TOP 100 TRACKS OF 2014: Pt. IV: #70 - 61
70. Panama – “Destroyer”
If I didn’t know better, this jam would lead me to believe that the 80’s had just now finally made there long overdue way down to Australia. However, luckily for me, the flawless discography of Men At Work had already removed any sort of doubt from my mind that the 80’s were indeed alive and well in the Land Down Under. Some might take that as an insult, but I mean it as the utmost of compliments. The 80’s were a wonderful time for music. It was an age when synths and drum machines ruled the world. Both of which are creations that I would be thanking the Lord for every night, if of course I were into doing that sort of thing. This jam by Panama is like the 80’s incarnate. The whole track is layered in a thick blanket of nostalgic warmth, creating something reminiscent of Tears For Fears. However, it’s a more sedated Tears For Fears, like if they smoked weed instead of doing inordinate amounts of coke. It’s proof that the legacy of the 80’s lives on, and I don’t mind that one bit.
69. dd elle – “tell me”
This jam is like whispering sweet nothings into the ear of an oblivious lover after they’ve drifted off to sleep. It’s a candid and straightforward ode of love, reflecting a sheer honesty that’s only possible when the fear of judgment and requite has been utterly removed from the equation. The portcullis within the walls encircling the heart has been momentarily lifted, and tenuous tendrils of raw uninhibited emotions are cautiously drifting out and up through the whispering vocal chords. It’s an incredibly vulnerable moment, perfectly embodied by the gentle fragility of each softly delivered vocal line. As the unadulterated words make their way down into the waiting ear, they drift into the surreal subconscious of the sleeping mind, mixing into a realm of muddled reverb and pulsing synths. It’s pure lucidity twirling amidst a sea of blissful confusion. The result is a brief, almost spiritual moment of complete truthfulness, a rare experience in the convoluted landscape of modern romance.
68. Andrew Jackson Jihad – “Kokopelli Face Tattoo”
I first discovered Andrew Jackson Jihad back in high school when eMusic was desperately trying to compete with iTunes. They gave away 100 free song credits every time you opened an account, which you could then cancel before they billed you at the end of the month, meaning that for about half a year they were basically giving away free music. Limewire wasn’t always very reliable (plus you felt like a Sudanese child blindly stumbling through a minefield of potential viruses), so needless to say, I took full advantage of eMusic’s foolishness.
As if giving away free music wasn’t enough, another way Emusic sought to compete with iTunes was by becoming an Indie music haven. They had all these incredibly obscure and unknown bands, which was rad, especially during an age when the Internet wasn’t quite as easy to navigate. All of this coincided with a point in my music listening career when little teenage me thought it was really awesome to have an iPod full of the most outlandish band names possible. I mean, how cool would it be to have people ask, “Hey what are you listening to?” and be able to respond with the likes of “Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin”, “Casiotone for the Painfully Alone” or “Andrew Jackson Jihad”? The answer is pretty fucking cool.
So there’s an extensive prologue you probably never cared to know, but I get really nostalgic whenever I think about the Golden Age of the Internet. Anyway, that is how I became acquainted with the raw and eccentric whimsy that is Andrew Jackson Jihad. In the seven years since that first encounter they’ve definitely refined their sound and musicianship, but the whimsy has stayed relatively the same. This song perfectly captures that feeling everybody experiences when they come across a major douche bag. That uneasiness, and slowly smoldering fire of hate deep down inside that only grows with each passing moment your forced to be in their presence. They’re the type of person that taints everything they touch. It’s an aura of ostentation, a cheap kitschy charisma that’s so overplayed and soaked in bravado and arrogant self worth that you can hardly stand the noxious fumes it gives off. It’s like watching somebody have the audacity to brag about eating McDonald’s, behaving as if they’re doing something incredibly unique and envious, when in reality it’s really quite universal and revolting.
You have a bursting urge to berate them and point out how derivative everything they produce is. The whole situation would be funny if it weren’t so painful, but the worst part of it all is that they’re completely oblivious to what they’re doing. It irks you like no other. You even start to lose some faith in humanity. You want so badly to shit on their entire existence, but Andrew Jackson Jihad is here to tell you that that won’t solve anything. Its such a simple yet poignant line “hey dude I hate everything you do, but I’m trying really hard to not hate you / cause hating you won’t make you suck any less/ hating you won’t make me suck any less.” After all, this whole tirade has made me sound pretty douchey and judgmental myself. So don’t hate the player, hate everything that they stand for. After all, humanity doesn’t progress through petty self-induced negativity.
