This is my last album find this year. I only just listened to it for the first time in the same day as I started writing this blog post. The album sounds excellent right from the first moments, so it might be that it would've actually deserved a higher position on this listing in the end. Karina plays mellow and beautiful alternative folk on an electric guitar. There are similarities to Julee Cruise or Mazzy Star. There are vocals in Finnish on this album, but I feel like the lyrics are not important enough for me to care about them. This is why this album is also very much recommended to my non-Finnish readers. The album is airy and melancholic. This kind of etheric soundworld is what the Finnish artists do best.
I was introduced to Boy Azooga a bit more than a year ago at the Mirrors festival where I also found Peter Oren, my last year's number two. At the time, Boy Azooga had only released some singles and EPs and I wasn't too impressed with their music. It sounded like quite ordinary guitar band at the time. Their gig at the festival was a positive surprise, but I still didn't see them as anything very special at the time. Now that they have released their debut album, I can actually see that there's lots of potential in this band. The sound is much more personal on this album and there are some really delightful sounds on the album. They have added some excellent analog synths and rock organs into their indie rock, which makes it much more interesting.
It's always a bit questionable to include your friends' album on one of these lists, but I think Kiki Pau fully deserves to be on this list with their new album. This Finnish band started their career by playing quite straightforward guitar-driven indie rock, but every album has moved slightly more away from that. Hiisi is a proper progressive rock album with some folk and Krautrock influences. There are only five songs on the album, but the length of the songs makes it a full album. There are more mellow parts on this album than on the previous one and the instrumentation has moved away from your basic guitar, bass and drums combo. I can't wait to get my hands on this vinyl when I visit Finland in a few days time.
I was a bit late in my Kurt Vile Appreciation. When people initially started talking about his music, I found it to be a bit bland. It wasn't melodic enough for my taste. Now a few years later, I don't really understand what I was thinking of. Kurt Vile's slacker rock with amazing long guitar solos is one of the most interesting things that have happened in rock music in recent years. His new album Bottle It In is one of his strongest albums. Especially the opening track Loading Zones has become one of my favourite songs this year. I also saw him live for the first time this year and it sounded marvellous. Some of the songs might be a tiny bit too long, but at least there's time for guitar solos that you don't hear enough these days.
I love Cat Power's late 90s and early 00s albums. The intimate melancholy really made an impression on me back in the day. Her later albums started to take in more instruments and more studio tricks, but the emotional input drifted further apart. Now, we have learned that this was because of pressure from her record label. For this album, Cat Power switched record labels in order to be able to release a raw and intimate album without complex studio tricks. It has really paid off and this is her best album in almost 20 years. Cat Power wasn't even supposed to make any new albums anymore when she had a child, but she did find more inspiration from that life experience and I'm happy to say that she really got back to her A-game with this album.
First Aid Kit has been one of my favourite bands in this decade. Their folk music is ambitious, melodic and beautiful. The vocal harmonies and songwriting are excellent. I saw the band live earlier this year and it really strengthened my view that this is one of the best bands around nowadays. I don't think Ruins was much of a leap away from the previous albums and thus, even though it's really good, it's not higher on this listing. I don't even own the album yet, because I've only seen it sold as jewel case CDs or expensive vinyl pressings. I think I will have to bite the bullet and buy the album very soon. I'm really glad this band has managed to come up with new excellent albums one after another.
It's only been a couple of years since Kamasi Washington released his massive triple CD The Epic that proofed that jazz can still attract huge crowds. Heaven & Earth is another huge double CD filled with Kamasi Washington's incredible jazz talent. The whole band is just incredible. It's amazing to get these kinds of jazz recordings still today. I don't think there have been that many artists who would've released as good recordings in jazz in many many decades. This album includes much more soul and funk influences than the previous albums and there's a good number of songs with lyrics on this album as well. I got to see Kamasi Washington live earlier this year and it was an amazing experience.
Lowpines was a completely new acquaintance to me this year. I went to see Avi Buffalo at St. Pancras Old Church and Lowpines was warming up for him. I ended up enjoying Lowpines maybe even more than the main act. I bought the CD immediately after the show Songs on this album are amazingly beautiful and melancholic. This is exactly the kind of music that made a huge impression on the young me and I still have a soft spot for melancholic melodies. There are some interesting keyboard sounds on the album that set this music apart from just normal folk pop, but Lowpines doesn't need anything else than his voice and a guitar or piano. He has one of those fantastic voices that make you want to listen to every word and sound coming out of his mouth.
In recent years I have really appreciated new music genres that I wasn't too fond of earlier. These include soul and country. Rayland Baxter's music has influences from both, but it's still mainly just straightforward power pop with amazing melodies. This is one of those albums that just sounded fantastic from the very first time I heard it. It's simple, but still there's something very special. At first I was a bit annoyed with the most stereotypical hipster look of Rayland Baxter, but at least his music is just good in an old-fashioned way where it's all about the melodies, rhythms and fantastic skill. There are so many songs on this album that could be huge hits that I would be surprised if we didn't hear more about this guy in the future.
This is a really gorgeous album. It feels like there are two separate parts on this album. Firstly there is Daniel Blumberg's beautiful vocals on top of simple piano. That part is just melancholic and melodic, occasionally reminding me of John Lennon. The other part is the artsy noise in the background. Each of the songs has a visiting musician playing some kind of noisy solo track that gives this album unique sound and eerie beauty that I haven't heard anywhere else. To highlight this, when I bought this album, I got the solos on a separate CD. These solos are just the noise parts without the actual melodic songs. On their own they make no sense whatsoever, but in the context of this album, they sound fantastic. This album is a true masterpiece.
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