Best Of 2014 - Albums & Mixtapes

Pom Pom - Ariel Pink
Heavenly West Coast pop hits, delirious goth, over wrought glam, funk, glitter scuzz rock and demented bubblegum psych (sometimes all within the same song). I can't possibly write another word on the subject.

Black Portland - Young Thug & Bloody Jay
Atlanta's stellar nutcase duo make mental rap classic. Demented euphoria.

You Might Also Like - eMMplekz
More funny shit and mental absurdity ranted by Baron Mordant over some of Nick's most accomplished trax to date.

Unfidelity/Four Track Mind - Ekoplekz

Two classic double LPs in one year! Maybe Four Track Mind just pips Unfidelity at the post but these albums are inseparable as they came from the same recording sessions, I think. Nick Edwards reigns in his wayward machines like never before to achieve stunning results.

Oxymoron - Schoolboy Q
The title says it all. Killah state of the art sex, drugs and rap 2014 stylee. Oxymoron not only refers to Oxycontin addiction but to the dichotomy of Schoolboy Q's being ie. trying to be a good dad but being a bad ass gangsta.

Reconsider Lounge/Session Man - Rangers
I thought they'd vanished but praise the lord here they are again twice! This time in snippet and snapshot mode on Reconsider Lounge, a bit like they were on 2010's classic Suburban Tours. Session Man is almost like stoner jamz but in a Rangers universe. OMG these are guitar albums! Remember them? It's all about past pasts, past presents, past futures and the present present and future past, present and future. Memoredelia! The talented Joe Knight is a star. Why aren't Rangers as big as Coldplay?

By Any Means - Kevin Gates
King Kev's got the best voice in the game and his flow's incredible. An intimate insight into Kev's life. From being dirt poor with no electrical, being incarcerated, having children and being signed to major record label Atlantic. His life's a movie. Louisiana trap at it's finest.

Gangsta Stripper Music 2 - Beatking
He is the Beat King and he's had a sterling year. This was the Club God doing his Houston ratchet thang which is the best mix of 10s rap and 90s rave these ears have ever heard. Crank this sucker up to 11!

$hmopcity - Kool John
The most underrated mixtape of the year. Bay Area ratchet from the HBK Gang that was all killah no filler. Kool John makes the best HBK Gang recording to date. It's party time, are you putting on 10 Summers or $hmopcity? It's a no brainer.

Underground Tape Cassette Music - Gangsta Boo & Beatking
Fucking great collaboration from 666 Mafia's legendary Gangsta Boo and Club Godzilla Beatking. 80s electro & fucked up 90s rave flavas clash with 2014 Texan Ratchet and 90s creepin Memphis shyt. Rewind!

Life After Death Row - Boosie Bad Azz
Lil Boosie gets out of prison and makes a hell of a poignant mixtape about the experience. True Detective had nothing on this Louisiana rapper's gritty reality.

Tony - King Louie
Gangsta tales from Chicago set to mini cinematic synth symphonies. Louie's a King, a God, a Don and they call him Tony after Tony Soprano. Futuristic sex, drugs, violence and megalomania!

Under The Skin OST - Mica Levi
Best soundtrack since _________. Intensely sinister, harrowing and still. A bit like Bernard Hermann if he'd had a stroke and was wasted on painkillaz. Who'd have ever thought I'd enjoy something by Mica Levi? The world is a strange place.

Beautiful Pimp II - Rome Fortune
Atlanta's one of a kind suave space age rapper makes a sequel better than the original. Cito is on the beat throughout the entire mixtape which was a great move.

Heat Vol. 1 & 2 - YP Spoelstra
Two volumes of choice 2014 ratchet from California's HBK Gang. YP's giving Mustard a run for his money and he's just put out a 3rd Volume, bloody hell!

Leporine Pleasure Gardens - Moon Wiring Club LP 
Hallucinatory, phantasmal and lysergical. This is Moon Wiring Club severed from their beats and it's probably the closest sonic equivalent to dropping acid I've ever heard. Flashbacks man!

Torridon Gate - Howlround
Who'd have thunk a 24 minute recording of a garden gate would be this enjoyable?

