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And So I Watch You From Afar are as joyous as their name is ridiculous.
Like an energy drink being shoved into your soul. Like the world’s happiest mosh-pit. Like punching god in the face after climbing Mt. Everest. The ebullient drubbing produced by ASIWYFA has no musical comparison, just impossible physical feats that barely glimpse the improbability of this color-strewn noise.
Math-rock, post-rock, the labels don’t really matter. What the Belfast quartet has always done is extolled the brilliance of heavy music. Heavy music, albeit, with gratuitous major chords, chain-gang vocals and playfulness encoded in its very DNA. And this sort of inspiring insanity is exactly what landed them here.
Two of their albums, 2013's All Hail Bright Futures and 2017’s The Endless Shimmering made the list, along with Heirs cut “Animal Ghosts.” Read our blurbs below, listen to our interview with ASIWYFA founder Rory Friers and hear why we think they’re the best of the 10s.
“I’m a huge believer still in the idea of an album and the feeling of you get to know it really intimately and it becomes a companion and a friend.”
— Rory Friers
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There are glitches in the system.
And Kill Bill’s one of them. The southern rapper is a founding member of the internet label/collective EXO music, popping up in the early 2010s with his gravelly, Lil Ugly Mane-esque flow.
But simple nerd-rap this ain’t. Using a kaleidoscoping mish-mash of references from N64 heydays to Matrix breakdowns, Bill explores mental illness, self-identity and the larger world of rap. So, listen to our interview, read our blurb on “RPG” and see why we think it’s one of the best of the 10s.
“I really like nostalgia and I like the whole escaping from this particular time I wanna be anywhere but right now feeling. ”— Kill Bill
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“Dumbfounded, downtrodden and dejected/Crestfallen, grief-stricken and exhausted.”
All hail the king of anxiety. Pop-punk legend Jeff Rosenstock mutated his career for the…at least third time with a wallop of hyper-catchy, hyper-depressing albums. Anthemic to the core, POST- was the grandest of them all, a personal and political dissection in the wake of Trump’s election. No one gets out unscathed, especially not Rosenstock.
It’s hard too say if there’s hope ringing out of the album, but at the very least it’s one of the finest albums to scream along to this decade. So listen to our interview with Rosenstock, read our thoughts on POST- and see why it’s one of the best of the 10s.
“‘Aw yeah that was the best!’ No it wasn’t! I was sad then too!”
— Jeff Rosenstock
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A darkness lingers in the electronics
The stuttering hi-hats, bubbling synths and cascading keyboards all made for something beautiful, but tinged, at all moments, with an abyssal sorrow. Canadian trio Braids set out to explore the warped worlds of Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada through their own rock background and crafted the gorgeous Flourish // Perish. But being locked up in a harsh Montreal winter and exorcizing Raphaelle Standell-Preston’s struggles with anxiety, gift the album a placid, entrancing surface with an ocean’s worth of unrest below. So listen to our interview with Braids, read our thoughts on its centerpiece “In Kind” and see why it was one of the best of the 10s.
“If we shut ourselves in a box in the middle of winter, we’re going to write some dark shit. ”
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“Listen to it at night, by the sea.”
These were Neige’s parting words to me. After a discussion of the colors, emotions and seasons that Alcest’s glorious Écailles De Lune runs through, his advice was to experience it in its natural habitat.
Metal has always been beautiful. Metallica’s “Fade to Black,” Black Sabbath’s “Planet Caravan,” Emperor’s “Into the Infinity of Thoughts,” metal has found glory both between and with crushing sections of doom. And Alcest tenderly weaves them all together in a grand tapestry. Écailles De Lune stands as the French outfit’s finest fusion, with the sweeping brutality of Dissection in unholy matrimony with Slowdive’s dream worlds.
We met Alcest’s mastermind, Neige, during Austin Terrorfest, chatting with him just before he took the stage. So listen to our interview, read our thoughts on Écailles De Lune and see why it’s the best of the 10s.
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Before we even hit record, Siyabonga Mthembu is telling me a story.
