The Top 20 Albums of 2013

Presenting my annual (and annually tardy) Top 20 albums of the year.  2013 had an absolute flood of great new music, but I would also say there were fewer records that completely knocked my socks off.  It was hard to make decisions on the final list as there were many competing offerings that easily could have made the cut.  But the upper echelons of musical greatness were fewer.  So, a great year, but it’s likely only a couple would make the grade against entries from previous years.

First, albums that didn’t make it, but nonetheless deserve mention (i.e., 7.5/10 or greater on my personal rating scale): 

• Yamantaka // Sonic Titan  (electro space goth...great!)
• Cults (a more varied and mature release from indie rockpoppers)
  
• Ulrich Schnauss (languid, trippy electronica)
• Alexander Von Mehren (for lovers of complex bachelor pad jazz-pop, a la High Llamas, Stereolab and Hylozoists)
• Heaven  (NY fuzz pop, discovered when they opened for the Swervedriver reunion tour)
• Frightened Rabbit (great effort from Scottish indie rockers, but surprised they weren’t up there on my list)
• The Dodos (best release since their debut)
• The Joy Formidable (big wall of noise pop but oddly polished)
• Edward Sharpe (great, but a slight let down given they occupied the number one slot last year)
• Sigur Ros (a little bit outside their formula which was always good, but becoming repetitive.  A bit heavier, to great effect)
• Panda Riot (great fuzzy dream pop reminiscent of Pains of Being Pure At Heart)
• Young Galaxy (I adore this chilled out electro-pop band.  A bit too dancy this time around, but wonderful nonetheless)
• Volcano Choir (essentially Bon Iver, with a wider palette of song types)
• Black Hearted Brother (This is Neil Halstead trying to reincarnate Slowdive.  A good record, but did not live up to massively high hopes)
• Washed Out (more great chill wave)
• Way Yes (bubbly, worldbeat electro sounds recalling Animal Collective and Ruby Suns)
• Yuck (the rawness of the first record is scaled back to a more melodic shoegaze approach)
• Deerhunter (blown away at first, but didn’t stick with me with repeated listens.  Love the way Bradford Cox tries new things each time, though)
• Jim Guthrie (after several inspired 8-bit video game soundtracks, Guthrie returns to original Now, More Than Ever form)
• Low (not the best Low record, but signature sounds.  Feels like I have known this record since the 90s)
• Hayden (revitalized, catchy indie-folk tracks).
• Day Joy (reverbed orchestral pop)
• Crystal Stilts (catchy Nuggets-style garage pop)
• Songs By Thom (self-released cassette randomly bought at Amoeba Records in LA.  Geeky, lo-fi confessionals)
• Wooden Shjips (motorik psych jams.  Repetition done well)
• Frankie Rose (modernized 50’s fuzzy sock hops and indie gems)
• Cave Singers (reminds of War on Drugs or Citay in a more standard rock format)
• Brendan Canning (Broken Social Scene dude’s recent solo release).
• Steve Mason (Beta Band guy with an RnB angle)
• Joanna Gruesome (great girl power pop)
• Moonface (Spencer Krug and his piano.  Requires attention, but when you are in it, he delivers powerfully).
• Bent Shapes (more punk pop)
• Akron/Family (difficult to categorize – experimental psych jams and sound mash ups)
• Riverrun (if this was an ambient instrumental list, this would be Top 3)
• Dawn McCarthy and Bonnie “Prince Billy” (honest rendering of the Everly Brothers).

And now my annual disappointments.  Contrary to pretty much everybody I know, I dislike Reflektor by Arcade Fire.  I’ve tried my best.  But the LCD Soundsystem dance pop rework leaves me cold and longing for the Arcade Fire I know and love.  I don’t begrudge the format change, really, but my high hopes were dashed.  

 

I did not have huge expectations of Vampire Weekend, really, because I have only ever merely liked them.  But seeing them at the top of most year end lists annoys me.  The songs are all okay, but they are hardly revelatory. 

 

I have been a long-time fan of Eels, but the 2013 record is bland and sucky.  Just awful. 

The Terror by Flaming Lips was similarly crappy in my estimation.  No hooks – just difficult sounds and sonic pretensions.  Wavves was more of the same, and while I quite liked their debut, I felt like I was listening to that album’s cast offs.  Atoms For Peace just drifts by me without much notice, which is the complete opposite to how Radiohead most often grabs my full attention.  Iceage’s promising debut was followed by a hard core mess that does not lift me, but grates on me.  I support what they are doing though. 

