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deadcactuswalking · 5 years

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 12th May 2019 (Logic & Eminem, Shawn Mendes, Lewis Capaldi)

We have a bunch of new arrivals this week, most of which are big-name debuts within the top 20, so safe to say we have another busy week on our hands. Let’s get it.

Top 10

One of my biggest surprises on this chart is that the top five is still relatively stable, and Stormzy’s “Vossi Bop” is still at the number-one spot, even though I thought it’d collapse like Dave and Fredo’s “Funky Friday” did after it debuted at the top due to insane streaming. Despite my expectations, it’s fine. It’s still here. Speaking of...

“Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X and later remixed by both Billy Ray Cyrus and Diplo, and possibly Young Thug(?), hasn’t moved from the runner-up spot from last week.

Lewis Capaldi had a good week here – even his single “Grace” that has been mostly stagnant increased three spaces elsewhere – but he places twice in the top 10. The first appearance here is for “Someone You Loved”, rebounding a singular position up to number-three.

His other appearance within the top 10 is right here, funnily enough, as he makes a consecutive appearance here at number-four, with the debut of “Hold Me While You Wait”, Capaldi’s third top 40 hit in the UK as well as his second top 10 and top five hit.

At number-five, up one spot from last week, is “bad guy” by Billie Eilish.

Meanwhile at number-six, we have MEDUZA and Goodboys with “Piece of Your Heart” down one space from last week.

I’m surprised at how Taylor Swift’s “ME!” with Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco essentially just collapsed entirely as it drops down four spaces to number-seven. Yes, it’s still in the top 10, but it’s worrying how quickly this is dropping down; The UK doesn’t count radio in its charts so I suppose it’s impressive that such a radio-targeted song is doing so well on sales and streaming, but I’d chalk that up to YouTube.

Meanwhile, at number-eight, “SOS” by the late Avicii featuring vocals from Aloe Blacc is down one spot from last week.

We have yet another top 10 debut as “If I Can’t Have You” by Shawn Mendes makes its chart premiere at number-nine (Noticeably lower than its #2 debut in the US), becoming his ninth UK Top 40 hit and his sixth to reach the top 10.

At #10, to round off the top 10, we have “Just You and I” by Tom Walker slowly making its way out down two spaces. It’ll probably have a bit of a comeback next week.

Climbers

Naturally, due to the nature of this week’s business, we don’t have many songs being able to make room for themselves on the charts – by that I mean we have one notable enough climb, and it’s “Sixteen” by Ellie Goulding up five spaces to #31.

Fallers

I would like to say these are a different story, but there are less than I expected. Going from the top, we have expected yet arguably slightly premature losses for Khalid and P!nk’s “Talk” and “Walk Me Home”, down six and five spaces respectively to #20 and #21. I think their runs have been long enough, although I expected “Walk Me Home” to smash considering the top 10 debut, but it’s since faded away and has just been fodder in the top 20 for a while. We also have consecutive losses for mediocre British hip-hop, as Digga D’s “No Diet” is down seven spaces to #27, right next to JAY1’s “Your Mrs” down five to #28. Otherwise, we have mostly continued losses, including “Don’t Call Me Up” by Mabel down five to #32, “i’m so tired...” by LAUV and Troye Sivan down seven to #33, “Boy with Luv” by BTS featuring Halsey down eight to #37 (I’m surprised it’s lasted this long), and sadly, “Disaster” by Dave featuring J Hus down seven to #40.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

First of all, I’d like to note “wish you were gay” by Billie Eilish has dropped out from #35 to not even in the top 75 due to streaming cuts. That’s how detrimental they can be to a song’s success over here, although that song was already on its way out. Anyways, we don’t have any returning entries, but we do have some drop-outs – quite a few – but all to be expected, really. “Let Nature Sing” by the RPSB is out from #18 but it’s a charity birdsong single, I’m just surprised it’s still at #63. We’ve just got three others, and those are quite literally last week’s bottom three. All of these dropping out from #38, #39 and #40, we have “Let Me Down Slowly” by Alec Benjamin featuring a duet with Alessia Cara, “Shallow” by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, and finally, “Wow.” by Post Malone. New arrivals time.