It involves, in no particular order, a run in with London based jazz-wizard Shakaba Hutchings, a near clairvoyant café owner and a subway train filled with musicians, their instruments taking up more room than their bodies. Mthembu’s stories are like the music creates, sly, captivating and always on the edge.
Alongside composer Thandi Ntuli, Mthembu crafted the sprawling collective Indaba Is, a showcase of music from South Africa. Though often billed as a jazz release in media, the truth is much stranger. The collection deliriously bounces between post-rock, blues, gospel and Indian classical music as much as it does jazz. Both Ntuli and Mthembu are absolute in this—the scene is not homogeneous. It is ever mutating, stranger (and more compelling) on each successive listen. We chatted with Mthembu and Ntuli below.
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Somewhere in our conversation, Rob Mazurek mentions he wants listeners to “levitate” to his music. And, impossibly, I think he can pull it off.
The trumpet player, composer, synth-master, mole maker is also the leader of the Exploding Star Orchestra, a jazzy bunch of rabble rousers who’s most recent album, Dimensional Stardust, is as baffling as it is beautiful. It’s like looking into an ever tumbling kaleidoscope and the millions of shining particles suddenly spitting out a fully formed Monet. This is music of a joyous revelry and we chatted with Rob about it.
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If you’re gonna get in a bar fight, better know who’s got your back.
Man fights self, god, society and whiskey on Good Looks’ debut Bummer Year. The Austin, Texas outfit are a cobbled together quartet of dudes from across the Lone Star State, each with stories of small towns filled with late-capitalism rot. Lead singer Tyler Jordan looks over his shoulder constantly, both to his past and trying to figure out who’s still following him through the brutality of service industry jobs, failed romance and political nihilism.
“My body could be put to better use/ Instead of working all day long/ For someone else’s dream to come,” he sighs on “21” as Jake Ames’ chiming guitar rings out from the heavens. Like the best Alt-Country albums, Bummer Year alleviates its darkest corners with rays of warmth and fierceness. The title track compels the working class to spill into the streets and “First Crossing” is a neat handbook on the best waterholes to trespass into across Texas.
While talking with Jordan, we chatted about Ames’ recent stay in the hospital, after being struck by a car right as the band were releasing the album. Ames is recovering, in part, thanks to a successful Gofundme page and a fundraiser concert that saw the whole of Austin come out on his behalf. But the crushing worry of health care costs combined with the warm hope given by musicians of all sorts coming out of the woodwork reflects the core of Bummer Year. The world will try to crush you, you’re gonna need some friends to survive.
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The first noise we hear on Christine is a bird, chirping merrily away, like it’s warming up its voice. It’s apropos, considering the five tunes of naturalist meditation we’re about to embark on.
The EP from Portland-based songwriter Canary Room, aka Maddy Heide, is one of 2021’s small joys. Heide’s dexterous guitar work and fluttering voice puts her alongside the bare musings of Linda Perhacs or Sibylle Baier, but with her constant gestures at the natural world, with water springing forth in nearly every lyric, Christine is most at place not with other humans, but in nature. By the end of the EP, it becomes self evident that the tuning bird at the start was getting ready to duet with Heide.
We chatted with Heide below:
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Focus your rage.
Alonzo Demetrius certainly has. Tempered by his skill, genius and fiery trumpet playing, his righteous anger at the sprawling, cruel prison system of the United States has created a remarkable document. Live from the Prison Nation is an at turns, beautiful, eerie, disturbing, but always a powerful piece of activism. Drawing from the memories of his Uncle and Cousin who both served prison sentences, Demetrius and his band, The Ego, flow through the murky, Kafka-worth world of the carceral state, their expansive, ecstatic jazz matched by protest chants and sound bites from Angela Davis and Mumia Abu Jamal. Some of these songs are mammoth tracks, epic in length and scope, with danceable opener “Expectations” and closer “F.O.O Shit” (F.O.O meaning Fraternal Order of Oppressors) landing in the upper echelon of furious jazz masterpieces, and in the history of protest music. We sat down with Demetrius and chatted about the album.
