Baldi’s lone, corkscrewing guitar to his dramatically improved singing to bassist TJ Duke’s piledriving bass lines and drummer Jayson Gerycz’s volcanic fills. “It’s more subtle,” says Baldi. “It’s not just an in-your-face rock record. There’s more going on. You can listen to a song 20 times and still hear different little things in there that you didn’t notice before. Every time I listen I notice something that I didn’t even realize we did.” It’s yet another staggering show of a progress from a songwriter and band still coming into their own.

Following the liquid beats of his 2010 breakout, *Swim*, Caribou’s Dan Snaith has fallen further in love with the dance floor. In his entrancing follow-up, *Our Love*, Snaith blends house, hip-hop, garage, and vintage soul. On “Can’t Do Without You,” Snaith flips a slowed-down soul sample into a vocal mantra that eventually bursts amidst rave-ready synths, while on late highlight “Mars,” he mixes intricate drum patterns, hip-hop samples, and one very nimble flute melody.

FKA twigs’ first full-length album brims with spartan, icy songs that whisk between distorted R&B and ethereal pop. While twigs’ pristine vocals and sensual lyrics are the cornerstone, *LP1* showcases the kind of confident production and instrumentation that play easily alongside celebrated pop minimalists like James Blake. Album highlight “Pendulum\" sees FKA twigs dabbling in manipulated vocals, as wavering guitars and electric drums stutter-step intoxicatingly, while “Video Girl” finds her melodic falsetto fluttering over churning, wobbling synths and creaking percussion.

Singer/songwriter/guitar-shredder Annie Clark\'s fourth studio album as St. Vincent is, simply, her best yet. While her catalog is full of twists and turns, including 2013 David Byrne collaboration *Love This Giant*, this self-titled release is both audacious *and* accessible, a canny balancing of Clark\'s experimental leanings with her pop sensibility. Amid a flurry of sonic textures ranging from the clamoring horn section of \"Digital Witness\" to the subdued balladry of \"Prince Johnny,\" Clark critiques our technology-obsessed culture (\"Huey Newton\"), satirizes suburban ennui (\"Birth in Reverse\"), and shares about her love for her mother (\"I Prefer Your Love\"). Her anxieties laid bare, the songwriter asserts herself via pyrotechnic guitar riffs, rhythmic somersaults, and a wayfaring vocal range, resulting in a vertiginous set that\'s as dizzying as it is captivating.

You can purchase this album on vinyl or CD at store.spoontheband.com.

Despite his reputation as something of a hard-partying rock prankster (not many musicians play a guitar customized with an old beer bottle cap), Mac DeMarco, on record at least, has always been a hopeless romantic. And here, on his second album, the Canadian singer/songwriter effectively leans into loverman mode (just see “Let My Baby Stay”). But “Passing Out Pieces” is a particular marvel: Cast in cloudy synths and dark humor, it’s the sound of slacker rock’s clown prince getting serious.

“As I’m getting older, chip up on my shoulder…” is the opening line from Mac DeMarco’s second full-length LP ‘Salad Days,’ the follow up to 2012’s lauded ‘Mac DeMarco 2.’ Amongst that familiar croon and lilting guitar, that initial line from the title track sets the tone for an LP of a maturing singer/songwriter/producer. Someone strangely self-aware of the positives and negatives of their current situation at the ripe old age of 23. Written and recorded around a relentless tour schedule (which picked up all over again as soon as the LP was done), ‘Salad Days’ gives the listener a very personal insight into what it’s all about to be Mac amidst the craziness of a rising career in a very public format. The lead single, “Passing Out Pieces,” set to huge overdriven organ chords, contains lines like “…never been reluctant to share, passing out pieces of me…” Clearly, Salad Days isn’t the same record that breezily gave us “Dreamin,” and “Ode to Viceroy,” but the result of what comes from their success. “Chamber of Reflection,” a track featuring icy synth stabs and soulful crooning, wouldn’t be out of place on a fantasy Shuggie Otis and Prince collaboration. Standout tracks like these show Mac’s widening sound, whether insights into future directions or even just welcome one-off forays into new territory. Still, this is musically, lyrically and melodically good old Mac DeMarco, through and through. The same crisp John Lennon / Phil Spector era homegrown lush production that could have walked out of Geoff Emerick’s mixing board in 1972, but with that peculiar Mac touch that’s completely of right now. “Brother,” a complete future classic, is Mac at his most soulful and easygoing but with that distinct weirdness and bite that can only come from Mr. DeMarco.“Treat Her Better” is rife with “Mac-isms,” heavily chorused slinky lead guitar, swooning vocal melodies, effortless chords that come along only after years of effort, and the other elements seriously lacking in independent music: sentiment and heartfelt sincerity. We’re only at Part 2 and 1/2 (one EP and two LP’s in) into Mac’s career.