My biggest disappointment was Adam Franklin and Bolts of Melody, but only in relative terms.  Franklin is my favorite performer, whether it be with Swervedriver or his many side projects.  This album, Black Horses, feels thrown together, with a recycling of some older songs and filler that wanders.  It is an understatement to say I am looking forward to the first Swervedriver album since 1998, which is apparently dropping in 2015.

Okay, on to the list proper!  Click on "choice tracks" to preview selected songs.

20. Stars and Sons – Colour Me Red

I cannot for the life of me recall where I discovered this gem, but suffice to say, they are fairly obscure.  No entry in wiki or allmusic and from the looks of it, no label either.  Just a couple digital long players on bandcamp and, presumably, a fuck load of energy and ambition.  This band sounds BIG.  Almost (but not quite) over the top in their execution of full on orchestral glam-pop that recalls a more frantic Polyphonic Spree, with the bounce of Ben Folds, and the bluster of Broken Social Scene (they derived their name from a BSS song).  I also hear Fang Island, Go! Team, Spacehog and…Queen?  At least in terms of that wide open palette of aural assault.  It’s almost too much at times, but it is mostly astounding and invigorating.  Choice track:  “Family Tree”.

19.  No Joy – Wait To Pleasure

 

Canada is rarely considered a hotbed of shoegaze – that has a been a distinctly British tradition beginning with My Bloody Valentine and Creation Records, and bleeding over to America in certain wonderful pockets.  Among the Canadian exceptions are Montreal shoegaze revivalists No Joy (with deferential nods to Sianspheric and Besnard Lakes).  Championed by indie darlings and label mates, Best Coast, the band concocts reverb drenched tracks that swirl and coalesce in ways similar to MBV, Slowdive, Ride, and Lush.  It is a messy and trippy affair of interweaving guitar squalls and ethereal vocals that often reach the same sonic heights of the trailblazers just mentioned.  Beautiful noise.  Choice Track: “Hare Tarot Lies”

18.  Grim Tower – Anarchic Breezes

 

Grim Tower is the psych-folk side project of Stephen McBean (Black Mountain, Pink Mountaintops) and Imaad Wasif (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), with contributions from members of Brian Jonestown Masscare and Darker My Love.  The result is predictably great – dark, forboding, psychedelic dirges that channel aspects of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Moby Grape and the Velvet Underground.  Those touchstones may also be misleading, however, as the album is primarily driven by acoustic guitars.  McBean and Wasif reportedly spent several months experimenting with strangely detuned guitars in McBean’s backyard, and then sifted through the tapes to build and refine a full-length.   It is McBean’s rich vocals that give the songs their 1970s psych-rock character (as they similarly do in his other bands).  The sludgy bass, resonating acoustic strums, and electric flourishes pull it all together into an album that would undoubtedly blow the collective consciousness of many a Haight-Ashbury acid casualty.  This is a criminally overlooked album in my opinion.  Choice track:  “Reign Down”

17.  Light Heat – S/T

 

I have been waiting impatiently for Quentin Stoltzfus of defunct fave, Mazarin, to come out from wherever he has been hiding with some new music.  Mazarin’s last album, We’re Already There (2005), was a great one, and the first two are positively legend in my music room (note the #1 song of the Top 500 – “What Sees The Sky” from A Tall Tale Storyline).   Last I heard, some dumb ass bar band was quibbling with the name copyright and then…silence. Eight years later he has returned with a new outfit and his backing musicians are none other than the Walkmen band.  He’s picked up where he has left off.  I am not necessarily as floored by the effort as I had hoped.  But it is a solid return of fuzzy, melodic, droney indie rock.  Welcome back.  Choice track: “Elevation”.

16.  No Age – An Object

 

No Age are the ultimate post-punk band (since we are verrrry post-punk now, I suppose it’s best to call them “retro post punk”).  An Object continues their messy, crunchy, claustrophobic noise-punk.  What is so inspiring is the intentionality of it all.   They are brave in their decisions – their chord progressions, riffs, beats, and vocal melodies are always a bit strange and seemingly limiting in where they can go.  But they know what they are doing, in the same innovative way as Wire.  They know how to bash through it all to make a pathway other bands couldn’t think of pursuing.   Choice (and fairly accessible) track:  “An Impression”.