NEW ARRIVALS

#34 – “M.E.N. II” – Bugzy Malone

Produced by Zdot

Now for some brief backstory. This is a sequel track to Bugzy Malone’s 2015 track “M.E.N.” that directly interpolates the prior single to reflect on how far his career has changed from the year he released that single. Looking at the album charts, you can really tell as his last EP debuted at #4 in 2017 and his 2018 album at #8, but Bugzy Malone, despite being one of the key grime MCs to form the modern, trap-influenced style and become less commercially focused as they were in the early 2010s, has never made the top 40 until now. This is his first UK Top 40 hit, despite a few close calls and even an album bomb, in which none of the tracks touched the top 50. He has since built up a lot of hype, clearly, collaborating with the likes of Rag ‘n’ Bone Man, but is the music any good? Well, I’m not familiar with much of Bugzy at all, I’ve only heard a few singles here and there, but I’ve never been all too impressed, although I have been listening to the poppier, charting stuff. Maybe I would appreciate a return to its roots more, and you know what, to an extent, I do. The upbeat synth is quite cloudy but allows for a fun, bouncy flow over an admittedly stilted drum beat that feels very generic although definitely more fast-paced than what I’m used to hearing on the charts. I do appreciate Bugzy Malone’s introspective lyrical content, where he looks back on his come-up and has some very specific details in how he made it, with eerie synths shrouding his blunt vocal delivery in an odd mystery, which seems unfitting considering Bugzy Malone’s lyrics are quite hard-hitting; A lot of the instrumentation feels too sparse and spacey, in fact, for such a personal and intimate song talking about struggle with religious worship and beliefs, experience with cocaine since he observed his friends slowly suffer from the abuse of the drug, relationship issues where Bugzy feels like he needs to overly compensate for the lack of attention and speaking on how he wouldn’t mind dying and going out as a legend of Manchester if that’s what it takes for respect. With a beautifully-sang outro in what I’m assuming is Bugzy himself in a falsetto, it really should be more than what it is, but he struggles to stick to a topic at once sometimes and often the beat is less intense than it really should be. This is still good, but I’m not entirely sure if it’ll have any longevity.

#18 – “Guten Tag” – Hardy Caprio and DigDat

Produced by JT and CallMeTheKidd

Oh, hey, another relatively non-notable UK drill/trap song that debuts into the top 20 inexplicably, is expected to drop off quickly, sticks around for way too many weeks before it’s cut down by the streaming chart rules in the UK. This one is by two familiar faces though, Hardy Caprio and DigDat, who have both charted once or twice before and have both been incredibly uninteresting. This is Caprio’s fourth Top 40 hit and first Top 20, whilst it’s DigDat’s second of both – and this one might just be a tad weirder and a tad more unique than any other UK trap song that could have debuted this week. There’s no chorus at all, barely even anything resembling it other than how a refrain is kind of implemented into an intro and outro, and it takes only a couple bars for an odd Family Guy/The Cleveland Show reference to talk about the cocaine he’s trafficking, because, well, sure. The beat is fantastic, it has got a summery tropical vibe in its breezy synths and flutes but it’s immediately drowned out by the insanely dark and heavy 808s and sub-bass, which sound great. Caprio and DigDat flow well over it, and the slight tinge of guitars that appear throughout the beat are so cool, especially when they’re used to build up to the chorus in an otherwise menacing section of just bass and the skittering trap percussion and it can only be heard in the left channel. It really shows how any natural, lively instrumentation is distant from the intense and tragic lives of UK drill musicians, I suppose. This is really good, actually, I’m surprised. Sure, the lyrical content is nothing to speak of, ut that doesn’t matter when the beat is this interesting and the vocal inflections are this powerful. Check this out, I’d recommend it, even if just for that beautiful watery synth melody and the incredible flute in the outro.

