Dimed Out: AOIBTW's Choice Tunes of 2015

Welcome to the annual playlist compiling the best tracks (available on Spotify) I’ve heard in 2015. The songs that have soundtracked my (and possibly your) year, the tunes that I've been unable to get out of my head. As always, I've gone for just one track per artist so further listening (in pretty much all cases) is encouraged.

Press play below and you’ll hear ace music from AOIBTW faves (Ty Segall, Father John Misty, Dungen, Cat’s Eyes), reliable old-hands (Paul Weller, Hot Chip, Laura Marling), impressive first-timers (Leon Bridges, Natalie Prass, Danny James Etc), career-best releases (Kendrick Lamar, Errors, Sufjan Stevens), independent spirits (Ela Orleans, Apostille, Michael Stasis), new projects (Drinks, Bop English, FFS), returning heroes (D’Angelo, Sleater Kinney, Björk), those building on the promise of successful debuts (Alabama Shakes, Ought, Django Django), and sooooo much more. Sneak previews of future releases by David Bowie, Field Music, Animal Collective, Savages, Kiran Leonard and Eleanor Friedberger point towards an equally exciting 2016.

The running order has almost certainly been mulled over more than is necessary or healthy: after a decidedly raucous start, the playlist settles into a satisfying groove that ebbs and flows, allowing you to devour it in its entirety in one easy 17-hour session! If, for some reason, you don't have that kind of time on your hands (what's wrong with you?!), I'd love for you to have a dabble or a shuffle and share the list with like-minded friends. Your New Favourite Song or Artist could well be inside!

 

Andy's Aural Advent: 6th Dec. Death & Vanilla - "California Owls"

As well as the gorgeous Ghost Box-style design, I was drawn to the sleeve of Death & Vanilla's To Where The Wild Things Are by the artists referenced on its sticker: Broadcast, Air, the Radiophonic Workshop, '60s pioneers Silver Apples and the United States of America. "I'll be having some of that", I said; the guy standing next to me in the record shop shot me a strange look. 

Comparisons to these acts, it turned out, are entirely apt: the Swedish group share a love of vintage equipment and primitive electronics (or at least electronics that sound primitive) and a beguiling, dream-like aesthetic; previous songs are called things like "Ghost In The Machine" and "Somnambulists".

"California Owls" is the poppiest, most entrancing track on the LP and bears more than a passing resemblance to the Velvet Underground's "Sunday Morning" - hence why I'm posting it now (Andy's Aural Advent isn't just thrown together, you know).

Andy's Aural Advent: 5th Dec. Guerilla Toss - "Polly's Crystal"

"Polly's Crystal" is a perfect storm of moody post-punk atmospherics, shriekingly eccentric vocals and DFA mutant disco groove: the sound of Siouxsie Soux, ESG and YACHT being sucked deep into the depths of The Horrors' "Sea Within A Sea". All of which makes for a very effective wake-up call - I've often turned to it on the morning bus to work.

I haven't the faintest idea what Cassie Carlson's singing about but I find the track, taken from three-track EP Flood Dosed, thoroughly addictive and exhilarating - in particular, the phenomenal, muscular drumming of Peter Negroponte which pushes everything forward and makes sense of the chaos.

Guerilla Toss' debut full-length on DFA Records will be an intriguing listen, due early next year.

Andy's Aural Advent: 4th Dec. Saun & Starr - "Another Love Like Mine"

In the absence of Charles Bradley and Sharon Jones (who has only just returned with a Christmas album), 2015 was the time for Jones' backing singers Saun & Starr to step forward and shine. Their Daptone debut Look Closer is a beautifully put together R&B record (something we almost take for granted with Daptone now) and, while neither Saundra Williams or Starr Duncan Lowe is a powerhouse performer in the vein of Bradley or Jones (let's be honest, who is?), both are great, versatile singers, capable of switching from sunshine-y to sweet to sympathetic to sassy in seconds.