15.  Cayucas - Bigfoot   

These happy, spritely dudes dropped out of nowhere.  I don’t recall how I discovered the debut video for the insanely catchy “High School Lover”, but I sense Cayucas has made in-roads into popular consciousness – their tunes are popping up in the environment here and there and seem tailor-made for car and mobile phone commercials (and not in a bad way).  Their songs are impossibly “summery”,  if you get my meaning.  Bright and airy, with bouncing tropicalia bass lines and sweet backing harmonies.  It’s the sort music you would hope to have in your ears as you ride a tandem bicycle through a street carnival where literally everyone is happy.  Their songs kind of resemble an unironic Beck or the world music-informed sounds of Paul Simon – but contemporized somehow.   A treat!  Choice track:  “High School Lover”.

14.  On An On – Give In

A tough band to Google effectively, On An On launched their debut this year.  I have seen little press on this record, which is a shame.  The band concocts an engrossing mix of determined guitar riffs, ethereal synths, insistent electro beats, and wonderfully reverbed vocals.  They sound very familiar most of the time, in a good way, fitting snugly in the contemporary indie pantheon.  I hear early Radiohead, Embrace, Doves, Broken Social Scene, and even a bit of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot-era Wilco.  Fabulous debut.   Choice track:  “Ghosts”.

13.  Nightlands – Oak Island

 

I was massively impressed with Nightlands’ first offering, Forget the Mantra.  They have returned with Oak Island, another gigantic sounding synthetic/organic landscape.  The production is remarkable – an extremely well-mixed and separated collection of interconnected sounds and melodies that have undoubtedly been derived from exponential layering.  There are persistent ambient textures that are grounded by more traditional acoustic instruments.  The vocals are gorgeous.  This is one of those records that seems entirely new in its approach yet harkens back to older (even ancient) musical tropes.  Sometimes it feels like I am listening to the Moody Blues, Vangelis, or Godley and Creme.  Or random new age world music.  Most of the time I feel like I am listening to otherworldly spiritual anthems.  Choice track:  “So Far So Long”.

12.  Shugo Tokumaru – In Focus?

 

Ever since experiencing the brilliance of the Katamri Damacy video game soundtrack, I have been keeping my ears open for more intelligent Japanese pop.  It was hard to know where to look, but I came across the fabulously entertaining Shugo Tokumaru.  I’m not sure if he does gaming work, but take the sugar-spun theme songs from the bygone 8-bit era and give them full digital/analog orchestration and you have In Focus?  When I listen to this record, I feel like I am in a side-scrolling, pastel coloured platformer.  In terms of vision, ambitiousness, and technical prowess, this could be record of the year.  The range of sounds is extraordinary – the midi programming required seems intimidatingly complex.  And yet it does not sound like a cheap digital rendering in the least.  It is warm, organic, and impossibly happy.  I suppose that’s the only problem with it.  Just like you are not always in the mood to watch cartoons, you have to be in a sort of fantastical frame of mind to appreciate this brilliant work.  Choice track (and brilliant video): “Katachi”.

11.  Besnard Lakes - Until in Excess Imperceptible UFO

 Every new Besnard Lakes record (and 2011’s side project The Soft Province) ends up appearing in my yearly Top 20.  They have excelled once again in 2013.  UFO provides the Lakes’ signature sound – massive sprawling guitars, rich organs and keyboards,  resonant bass lines, and the sweet dual voices of Jace Lacek and Olga Goreas.  It’s always gorgeously dense rock music, but with a gauzy, laid back atmosphere that never fails to build, swell, and explode.   Think Pink Floyd, Slowdive, and School of Seven Bells.  But very often bigger. Choice track: “46 Satires”.

10.  Yo La Tengo – Fade

 

Now revered grandparents of the indie-rock scene, Yo La Tengo has never been afraid to grow, evolve and experiment;  but they never lose sight of their highly successfully recipe of catchy hooks and honest melodies.  Fade is another triumph, which is remarkable given that this is their 13^th studio album, not including numerous b-side compilations, soundtracks, and side tracks.  The measured eclecticism is retained and some experimental sound projects keep us on our toes.  But the main attractions are once again the simple guitar pop ditties, featuring Ira and Georgia’s understated but wholesomely familiar vocals.  Yo La Tengo are old friends, lifetime companions that never ever let you down.  Choice track: “I’ll Be Around”.