#15 – “Homicide” – Logic featuring Eminem

Produced by Bregma and Shroom – Peaked at #4 in New Zealand and #5 in the US

God, where do I even start with this one? Okay, well, since none of the other singles from Confessions of a Dangerous Mind took off, Logic essentially put on Hot 100 Easy Mode and got an Eminem feature while rushing something at the beginning to make sure you knew it was a Logic song as well. Hence, he got the second biggest hit of his career. This is Logic’s third UK Top 40 and top 20 hit, and I’m not even going to count Eminem’s, he has way too many to even start trying at this point. Let’s just take this one step by step because there’s a lot to unravel here. First of all, we have Logic’s dad Smokey Hall telling an obviously scripted reverb-drowned joke with some fake laughter. If that’s really how Logic laughs, then I’m scared for his life. Logic’s dad REALLY sounds like Logic, though, like they’re nearly identical, especially when they both laugh in unison. The joke isn’t funny either, and it’s just kind of painful to sit through, especially with little drowning it out other than the beat warming up. The beat by itself is actually just kind of okay, but definitely is menacing when you hear the intimidating bells and pair them with Logic and Eminem’s rapid-fire flows. Logic’s verses sure are... Logic verses from 2019? They’re incredibly generic, although I do like the Eminem references and Logic’s flow and vocal delivery is on point, until...

(In a weird voice) When I rap like this, do I sound like s***? / Well, it don’t really matter, ‘cause I’m killin’ this s***

Uh, Eminem, you must have heard Logic’s verse, right? You admitted on “Not Afraid” that the use of the dumb accents on Relapse was pointless and unnecessary, so why are you letting Logic do them? His voice is even more nasal here, and I’m still baffled by how little self-awareness he seems to have here. No one is criticising Logic for rhyming words with themselves, they’re criticising his subject matter, so rhyming a phrase with itself four or five times isn’t a valid argument against these critics, because you don’t know their argument in the first place. Also, I’m not letting Logic anywhere near my baby, especially if it is in fact true that he does have rabies.

There’s nowhere to hide, we call this s*** genocide

No, you don’t. The song’s called “Homicide”.

We gon’ leave ‘em crucified, we call this s***...

Homicide.

...genocide

God damn it, Bobby, can’t you get anything right? Okay, well, the criticism of autotuned mumble rappers makes no sense considering how shallow his criticisms are and how he himself has focused on the exact subject matter he mocks for the past two years, and only that subject matter, as well as the extensive use of autotune on Bobby Tarantino II – the only hit single from the tape, “Everyday” with Marshmello, owes a lot to it. He then talks about how if he’s calling himself the greatest ever, he must come with the best raps, and then he repeats a couple words, has some filler, but honestly the monotonous droning of the sub bass and darker synth tones really add to the pure aggression of Logic’s distorted yelling by the end of his second verse.

