It looks like that time of year is upon us again. It's easy to look back on 2013 and recite the old, 'music aint what it used to be, I wish I lived in the 60s, kill me now', kind-of mantra but when attempting to compile this list, this being the Ball and Biscuit's second albums of the year post, I found narrowing down my ten ten LPs from 2013 a deviously tricky task. Therefore, below is a list of what may not necessarily be my absolute favourite ten albums of the year as to be frank my opinion on that manner of list changes daily but more a breakdown of what I believe this year has had to offer us music-wise. As with last year, they are not in any particular order and I have semi-tried but pretty much failed to not write about albums which haven't at some point this year featured on this blog. So without further ado I present to you an album which featured on this very blog back in March when I referred to them as 'the best new band I've heard this calendar year' (although it seems March is slightly early to be making these sorts of claims). First five coming right up!
To Kill A King - Cannibals With Cutlery
While 2013 has indeed been a good year for music, it hasn't been such a great year for emerging new bands - this becoming most apparent when considering the lack of debuts on this list. Cannibals With Cutlery is one of those 'how didn't it make the mercury list? Those judges are all fucking twats' sort of albums. While not being particularly alternative or 'out-there', the whole LP listened to as a collective communicates the feeling that lead man Ralph Pelleymounter and co have written an album for themselves, not particularly seeking massive fame but one that people can sit back, relax and enjoy, and in this idea is transmitted a radiant beauty which shines throughout each of the thirteen tracks. Opener 'I Work Nights and You Work Days' is an ode to a busy lover while follow up 'Cold Skin' relates to brotherly love and friendship (the repetition of outstanding lyric 'Place your head on my own' is pertinent in all the right ways) and is responsible for the admittedly minuscule amount of mainstream success the album has achieved. As 'Cannibals With Cutlery' gathers pace these radiant occurrences only grow in their frequency. 'Choices' is probably the pick, Pelleymounter's voice noticeably quivering when he reaches the emotional crescendo before belting out repeatedly, 'She's at our doorstep/ laden with flowers/ his garden is freezing, teasing you leaving me for hours', the most strangely memorable lyrics of the album only rivalled by 'Letter to my lover (the Dylan fan)'s closing proclamation, 'You can have your balcony by the sea, watch the waves come crashing down, each one erasing me'. It's all beautiful, it's all memorable and it's all worth a listen. There isn't a bad track on it and while something would halt me from considering this my album of the year, it was indeed the first to pop into my head when compiling this list. As an afterthought, finding a fellow TKAK fan, while not the easiest of tasks, is a source of immense enjoyment and one which has led me to one or two memorable conversations in the past twelve months, .It would seem they are already in the mould of reaching that often enviously sought-after 'cult' status.
Arctic Monkeys - AM
Well it was obviously going to turn up on this list somewhere so I may as well get it out the way. Smooth, sexy and reflective of yet another twist in their sound, the fifth offering from South Yorkshire's finest could in some respects be considered their best. When the Monkeys dropped 'R U Mine' in February 2012, over 18 months before AM reached our ears, we knew that the tweaks this formidable four-piece were making to their sound were going to eventually boil up into something special. 'R U Mine' is a peach of a tune, one which intertwines golden riffs with Alex Turner's lolling, lackadaisical LA-inspired vocals to phenomenal effect and even leaves us with the added bonus of Matt Helder's falsetto (lovely jubbly). The rest of the album may have come a lot later but it followed suit. Each of the singles have followed in 'R U Mine's vein, Turner oozing out sensational lyrics like there's no tomorrow - 'Why Do you Only Call Me When You're High, 'Arabella's got some interstellar-gator skin boots' and 'like the beginning of mean streets you can be my baby' reverberate round the mind just as the writer intended and with huge dollops of panache. While no one is accusing them of losing any of that stunningly northern grit which made them such 'rebels without a cause' in the first instance, the development of the now somewhat Anglo-American Monkeys has been greeted with a firm cheer and rave reviews and long may it continue, losing even a remote section of their fan-base appears an impossible task. We wait with baited breath for number six and at the rate Turner's moving at the moment (five Monkeys LPs, one Last Shadow Puppets release and a cult film soundtrack since 2006) we may not have to wait too long.