67. Ricky Eat Acid – “It will draw me over to it like it always does”
After a temporary hiatus, Ricky Eat Acid is at it again, creating textures and vibes that transcend human existence. This is what I imagine getting haunted feels and sounds like. It’s an insubstantial and eerie feeling. The type of disturbance that sends chills throughout your body, standing your hairs on end, and wringing your stomach into knots. Yet despite the discomfort, it’s not a wholly negative experience. It’s like finding something you lost. Only you were the one who hid it. It’s the realization of a long dormant aspect of yourself, the mythical sixth sense, the inner eye that’s grown vestigial in the age of science and enlightenment. The stuff of legends and fairy tales, steeped in the superstition of parochial times. The mind attempts to explain it away, but the unnatural feeling remains. It’s a problem much like reality itself, it exists, but you can neither deny nor explain it.
66. Your Old Droog – “Nutty Bars”
You know you’re doing something right when you self-release your debut EP and people honestly mistake you for one of the all-time greats. That’s exactly what happened with Your Old Droog. His flow was so vintage and smooth that people were convinced it was actually Nas releasing material under a new moniker, which is ironic, because if anything this is classic Nas, not the Nas who has been releasing mediocre material over the past decade (so maybe those people also believe in time machines, or they’re just really nice people that enjoy giving artists the benefit of the doubt). Regardless, the resemblance is uncanny. Droog has that raw yet refined flow. It’s the voice of a street philosopher, someone who has walked amongst the muck and mire of poverty and hopelessness, questioned, observed and understood it, without getting drowned by it.
His wordplay is virtually unparalleled amongst his contemporaries, and has rightfully been pushed to the forefront for this minimalistic jam. It’s just Droog’s voice running a marathon over the feint click-clack of the percussion, and the occasional repetitive interjection of a subtle bass and a clanging keystroke. The austerity of this track makes it akin to a unicorn in modern Hip-Hop. So often nowadays Hip-Hop is doused in gratuitous amounts of production that ends up drowning out the lyricism and only focusing on the repetition of a catchy hook. This song has no hook. Let that sink in for a second. It’s just three minutes of straight bars. So go ahead and bask in the presence of this majestic unicorn.
65. Sharon Van Etten – “Our Love”
Society likes to tell us what love is (especially during this past weekend). As if it’s something that is identically felt by all. Universally defined, boxed, packaged and delivered from one soul to another. Love, one of the most visceral and elusive emotions, is reduced to a boring formula, full of trite and predictable denotations that every human relationship is then expected to conform to. It’s complete and utter bullshit. Love is as unique as the individuals that experience it. Humans, with our unique experiences and genetics, all possess an individuality that sets us apart from one another. Each individual therefore brings their own ingredients to the mortar of romantic love, which when poured together and grounded by the pestle of life, produces a one-of-a-kind mixture of emotion and connectivity. That’s why love is so enigmatic. Its forever changing based upon those involved and the circumstances surrounding them. No love is the same.
Sharon Van Etten captures this state of romantic flux. The intimate realm shared by a couple, completely unique to them, foreign to all those who exist outside its bounds. It’s a place of complete vulnerability, a concept that it is both incredibly freeing and frightening. A place of acceptance, comfort and understanding that simultaneously possesses the ability to rattle you to the core, suck you dry and spit out a beaten and broken husk. It’s the tenuous balance between the two that makes love so unique, and the subtle minimalism of this jam expresses that dynamic perfectly.
64. KOOL A.D. – “THE FRONT (FEAT. TORO Y MOI & AMAZE 88) (PROD. TORO Y MOI)”
When Das Racist broke up in 2012 I was heartbroken. It was something akin to a favourite TV show suddenly getting canceled (I’ll always love you Stargate Universe). The source of so much joy and entertainment is immediately and irrevocably severed. In that moment of despair, you suddenly realize that you had taken it for granted, thinking that it would always be there, forgetting as always that so much in life is transient. Luckily for us, even though we’ll never again be able to experience the greatness of the almighty slacker trio, we do get to enjoy the individual pieces that contributed to their eminence.
KOOL A.D. is one such piece. His verses are the epitome of witty nonchalance. Its like he’s lazily perched on the couch, lying supine amidst clouds of marijuana smoke, eyes partially closed, just flowing freely from the sluggish creativity that’s swirling within his mind. On this track in particular he’s teamed up with the production of Toro Y Moi, a fellow master of all things chill, to create a jam that’s drenched in addictive lassitude. It’s bedroom Hip-Hop at its finest. Hip-Hop that’s right at home in the home, only it’s a home that’s covered in dirty clothes, empty bottles, college textbooks and stale smoke. It’s Hip-Hop for squinted eyes and couch shimmying, Hip-Hop that wakes up at noon and barricades its windows against the morning light. In other words, it’s Hip-Hop for the common man, aka the little boy in all of us.