Honestly, all of the lyrical content can be forgiven because at no point does the momentum of the track come to a halt, especially when Eminem comes in and feels like himself again. All these forced 2018 Slim Shadyisms aren’t there, or at least harder to spot, so it just feels like Eminem with Slim Shady-like vengeful tendencies but more importantly a passionate, violent rapper who loves what he’s doing and wants to prove himself as the best to ever do it, which is all I want from Eminem. His rhyme schemes are complex and insane, his baseball wordplay is fantastic and continues for a much longer time than I initially thought, which is impressive. He has some quotables about farm animals, specifically sheep and dogs, continuing the metaphor he started on Boogie’s “Rainy Days”, that he is the violent wolf or dog who leads a pack of sheep. I love Eminem’s verse and I’ll take anything I can get from Logic, so after Eminem talks about bringing the fingerless gloves back (Yeah, remember those?) he has a couple more bars before finally killing the song’s momentum by abruptly ending the beat and his verse entirely, because he’s too good for it. This is the Eminem I love, this is the Eminem I wanted out of Kamikaze but wasn’t treated to. Eminem on trap beats can work fantastically, and if anything, this just proves that Eminem still isn’t even on a comparative level to those he inspired. Oh, yeah, and the outro is a Chris D’Elia skit sampled from Twitter or something that mimics Eminem’s rhyme scheme. It’s funny for about 10 seconds, but not for nearly a whole bloody minute as that’s how long they keep it for. Yeah, okay, that was unnecessary, and does kill the momentum more than Logic ever could. I guess I’m revealing my inner Eminem fanatic here, but God, do I love his verse, and I feel with a better Logic verse (The hook is great by itself, and the beat is fitting enough), this could have been 10/10 territory, honestly, but even without that, his verse works in the most primal, violent way it could have possibly worked with, so I’m not complaining, in fact, this is probably the best new arrival here. Honestly, I’m just glad it’s not “Lemon Drop”. Now for some boring pop singers, I guess. Did you realise none of these new arrivals have been females? Yeah, none of them are. Three out of five are hip-hop as well. Interesting.

#9 – “If I Can’t Have You” – Shawn Mendes

Produced by Scott Harris, Mark Williams & Volta, Shawn Mendes, Nate Mercereau and Teddy Geiger – Peaked at #2 in the US

Apparently this song needs five producers. Okay, what is this, “SICKO MODE”, or did we really need five producers? Did all of these producers seriously contribute enough for a full credit and not a co- or additional production credit? Ah, well, that’s nitpicking. I’ve talked about the stats before, but this is Mendes’ highest-peaking song ever in the US and it seems to have just been a massive smash hit everywhere, and it will be even bigger once radio picks up on it. What have I heard about the track before peeping this new song? Well, I see that everyone loves it, and I understand why. It’s really upbeat and Mendes’ performance, albeit breathy, is really powerful and intense. The bassline is pumping and the guitars are nice and tropical, but I can’t feel like I would have found this more refreshing in 2016. What I’m saying is that this is bland and tasteless, and I now understand why there’s five producers. It’s overproduced to hell and back, or at least that’s how I see it. There’s reverb absolutely EVERYWHERE, as if it’s a Post Malone deep cut, and the vocals are in the front of the mix so the instrumentals in the back of the mix just end up piling into a pile of mush. The multi-tracking in the first chorus sounds like a choir of Shawn Mendes, but it ends up sounding like Shawn Mendes breaking the microphone. That freaking piano part as well, it’s so tackily added in, especially since the video uses it as a focal point. Has this had any actual arrangement before the CDs were burnt and the vinyl records were pressed (Yes, they made them, because that’s the only way this got #2 in the US)? My friend said this sounded like royalty-free vlog music, and yeah, that’s a pretty solid description, except there’s no ukulele... I pray to God an acoustic version of this song with a ukulele gets released. Yeah, this is just tepid, saccharine and uninspired, I don’t see the praise. Sorry.

#4 – “Hold Me While You Wait” – Lewis Capaldi

Produced by Lewis Capaldi, Edward Holloway, Nick Atkinson and TMS – Peaked at #1 in Scotland and Ireland

Speaking of the devil, here’s more pop that I’ll find embarrassingly dull and saccharine, except this time it’s going to be a gruelling piano ballad because that’s all Capaldi does. He’s not the first, we’re just feeling a lack of Ed Sheeran right now and when he comes back, this dude will be off the charts, hopefully forever. What a talentless, putrid hack. Okay, maybe he isn’t talentless, he can sing, sure. He doesn’t know where to sing, though, because he does borderline spoken word in this raspy voice over once again, just a boring piano melody like his last one, a freaking Zedd alarm clock ticking in the background, and Lewis Capaldi sounding like a frog sobbing over its grandfather that had just flatlined. He sounds strained and he just repeats that “My love”, it gets on my nerves. It’s not intense or intimate, it is aggravating and I never want to hear it again. This is borderline unlistenable to me and I can’t even figure out exactly why, I can’t pin-point it, but it’s just assault on my ears, with the incessant layers of background vocals haunting me as I try and find some solace in the strings, but the last note has to be Capaldi vomiting up his kale yogurt from the night before. Disgusting waste of studio time, and what an overbearing, sickeningly overproduced piece of gutter trash that even Sheeran would spit on and give to his cats. I hope to see this guy fall naturally out of public consciousness before I get much more repulsed of him than I already am.

