The Best Fit Fifty: Albums of 2011
And just like that, the year was over. Twelve months of strangeness – to be followed, one suspects, by twelve more months of even more acute strangeness.
2011 will be remembered for a host of events that might previously have been thought unthinkable. The fall of ostensibly unassailable dictators. Insurrection in the capital. Goo Goo Dolls in the charts AGAIN.
But it will also, we hope, be remembered as a year of unexpected, often frustrating, but always exciting music. This list is a selection of some of the records we’ve come to love over the course of the last twelve months. Some clicked for us immediately, while others needed some work. Some we agree on, others we absolutely, unequivocally do not (sorry, Merrill Garbus).
We hope there’s something here you love. Either way, we look forward to the flurry of tweets telling us how irredeemably shit our taste is, and how we oughtn’t dare publish anything of the sort next year or else. Happy Christmas.
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50. Rustie – Glass Swords
With four years behind him, 2011 was the year that Glasgow-based producer Rustie finally unleashed his debut album. In Glass Swords Russell Whyte – under his alias of Rustie – has created a modern dance album for people who don’t even like ‘dance music’ in its standardised form. Each track is varied and versatile, complete with epic build-ups and breakdowns, and a dizzying array of influences. Released via Warp, Glass Swords is a constant 46-minute high, demonstrated most audibly in standout tracks ‘Surph’, ‘All Nite’ and ‘After Light’. Indulgent yet effective, Glass Swords is pure euphoric escapism.
-Heather Steele
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49. Ben UFO – Rinse 16
In a year of great mixes, there was one to which I kept coming back. Ben UFO’s Rinse selection is a lesson in expertly executed eclecticism. Full of unexpected shifts, this collection is defiantly genre-neutral: at one moment it’s Berghain, the next it’s Bristol. The sound of one of the capital’s best-loved DJs at the very height of his powers.
-Josh Hall
48. And So I Watch You From Afar – Gangs
Seldom has an album been more aptly titled. Gangs is the sound of a band against whom the world has seemed to conspire; a band who have done it all themselves, and who have fostered a true sense of us-against-them grit in the process. While their debut was the sound of four young men overcome with the power of ridiculous distortion, Gangs saw them whittle down their excesses until they were left with a beautiful, tender, very human core. Surrounded, of course, in ridiculous distortion.
-Josh Hall
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47. Julianna Barwick – The Magic Place
Fairly ludicrous Enya comparisons aside, Julianna Barwick’s first full length for Asthmatic Kitty is a strange, ethereal trip through looped choral vocals, haunting, Lynchian soundscapes and restless melodic and rhythmic repetition. It’s an album that demands your attention and lulls you with it’s mesmeric qualities. A bright future must be on the cards for this hipster-friendly new-ager.
-Michael James Hall
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46. Nils Frahm – Felt
The release of Felt marked a sincerely welcome return for Nils Frahm, who kindly indulged our desire to hear lovelorn, yearning piano melodies through an extremely sensitive microphone. Picking up the dust and the crackle as well as the poignant heart and soul of his music, Frahm endeavours to place tone and ambiance on the same pedestal as melody and in doing so, creates a truly wonderful body of work.
-Francine Gorman
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45. Other Lives – Tamer Animals
Despite their expansive Americana leanings, pastoral harmonies and Jesse Tabish’s wispy, wisftul voice, Oklahomans Other Lives owe less to the post-Fleet Foxes brigade as they do to Grizzly Bear’s inventive sonic field. Gorgeous production nuances tint every corner of their lush chamber folk arrangements, multi-instrumental washes that create a slow burning stillness amid the sonic equivalent of vast prairie spaces.
-Simon Tyers
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44. Mogwai – Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
The seventh studio album from the Glasgow post-rockers, Hardcore… was instantly heralded as a jewel of the Mogwai record collection upon its release back in February. Masterfully moulding together the band’s incomparable ability to create intricately produced, super-modern arrangements with their love of a face melting hook, with this record, Mogwai have created their most accessible but also arguably their most ambitious work to date.
