Watch: Perfume Genius – “Fool” Video

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#TheBestOf2014 Top 50 Albums

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I have a lot to cover, so let’s get right to it.

50. Adult Jazz – Gist Is
Adult Jazz is a Leeds-based quartet, their first LP is Gist Is: They’re a mix of a bunch of wonderful sounds. They can hum to from a Bon Iver spacious tender song to a crazy artsy game that resembles The Dirty Projectors. In a year when everybody remembers Arthur Russell listening to this band is more than refreshing, it’s a reminder that music and well-crafted art can accomplish a lot. The album jumps from spacious melodies to playful drums and horns and a game of voices. The album was recorded on a private studio in Scotland over 4 summers, the results, one of the best albums you’ll listen.

49. Damon Albarn – Everyday Robots

After years in front of Blur and Gorillaz, after a lot of collaborations, Everyday Robots is the first solo album of Damon Albarn and he wasn’t in a rush to prove nothing to anything. Everyday Robots is a soft album, very gloomy, dealing with the problems of humanity in a world that tends to be more technological. The execution of the album is the perfect balance between the grandiose classical ballads of blur and electronic experiments more in the line of his other projects and albums like 13 or Think Tank. It was not a nostalgic album, it was a new side of Damon Albarn that can move you.

48. Real Estate – Atlas

I’m not really sure what has happened in the course of history, in 2008 more or less chillwave grew and grew, then last year it disappeared completely, we all witnessed the rise and fall of chillwave, and along came Real Estate with Atlas, a wonderful haze that makes us realize why we fell in love with that aesthetic to begin with. It’s a slow album, it has a few flashes here and there but tries to stay chill and composed, the instruments merge to create a sentiment that takes you to a contemplative state of mind. I do admit that the execution is not as detailed as works like Wild Nothing or as layered as Kurt Vile, but the plane sight of the album gives you space to relax with it. Its music to keep you company and for 2014 this was the best “go out and do something while listening to me” album out there.

47. Todd Terje – its Album Time

Todd Terje has been around for a while with a steady stream of singles and EP’s, collaborations, reworks and remixes; it seems almost incredible that this is his debut album. The record is kind of all over the place (reminded me to Siriusmo’s Mosaik), it jumps from nu-disco, Latin jazz, space music, funk, elevator music and techno. Its Album Time doesn’t have a clear concept, it’s a recompilation of Terje’s work and a display of his influences and possibilities. It’s cheesy, it’s tacky and kitsch but very catchy. The funniest surprise in the album are the Latin jazz inspired songs, they jump from cliché to cliché and work. In a post Random Access Memory funky albums have better reception from the public, still bands like Chromeo have been doing funk for a long time, good thing this album came out in 2014 because otherwise would’ve been much more unappreciated.

46. Mick Jenkins – Water[s]

Last year Mick Jenkins made Trees & Truths that was one of my favorite mixtapes of the year, he took trees and created lyrics around that concept, this time around he did the same thing with water. Water is what supports life in our planet, it’s everywhere, Jenkins takes that and raps about what makes life possible. The production also carries the water theme, beats are spacious and distant, often with echo. Still it has a nostalgia of old school hip hop washed out under this water aesthetic. Beautiful beats with powerful lyrics, a rare find in the 2014 hip hop scene. This conceptual album tackles with a symbol and it plays with it to see water as a metaphor of society, our own destruction, the way we treat nature and each other, the way we don’t pay attention of what’s really important. On top of that the idea of the production is to be submerged, it’s not flashy, it has a lot of reverb and it doesn’t take importance over the lyrics. In this year of non-existing lyrical hip hop albums this mixtapes stands. Maybe next year with a new Joey Bada$$ or a new Kendrick Lamar album this album would’ve lost its way but it was released in the right time.