TOP 100 TRACKS OF 2014: Pt. X: # 10 - 1

The long awaited finish is finally here. At last we have arrived at the hallowed halls of 2014’s pantheon of jams, the holy solitude of the top 10, the best musical creations that humanity could muster up in the span of one trip around the sun. Bask in its glory my friends, soak it all in, and let it invigorate your soul. Hopefully these songs are as brilliant to you as they are to me, if not, well, maybe one day you can be as cool and refined as I am.

10. Isaiah Rashad – “Shot You Down (Feat. Jay Rock & Schoolboy Q)”

Isaiah Rashad is the latest roster addition to TDE, the ascendant Los Angeles-based Hip-Hop collective, and the first member of which to come from outside of the Los Angeles area. Getting drafted by one of the greatest artistic collectives that the genre has to offer is a significant accomplishment, but in Isaiah’s case, it’s an accomplishment that’s duly deserved and more importantly, an ideal fit. He possesses that same creative spirit and intellectual earnestness that sets TDE apart, that intangible quality that allows him to fit perfectly within a pantheon of artists that includes the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Ab-soul, Schoolboy Q and Jay Rock. While the latter two’s featured verses propel this track to the next level, the fact that Isaiah is able to hold his own, is a testament to his efflorescent skill.

This marathon of a track is the perfect example of TDE’s ascendency. It’s a song that seeks to make a social commentary on the modern plane of existence, a combination of the past and present, both the forgotten and broken urban neighborhoods of the inner city and the behemoth that is the music industry, but it does so through the lens of each individual emcees’ own experiences. It’s an important distinction, because rather than making commonplace, trite, and sweeping generalizations, the use of personal anecdotes gives the content added substance and impetus. It’s the difference between secondary and primary sources. Instead of bland and recycled themes, each artist brings the fiery passion of personal narratives. It’s a song that’s seated on a high horse, but it’s a high horse that’s been duly earned. It’s the result of both tenacity and hard work, a gifted vantage point, high above the noxious and pervasive fumes of complacency. It represents a continuous battle, a struggle to not only attain a certain status, but to do it in such a way that enables the individual to look upon their life with pride, having attained success through remaining true to themselves and their values, remembering, accepting, and praising the process that made them who they are as individuals. It does so without any of the all too common trappings of contrived and vane braggadocio, but rather through a deep earnestness and sincere self-respect. It’s a belief in oneself, a recognition of uniqueness, and a conviction that who you are is not negotiable, or something that success can compromise. It’s an anthem for any true artist that has emerged from, and transcended, challenging and unideal origins. However, it recognizes that those same origins helped make them who they are, defining their character along the way and giving them their unique perspective. It’s the crux that forged the individual, taking the perceived detritus of society and transforming it into something invaluable, something that can overcome, and shine through the suffocating and perverting haze of circumstance.

9. Hundred Waters – “Murmurs”

This song gives substance to the intangible, tenuous and convoluted connection that exists between lovers. It’s the invisible net of emotion and thought, the confusing web of empathic connection that reaches out and holds two individuals together despite distance and silence, always gathering and tangling the separate souls into a haphazard and unified mess. It’s a beautiful befuddlement, a masochistic bliss, and a necessary and unavoidable evil, as ethereal as it is all encompassing, and as obvious as it is muddled. It’s an experience highlighted by subtlety, brittle yet gorgeous vocals, echoing samples of reverb-soaked thudding, with sublime vocal spasms, both shrill and insulated, mixed amongst furtive percussion and light piano. Together it gives body to an unseen realm, lightly bounding together a brief existence, a temporary, vague and nebulous insight into the esoteric - and then it disappears, flitting away on the breeze of the moment, always teasingly drifting just beyond your reach, a permanent and pervasive presque vu. Present just enough to remind you of its existence, yet distant enough to always keep you guessing, connected just enough to be together, but separated enough to constantly impress upon oneself the fact that you will always be two individual beings, separated by physical and metaphysical space, ultimately left alone to pace the expansive halls of your mind and heart in solitude.