-Francine Gorman
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43. Iceage – New Brigade
Iceage haven’t made a pop record, at least not in the traditional sense; there’s too much bedlam, too many patches of noisy clangor for their songs to be rock-radio friendly. But the pure propulsive energy, and the palatable devotion to their heroes (basically a checklist of every revered noise-leaning post-punk act of the last few decades) have them verging on something universal. New Brigade is harks back to an era where punk spirit was just as unwavering as it was enthusiastic.
-Luke Winkie
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42. Three Trapped Tigers – Route One Or Die
I was settling into my cosy little “contemporary guitar music = almost exclusively shit” prejudice quite nicely before Three Trapped Tigers turned up. But then, over the course of three EPs and the stunning Route One Or Die, the trio made six strings interesting again. With one foot in post-hardcore and one in the noisier jazz hinterlands, Route One… is one of the most exciting, best-conceived records of the year.
-Josh Hall
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41. Modeselektor – Monkeytown
Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary must surely rank amongst the world’s luckiest musicians. From inauspicious Berlin roots the pair have become a certifiable German institution – and Monkeytown marks the final stage in their transformation. A glorious mix of big-room techno, hip-hop, and 22nd Century pop, Monkeytown is everything Modeselektor have ever promised to be.
-Josh Hall
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40. The Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble – Mr Machine
Brandt Brauer Frick are the definition of modernity. Relentlessly forward-thinking yet cognisant of their heritage, the German trio have penned some of the most exhilarating, intelligent music of the year. Mr Machine illustrates the depth of the trio’s compositions particularly well, comprised as it is of half a dozen retoolings of previous tracks. This isn’t repetition, though; it’s exploration. Fascinating.
-Josh Hall
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39. Battles – Gloss Drop
Blossoming from very difficult beginnings, this second release from Battles overcame all sorts of problems and adversity to provide us with a stunning collection of epic trails and tracks, knotted together by collaborations with some serious alt. world talent. Riddled with delectable rhythms, off kilter melodies and a host of outstanding guests, it’s clear that Gloss Drop’s tempestuous start to life clearly did it nothing but good.
-Francine Gorman
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38. Dels – Gob
2011 helped to highlight that British hip-hop isn’t confined to E3. Gob, one of the year’s standout albums regardless of genre, has barely a surface coating of grime. In fact, it has more in common with the Heath Robinson instrumentalism of Micachu, who contributes production, than with anything coming out of Bow. Consistently charming, in an odd, 8-bit fashion.
-Josh Hall
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37. Destroyer – Kaputt
Kaputt is an album of extraordinary depth. It’s languorous, elegiac and hopeful all at once; more than anything, it’s just plain gorgeous. The band’s soft rock instrumentation and near-danceable groove offers a fascinating foil for the nasty world through which Dan Bejar, weary but clear-eyed, guides us. By the time Bejar murmurs, “I’ve seen it all” on album-closer ‘Bay of Pigs,’ we believe him.
-Tyler Boehm
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36. tUnE-yArDs – W H O K I L L
The Line Of Best Fit staff nearly came to blows over this record. I was obsessed with it on release; I still think it’s a fantastically entertaining, mildly deranged collection of songs that cast nods in the direction of three separate continents while never feeling like an attempt at co-option. Everyone else thought it was unlistenable.
-Josh Hall
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35. Connan Mockasin – Forever Dolphin Love
Fluid and spacious, yet intricate and commanding, Connan Mockasin impressed through and through with this, his debut record. Released through Erol Alkan’s Phantasy Sounds label and self recorded in New Zealand, Forever Dolphin Love showcases Connan’s staggering musical capabilities and his talent for crafting whole worlds and stories using just a handful of instruments and his unique, magical imagination as his tools.
-Francine Gorman
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34. Braids – Native Speaker
An impressive showcase of vocal gymnastics, musical prowess and originality is what to expect from this glorious record from Montreal’s Braids. So impressive it was that it garnered itself a nomination for the prestigious Polaris Music prize this year, and rightly so. Braids are masters of dynamics, carefully engineering the ebb and flow of their songs before flooding them with enchanting, arresting vocals to create a stunning album from a very promising group.
