TOP 100 TRACKS OF 2014: Pt. VIII: # 30 - 21

30. Cities Aviv – “Perpetuate the Real”

Cities Aviv is back yet again to grace this list with his hazy metaphysical flow. It’s like his words are beams of light trying to pierce their way through a thick and heavy fog of permeating complacence. It’s a fog that’s settled over humanity, sending the species into a sort of catatonic state, where those infected by its pestilence are left just coasting along through life, going from task to task always connected to the digital world, plugged in, full of information but lacking meaning, more machine than man. As Cities so poignantly says, “There ain’t no Google definition for the way you feel / don’t ask just act cause you know the deal / so regardless still perpetuate the real.” He’s trying to wake us up from this faux reality, like a haggard biblical prophet shouting to closed ears and hardened hearts about the ever-nearing apocalypse. He’s showing us a path, but with each passing day it disappears, overgrown and covered in the detritus of mindless distractions. He’s urging us to once again claim this path for ourselves before it’s lost and gone forever, to not grow content or complacent, but to progress and move forward. To let go of the distractions, to sever the shiny little robotic tumors our hands have grown, and abandon the intoxicating ease of technology, and to actually go out and live life ourselves, being real and genuine to those around us. Rather than claiming we’ve attained enlightenment through digital frontiers, he’s challenging us to actually gain a lasting enlightenment through experiencing life for ourselves. Reducing the magnificence of our reality, all its physical and emotional beauty, down to a world of lifeless binary ones and zeroes is so counterintuitive. Humans belong in the world around them. We long for physical connection, and the more we deny that, the more we seek harmony and meaning through dissonance, the more we welcome an epoch of existential crisis.

Deers – “Bamboo”

So sometime in between composing this list and actually writing this post, the ever-growing legalistic and capitalistic world we live in forced Deers to change their name to Hinds. However, I’m nostalgic, and prefer the name Deers, and seeing how they released this song under their previous name, and this list was constructed under said name, I will continue to refer to them as such (it can function as some sort of peaceful protest or something).

This song is like an unabashed anthem for the raw, honest and exuberant love of youth. It’s a jam full of effervescent energy, the type adolescent chutzpah that can only be birthed from the souls of those who still look upon the future as an ever-expanding path of possibility, still somewhat oblivious to the rigors of reality, blinded by the glare of naïve optimism. It’s pure emotion, emotion that becomes contradictory when meddled with by logic, but it’s that turbid nature that makes it resonate. After all, it’s not often that the heart and mind fall into rhythm with one another, they’re much more likely to clash, clumsily treading and tripping all over each other’s feet. It’s the universal conundrum of youthful hearts that refuse to be tied down, yet long for connection and validation. It’s a gritty honesty that flirts with selfishness, a nicely wrapped bouquet of volatile and fleeting emotions.

28. Perfume Genius – “Grid’

This jam is like witnessing a clandestine pagan ritual as it takes place within the intimacy of one’s soul. The warm glow of passion, a central fire, lights up the painted faces of each suppressed emotion as they spastically gesture, viscerally howling, swirling and flowing around the licking flames in a slowly culminating crescendo of humanity. Each separate emotion acting individually, yet together forming a cyclone of uniform movement, gaining momentum, forming it’s own gravity that draws the inert emotions of the observer outward, bubbling upward from the depths of your own body to be pulled toward the freedom of their chaotic beauty. It’s a powerful moment, like a caste of stoics suddenly shedding their emotionless guise to run dancing through the streets, years of suppression suddenly escaping from the depths of their chests in spastic howls of pure uninhibited bliss. It’s a watershed. A release of the Pandora’s Box that lies hidden deep within each and every one of us, constructed and enforced by tradition, society, religion, patriarchy, capitalism, and every other structure of systemic oppression in between. Individual anarchy run rampant, ultimate freedom realized, and once it’s been tasted there’s no way of ever returning to and accepting the bland world that has held us all within its clutches for so long.

27. Sturgill Simpson – “Turtles All The Way Down”

Almost everyone who lives in California and is of a certain age has gotten really high and dreamed up ideal combinations of seemingly contradictory creations. These can either birth amazing discoveries or resounding failures, but usually, more often than not, they remain unrealized, simply forgotten in the haze of the moment or disregarded out of fatigue, deemed impossible and relegated to never exist anywhere but within the mind. Sturgill Simpson is one of these beautiful and ideal contradictions come to life. He possesses the vibes and chops of country’s heyday, the seventies, when outlaw country was alive and well. It was a period when raw and honest vocals told stories and promoted notions that were than backed by the typical and endearing musical trappings of the simple yet resonating genre. Simpson has adopted this style, but has done so with a modern twist, voicing a foreword thinking and progressive mindset that delves into topics that have traditionally been ignored by the genre.