8. Mac DeMarco – “Go Easy”

The people’s champion is back once again to grace this list with his presence. It’s a welcome presence, one that has a way of oozing sanguinity, like an aura of chillness emanating outward to swallow you up in its warm embrace, carefully cradling you within its arms, and rocking you back and forth until you have not a care in the world. He’s like that friend everybody should have, the type of guy that you can come to with all of your stress and anxiety when you’re on the verge of an existential implosion. You walk in with the world piled on top of your shoulders, all of your attention transfixed on superfluous worries, future decisions, things outside of your control, and there he is, calmly perched on the couch, listlessly supine, with an easy and ready smile. It’s an infectious attitude, somehow loosening the tensing muscles and bringing your racing mind to a standstill, easily diffusing the ticking time bomb of emotion eating up your anxious insides. He reminds you, in his subtle way, that you’re not alone, and that it’s best to live life in the comforting solidity of the present, rather than the daunting enigma that is the future. That all the problems life may throw your way can be met with a tranquil grace, a phlegmatic sidestep, instead of the all-consuming intensity of a head on collision. It’s a much-needed reminder, one punctuated by the gentle and massaging inoculation of the beautiful and lackadaisical guitar. So plop yourself down on the couch, and crack open a beer or roll a spliff, because everything is going to be just fine.

7. TV Girl – “Anjela

This final part of the list is like a pleasant high school reunion, a welcome gathering with all of my favourite bands from earlier on in the list coming back to once again hang out for one last glorious powwow. Such a prestigious and celebratory wake as this just wouldn’t be complete without the coy brilliance that is TV Girl. In fact, the presence of the humble, post-modern poets of apathetic adolescence is a necessity. I just wish now that I hadn’t set a self-imposed two-song limit per artist, because their latest release, French Exit, was packed full of wonderful tunes that could have easily made their way onto this list. However, if wishes were fishes, we’d all cast nets, so on that platitudinous note, let us get on with it.

“Anjela” is a song about modern “love”, or more like lust. Let’s say modern hooking up, or the inflation of sexual currency as I like to put it, something akin to apathetic agape or empty eros, a suiting pseudo-intellectual term for a post-modern and post-ironic culture where everything is so haphazard and confusing that people no longer know what it means to be close to someone. It’s the all-encompassing realm of the future present, the post post-modern era, and we’re all fellow pioneers of this enigmatic realm. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not one to hold onto the past with a vice-like grip, always wishing for yesterday, and blindly labeling the misty and glorified days of yesteryear “better”. I appreciate the past, and recognize its intrinsic worth, but society progresses, things change, and in the process we stumble along, eventually emerging with a better understanding of not only our individual selves, but ourselves as a society. This is a song for the stumbling, a song that playfully defines our generation’s attempts at romance, and that common human longing for the warmth of acceptance and connection. Sometimes we do things simply because they feel nice, we don’t think it through, we don’t know what we want, who we want, or even why we want. There’s no malice in it, its not even contrived, and its not always empty, it just happens. The future is daunting and distant, and most of all elusive. Committing to something as tenuous and enigmatic as said future is frightening, and running every decision through some ill-defined mental algorithm of long term worth is not only foolish, but robs us of the eternal present we find ourselves constantly floating within. It can definitely be worth it to chart a course through the foggy days of tomorrow, even beneficial at times, but not always necessary. After all, the world is a cold place, and sometimes we’re just trying to stay warm.

6. Ian William Craig – “On the Reach of Explanations”

First off, crank it up - vibrate your house, vibrate the earth, flood your head with apocalyptic warmth, feel the incinerating bursts of nuclear blasts inundate your ears, and bask in the holy rapture of the tearing sonic fabric. Imagine heaven falling, or the closest thing to it, an improbable and damning notion to even entertain, bitter emptiness, existential crisis, years of faith and hope extinguished, millennia wasted, supernatural perfection blemished and scarred, self-imposed gods defeating themselves in cataclysmic oblivion. Everything you know winking out of existence in a slow macabre scene that you’re powerless to prevent, impotence on cosmic scale. Just close your eyes and imagine, let it warp and let it take flight, and weather this beautiful barrage.