-Francine Gorman
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33. Shabazz Palaces – Black Up
The debut from the Seattle-based hip hop collective stands out for its ability to transcend genres and breathe life into the word “alternative” without provoking a chorus of sneers and jibes. You need not question who’s behind it. The only thing worth asking is, “how can this be bettered?”
-Jamie Milton
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32. SBTRKT – SBTRKT
There’s a fine line between tasteful dub and shameless pop in this record, yet Aaron Jerome walks the tightrope with relatively few slip-ups. Many self-proclaimed “experts” of 2-step, electronica or dubstep might lambast SBTRKT’s efforts but in reality, he’s crafted an album suited for both grimy basement clubs and giant festival tents. That takes some doing.
-Jamie Milton
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31. Gruff Rhys – Hotel Shampoo
The eleven tracks on Hotel Shampoo move in such effortless melodic patterns so as to charm the casual listener, but also brim with enough oddball invention to satisfy Super Furry Animals devoties. Such a schizophrenic realisation of Rhys’ songwriting palette could sound overcooked, or worse contrived, but cohesion is offered by the warmth of his increasingly honeyed croon – sometimes jocund, sometimes grave, but always gently recognisable, like an invisible framework upon which more esoteric whims can be fashioned. It’s the idiosyncrasies that make Gruff Rhys great; you wouldn’t change him for all the hotel shampoo sculptures in Wales.
-James Lachno
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30. Zomby – Dedication
If you follow him on Twitter, you’d be forgiven for suspecting that Zomby is in the middle of a year-long breakdown – a suspicion to which Dedication gives nothing but credence. A claustrophobic, frequently nightmarish record that suffocates as much as it enthrals.
-Josh Hall
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29. M83 – Hurry Up We’re Dreaming
It seems like Anthony Gonzalez packed every captivating sound that has caught his ear these past few years into Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, crafting a sprawling but centered double-album that is both refreshingly new and unabashedly retro. The record draws on many different pop touchstones throughout its 22 lively tracks, but Gonzalez frequently takes his energetic synth anthems to a rarefied air, sounding absolutely massive in the process, but still managing to be intimate enough to find a way into your heart. The stirring songs are perfectly suited for both a packed nightclub as well as a solitary evening drive, allowing the listener both the freedom to get down to the music as well as the luxury of getting lost in it as well.
-Erik Thompson
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28. Josh T. Pearson – Last Of The Country Gentlemen
Long as most of the seven tracks on Last Of The Country Gentlemen are, especially as they’re pretty much just vocal and acoustic guitar, you can barely tear yourself away from them for a moment. Such is the intensely compelling nature of Pearson’s long gestating solo craft, willing to bear its scars and rake over long overexamined ground, telling its frank tales of self-doubt and self-loathing in search of a singular catharsis.
-Simon Tyers
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27. Real Estate – Days
Days follows the same sonic blueprint that made Real Estate’s debut so enjoyable: songs that run together, get jumbled in your memory and somehow make each other better, like the warm glow that nostalgia brings to childhood memories.
-Tyler Boehm
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26. Tom Waits – Bad As Me
Given that it’s the first album of his fifth decade, Bad as Me stands proudly as one of Tom Waits’s most concise, effective statements. Old friendships get rekindled, new collaborators are introduced and Tom Waits’s unique universe is once again open for business. Bad as Me is the man’s best work since Mule Variations, and yet another fantastic Tom Waits album. To quote the good man, is there any other kind?
-Alex Wisgard
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25. CANT – Dreams Come True
Created by the fair hands of Grizzly Bear multi-instrumentalist Chris Taylor, Dreams Come True is a soul ridden, electronically driven gem of a debut record. Reflecting influences that might not necessarily sit comfortably within a Grizzly Bear environment, Taylor did everything to ensure that Dreams Come True was a work of pure self expression. Packed with masterful production and sublime textures, is there anything that this guy CANT do? (sorry).