R.O.C. - IX Tab
A trip into creepy electronic zones where funny things happen.

A Que Fresco - Que & Mike Fresh
Like Speedy Gonzales, the subject in one of their songs, these guys don't mess about. This is 2014 rap at it's most buoyant and audacious. A pop triumph.

Butterfly Effect - Shinishi Ataobe 
Some of the most enjoyably serene ambient dub tech I've ever heard. There's also some slightly noisier dub tech trax in a Basic Channel stylee (Ataobe once released an EP on the Chain Reaction label). Hypnotic and beautiful.

From Out Here - The Advisory Circle
Perhaps their most fully realised LP to date. A musical interzone somewhere between idyllic and peculiar. An album that plays tricks with your memory.

ALSO REALLY LIKED
My Krazy Life - YG
Monster - Future
Fearful Wiggings - Dave Graney
The Power And The Glory - Perc
Bullet - Zuse
The Mobb Tape - Zmoney
Wet 2 - Skipper
Tha Tour Part 1 - Rich Gang
Leporine Pleasure Gardens cd - Moon Wiring Club
Audio Rehab Vol.1 - Various
Definition Audio Presents Vol.1 - Various
Oculus OST - The Newton Brothers
Pavilion - Panabrite
Influkz - Ekoplekz
We Invented The Bop 2 - Various
8 of The Moon Ballades Series - Motion Sickness Of Time Travel

CATEGORY OF IT'S OWN
Benji - Sun Kil Moon
20 years since I've listened to anything by Mark Kozelek but I couldn't ignore this album's cult groundswell on the interweb. Holy shit things have changed since Red House Painters Ocean Beach (well mostly, he is still singing about his mum) ie. Mark's way more hokey now, getting back to his Ohio roots. There are no Johnny Marr-esque guitar licks or 4AD flourishes of sound here. This is bare bones recording wise. Less is more, keep it simple and let the words paint the pictures. Who would have thought he could get more morose? Well he has! This is a stunning work of a master songwriter. The words just pour out of him unfiltered and somehow it works. Benji is an insight into a tragedy strewn life and a morbid mind like no other. Although he finally makes a joke on the last track. One does also wonder how much of this is possibly black humour like when he's asking you to think of mass murderers when you're feeling happy. I've always thought he was pretty funny I must admit.

WHAT HAPPENED???
Rustie - Green Language
Peaking Lights - Cosmic Logic
Young Thug - 1017 Thug 2
Skrillex - Recess
DJ Mustard - 10 Summers 

ON THE FENCE
Mr Mitch - Parallel Memories
Apparently this is connected to grime. I have no emotional investment in grime so it doesn't bother me. Like last year's album from Logos I didn't even know it was somehow comin from grime. I just liked the tunes. When I first heard Parallel Memories I thought it was like an electronica LP from 1994. Hey 94 was a great year for electronica and it's pretty good....
Vessel - Punish, Honey
Daft Industrial throwback of the worst kind or kinda cool weird noise? I dunno.

TOO LATE
Kevin Gates - Luca Brasi 2 (Only got it yesterday)
Starlito - Black Sheep Don't Grin (As above)
YP Spoelstra - Heat Vol. 3 (As above above)

TOTALLY MISSED IT
Ian Crause - The Vertical Axis. I noticed this in Simon's list. I assume it is he of the great Disco Inferno. I totally did not realise he'd released an album this year as I don't read music magazines anymore and only skim the online one (you can probably guess what that may be). I think I bought one issue of The Wire this year. I've gone from being a chap in the 90s who wouldn't miss an issue of The Wire to someone now who can barely give a toss. Sure things change in 20 + years but who'd have thought so many bad writers would be employed there. Sure the music scene's not the same either but there is still great music being made. The evidence is right here in my list but I wonder how many of the above recordings even got coverage in The Wire? The thing is I probably wouldn't want to read it anyway unless it was written by Mark Fisher. Anyway back to The Vertical Axis, fuck I'm looking forward to hearing that. Mark Fisher probably reviewed it. This is actually from 2013.