It’s the 22nd century, and Earth is in shambles. We’ve entered the hyper-Malthusian era, unchecked overpopulation has run rampant, our own shortsightedness and lack of self-control has left our cities bursting at the seams. The streets are overflowing with humanity, mimicking the refuse that’s heaped in the gutters. Dilapidated buildings are haphazardly piled on top of each other, entire continents of continuous slums, a destitute majority left to scavenge for survival, outpacing the system that was built to support them. The sky is rarely blue, the entire world has turned into a sick, fetid, and murky sphere, a planet-wide Los-Angeles or Baoding, a hazy and permeating filth, the by-product of centuries of unchecked greed conveniently labeled commerce. The sea has risen, its once deep azure hidden beneath a layer of floating plastic and the glossy sheen of oil. The coasts of Earth’s glorious past are flooded, the same coasts that once held 90% of the planet’s population are now reduced to a ghostly, post-modern Atlantis. Unrestrained Capitalism ran its course, achieving the ultimate goal of supply and demand, with capital now worth more than individual human life. Corporations run nations. Laws are simply shunted aside at the first sign of inconvenience. Plutocracy, which had been laying its roots for centuries has finally flourished, the masses helpless to prevent its inexorable progression. Classism is rampant. The have-nots live in squalor, part slaves and indentured servants, part dependent festering sore that no matter how much they were ignored never managed to disappear. Human “morality” kept them alive, but couldn’t make that existence worth being alive for. Those that have live in luxury, but it’s a pointless, hedonistic existence, vapid and empty. All the years of distrust and pointless squabbling amongst the insatiable and parochial nation-states has led to stagnation. Humanity no longer flourishes, it survives, limping along in the dark, like a caged animal guarding the treasures and knowledge of its past, incapable of producing anything truly new and worthwhile. Desperate nations with nowhere left to go, nothing left to respect or live for, begin to usher in the apocalypse that has been patiently waiting at their doorstep for all these years. The button is pressed. The first bombs take flight, before they even detonate, bombs bearing separate insignias begin their ascension. In a crescendo of death, a climax of bitter senselessness, a final breath of extinguishing hope, the earth begins to rend at its seams, with each pulsing burst stamping out millennia of destiny in a final nihilistic suicide.

Amidst the destruction there is a glimmer of hope. The few wealthy and foresighted enough to predict the inevitable have prepared for such a moment, a contingency plan to cast the last seeds of humanity into the winds of the unknown. The last remnants of the human race, an amalgamation of lottery and necessity, all that humanity has left to show for itself after millennia of evolution, take off into the unknown. In slow motion they careen through the atmosphere, looking back on the earth, the only home any human has ever known, get bombarded with atomics, a modern glimpse of the Cretaceous, billions of life forms perishing in a matter of seconds, a kind of catastrophe unknown to mankind, unfathomable in scope. Explosion after explosion rises into the air in ominous clouds of execution, the surrealism of an entire planet being massacred, while you exit the atmosphere. You spare one last look back through the burning windows that frame your stygian view with the soft warmth and calming caress of flames, a scene that will haunt you forever, paired with the now permanent mixture of relief and regret that swim within your stomach. This is the song flooding your mind as this takes place, the perfect score for the surreal beauty of utter failure and complete disaster, a new type of shock and awe, the heavenly and damning beauty of burning white-hot destruction. Apocalyptic emptiness that floats through your vision like a dream, never able to fully grasp what is happening in the moment, fading in and out of jagged lucidity amidst bursts of cosmic static.

5. Jay Prince – “Polaroids”

Jay Prince is another artist that is helping to resuscitate Hip-Hop, using his skill to breathe creativity back into the soul of the stagnant genre. He’s an artist that repudiates the regurgitated and vacuous themes of the radio, refusing to make simple, cash-grab tracks that glorify materialism and sexism, opting instead to craft songs that bare his soul. They’re songs that anybody can relate to because they deal with real life. So much of the genre has gotten away from its roots, leaving the streets for the club, leaving the daily struggles of the masses for the empty and rarified realm of the affluent. Jay is here to reclaim that past. His songs are steeped in sincerity, unfettered by the outwardly imposed restrictions of record labels, as well as the self-imposed limitations of personal insecurity. He’s an artist that proudly holds onto who he is, defending his independence, and showing a true fervor for the art form, rather than a cheap artistic façade that only functions as a means to an end. It’s an honesty and fortitude that’s refreshing, and an ever-growing rarity within a society that increasingly falls victim to conformity and self-compromise. It’s the type of inspiration that lasts, the type of passion that’s tempered with time, instead of eroding amongst the fleeting trends and whims of a stagnant and directionless culture. There’s an inherent trust when he speaks, like listening to a respected role model, or the confidings of close friend, he brings you into his life, and shares his struggles and desires, allowing them to then transpose with your own.