63. Zoo Brother – “Gemini Girl”
My discovery of Zoo Brother was what I imagine meeting the love of your life on the subway must feel like. It’s an event of sheer improbability, that somehow, amidst a city of millions, you should happen to stumble upon an individual that effortlessly captivates you, aligning with all of your tastes and desires perfectly. Simply put, it shouldn’t have happened, and yet it did. I don’t even know how I found them, maybe they found me, but that’s not important. What is important is that we found each other. At some point over this past year, against all odds, I came across this ridiculously small band from Chicago and I fell in love. They embody so much of what I enjoy about music. Their songs are soaked in warmth, like steeping yourself in the bath until you can feel the effects sinking deep down into your bones and resonating with your soul. It’s raw and emotional stuff that’s stripped of all pretenses, full of that organic beauty and innocence that only bands in their infantile stages can possess. It’s a full on throwback to the pioneers of the Chillwave / Glo-fi revolution, which as you all know is a period of music that I hold very near and dear to my heart (and soul). So maybe I’m bias, but then again, it’s hard not to find yourself getting drawn over into its warm embrace.
62. Caribou – “Can’t Do Without You (Extended Mix)”
Dan Snaith of Caribou has come a long way since the Andorra days, showing true talent by skillfully riding the waves of the times, seamlessly navigating a transition from the heyday of the Indie movement to the now deeper vibes of the modern Electronic world. Throughout the evolution of his sound, he’s somehow always managed to stay a step ahead of his contemporaries, and this monolithic jam is no different.
It’s like he’s a reclusive scientist, using his arcane knowledge to invigorate electronic bodies with the emotions of human existence. This is a song that perfectly encapsulates the subconscious mind of an individual who has been forcefully separated from love. It’s that driving reminder of how important your counterpart was, the incessant pinprick of emotion against your heart, the inexplicable impulse never letting you go more then a few minutes without their memory flitting across your mind. Everybody has been there, stuck in the mire of lost love, their mind left in a daze, rendered catatonic under the weight of a freshly broken heart. This is the minimalistic anthem of said damaged soul. It’s the bubbling cauldron where thought and emotion mix, constantly threatening to boil over at any given moment. The pangs of the heart cause reverberating echoes to fill the empty halls of the mind, continually reminding you just how intertwined your lives were. The reminders build upon each other, forming a torrential onslaught, drowning you first in emotion and then in tears, but through it all you manage to stay afloat, clawing your way out of complete despair. The flood eventually recedes and you’re haggard yet resilient self is still defiantly standing there. Nothing lasts forever, and for better or worse that applies to both love and the void left after its loss.
61. Owen Pallett – “I Am Not Afraid”
Owen Pallett is a cultivator of fine art. His music carries a certain dignity and refinement to it, a gravitas of sorts that is incredibly rare and increasingly difficult for contemporary music to possess. Whenever I listen to him I feel like I should be in some gaudy venue, complete with crystal chandeliers, white marble pillars and floors, gilded ceilings, the works. I’m decked out in a tuxedo with a fancy cocktail in one hand, and beautiful woman on the other, and in the center of the room are Owen and his violin. As he plays, the two of them begin to blend, becoming one cohesive whole, with the instrument and bow functioning as extensions of himself. There’s a connection between the two, a mutual understanding that can only be gained from a lifetime of cohabitation, and for a brief moment, we as an audience get a glimpse of that intimacy.
This jam mimics the inner journey of a scattered mind as it navigates within itself, stirring up a mixture of emotion along the way. It begins with the light breeze of a looping violin, reflecting the tenuous, almost recoiled state of the mind, with emotion and thought masked in serenity despite their restlessness. It’s punctuated by the countering strokes of a fluttering violin, or the psyche as it struggles to stay positive and afloat amidst a slew of impulses. Quite simply, it’s the seething irritation of a nicotine-deprived mind that’s on the verge of a total breakdown. When the psyche can no longer stay afloat, it gasps and sputters to a stop within a fit of syncopated percussion. It’s not a defeat, but a submission or understanding of sorts, a surrender, or compromise to the aspects of the self that it previously fought. It’s that first drag of a cigarette after a day of abstaining, and the piano-driven rush of pure relief and tranquility that soon follows. It incubates your mind, coating it in a protective barrier, a buffer that then filters everything extraneous, making the previous turmoil seem placid and manageable. It’s using the fruits of the negative to create something positive.