9.  William Tyler – Impossible Truth

A subgenre of music that I continually enjoy is neo-classical and experimental guitar.  With John Fahey as the historical touch point, I love the drone, the delicate, and the ambient sounds that can be coaxed from the solo acoustic guitar.  It’s sometimes tough to find that sweet spot among the many players out there in the world and the risk of falling into warmed over New Age is constant (see much of the Windham Hill catalogue).  Then I discovered the boutique label Tompkins Square, which revives and releases obscure outsider Americana (Frank Fairfield, for example, was a revelation to me) as well as contemporary instrumental guitar.  This is where I discovered Robbie Basho, James Blackshaw, Jesse Spearhawk, and William Tyler.  Tyler is among the most talented of acoustic guitar composers in recent years and, curiously, he has crossed over to indie rock leader Merge Records.  His 2013 offering is an absolutely gorgeous, symphonic trip of harmonic drones, waves of pedal steel, and shining melodies.  It is fingerpicking bliss and a perfect soundtrack for the natural world, inner meditations, and everything in between. Choice track: "Cadillac Desert".

8.  Ex-Cops – True Hallucinations

 

Another surprising and relatively obscure entry into the Top 20, Ex-Cops’ True Hallucinations hits the core pleasure centre of my indie-rock/pop tastes.  This unassuming little long player harnesses the lovely guitar pop that unites so many of my favorite artists, such as Pains of Being Pure At Heart, The Minders, Beulah, High Dials, The Bats, Dump, and American Analog Set.  I imagine many listeners would find this recording to be pleasant but perhaps unremarkable.  But for me, aside from a misguided Genesis sample to open the set (the prog drums from “Mama”), I find every song attractive – whispery reverbed vocals, trebly Cure-like guitars, and catchy verse-chorus-verse hooks.  The songs tend to be a bit lo-fi, but that adds to the affection.   Snappy, foot-tapping excursions, recalling the carefree early days of Matador and Merge records.  Choice track:  “James”.

7.  Youth Lagoon – Wondrous Bughouse

Bedroom avant-pop noise maker, Trevor Powers, turned heads with his 2011 self-produced gem, The Year of Hibernation.  Lo-fi, but richly textured, Youth Lagoon creates big and beautiful pop collages that feel like cousins to Daniel Johnston’s naïve homespun songs, but augmented by the considerable power of laptop audio tools.  The result is…weird…and lives in the same musical houses as early Mercury Rev, Pete Samples, Panda Bear, Altas Sound, Maybe Smith, and Wild Nothing.  Much has been said about the dystopia, isolation, and depression within Powers’ songs, but frankly I’ve yet to get past the maddeningly gorgeous wall of modulating synths and gurgling sound effects.  I might never get there, as his fragile voice feels like just another instrument.  Choice track:  “Mute”.

6. Rogue Wave – Nightingale Floors

Who listens to Rogue Wave?  Anyone?  Anyone?  I have yet to meet a fan and it’s downright isolating.  Along with Kingsbury Manx and Mazarin, Rogue Wave is one of those bands that feels like a secret I desperately want to share.  Their obscurity – or at least my perception of it – is tremendously weird.  There is no reason whatsoever that Rogue Wave should not have had a career arc any different from that of The Shins, The Decemberists, Death Cab For Cutie, or The New Pornographers.   Across five full-lengths I don’t think there is single Rogue Wave song I dislike.  This is perfectly crafted, impeccably produced, catchy-as-hell indie rock.   While I am sure they have a decent following (somewhere), their accomplished output just drifts by the music press with barely a raised eyebrow.  Do yourself a favor and pick up some Rogue Wave.  One of the most consistent pleasures of the last decade.  Choice track:  “Used To It”.

5.  Phosphorescent – Muchacho

While the moniker may tend to evoke a chill-wave outfit, Phosphorescent is quite the opposite.  I have never been fully comfortable with throwing the term “Southern Gothic” around, because that literary tradition doesn’t clearly translate to music for me.  Well, it kind of does, but I feel like I am guessing.  But what we are talking about here is that sort honest, heartfelt mix of gospel rock, country, blues, and folk that sets apart bands like Wilco, Lambchop, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, and Calexico.  Matthew Houck is a bonafide poet, exhorting about love, loss, sin, and power, and although the vocals crack and croak, he has a brilliant presence that is no different from Jack White or Brittany Howard.  And, oddly, if Bono sang these songs, it would be the album that should have replaced Rattle and Hum before U2 reinvented themselves with Achtung Baby.   Choice track: “Terror In The Canyons (TheWounded Master)”.