Mount Kimbie - Cold Spring Fault Less Youth
This is an excellent release. London duo Dominic Maker and Kai Campos are fast becoming amongst the elite of Britain's electronic artists with 2010s debut Crooks and Lovers garnering critical acclaim and placing the two Kimbieans on the map. May saw the release of Cold Spring Fault Less Youth, an album gleefully pleasing critics similarly to that of its predecessor and for good reason. Mount Kimbie know exactly what they're about, they stay relatively bound within the walls of their tried and tested method of genre-defining ambient dub and post-dubstep but it's the subtle variations which most catch the ear. This time round, they employed the services of one of 2013's breakthrough acts, the unmistakably ginger King Krule. I raved about the collaboration between the two on 'You Took Your Time' in a blog on Krule a few weeks back but the album also includes, 'Meter, Pale Tone' a second collab between the two and one which runs at a faster more engineered pace, a raunchy drum beat driving it the entire way. Krule's semi-contribution in a third tune and personal album highlight 'Break Well' proves to probably be the most important. As the track slows to what appears to be a floaty outro, Krule's voice suddenly flutters sharply and cuttingly into life with a simple wail and is followed up by one of the most scintillating bass lines I've ever heard - a minute of pure bliss reflecting just what these two do best. The album doesn't falter here, other standout tracks include' Made To Stray' which has come to feature in many 'top singles of 2013' lists in the world of the alternative music press and also 'Home Recording'. All in all, this is an album full to the brim with layer upon layer of innovation and is well worth its place on this here list.
Peace - In Love
2013 saw a semi-revival of the Birmingham indie-rock scene. Now there's a sentence which I certainly imagined I wouldn't be writing at this point twelve months ago. At the helm were four slightly odd-looking blokes who's music displays influence from the very very best - Oasis, Stone Roses, Kasabian, The Smiths, Blur and Nirvana are thrown in there for good measure and have led to the production of what I consider to be one of the most important albums of the year. We can always take a given calendar year and pinpoint those who led the supposed 'rock 'n' roll revival (The Vaccines, White Lies, Palma Violets and even Alt-J in recent times) but these breakthroughs have become less and less frequent and more and more underwhelming it seems in past years (the fact that I've even considered Alt-J is worrying, they're brilliant but certainly not rock 'n' roll), not something that can be said of our good friends Peace. I may not be the biggest fan of the name and it's lengthy disambiguation in Wikipedia but these guys do a job and they do it bloody well. 'Follow Baby' is a punch to the gut of an anthem and displays the quartet's love for grunge but it's the softer moments of the album that I feel have granted In Love its joie de vivre. The glistening oriental solo during opener 'Higher than the Sun', the dreamy Beach Boys 60s vibe of fan favourite 'California Daze' and the metronomic ambience of 'Float Forever' and its rousingly hippy instruction to 'Swim down through the fathoms of your soul/ If you don't try and get your feet wet/ You're a liar and a troll' making it an absolute banger. Peace may evaporate into thin air like so many others before them but at least they can say they tried bloody hard and at least put a smile of a number of adoring fans faces for a good year.
Jon Hopkins - Immunity
I think if there was a gun being held to my head and I simply had to pick one of these to be my album of the year it may well have to be this one, mainly considering the basis that I could literally have it on repeat all day without either tiring or at any point feeling the necessity to switch it off. Immunity is an emotional roller coaster of an album, told in beats and in tempo-change rather than vocal prowess but with devastating affect. There's no point describing each song as a separate entity (although I will say that the linked track 'Open Eye Signal' below is an absolute thrill ride and not one for the faint-hearted), the entire thing must be listened to as a whole in order to be properly understood but if you do, and once you have reached the closing title track, then and only then will the true genius of this work be properly established in your mind. Next up for Hopkins is a collaboration with Natasha Khan of Bat For Lashes, a match-made in heaven if you ask me and one which I look forward to hearing. For now, this masterpiece remains firmly embedded in top-ten 2013 album lists across the globe, it is the shit.
The next batch of five albums coming soon to a Facebook or twitter page near you... (probably at the latest Thursday, I do always like to place a timeframe on these things).
Peace out.