It’s bipartisan music, red and blue, liberal and conservative all at once, remembering the past while embracing the future, the perfect solution for all of us who grew up in conservative households before leaving for college where we were then “indoctrinated” and transformed into filthy and corrupt heathens. Meaning it’s an artistic realization of the tenuous struggle between being partial to the nostalgia of our upbringings, while at the same time remaining staunchly averse to becoming our forbearers. Its Liberal Country, as oxymoronic as a square circle or an honest politician, and it’s pretty amazing stuff. This song in particular explores the world outside of the physical, the realms beyond this realm, the mental gateway to eternity. It’s an acknowledgement of each individual’s own reality, a place that can never truly be disproved or extinguished by the judgment of those who exists outside of it. It’s a beautiful promotion of modern spiritualism, a notion that transcends and goes beyond the archaic and limiting structures of classic religion, birthing something completely new and refreshing in the process, a feat much like Simpson’s music in general.

26. Ariel Pink – “Black Ballerina”

If the previous song by Ariel Pink was an anomaly, this jam is Pink in all of his whimsical and outlandish glory. It’s a trip in its purest sense, the glorious return to the realm of endorphin-riddled fantasy, where every boundary is warped around its edges, transforming in and out of clarity, until the term “real” has no actual meaning because reality holds no sway here. It’s a wholly mythical and transient world. A dreamscape really, where a bouncing bass carries you along, samples are laced throughout, voices are conjured in and out of existence, and playful synths skitter around your ankles while more powerful synths expand and contract your exterior, leaving the listener thoroughly and blissfully discombobulated. It’s like following Sgt. Peppers into C.S. Lewis’ wardrobe, a welcome reprieve in a world that’s so often focused on enforcing rigorous and dogmatic order.

25. Alvvays – “Archie, Marry Me”

Growing up amongst a generation that looks upon marriage as a thing reserved for the ever-elusive future, this song stands out as a visceral and impulsive proclamation of reckless abandonment. I take it as a sort of ironic, tongue-in-cheek take on universally suppressed emotions. It represents a protagonist that’s fallen in love. They’ve forged a connection based on an initial inundation of pure infatuation. It’s the glorious, effervescent feeling that swirls around in everyone’s insides when they first find someone they connect with. The honeymoon stage, when you see your lover as a flawless entity that completes you, a personal sun able to pour beams of light into your insides by simply being in their presence. It’s a fleeting feeling, so strong in its initial stages that it’s destined to eventually burn out when confronted by the smothering realities of a shared existence, but for a brief period of time it is your reality. This song is fully swept up in the romanticism of the moment, the blissful denial that the flame will ever be extinguished. Reality with all of its pessimism has been momentarily thrown to the wind, blown away by the overwhelming surge of heartfelt optimism. The joys of the moment have fully flourished, swelling and bursting forth until they can longer be contained. It’s no longer a plunge into marriage, but rather a glorious ascent into the blissful coronation of a beautiful connection. An anthem of elopement, Disney come to life. Unrealistic in its very nature, bound to fail, but pure and beautiful at the same time.

24. Theophilus London – “Can’t Stop (Feat. Kanye West)”

Certain artists function as a sort of surrogate child. You follow them since their inception, watching them grow and develop with each passing year, emerging from virtually nothing to crawl, walk, talk and run. It’s a beautiful thing. You feel a swelling pride, almost like you’re sharing in their success, living vicariously through their actions. It’s like all of those fathers and mothers you see tightly embracing their children after an improbable sports victory, the mixture of pure unadulterated pride, debilitating elation, and overwhelming satisfaction spilling all at once across their tear-streaked faces. It’s the acknowledgement that their child has made it and that all of those years of hard work were worth it, because finally everyone else is recognizing the potential that you knew existed all along. Theophilus London is like my artistic child. I’ve been with him since his first release, seen him as he’s matured, developed, and honed his skills, and now all these years later he’s finally getting the praise and recognition that he duly deserves.

In the modern world of music, nothing heralds this success as much as collaborating with the almighty Kanye West. Mr. West is now a barometer of artistic talent, a sort of holy magnet that draws all those who are worthy towards him. Whereas others might lament this, I welcome it. The world needs Kanye West, almost as much as he needs us. It’s a symbiotic relationship, the likes of which has produced some of the greatest music our generation has to offer. Sure he has problems, but what human doesn’t? Especially when every aspect of your life, every word you utter, every action you take is scrutinized, and then judged by a vigilante kangaroo court that has already construed your motives and constructed your character for you. Mr. West is a veritable genius, it’s an undeniable fact, and heavy weighs the crown. So I for one am willing to give his personality the benefit of the doubt. Anyway, leave it to Kanye to make a post that’s not even supposed to be about him end up revolving around himself, but such is the power of his allure.

However, lets get back to this jam, because it deserves our attention. It’s the perfect blend of soulful R&B and smooth flowing Hip-Hop. A song that functions as the orgasmic climax to an aesthetic that Theophilus has been carefully crafting throughout his young tenure. It’s an aesthetic that Hip-Hop has been missing lately with the recent inundation of EDM, and a welcome return to a period when the craft had an undeniable soul infused into its very being. The effortlessly smooth flows of both Yeezy and Theophilus over the ethereal synths and careening rhythm only add to its overall brilliance, the perfect compliment to the subtle yet finely tuned production. It’s a song packed full of vibes, those intangible and ubiquitous vibrations of another mystical and unseen plane or the pin-pricking of an indefinable peripheral sense, one which mere words can never do justice. It’s a feeling above anything else, a feeling that wraps you up in its warm embrace, permeating your mind and compelling you to groove. So give it a listen, bask in the vibes and embrace them back.

