Here's a list of songs released in the first half of 2015 which I have found to fit my brainwaves the best. Set in no particular order, the list features adventurous obscure pop songs from the US, Chile, Estonia, Niger, Germany and Armenia.
Disappears - Irreal
Holydrug Couple - If I Could Find You (Eternity)
She Bit Her Lip - Eile
Lightning Bolt - Runaway Train
Tigran Hamasyan - The Apple Orchard in Saghmosavanq
Here's a list of albums released in 2014 which I found to fit my brainwaves the best. Set in alphabetical order, I include a video of a highlight tracks and links to where they can be listened to and bought.
With a clean and warm acoustic sound instead of the echo and fuzz that I enjoyed in Amen Dunes' earlier stuff, I wasn't immediately convinced by "Love". But AD's dreamy new love songs started to make sense when I saw them performed live. Now it's hard to imagine 2014 without them.
Admittedly I have not heard any of their earlier stuff but the way BADBADNOTGOOD mix instrumental hip hop, jazz and post-rock on their third full-length makes it a stand-out album.
They did not try to invent the wheel here. Goat still sounds like Goat. And it's damn good. Can't believe the album was just released this year, several tracks here already seem like old classics.
The sinister noise and drone this band features makes their sound the freshest I've heard lately in post-punk, a genre in which most bands are still plowing the same fields as Joy Division or Bauhaus. With plenty of emotive moments and sing-along quality thrown in, "The Unnatural World" is by far their best album so far.
This solo release of the versatile Japanese musician Hiiragi Fukuda consists of long hypnotic jams made with a buzzing monophonic synth or a reverby guitar and endless drum machine loops. Simple yet awesome.
I had been waiting for ages for a psych rock band that would make music in the vein of Terry Riley. Horse Lords pull it off with style. "Outer East" is one of the best long jam tracks I've heard in recent years.
Khun Narin Electric Phin Band - Khun Narin Electric Phin Band (Thailand)
These guys make electric (folk) music using an indigenous Thai lute called phin, an ample rhythm section of marching drums and cymbals, and a homemade tower of amplifiers and PA horns. It sounds incredibly far out!
Like their colleagues Föllakzoid and Holydrug Couple, La Hell Gang deliver the "Santiago sound" on this consistently good release for some thorough chill-out. Lay back and enjoy slacker psychedelia at its best.
Lilacs & Champagne - Midnight Features Vol. 1: Shower Scene (US)
Lilacs & Champagne was one of the best discoveries for me this year, as I saw them opening for the more famous Emil Amos band Grails. They make stylish tunes by blending prog, vintage soundtrack music and instrumental hip hop. If the world was right, each song on this EP would be a radio hit.
There are probably hundreds of revival bands that emulate the sound of 60s or 70s psychedelia. Morgan Delt stands out by making flower power music in a more modern way, with interesting compositions full of unexpected sounds in the mix.
For a band with such an extensive discography it must be difficult to come up with an album that will not be overshadowed by previous works. Nadja have definitely met that challenge with "Queller". The blend of shoegaze-doom here is sufficiently heavy, while having beautiful catchy melodies integrated to noisy haze.
Tolmunud Mesipuu - Tõhus toimeaine kvaliteetne õhtu kahele (Estonia)
Ranging
from folky hoedown music to meditative drone, and featuring heavy
stoner riffs as well as classy violin, the new Tolmunud Mesipuu album
has more variety than their previous ones. Their first album in four
years was well worth the wait as Mesipuu have obviously been developing
their sound in the right ways.
I have put together a compilation of some of my personal favourite spiritual jazz tracks, full of meditation, mysticism, exoticism and cosmic exploration. Truth be told, I'm by no means a jazz expert and in fact, not all of the tracks are jazz, strictly speaking. Most of this beautiful music is from the 60s and 70s, an era of both innovation/experimentation and a fertile global diffusion of musical ideas, be it in Western jazz artists drawing inspiration from cultures they had previously overlooked or musical ambassadors from the “other cultures” themselves bringing their unique vision into jazz.
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