TELEVISION
True Detective
Girls
Happy Valley
Orange Is The New Black

BOOKS
Ghosts Of My Life - Mark Fisher
Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story Of Modern Pop - Bob Stanley (sure I got this for xmas 2013 but fuck it took me 4 months of 2014 to read it ie. many pages)

STUPID
Ripping off Young Thug is dumb. It's like ripping off Mark E Smith ie. he's so idiosyncratic if you're copying him it's so obviously not you. It makes you an instant joke.

LIFE'S TOO SHORT
To bang on about artists that are dull, overrated or just plain shite like blanco husalah kokane, salva, fka twigs, beyonce, ben frost, 1001 Young Thug wannabes, popcaan and whoever else innit?

There's only one Young Thug (he's on the left).

*OTHER YEARS
2011
2012
2013

Best Tunes Of 2014

Forever Bloody - Young Thug & Bloody Jay
Low - Juicy J feat. Young Thug, N Minaj...
Lifestyle - Young Thug, Rich Homie & Birdman
2 On - Tinashe feat. Schoolboy Q
Studio - Schoolboy Q feat. BJ The Chicago Kid
I'm Comin Home - Lil Boosie
Hunter - Total Control
Florida Water - Young Thug & Bloody Jay
Turn Down For What - DJ Snake & Lil Jon
Club Goin Up On A Tuesday (+DJ Snake remix & Drake version) - I Love Makonnen
Area 51 - Theo Nasa 
One Spliff - Hodgson
Gladiator - RS4
Kuang EP - Lee Gamble
Shake It Off - Taylor Swift
Flesh War - Total Control
Everything Was Legendary With Robert - Dave Graney
Amnesia - Kevin Gates
No Tears - Jeezy feat. Future
'til we pass out - Raven Felix
Danny Glover Remix - Young Thug feat. N Minaj
No Type - Rae Sremmurd
No Love - August Alsina feat. N Minaj
CoCo - O.T. Genasis
Don't Know - Kevin Gates
Pole Sex EP - Beatking
Fuckin Wit Me - Tinashe (Mustard On The Beat)

* I tried to make sure these were singles, songs with videos, virtual singles or promo singles in some form or another otherwise I would have had like 17 Ariel Pink tunes and like 40 from Beatking & HBK Gang. Those songs are on the albums in the upcoming best of 2014 albums and mixtapes list. Then again I guess anything on i-tunes or Beatport is technically a single, whatever!

*No Type by Rae Sremmurd gets a nod for the incredible vibe created by producer Mike Will Made It (of Pour It Up fame and the above No Tears) and the singing from one of the duo but the other guy is such a Young Thug wannabe he ruins it just a tiny bit for me, but it's soo good.....I can let it slide.

Raven Felix - Valifornia

Happy to see this at DatPiff late last night. I don't really get the economics of music now though. She's givin this away so how's she gonna get the green she's talkin about? Or is this just a taster to an upcoming cd/download that costs money? Also I can't believe the sexist shit lady rappers have to still put up with ie. see comment "sorority girls will love it." Over at The Guardian this year one of their own writers was sexist, bitter and nasty about Iggy Azalea. Some of you patronising boys sound a bit threatened that 'oh no' a woman has got more talent than you.

Anyway back to the tape I dunno if there's anything as good as the original bangin Girl single from late last year/earlier this year, which turns up in remixed form here. Actually I bought that on itunes so I guess she's got some money to buy her groceries.. She adds some singing and a rap to Schoolboy Q's 2014 classic Studio as well on Valifornia. On 6 In The Morning Felix takes a line from Snoop Dogg's Gin & Juice in which she places herself as a character inside that song. She states "got my girls in the living room gettin it on and we ain't leaving till 6 in the morning." She even gets Snoop to guest on the tune. She's put herself in another song and re purposed it with a somewhat reclamation/feminist message. Snoop must be the most often re quoted rapper in rap. I assume it was he who said "I got my mind on my money and my money on my mind." originally (correct me if I'm wrong). I mean I still hear that phrase or some kind of rephrasing of that line almost daily in hip hop trax. Actually now that I think about it there was a white lady rapper, Lil Debbie or something like that, who also used that 6 in the morning lyric a year or 2 back.