Conclusion

Should be obvious here – Worst of the Week goes to Lewis Capaldi for whatever the hell that three minutes and 26 seconds was, with Dishonourable Mention going to Shawn Mendes for “If I Can’t Have You”. Logic and Eminem grab Best of the Week for “Homicide”, whilst Honourable Mention is going to Hardy Caprio and DigDat for “Guten Tag”. Yeah, I know, I’m surprised too. Follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank for more pop music ramblings and Top 20 rankings, and I’ll see you next week!

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fluidsf · 6 years

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Sonic Picks 12

IZANASZ: SPECTRAL CASCADES (2017)

Reviewed format: Limited Edition C73 Cassette Tape Album on GENOT CENTRE

After all the New Year's celebrations of a few days ago, there was the first packages in the mail again yesterday. One of which included this amazing album from 2017 by IZANASZ titled SPECTRAL CASCADES on Limited Edition C73 Cassette Tape, ordered from the GENOT CENTRE. Fittingly the music contained on this tape is again cinematic (like the aRF mini album attic that I reviewed yesterday) but in a much different way. The Cassette Tape is housed in a classy looking black Norelco Case. The Cassette Tape only features a GENOT CENTRE label sticker on side A but other than that the tape is not customized with colours, the artwork on the J-card inside is rather nice, with the album cover on the first panel, very alien and spacey looking cover artwork that matches the music. The short fold on the back of the J-card features the tracklist and album credits and in the middle panel of the inside of the J-card you can see this cryptic artwork made up of many patterns, looking like a sequence of parameter settings. Also included is a special physical object, a b&w film negative with IZANASZ's portrait by Tereza Bartůňková which is an interesting addition and a nice photo to see when you hold it in the light, cool stuff. The tracklist of the album is spread over the A side and B side in this way: A - TAPESTRIES / MEMORIES OF BROKEN CHARACTER ARMOR, B - ANTICIPATION OF APPARITION / EMILY FUSSELMAN'S RABBIT.