-Francine Gorman
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24. King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – Diamond Mine
Songs that are expansive yet filled with solitude. There’s an idyllic quality throughout that suggests Jon Hopkins has captured the very essence of what King Creosote has spent 45 albums trying to convey. A (quietly) roaring success.
-Finbarr Bermingham
23. Ghostpoet – Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam
The debut long player from the Coventry based poet has the potential to have wide spread appeal and is geared towards those who are receptive to pushing the boundaries of a genre that has yet to solidify its identity away from American shores. The infectious beats and relaxed style act as a persuasion to hit the repeat button and let the record play in its entirety over and over again.
-Slavko Bucifal
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22. Girls – Father, Son, Holy Ghost
Transcendent pop music rarely needs an asterisk, and even with all the subsequent (and valid) discourse we’ve assigned to a band like Girls, its sometimes meaningful to let it breathe, and let yourself fall in love. The place in the cosmos for Father, Son, Holy Ghost will be hammered out for decades. As of right now, it’s merely a great, great album with few caveats, which is something that can’t be taken for granted.
-Luke Winkie
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21. Wilco – The Whole Love
The American Radiohead™ pull a fast one on their expanding middle-of-the-road rockist audience by slamming the brakes on 2009’s Wilco: The Album and lunging backwards towards their ‘golden era’ of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost Is Born to reveal a tough, jagged tear at the seams of rock n roll with this progressive, endlessly melodic, nudging, winking album. Tracks like ‘The Whole Love’ represent the band at their most crafted and commercial while career highlight ‘One Sunday Morning’ sees them at their most heartfelt and moving. That wonderful tracks as disparate as the 60s tinged ‘I Might’ can sit so snugly alongside misanthropic balladry like ‘Sunloathe’ is testament to why Wilco can still legitimately be called one of the greatest bands in the world.
-Michael James Hall
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20. Lykke Li – Wounded Rhymes
Mining heartbreak and consequent loss of self-composure is a well worn path, but Lykke Liapproached it by putting herself at the heart of darkness, both defiant and broken. Whether bleakly broken or coming on like a laptop Wall Of Sound it retains a distinctive sound even among the packed field of yearning female singers, building on the pathos of unrequited love to craft believable, effective youthful laments.
-Simon Tyers
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19. Pure X – Pleasure
Pure X’s debut channels the stoned spirit of psychedelia through the prism of shoegaze, a hazy journey accompanied by meandering guitar lines and echoing bass. If you’ve got a totem animal, better call him now. It’s a heavy trip.
-Chris Lo
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18. Bon Iver – Bon Iver
While Bon Iver’s debut record was firmly rooted in the romanticized Wisconsin cabin it was created in, his gorgeous follow-up is comprised of inspiration found both everywhere and nowhere all at once. It encapsulates the private thoughts that keep us up at night which we won’t tell anyone, as well as the familiar shared experiences amongst friends that grow more mythical each time the stories are repeated. The deeply moving songs are intensely personal as well as communal, with names that reflect places both real and imagined. And that uneasy dichotomy pulses at the heart of these riveting numbers, where you feel you know exactly what Justin Vernon is singing about but yet you suspect you truly have no clue. Instead of looking for answers within these delicately enchanting tracks, it’s best to just let them carry you away to somewhere you’ll either recognize immediately or will delight in discovering anew.
-Erik Thompson
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17. Metronomy – The English Riviera
The English Riviera gives the inclination of a frontman who is on an unprecedented level of ease from a writing perspective, and this contagious aptitude has mutated handsomely to craft a refreshingly mature album that exceeds expectation. Take a bow Metronomy.
-Christian Adofo
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16. Woods – Sun & Shade
An album seeped in the past and filled with rustic charm, beneath its twelve songs lies a band with a severe sense of split personality. On one hand, Woods are a straight-ahead (albeit lo-fi) pop group that craft sweet-as-candy tunes that could melt even the hardest of hearts, yet, underneath the hood there’s an experimental element at play throughout Sun & Shade. After all, how many albums have you heard this year that can conjur up both the spirit of Can and The Band in one fell swoop?