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“We have mad beef with the other four seasons”
Fuubutsushi have officially declared war on Vivaldi. The classical composer’s Four Seasons suite towers above most seasonal music as the foundational sonic document for spring, summer, fall and winter. But the jazz quartet, all speaking from different parts of the country seem assured, if not without a few giggles, that they’ll take over the pop cultural space for musical representations of the changing seasons. And they, at the very least, have the melodic skills to do it. Over the course of the pandemic, Chris Jusell, Chaz Prymek, Matthew Sage and Patrick Shiroishi exchanged ideas online and slowly stitched together four albums, one for each season. The inaugural one was also their self-titled, with Fuubutsushi representing autumn. Even without added context, it’s impossible to listen to “Sugar Maple Turn” or “Chorus Wheel” and not see visions of spinning, golden leaves and long bike rides through the dimming light of late summer. We sat down with Fuubutsushi and our conversation is below.
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Peace. Freedom. Self-discovery.
These are the underlying themes of Nafs at Peace. Without a single word spoken on the album, it’s remarkably self-assured and self-evident in its truths. Created by Pakistani improvisational jazz outfit Jaubi, Nafs at Peace is one of the year’s most revelatory releases. Weaving together the threads of Hindustani classical music, hip-hop beats and spiritual jazz, the group has made a record as funky as it is healing. The connections between the ecstatic jazz of Alice Coltrane or Pharoah Sanders are less evident in the notes played, as Jaubi based these songs around specific melodic, raga structures, but in the intent. These are musicians lost in their instruments or—at its most ascendent, one with the notes themselves.
Nafs at Peace is nothing short of a joy, and we chatted with guitarist Ali Baqar about the album.
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We don’t use the word “luster” enough.
We’ve pretty much relegated it to the shimmer of a pearl. But, from the album cover to the final track, Alexia Avina’s A Little Older, does shine with the luster of a pearl; beautiful, transfixing and harkening to nature.
The ever traveling musician has crafted one of the most propulsive ambient releases in recent memory, deftly combining indie-rock hooks with glitchy production and deep wells of mediative synths. Her crystal clear voice flips from a strident narrative focus to flittering choirs of harmonies on a dime. A Little Older, at its best, feels like sinking into a warm sea. We chatted with Avina below.
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To make proper pastiche, it takes true love for what you’re taking the piss out of.
Anyone can rip off, it takes a disciple to poke fun and ascend simultaneously. And, miraculously, Australian pop prince Kirin J Callinan pilfered from EDM, country and ‘80s pop to create the silliest love letter of the 2010s. But, in the dark, beautiful corners of Bravado there is a wondrous vulnerability that casts all of Callinan’s prancing and crooning in a new light. This was a labor of exploration, debauchery and a reverent screed to the power of pop music. So listen to our implausible interview with Kirin, read our thoughts on Bravado and see why it’s one of the best of the 10s.
“I was trying to find beauty in ugliness. Gravitating toward the worst sounds, the worst lyrics, the worst ideas I could.”
— Kirin J Callinan
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Evolve or die.
Any rock band who’s had more than one successful album knows this. But the choice paralysis of just how many directions you could go often proves the death-kneel for many metalheads. Elder, when presented with this quandary, simply said “oh we’ll do all of it.”
From their early days of slab-like doom metal, there was always a mischievous quality to their music, just waiting to burst into flight. From album to album they indulged in bigger and surprisingly beautiful passages, making connections from Blue Cheer and Black Sabbath to Dvořák and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. And once they perfected the formula, they presented “The Falling Veil” unto the world. So listen to our interview with Elder front man Nick DiSalvo, read our thoughts on “The Falling Veil” and hear why it’s one of the best of the 10s.
“I realized everything I’d been doing in my life meant nothing to me. Because when I wasn’t working I was holed up in my room, writing music.”— Nick DiSalvo
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Life bubbles up beneath death.
The emergence of spring might have a sound for you. The rustling of robins, hushed winds blowing over freshly sprouting clover fields, but as winter’s grip loosens, something more elemental burbles. Composer Elori Saxl heard it from the shores of Lake Superior, the growing sounds of water flowing beneath thick sheets of ice. Under a surface of sheer stillness, life flowed.