SPECTRAL CASCADES is structured with one short piece on the beginning of each side and much longer pieces following the short piece and in the description of the album on Bandcamp you can find a quite detailed text on the concepts of the album's sound that also mentions the ways IZANASZ uses the sound spectrum in the music, quite a complex and abstract text but it does indeed match the music although my own impressions of listening leaned more towards experiencing the aural equivalent of how my own dreams are in atmosphere and how they progress. It was quite a unique experience to literally hear the sounds on this album that feel like an abstraction of my dreams in the mixture of both recognizable and manipulated samples of voices, instruments, diffuse ambiences and melodies as well as Noise clouds. SPECTRAL CASCADES starts with TAPESTRIES on side A which features distant mysterious music playing in a huge space as well as lo-fi crunchy Industrial drums sounding especially good on the analogue tape format turned up nice and loud. It's hard to explain but this music just does something with my mind that gives me these tense and mysteriously dark imaginary visions that are really enjoyable. It's a bit like being in a cold wet castle or a similar building in a fictional time and witnessing all these strange rituals happening in the brown orange hue of candles. The way the music progresses is also pretty surprising, as in the longer piece IZANASZ uses some pretty extreme dynamics, making some sections very soft and then suddenly creating a fast crescendo and climax to then fall down again in a soft part. In the short pieces the music is much softer and subdued though. Second track on side A MEMORIES OF BROKEN CHARACTER ARMOR segues straight from TAPESTRIES in a continuous tone that then gets overlayed with strange whirring sounds as well as pretty disturbingly manipulated voice samples, pretty dark but interesting as well. This part fades out slowly after several minutes and then pretty sudden one of the Noise infused sections of this album begins which is also combined with a dark metallic glitched slow melody. Pretty intense but also melodic at the same time, it has a very intense and immersive sound to it. This noise also combined with great frequency modulations of the tone. Then follows a quiet section again in which you can hear wind, a strange ghostly choir singing as well as a glassy glitched up organ melody. This crossfades into field recordings of swishing sounds from a place that could be a shop or shopping mall (it's pretty abstract) which gets combined with organlike drones circling around the sound space and moving towards a more noisy diffuse Industrial whishing sound of machinery. The piece that very slowly progresses towards the ending fade out in which the piece is already reduced to only a few quite ambient sonics. This is music that is packed full with details and it changes quite a lot during its 28:30 playing time and it's a very rewarding listen, never dragging the music out. Side B then, starts with the short piece ANTICIPATION OF APPARITION, it's very quiet and features ambient piano melodies, a sitar (?) at the beginning as well as what sounds like a Japanese drum rhythm speeding up. A quiet brooding ambience of mystery as a prologue to the long piece coming up. EMILY FUSSELMAN'S RABBIT is this long piece and this time the music is a bit more focussed around one drone. The track builds up very slowly and quietly from the beginning featuring a lot of hollow ghostly resonant sounds and harmonic resonances from saturation which crossfades into an ambient reverberated melodic pattern on piano as well as various Industrial tinged whishing and "shifting" sounds. Combined with the saturated resonant sound that accompany the melody too the piece builds to the explosive Noise infused climax in which again the melodies can still be heard pretty clearly. It never gets into pure Noise territory, but its combination of the intense and distorted sound and ambiences make the music really powerful and feel huge, which is also helped by the deep reverb of the piece. From its climax the track then fades to lo-fi crunchy distorted fuzzyness and the melodic resonances take over, crackling and fuzzing left and right until they crossfade into the following much more subdued final section. The final section features filtered mysterious ambient resonances, metallic clanging and also notably, the sounds from a female pilot speaking through the passenger communication system in a plane and it gradually strips down to the clanging and subtle atmospheric sounds ending the tape in a rather mysterious way, great stuff.

SPECTRAL CASCADES by IZANASZ is definitely one of the best releases I've listened to and reviewed in 2019 so far. The ever imaginative and deep masterful sound shaping conjurs up rich aural stories and situations and the music has a very original personal sound to it, sounding very spontanous and free in its composition and performance. A strongly recommended excellent release, you definitely got to check this out.

Limited Edition C73 Cassette Tape Album available from the GENOT CENTRE Bandcamp page here: https://genot.bandcamp.com/album/spectral-cascades

#limited edition #c73 #cassette tape #independent music #genot centre #underground music #2017 #dark ambient #noise #glitch #drone #album #izanasz #SPECTRAL CASCADES #sonic picks #experimental music

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stevenvenn · 7 years

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Steven's Nifty 50 of 2017 - Albums #50 - #41

It's that time again and I'm not disappointing you. Here are my favourite albums of 2017 starting with albums 50 - 41 (of 50). These are in no particular order just how I saw them relating to each other. Doing a true countdown would be too nerve-wracking. You can listen to my favourite cuts from each of the albums on Spotify and watch them on YouTube (links below). You can also read my thoughts on the albums below the links broken into 5 posts counting down by 10s. Enjoy and feel free to comment.