-Richard Thane
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15. Gang Gang Dance – Eye Contact
Ultra-upbeat, startlingly sensual and madly progressive, Eye Contact represents the Florence & The Machine inspiring Manhattanites’ most consistent stab yet at the (relatively speaking) mainstream while losing none of their earlier full-pelt experimental charm. Gems like ‘Mindkilla’ feel simultaneously glass fragile and stunningly potent.
-Michael James Hall
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14. WALLS – Coracle
Coracle is the second record from London based music makers WALLS and quickly proved itself to be a more dance orientated proposition than anything we’d heard from the duo before. Electronic twitches, seeping layers and solid sequences invite us to voyage deeper into the record, while seriously synthesised live instruments tucked beneath imaginative electronic engineering entice us towards the dance floor. Gloriously therapeutic and effortlessly cool, this is an absolute gem of a British electronic record.
-Francine Gorman
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13. Ryan Adams – Ashes & Fire
Ryan Adams sure does clean up well. He left behind the Cardinals (and his notoriously uneven recent output) in favor of a more tranquil, acoustic-based album, which brought a renewed sense of focus and freedom to the venerable songwriter. While his personal and emotional life seems to be sorted and blissful, his songs are still heartbreakingly vulnerable, holding as much tender charm as his best loved material. The tracks do away with the self-indulgent meandering of much of Adams’ latest work, in favor of a concise subtlety that imbues the numbers with a poignant elegance and allure that lingers long after the music stops.
-Erik Thompson
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12. Austra – Feel It Break
Goth, electro-dance, pop – Austra reigned them all this year on their debut album, Feel it Break. Everything comes together for Katie Stelmanis and co. on this record, from the shimmering arrangements to the centerpiece that is Stelmanis’ soaring, operatic voice. An exciting introduction that leaves us wanting more.
-Melody Lamb
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11. Katy B – On A Mission
On A Mission manages to fall, perfectly equidistant, between the two stools of Rinse-endorsed new-London magic and Magnetic Man pop-step fuckery. It’s unashamedly commercial (much to the distaste, one imagines, of many late-night Rinse listeners) but, thankfully, tends to remain several leagues ahead of Katy B’s peers’ most recent offerings. A flawed record, but a very, very enjoyable one.
-Josh Hall
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10. Active Child – You Are All I See
R&B has been somewhat scrutinised – for the better one would argue – in the last 12 months as music fans try to decide on the merits of artists performing ‘outside’ of their apparent comfort zone. Yet, rather inevitably, instincts speak with the most clarity and they’re unlikely to deny you with the debut from Pat Grossi.
Not necessarily a break-up album but a record that symbolises the inability to let go through a fear of being alone, the man behind Active Child cuts a very lonely figure indeed; damaged from the broken promises made to him by emotional engagement. Despair hangs over many of the songs with a deeper, all-consuming balladry taking hold to smother the listener and lead to a very personal affair.It marks a terrifically ambitious debut record; one which displays a rather unsettling sense of despondency but evades being negatively dragged down by it. Grossi stops short of stripping you entirely though – in the way Antony Hegarty and James Blake sometimes can, grandiose company you sense he aspires to be in. He won’t have to wait too long, though.
-Matt Dando
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9. Peaking Lights – 936
The phenomenon of synesthesia- where people see sounds as colours – is often reported by those indulging in mind-altering substances. For those of us living our lives on the straight and narrow, Wisconsin analogue-pop duo Peaking Lights‘ second record is the closest thing we’ll ever get to knowing sound and colour as homogenous senses. 936 is a sonic kaleidoscope of an album, distilling all that’s bright and good in music.