Saxl took those sounds and made it the bedrock, both narratively and sonically, of her newest album The Blue of Distance. The manipulated sounds of water are the rhythmic spine of “Blue” and her arrangement of plucked strings in “Memory of Blue” eventually evaporates into the surrounding wall of flowing water, the two becoming inseparable.
The Blue of Distance wrangles with the ideas of memory and how they’re warped by the digital age, but it also stands alone as an album without any outside narrative. Alongside the seminal works of Gas and William Basinski, Saxl’s nexus of digital, analogue, nature and manipulation is one of the finest ambient albums in recent memory, calming in one deft arrangement, thought-provoking the next. We sat down with Saxl and chatted about her work.
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Disasterpeace has a claim to being one of the most influential artists of the decade; in a quiet, chameleonic way.
Though Rich Vreeland doesn’t usually do things quietly. His best known work is awash in digital decay and thumping kick drums. The horror sensibilities of John Carpenter fed through a Super Nintendo. His industrial by way of chip tune aesthetic gained him praise in the blissful to terrifying fuzz of Fez and the insidious lurk of It Follows.
Vreeland’s absurd prolificness has now led him to full orchestral work as he scores Under the Silver Lake, the newest film from It Follows director David Robert Mitchell. Looking back on his catalogue, there’s truly little that Vreeland hasn’t tinkered with to great success. So, listen to our interview with him, read our thoughts on Fez and see why we think Diasterpeace is one of the best of the ‘10s.
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Every Supergiant Games release is an event.
But it’s not just from the gamers and critics who adore the video games’ rich stories, immaculate art style or addictive game play. It’s the music nerds that also wait with bated breath on Darren Korb’s newest score.
As Supergiant’s in-house composer and audio head, Korb has become a fixture unto himself with his compositions, from the Lead Belly meets Massive Attack thunk of Bastion to the Imogen Heap inspired Transistor soundtrack. But for Korb, and Supergiant as a whole, Hades might be the zenith. The game has received lavish praise, and so has Korb’s work, which has found him expanding into new sounds. Hades’ eccentric score is a mixture of Mediterranean folk, progressive-metal and lush chamber pieces. Alongside collaborators Ashley Barrett and Austin Wintory (composer of Journey), Korb has reached the apex of composition: an album that can stand on its own sweeping merits while providing the perfect audio companion to the gameplay. We talked to Korb about his research for the score, his work voicing the main character, Zagreus, and recording in Abbey Road. These two interviews are from before Hades’ release, looking at the history of Korb’s work with Supergiant. The second is after Hades’ release.
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Every Supergiant Games release is an event.
But it’s not just from the gamers and critics who adore the video games’ rich stories, immaculate art style or addictive game play. It’s the music nerds that also wait with bated breath on Darren Korb’s newest score.
As Supergiant’s in-house composer and audio head, Korb has become a fixture unto himself with his compositions, from the Lead Belly meets Massive Attack thunk of Bastion to the Imogen Heap inspired Transistor soundtrack. But for Korb, and Supergiant as a whole, Hades might be the zenith. The game has received lavish praise, and so has Korb’s work, which has found him expanding into new sounds. Hades’ eccentric score is a mixture of Mediterranean folk, progressive-metal and lush chamber pieces. Alongside collaborators Ashley Barrett and Austin Wintory (composer of Journey), Korb has reached the apex of composition: an album that can stand on its own sweeping merits while providing the perfect audio companion to the gameplay. We talked to Korb about his research for the score, his work voicing the main character, Zagreus, and recording in Abbey Road. These two interviews are from before Hades’ release, looking at the history of Korb’s work with Supergiant. The second is after Hades’ release.
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“Everything about that record is cursed.”
Will Wiesenfeld says that with a laugh, but it’s not really a joke. Obsidian, his second album under the name Baths, set off a brutal run of shows with a new collaborator, Morgan Greenwood, and electronic failures that seemed to have come from a witch’s hex.
But you could have gotten the cursed feeling just from the music. Obsidian is at once a dancy, electronic album and an uncompromisingly punishing listen. So hear our interview with Wiesenfeld, read our thoughts on Obsidian and see why it’s one of the best of the 10s.
“I think my whole life is a wake for Final Fantasy 8.”
— Will Wiesenfeld
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