Spotify playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/user/stevenvenn/playlist/7qSpcgdwXuoLtIStRQeRto?si=09LiErQ9QwCONq0XEfG91Q

Youtube playlist:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqUMf7mP_mnMOmDl94VCPIJPFliPf62a5

NOTES

41. Four Tet - New Energy (Text Records)

Kieran Hebden is back in 2017 with another beautiful collection of rich samples, zen beats, and incredible melodies that make this album, on his own Text Records label, a startling release. Incorporating small sounds of birds, countryside, and other natural sounds Hebden makes this more of a meditative headphone listen than an upbeat groover (but then that's what we've come to expect from Hebden this many albums in). There's something of the gentle grace of Boards of Canada and the 90s ambient of Aphex Twin in the retro electronics and economy of well-constructed layers. The dulcimer on "Two Thousand and Seventeen," steel drums on "Lush," and kalimba on "You Are Loved" as textural examples carry us along on their magical long loops as dreamy, marshmallow-y, and tiny synth stabs throb and dissipate over top of low tempo percussion samples. The looped melodies often create a rhythm all on their own in a lot of the songs. The meditation album session wraps up with the pulsating zen bumper "Planet" incorporating temple bells, spacey moog, and Japanese string samples. Nothing especially new here but there is a simplicity and organic quality that Hebden has really carved out over his career. This has helped him maintain his status of one of the best in electronic music.

42. Bonobo - Migration (Ninja Tune)

Another artist Simon Green has, like Four Tet, been exploring the confluence of soothing organic sounds, acoustic instrumentals, and world music with a infectious glitchy rhythm that crosses into low-key jazz textures at times. Here we have kalimba, harps, and other African instruments crashing into soft meditative synth pads. This might the most "easy listening" album by Green in his discography (not meant as a slight). The use of smooth singers like Rhye's Mike Milosh make Migration a truly chilled out affair and one of the most tranquil and relaxing listens yet.

43. Indian Wells - Cascades (Friends of Friends)

Italian producer Pietro Iannuzzi returns with a meditative collection of intricate and clean-sounding techno complete with beeps, blips, and bounces that all flow together beautifully like a dreamy electronic river. The sounds are all very colourful and bright and deliver a hypnotic and mesmerizing quality overall. There's a certain feeling of travel through music here as if by train, boat, or plane in sped up montage expressing the look of a well worn and stamped passport. Also you can't help think of the natural world of sights and sounds with song titles like "Alps" and "Forest Hills." There is a sound akin to Pantha Du Prince and other electronic producers who take you on a journey both within a song and over the course of an album and Iannuzzi's is no exception. The title track "Cascades" and the album as a whole embodies that impression of flowing falls, sounds continuing to rush by as you sit beside and get carried along by rapid beats and sounds.

44. Bing & Ruth - No Home of the Mind (4AD)

The project of composer and producer David Moore No Home of the Mind is his first on the exclusive label home for all things arty on a grand scale, 4AD. It's a dreamy and melancholy release of repeated piano notes that move along with the rhythm of a train on songs like "How It Sped." There's an emotional quality to Moore's playing that recalls other composers who cross over into the ambient and electronic genres like Max Richter and Brian Eno. Alongside all the thought-provoking and mesmerizing piano drones and repetitive phrases are various textures provided by synths and samples. What Moore's newest release also resembles too me at times is the soundtrack work of Michael Nyman. Indeed a lot of No Home of the Mind feels very cinematic.

45. High Plains - Cinderland (Kranky)

No year end check-in would be complete without a release by Scott Morgan (aka Loscil) who has released some of my favourite minimal electronic albums over the years. Following on the heels of his excellent release Monument Builders as Loscil, Morgan teams up with classically trained cellist Mark Bridges as High Plains for an album inspired by a small town in the Wyoming mountains. This a very wintry and melancholic affair with incredible depth from both collaborators with Morgan effectively laying the musical groundwork for Bridges' solemn and isolated cello sound. There's a bit of a modern twist on chamber music here that feels like a bleak winter scene from a prairie noir. At the same time there's a touch of Tangerine Dream to the pulsating electronic beds by Morgan that can't help but create images of open nocturnal spaces and thrilling mystery in the listener's mind.