TV on the Radio\'s fifth album sounds as fresh as their debut, proving that the band\'s incandescent fusion of alt, world, and electronic influences remains as inimitable today as it was in 2004. There are subtle tweaks to the formula, though: producer and founding member David Sitek employs a warmer sonic palette, and the songs aren\'t as frenetic. With its lockstep drums and whirring guitars, the single \"Happy Idiot\" nods to the saccharine precision of The Cars, while the horn section on \"Could You\" lends vibrancy to the song\'s motorik pulse. *Seeds* manages the neat trick of being the band\'s most accessible release to date while still being characteristically adventurous.

The star power of the guests on Future\'s second album—Kanye, Drake, Pharrell, Lil Wayne, and André 3000, among others—speaks to the near-insurmountable heights the Atlanta rapper has reached since his 2012 debut, *Pluto*. That he shows them all up explains how he got there. Take \"I Won,\" a solemn beat over which Kanye and Future exult their \"trophy\" wives. Where \'Ye rifles off shallow boasts, Future\'s verses are sincere, almost touching. On the sprightly surprise standout \"Benz Friendz,\" Future\'s ATL bro André 3000 dances around the whimsical beats like a peacock, but it\'s Future\'s husky baritone that brings the party. Dominated by Mike WiLL Made It\'s 16-ton production (tracks like \"My Momma\" and \"Honest\" lumber like they\'re dragging chains), *Honest* demolishes the line between hip-hop and R&B. Its Auto-Tune hooks, rat-a-tat verses, and confessional lyrics exemplify the best of both genres in 2014.

Sia Furler’s sixth album immediately unveils its kinetic potential with the unreined anthem “Chandelier”. *1000 Forms of Fear* offers the artist’s most thunderous and frenetic sound to date, employing her powerful voice to punch through layers of tinny electric drums and glitchy synths. Sia teams with The Weeknd and Diplo on “Elastic Heart”, an uptempo electric ballad that uses a dizzying composition and polished harmonies to showcase both Sia’s talent as a songwriter and the album’s skilful production.

Following in the footsteps of fellow Black Hippy member Kendrick Lamar, ScHoolboy Q makes his major-label debut with *Oxymoron*, an album as thematically ambitious and sonically adventurous as Lamar\'s celebrated *good kid, m.A.A.d city*. Detailing Q\'s days as a drug dealer, hustler, and father, the record doesn\'t just open a vein; it practically bleeds to death, as on the album centerpiece \"Prescription/Oxymoron,\" a menacing track about the litany of bad vibes caused by drug use: \"I cry when nothing\'s wrong.\" Not that *Oxymoron* is a downer–far from it. \"Collard Greens\" is addictively rambunctious, daring listeners to not bounce with its circular bassline and jittery beat. And Q\'s flow is a thing to behold. He snarls, wheezes, croons, coos, barks, and caws, playing the lascivious lothario on \"The Studio,\" the boisterous party-starter on \"Man of the Year,\" and the unapologetic recidivist on, well, pretty much on every track. Indeed, Q more than lives up to his rep as Black Hippy\'s unhinged id.

Chris Clark is the quintessential Warp Records artist; his electronic palette wanders between melodious piano loops and abrasive synth squelches, pummeling techno and eerie ambience. His eponymous seventh album may be his most virtuosic work yet. The caustic throb of \"Unfurla\" gives way to the metallic ambience of \"Strength Through Fragility.\" \"Snowbird\" is an arrhythmic collage of chirps and chimes, while \"Beacon\" is one long, raging arpeggio, a live wire showering sparks. For a record this peripatetic, it\'s surprisingly cohesive, conjuring visions of a sci-fi future full of machines on the fritz and sunsets tinged with industrial smog. 

Alvvays are two women, three men, a crate of cassettes and a love of jingle-jangle. Molly Rankin and Kerri MacLellan grew up as next-door neighbours in Cape Breton, lifting fiddles and folk-songs. Heartbreaks of different shades soon entered their lives, as did the music of Teenage Fanclub and Belle & Sebastian. Similar noisy melancholy drifted over to Prince Edward Island, finding Alec O'Hanley, Brian Murphy and Philip MacIsaac. Convening in Toronto, the group have been making music since dusk or maybe dawn, when stars were appearing or fading off. As a result, their debut self-titled album is both sun-splashed and twilit -- nine songs concealing drunkenness, defeat and death in tungsten-tinted pop that glitters like sea glass. With needlepoint melody and verse, Rankin and O'Hanley's songs were recorded at Chad VanGaalen's Yoko Eno studio and mixed by Graham Walsh (Holy Fuck) and John Agnello (Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Kurt Vile). The resultant album is loud and clear and sure. Flood your ears.