This track is the quintessential example of his unique ability. It’s a song that champions him as a poet of the common man, a steady discharge of introspection that effortlessly transforms itself into projection. It’s just Jay pouring his everyday thoughts out in a smooth and compelling flow that then mixes perfectly with the underlying languid funk of the accompanying instrumental. The result is a captivating track that espouses chillness down to its very core, the type of jam that like Jay, feels full and complete just by virtue of being itself.

4. Sisyphus – “Rhythm of Devotion”

Our glorious reunion continues in the presence of Sisyphus. It’s the second coming of the godly triumvirate, here once again to bless our ears with their immortal skill. It’s a rapture of sorts, transporting our mortal bodies from the doldrums of reality to the holy dance floor, compelling us to get down in the beautiful bliss of supernatural sublimity. It’s the type of heaven I could subscribe to. Forget the cherubs, streets of gold, and lounging amongst the clouds, all I need is the sweaty baptism of the sputtering percussion and the smoothly spasmodic synths. It’s a harmony unlike any other, smooth discordance, a world constructed for the listener to get lost within. A world in which Serengeti and Sufjan foil each other perfectly, where the harshness of reality melds with the ethereal realm of the unseen, and mortal souls reach out to tangle with their divine brethren. It results in a true rhythm of devotion, a prayer that spells itself out through interpretive dance, like some ancient age when gods actually communicated with their charges. It sweeps you up in its clutches, invigorating your soul, inundating it in emotion, tingeing it with a sort of visceral longing. It’s vehemence that turns flirtatious. The swinging of fists and shouted cries of frustrated, unanswered desire that then finds itself corralled within the tender embrace of understanding. It’s like an existential ritual in that sense, a rapture of the body and soul, an allegory of our spiritual journey. It’s the common human desire for something more, the desperation for acceptance, the longing to fit within something that’s bigger than just you, and the bliss of having found it.

3. Ricky Eat Acid – “p u l l (may15)”

Alas, the time has come for our wondrous yet short-lived reunion to come to a close, so we might as well go out with a bang, the big bang to be exact, or more like a continuous big bang of microscopic proportions, an unremitting chain of them lost within a gasping time loop, replaying in and out of existence, hazily fast forwarding and rewinding over and over again. It’s like your body is turning into a liquid supernova, splattering into millions of shards, only to momentarily be pulled back by the gravity of the self, gather into a puddle of humanity, and immediately unravel once again. Something like those kids in the old Caprisun commercials, short bursts of vibrant, mercurial liquidity. Ricky Eat Acid orchestrates this experience beautifully, like the hand of god frolicking amongst the universe. It begins with a languid conjuring, a suppressed and muddled crooning that slowly builds upon itself, indecisive purpose, imminent creation, simmering molasses reaching towards an unknown boiling point. When this point is reached, the magic ensues, shimmering beauty bursting forth from the cracks of nothingness, the turbid void suddenly coming to life in synth-driven explosions of brightness. It’s bearing witness to life in it’s rawest form, a beautiful experience that’s akin to floating around in the midst of a cosmic rainstorm, only each drop is filled with the life force of the universe, a stampede of stars twinkling in and out of reality, crippling your eyes in the afterglow of their momentary brilliance, bathing you in the warmth of existence, showering your soul with overwhelming heavenliness. After all, nobody knows with any certainty how everything began, but I like to imagine that this is what it felt like.