46. Slow Meadow - Costero (Hammock Music)

Matt Kidd and his moving chamber ensemble and sound project return with a sophomore album of inventive, soaring, and melancholy compositions. There's a feeling of recalling past memories forever clad in amber with a patina of sadness. This pensive quality pervades the whole album but it's not so much sorrowful as accepting of memories as just the sometimes darker side of life broken up by moments of grace and sunlight. There's a really intimate quality to Kidd's compositions that describes a lot of emotion and depth just below the minimal musical surface.

47. Sarah Davachi - All My Circles Run (Students of Decay)

Vancouver-based ultra-minimal drone composer Sarah Davachi's albums always sound more like feeling you get walking around an art gallery looking at Mark Rothko paintings than following any kind of distinct rhythm. Many of the compositions here are in fact beatless and made of minimal mesmerizing drones for strings, piano, organ, and voice. In a similar way to Rothko, the simplicity is deceiving at first but if you spend time with his work you can see a lot of emotion and depth unfolding after prolonged exposure. Musically Davachi is Rothko's compositional kin. The seemingly isolated and lunar soundscape of "For Voice" takes its cues from haunting classical vocal pieces like Ligeti's "Lux Aeterna" best known as the music used to set the mood of the moonscape portion of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. The very minute variances in the drones here lend Davachi's pieces a feeling of nordic temperature and desolation as well with the glacially paced tonal whispers reverberating in the listener's mind long after the song has ended. There's a real sense of the importance of the smallest of variation having incredible impact.

48. Ryuichi Sakamoto - async (Milan)

The Japanese composer musical artist has been creating stunning works for 40 years or more and after a battle with cancer years ago he has released his first solo work in 8 years after being busy with other sound projects and working on the soundtrack to The Revenant. async is a literal soundscape to float within comprised mostly of soaring background retro synths, field recordings, spoken word, and occasional appearances by Sakamoto's solemn and haunting piano. The inspiration for this release was creating a soundtrack for an imaginary Tarkovsky film. You can really feel how Sakamoto interpreted the pace and experimentation of the Russian film master. There are art sound experiments that are very cinematic like the excellent "disintegration", "walker" and "full moon" that sound like art installations. The title track is a captivating piece that wouldn't be out of place as an experimental dance piece full of chilling percussive attacks on instruments. Sakamoto has always pushed the boundaries of music as a "visual art" and the moods and impressions that async provides are incredible.

49. Hotel Neon - Context (Fluid Audio)

The Philadelphia-based trio have created here an incredible sea of sonic texture that you immediately immerse yourself in and float. All the song titles are reflective of either the times they seem to have been made perhaps (early am) or perhaps reflect Hotel Neon's desire to describe the feeling and headspace you would be in at those times, either dreaming, in hypnogogic states, or walking in the early hours of a cold morning with streetlight radiating and filling up the streets with soft orange light. There are no beats to Context just various realms of foggy and dense sound to step into.

50. Federico Durand - La Niña Junco (12K)

Hailing from Argentina Federico Durand set a very strict limit for his wonderful sophomore collection of songs that speak of the small objects in life and our memory of those precious moments that the objects take us to. There's a nostalgic sentiment to the weathered and dusty keepsakes from our younger times that make us smile when we consider them. So it is with Durand's improvised compositions here. The album was recorded in just one take, over a series of two days, using only Durand's aged and well worn Crumar Performer synthesizer and some loop pedals. The economy of instruments mirrors the economy of sounds but despite the feeling of "small" there is a lot of emotion and reflection to the songs on La Niña Junco. The melodies and pulses are minimal but the effect is intriguing. I feel like he's a bit of an Alexander Calder of electronic music here, creating simple but beautiful mobiles of fragile pieces, not of twisted bits of wire, but of quiet simple notes. Like Calder the motion of the parts is tranquil and effortless but incredibly reflective and beautiful. So much from so little.

#nifty50of2017 #stevenvenn #bestof2017

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