-Michelle Kambasha
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8. The Weeknd – House Of Balloons
In the rising sea of mixtapes this year, Toronto wunderkind The Weeknd rose above the pack and delivered not one but three albums. House of Balloons, the debut offering from Abel Tesfaye, is filled to the brim with drugged-out atmospherics, sexual tension and unexpected samples that turned songs by Beach House and Siouxie and the Banshees into the brickwork for R&B masterpieces. Tesfaye paces listeners from the bass-laden party jams all the way to the smooth morning-after soundtrack, never shying away from explicitly detailing everything that happened in between. House of Balloons is one of the best albums of the year and undoubtedly the sexiest.
-Melody Lamb
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7. patten – Glaqjo Xaacsso
A strange combination of rhythmic stricture and unabashed freak-out. There is so much going on here, so many reference points; from Detroit tech to pastoral, drugged-up English electronica; from Laurent Garnier to Luke Abbott. Exhaustingly brilliant.
-Josh Hall
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6. When Saints Go Machine – Konkylie
Back in June, When Saints Go Machine finally unveiled their long awaited album Konkylie, and although we at The Line of Best Fit have been huge fans of the Danish collective for a long time, the record completely surpassed all expectations. The pop pinch of ‘Kelly’, the expansive sounds of ‘Parix’ and the resonating tremble of ‘Church and Law’ make Konkylie an emotionally authentic, sincerely enjoyable proposition. Nikolaj Manuel Vonsild’s soft and soulful vocal adds humanity to the meticulously arranged electronic backdrop, to provide all of the ingredients that we’d dared to hope for – blissful melodies, serene sounds and solid, hypnotic beats.
-Francine Gorman
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5. Loney dear – Hall Music
There are some albums which require a listener to slow down their life’s hectic pace in order to take the time to fully appreciate them. And then there are some records that completely stop you in your tracks. Loney Dear‘s Hall Music is clearly one of those stop you in your tracks releases which contain such gorgeous, unvarnished beauty that it causes the din and demands of daily life to fade away, leaving you with just the fragile voice and enthralling instrumentation of Emil Svanängen soundtracking your inevitable swoon.
The Swedish songwriter has consistently crafted elegant, deeply affecting music throughout his distinguished, understated career, but this lovely new batch of songs represents a full realization of the rich and textured sound that Svanängen has been working towards this entire time.
-Erik Thompson
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4. Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring For My Halo
“I don’t wanna change, but I don’t wanna stay the same,” Kurt Vile sings on ‘Peeping Tomboy’, the gorgeously effortless eighth track on Smoke Ring For My Halo. As his fourth solo full-length release to date, the prolific Vile demonstrates a renewed, progressive sound without compromising his distinctive loose n’ lazy, distorted vocals and lingering lyrical wit. Both time transcending, yet distinctly American, Philadelphian Vile creates guitar music at its modern best. Smoke Ring… bears witness to fuller instrumentation, particularly on the electric eccentricity that is ‘Puppet To The Man’. The occasional smattering of a harp and piano – especially effective on the rambling ‘Society Is My Friend’ and ‘On Tour’ – shows Vile’s versatility, while the repetitive marrying of percussion and strings on ‘Runner Ups’ is full-bodied and blissful.
As Kurt Vile makes the transition from his previous home-recorded, crackling efforts towards a more polished collection, while losing none of the rawness that makes his music so charming and timeless. From the haunting demise of ‘Ghost Town’, through to the astonishingly upbeat ‘Jesus Fever’, and the immense beauty of ‘Baby’s Arms’, Smoke Ring For My Halo is an album that can only be bettered in a live environment, alongside his band The Violators, and surrounded by his silent, enraptured fans.
-Heather Steele
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3. The War On Drugs – Slave Ambient
The transitory, searching quality that pulses through Slave Ambient is certainly no accident. In the lengthy process of making this record, Adam Granduciel took his time piecing his fractured band back together again, writing songs that would see him through the precarious days of his group’s near implosion. He eventually surrounded himself with some new, like-minded musicians, but has only improved on the intimate, rousing road anthems that originally caught everyone’s attention on Wagonwheel Blues. This stellar new collection is a sprawling but focused work that represents a full realization of Granduciel’s exploratory musical leanings, with songs full of not only wonderment and vulnerability, but also the uneasy confidence that a new start often brings.