23. Adult Jazz – “Am Gone”

Listening to Adult Jazz is like trying to catch the wind. They’re a band that possesses the rare ability to always surprise. Just when you think you’ve pinned them down and know what they’re going to do, they go ahead and do the opposite, eluding predictability in favour of taking the listener down an always unfolding path of sporadic rhythm and spasmodic guitar. It’s a path that at any moment might stutter and stumble to a near stand still or take a dramatic and unforeseeable turn, swelling, skipping, hopping and jumping whenever it pleases. However, as mercurial and shambolic as their approach may seem, its anything but that. It’s like when you hear of people who long to predict the future, thinking that somehow knowing what’s going to unfold will improve their quality life. They look upon the possible chaos that each day may bring as negative, when in reality, the joy of life, the essence that provides it with purpose, lies within its intrinsic mystery, and it’s only through retrospect, and looking back on the perceived chaos, that human nature, or the universe itself, depicts and applies a pattern to the previous disorder, giving it meaning in the process.

Adult Jazz take this basic concept of existence and apply it to their music. It’s almost as if they wrote it not knowing where it would go, like it all emerged from a spontaneous jam session, a brilliant moment of pure, synchronous happenstance, and only in the end did they look back on it and realize that this is what was meant to occur all along. It’s like optimistic fatalism, a determinism that embraces the travails of existence, turning them into a meaningful and necessary experience. It’s respecting time as a continuum, stepping out of our linear judgment, and living in the moment - the ever-present now, slowly eating up the ever-elusive future and constantly slipping into the irretrievable past. All we have is now, and this jam makes you truly feel and believe that.

22. Shabazz Palaces – “Forerunner Foray”

This is dystopian Hip-Hop. It’s a jam that lives within an indistinct realm, leaving the listener floating around amidst a blurred and nebulous world, thoroughly insulated by layers of muddled dissonance and muffled funk. It’s like Hip-Hop meets Blade Runner. It’s a song set within a dark and futuristic soundscape that’s overrun by a pestilence of shadows and populated by evil entities that reach out and swallow you within their gaping jaws, reducing your surroundings to a hollow existence of sluggish, broken, nihilistic lassitude. All the hopes and dreams of past generations have evaporated into nothingness, never again to be fully actualized, replaced instead by an overarching hopelessness. The collective human spirit has been broken. Yet within this hazy and charged existence, Shabazz Palaces shine bright, the unwitting protagonist, the last hope, the final star to go supernova within a universe that would long for nothing more than to quash everything into an inert and pervasive, suffocating nothingness. It’s a song that defies the physics of creativity, a song that says so much without having to actually say it. It’s one of those rare works of art that can pack an ocean full of vibes, emotion, and meaning into a thimble worth of space. A piece that sparks the imagination, lighting a conflagration of thought that illuminates the far reaches of the metaphysical realm, bringing the mind to life, and in doing so inspires it to reach beyond the superficial.

21. J. Cole – “Apparently”

J. Cole is the man. He’s an emcee that’s defied the odds, having attained success, while still managing to keep it real. It’s an honesty that displays itself through an array of avenues, all of which have the common trajectory of leading the listener towards a greater understanding of both the artist and themselves in the process. Whether it’s by making an album without any features, or through candidly airing his struggles, mistakes, and desires for all to see, it’s a realness that gives the listener the complete image. It resonates because we see an individual paving his way through life that’s just as flawed and hypocritical as the rest of us. It’s a shining example of the convoluted and tarnished human condition. All pretense and posturing has been removed, or at the very least, proved to be just that, by interlacing an equal amount of fragility amongst the braggadocio.

This jam in particular displays that duality, the sort of cognitive dissonance between idealism and reality, between who you want to be and who you are. It’s a dimorphism experienced by everyone, a daily struggle to improve oneself. It’s recognizing that we’re all flawed individuals. It’s not being hypercritical, or ejecting any sense of self-confidence, but neither is it adopting a narcistic and damaging self-love that looks at the individual as above any sort of criticism. Nor is it labeling oneself a dirty and unworthy sinner, because while adopted and depicted by religion, it’s a concept that transcends religion. It’s seeing the flaws but believing that within each individual lies the ability to improve upon those flaws. It’s realizing that who you are at this point in time is not the end goal, not the complete you, but one iteration of you in an endless chain of self-discovery. Each day, each experience and thought within each day, both the good and the bad, is an opportunity to fully realize that potential. It’s a chance for each and every one of us, mere pieces in the universal puzzle of humanity, to come together and create a better future. It all starts with honesty, and when you think everybody but yourself is part of the problem, you’re part of the problem.