"Another Love Like Mine" is my current favourite cut: an anguished yet empowered kiss-off of the kind Ann Peebles recorded for Hi Records. "Right now I need to talk to you for a little bit, cuz I wanna let you know where I'm coming from" runs the spoken word intro - by the end of the track's three and a half minutes, no one's left in any doubt.

[If you have any recommendations of similar Hot Shots, please send them my way - other than a couple of albums to be revealed in my Top Picks and perhaps the Ephemerals and Monophonics, that sweet soul music has been a little thin on the ground for me in 2015.]

Andy's Aural Advent: 3rd Dec. Sleater-Kinney - "A New Wave"

 

"It's not a new wave, it's just you and me"

Sleater-Kinney reformed in 2014 after eight years away. In this time apart, the band's reputation and legacy grew and grew - a reputation which was pretty decent to begin with: critic Greil Marcus, who knows a thing or two about the subject, declared them "America's best rock band" in 2001. Their near-faultless back catalogue got the grand Sub Pop reissue treatment last year, but Sleater-Kinney don't seem to pay Nostalgia much mind. Comeback album No Cities To Love is a fiery, vital sounding record, and live shows have been rapturously received by music writers (five stars pretty much across the board) and fans, new and old, alike.

"Let's destroy a room with this love"

They were certainly sensational when I saw them at the ABC in March: energy, personality, tight-but-not-too-tight musicianship, and songs with more hooks than the world's largest fishing tackle convention. I listened to No Cities To Love a lot upon release but have rarely returned to it since, perhaps lacking the depth and intrigue of something like 2005's The Woods. Many of the tunes are terrific, though, including "A New Wave" which has long been pencilled in as the opener of my Choice Tracks of 2015 playlist (up on the blog at the weekend).

"No outline will ever hold us"

I like to think that this lyric was the inspiration for the single's completely kick-ass promo video, as the band members' personalities - all wild, shaking heads, hyperactive fretboard work and triumphant mid-solo jump kicks - really do burst out of their cartoon selves and out of the screen. "Even when animated, Janet Weiss is a bad-ass drummer", as one YouTube commenter correctly points out.



Andy's Aural Advent: 2nd Dec. Younghusband - "Better Times"

Back in 2011, “Nothing, Nothing”, an absolute cracker of a pop single, got me excited about a group of London upstarts called Younghusband. Another two years went by, however, before their debut album emerged and, disappointingly sans “Nothing, Nothing” or anything anywhere near as engaging, it made little impression. Momentum had been lost. Younghusband fell off my radar…

Nothing...
Nothing…

Until this August when I heard teaser track “Better Times” and got excited all over again. Produced by Robert Hampson of LOOP, recorded at Geoff Barrow’s Invada Studios and featuring good egg/Bad Seed Warren Ellis, their new LP, Dissolver, is a melodic collection of lightly psychedelic indie-rock, a definite improvement on their first, and worthy of your time. But “Better Times” remains the keeper for me; racing out in front, powered by a decidedly British take on the motorik beat.

 

 

Andy's Aural Advent: 1st Dec. This Is The Kit - "Silver John"

Throughout December, as well as featuring my top albums and reissues and a playlist of 2015's must-hear tracks, I'm doing an Aural Advent Calendar. Serving up a delectable daily treat, complete with pithy description, is the idea. Sparing teeth and nourishing eardrums. These are favourites by acts who perhaps just missed the album cut or didn't quite do it for me over the course of a full LP: pocket-sized blasts of joy that lit up my year.

Feel free to comment and get involved. Kicking us off for December 1st is this....

The intimate, personal songwriting of Kate Stables aka This Is The Kit was beefed up on her third LP Bashed Out with grander instrumentation and production flourishes from The National's Aaron Dessner. "Silver John" - the stand-out - oozes woozy goggle-vision warmth and "we're not ready yet" defiance. The video makes for a lovely accompaniment - impressive given that the majority of it was filmed in Stables' bathroom.