2 On -Tinashe, Drake & Other Remixes.

This is pretty much a Drake version of 2 On and it's pretty good but not really bettering the original. After the first minute of Tinashe's original he takes it over and makes it his own for the rest of the tune.

Then there's this which is pretty odd but this stays Tinashe's track. Although the whole vibe of the tune is moved to somewhere else not as compelling. The rap ain't anywhere near as good as the original Schoolboy Q cameo though. What was Vado thinking? How on earth was he gonna top one of the great rap cameos of all time? He shouldn't have even bothered. I imagine Schoolboy Q being not too threatened by its lameness. I love that string loop thing though, nice. Remixes: What were they for again?

The Original and Best Version. 2014 Classic!

Rome Fortune

Well the backing track is like Kraftwerk, then there's a Moonshake(the group)-like sample followed later by a Pole-esque unskank at the end. It's an incredible production whether the producers are hip to these references or not.

More haunted soundz similar to Burial ala Drake, Schoolboy Q etc. The sound of sweet emptiness.

Mustard On The Beat Hoe

Mustard on the beat (at) ho(me) non stop. After Reynolds recent posts on all things Ratchet & B I'm on a Mustard bender. Love this one a lot it's got such a great pop chorus with a harp I think. Maybe not for mainstream radio with those lyrics but fuck me it's pop-tastic.

How bout this one?! It sounds like there's a sample of Laika circa Sound Of Satellites in there. Well it's the same keyboard sound/model anyway, last heard in a section of a Peaking Lights track. It wouldn't surprise me if Dijon was fan of either group. They've got more in common than you might think.

Wow DJ Mustard's even made J-Lo sound good. I'm sure she's had other good trax though, none come to mind at this moment.

This is sweet and yet so filthy. "Gettin faded till we trip." Lovin Schoolboy Q's guest spot on this. Best tune of 2014?

Speaking of best tunes of 2014 maybe this has pipped Tinashe at the post. The sound of being wasted/loved up science fiction stylee. Mustard not on this beat hoe.

Aural Splendour....and well I could keep posting Mustard trax all nite because there's way more.

Hip Hop I Ignored - An Introduction

Hip Hop goes retromania.

I've decided to do a little feature series along the lines of my Glaring Omissions series that I did about classic Australian albums that didn't make it into the greatest Australian albums book or The Age Newspaper's 50 best Australian albums list. This is going to be a bit different though. I once heard of a feature where they gave a bunch of rap guys a bunch of classic country albums to review or was it vice versa? It's a great concept either way. So with rap & hip hop never never being my main source of listening it should make this series slightly interesting. Being a bit of a dilettante sometimes leads you, due to financial and time constraints, to miss certain things and sometimes even massive pop cultural events. You can't be into everything.  So I'm gonna do 5 legendary, classic or canonical  Hip Hop LPs that I missed. There ain't gonna be any Wu Tang, PE, Beasties, Snoop, Diamond & The Psychotic Neurotics, De La Soul, Showbiz & AG, Tribe, Ice-T, Missy, Main Source, NWA, Pete Rock & CL Smooth etc. here as I caught them at the time. But there will be some massive surprises that I missed. I never got into Tupac & Biggie and really thought hip hop had run its course by the turn of the millennium despite now diggin some occasional current shit by Dj Mustard, Kanye, Raven Felix, Kendrick Lamar and Schoolboy Q. Is this shit a last gasp or a Renaissance? I do think there is some future life in that interzone between rap and R&B and all the micro-genres inbetween. Time will tell I guess. There will be no Aussie hip hop either as I'd rather listen to Andre Reiu than that shit! I guess this whole concept started to ferment inside my brain after watching Jimmy Fallon the other night where he introduced Nas who is now doing 20th anniversary concerts of his apparent classic Illmatic from 1994. So he's going to be first. Some consider this record the best rap has to offer. So I'm rather looking forward to it. I'm not even sure I know any of the tunes....I'll get back to you soon with the first instalment of Hip Hop I Ignored.

Schoolboy Q's 2014 track Studio is the biz.