2. Vesuvio Solo – “Avion”

The nocturnal and heathen youths need an anthem, and Vesuvio Solo is here to oblige. This song is a brilliant track of seductive nonchalance, hazy adolescent hedonism at its finest. It has a sort of murky funk, a withdrawn passion that feels at home in the wee hours of the night amidst a smoke-filled room or out upon the brisk empty streets. It’s a song for cloudy windows and equally clouded minds, unkempt sheets and naked bodies. You can’t help but feel the urge to move your hips, to meander in the darkness, press up close to a lover and converge in a bout of passionate apathy. It’s a song with tenuous and languid substance, like the tendrils of smoke rising from the glowing nub of a half-burned cigarette, twisting and intertwining as they rise, only to flit away and become one with the darkness. Yet it’s that subtle quality that’s so appealing. It does just enough without overdoing it. It massages the mind, sending it rolling along on the undulating waves of a loosely bound consciousness, a type of surreal incubation, wrapping you up, holding and caressing you sweetly within its warm and warped embrace - and it feels oh so right.

1. Allie X – “Bitch"

Well folks, we’ve finally arrived, we’re here, five months late mind you, but still here nonetheless. Ahead of us lies the Top Track of 2014 in all of its magnificent and subjective glory, the long-awaited finish line laid out before our mortal ears patiently waiting for us to dive into its warm melodic mayhem. That being said, sometimes I wonder why I love this song so much, how it managed to hypnotize and transfix my senses, somehow sweeping me up in all of its momentous sardonic beauty, but then I remember that it encompasses everything that I love about music, and I fall in love all over again. It possesses that intangible quality, that holistic brilliance that enthralls you in such a way that it renders mere words useless, but since words are all I have, I shall nevertheless try to do it justice.

It’s something like a spastic intergalactic journey, a rollercoaster ride of an acid trip through the starry heavens above. It begins amidst the vacuum of an ethereal and languid soundscape, empty yet humming with the potential for life. Within it coexist the omnipresent and lulling synths of sub-space, as well as the faint, frail, and spacey shimmer of cosmic life. Suddenly the echoing funk of a haunting bass and the faint skitter of percussion interrupts our aimless and disjointed floating and sets us in motion, accompanied by the resonating beauty of the tongue in cheek vocals. It’s lyricism that’s soaked in sarcasm, simultaneously incisive and deadpan, hidden in static, yet shining through in all of its resounding crystalline glory, echoing in hollow emptiness, playfully interacting with its surroundings and perfectly nestling within the warm embrace of the lo-fi radiation. Then before we know it were pressed back against our seats, shot through space-time, a sling shot of choral light speed, engulfed and swallowed in psychedelic blurriness, recklessly flowing through a shimmering and pearlescent tube of light. It’s a musical explosion, a manic and chaotic aneurism of fuzz that sputters from distortion into a lapping tranquility, leaving us floating within a smooth and peacefully haunting void that’s peppered with jagged yelps. It’s a sensation that repeats itself, like the Enterprise stuck amidst a time loop, a musical wormhole wrapping your ears within its warm depravity, but unlike Captain Picard, you’re perfectly fine with riding this one out.

Yet compared to the sweeping grandeur of this track’s wondrous and haphazard vista, the factor that sets it apart, the defining characteristic that grabs hold of my heart and refuses to let it go, is something infinitesimally small in proportion. It’s something so subtle, so whimsical and unexpected, so simple, and yet so completely perfect. It’s the quintessential cherry on top, and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t even like cherries. And the best part is, it seems like an afterthought, a spur of the moment decision, a fleeting lapse of thoughtless abandonment. The defining fit of simplistic brilliance that I speak of is the “woo woo” that punctuates each line of the chorus. That’s right folks, I based my entire musical hierarchy and all of this list’s credibility upon a whimsical atavism, a guttural noise that sounds almost troglodytic in nature. Now I understand that this revelation could be entirely anticlimactic for some, but rest assured that although this is the straw that broke the camel’s back, the camel was already almost buried beneath straw. It’s an altogether wholly unique jam, a burst of intoxicating creativity that’s tinged with just the right amount of apathy. It brings together a mixture of elements that completely sums up my musical aesthetic, and that alone makes it like a (wet) dream come true, like Plato’s perfect forms come to life. Something that you conjure up in your mind, but never think will actually exist. It’s the perfect audile oxymoron, embracing quotidienne while at the same time transcending and obliterating it in an emotionally caustic fashion. It’s an amalgamation of all my discordant likes, an improbable mosaic of beauty, the definition of love at first listen, and my top track of 2014.