4.  My Bloody Valentine

Me and every other indie-rock/shoegaze afficiando wondered if Kevin Shields, that neurotic perfectionist, would ever be satisfied enough to release a worthy follow up to Loveless, the 1990 foundation for so much guitar music that followed.  I think there was also a general feeling that it would not be “new enough” – so many bands have appropriated MBV’s signature sound of woozy, gliding guitar and wall of noise feedback.  The other worry is that Shields would say fuck it, and do something completely different in an attempt to free himself from the original prototype.   I first heard the ridiculously long-awaited follow up via pre-order download, while horribly ill with the flu in Sofia, Bulgaria.  I don’t know how this fits into the story, really, but I thought the album was either going to keep me alive or kill me outright.  No in between.  Safely back home, with multiple relistens, I decided that all our hand-wringing was unnecessary.  The album is every bit as good as Loveless, it just hits less hard, because the precedent has already been established.  It feels like a fully formed companion piece and it could have been released in 1991.  I also got to hear many tracks live in Toronto, and the consistency of the new songs with the old is remarkable.  He must have kept all those pedals of his.  (Side note:  “You Made Me Realize”, the show’s closer, was like wake-boarding behind a jet plane during an electrical storm.  I’ve never been so physically assaulted by sound.  I imagine I will never hear/feel that again).  “More of the same” is not a problem here, since “the same” was so precious little to begin with.  Choice track:  “Who Sees You”.

 

3.  Eluvium – Nightmare Ending

As Eluvium, Matthew Cooper has released a string of piano-based ambient and neo-classical albums.  All are at least pleasant meditations and some soar to great heights.  The latest, Nightmare Ending, is a double album and a veritable masterpiece.  Eluvium moves far beyond the mediocrity of tinkly new age piano solos into a complex, minimalist dream world of symphonic waves, spacious drones, and delicate piano lines.  It rivals and exceeds the best stuff that Brian Eno has ever put out and that is certainly saying something.  And to close this hymnal magnum opus, a rare and gentle vocal is supplied by Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo.  Eluvium, I sense, is well regarded in both indie circles and the more the more rarefied  world of contemporary neo-classical.  A happy cross-over and it makes me wonder what I might be missing that’s buried in the classical underground.  Choice track:  “Don’t Get Any Closer”.

2.  Mutual Benefit – Love’s Crushing Diamond

 

The annoyingly named subgenre “freak folk” was liberally applied in the mid 2000s to any number of acoustically inclined but experimental nouveux hippies and outsiders, like early Animal Collective and Akron/Family, Joanna Newsom, Mum, Devendra Banhart, and Mystic Chords of Memory.  Unfortunate and limiting the moniker may have been, but ultimately it attempted to capture a slice of modern indie that felt distinct enough, and that I adored.  It has kind of died down, or perhaps just the label has.  But in 2013 Mutual Benefit arrived to my ears, admittedly more folk than freak.  I was immediately smitten with this wonderful album that reminded me of how innovative acoustic music can be when there is careful instrumentation paired with a sense of whimsy and light experimentalism.    Warm and inviting, like a livingroom sing-a-long with friends and lovers.  Choice track:  “Let’s Play /Statue of a Man”.

1.  Foxygen – We Are The 21^st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic

The last time I felt this particular way about an album is when I happened upon Strung Out In Heaven by Brian Jonestown Massacre way back in 1998.  I had never heard a contemporary record that was so bloody perfect in its homage to roots of Rock and Roll.  There can be a fine line between rip off and homage but BJM might as well have time travelled onto my stereo.  Every track felt like it could have come straight out of 1968, and authored by the Stones, The Animals, The Byrds, or any other psychedelicized band from Nuggets-era rockdom.  I have not heard an album since that was so brilliant and reverent in execution until now.  Others have tried and succeeded here and there (e.g., Black Mountain channels Zeppelin and Sabbath wonderfully).  But Foxygen absolutely nail it.  And the two main bandmates are just out their teens. They are mind blowing in their ability to perfect the style and production of 60’s rock and pop.  There are so many elements here – the Stones (of course), Eric Burdon, The Mamas and Papas, Them, The Velvet Underground, Donovan, Motown, and so on.  This is my number one album of 2014 and it would have been a definite chart-topper in 1969.  Choice Track:  “San Francisco”.

 

And to end with my Top 3 favorite song of the year.  Tough call, but I'm going with

1. "High School Lover" by Cayucas.

2. "Taking My Time" by Jim Guthrie

3. "Let's Play / Statue Of A Man" by Mutual Benefit