It seems as if the album itself is a hazy reaffirmation that making music is the only true path for Granduciel, and he graciously takes us along with him while he grows to learn he’s made the right choice. These expansive, gorgeous songs are all imbued with a sheepish inclusivity, as if Adam is surprised that people are still listening to his restless ruminations, but is so very thankful that we are. With tracks as glorious as ‘Your Love Is Calling My Name,’ ‘Come To The City,’ and the soaring ‘Baby Missiles,’ we’d be foolish not to be listening. There are familiar, classic rock elements layered within all of these well-worn numbers, but the tracks are packed with a modern urgency that make them sound entirely of-the-moment, giving them a timeless quality as well. Wherever you think you are when you begin Slave Ambient isn’t where you’ll seem to be when it finishes, for this album truly takes you somewhere special along the way.
-Erik Thompson
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2. Korallreven – An Album By Korallreven
A labour of love, time and temperance from the minds of Marcus Joons and Daniel Tjäder (of The Radio Dept.) – Korallreven have, over the course of two years, been steadily crafting away at these ten sumptious tunes. A record that needs to be digested in one, from start to finish with no pause or hesitation – An Album delivers on every level and leaves you satisfied, yet eager for your next trip. No doubt one of the defining releases of 2011.
Marcus Joons says of the release – “Korallreven all started in my mind when I was in Samoa three years ago. And though I wanted us/Korallreven to make pop songs that were spiritual like the local Samoan Catholic church choirs, hypnotic like the breathtaking tropical nature and above all a feeling of finally reaching the other side, it felt kinda natural to call it Korallreven. Just taste it once again – Ko-rall-rev-en. Beautiful, ain’t it? And fresh. So, we had an extremely clear vision since the birth of the band. It has always been about expressing what makes us feel the pure ecstasy of what in popular terms used to be called ‘life’. It has been all about high inexplicable feelings. (This album) has been the easiest thing that I have done in my life – yet, at the same time it has been the toughest because this is in my mind, all the time.”
-Richard Thane
1. I Break Horses – Hearts
The mark of a truly outstanding record is its ability to tap into the human condition. As a creation, art is both biography and commentary – whether this is deliberate or not. Great art tells us something about ourselves, it connects (sometimes in a way that we don’t understand at first) and resonates with a certain time and place.
In 2011, there was no better sonic model to deliver such ideas than I Break Horses’ debut, which beautifully filters its genre touchstones through a subjective musical experience. The intricate, fragile textures of the record are inextricably linked to the ultimate failure of life (ie inevitable death) that permeates the themes of each song. They’re hyper-exaggerated truths that none of us want to face – but our subconscious is acutely aware that mortality is a very precarious situation indeed.
For this reason alone, the record stands out in a rich year for new music. The quite unique partnership of Maria Lindén and Fredrik Balck (she the creator and musical director, he the wordsmith and percussionist) gave way to a deceptively cohesive collection of songs that are by turns, dramatic, bristling and heart-breaking. Layer upon delicate layer of atmosphere and subtle chord changes reveal a partnership that’s completely in sync with one another. Lindén’s understated vocal, set against a quilted sea of instrumentation, becomes the dominant force on the record, soaring and falling as it delivers poetic, near-haikus like “strike out to collide/hit nothing but empty hearts…”
Hearts isn’t a record for the faint. Live with it for a while and it reveals more on each listen, with the distinctly poppy undertones that coat each track’s core melody rising slowly to the surface and revealing an embarrassment of riches: songs that are the result of a perfectionism and bloody mindedness we rarely see nowadays in the music industry. It’s just that good.
Of course we’ve always looked kindly on quality Scandinavian music – this is no secret to anyone who visits this site regularly or has even a passing acquaintance with many of our editorial staff and writers (virtual or IRL). Couple that to our fondness for Bella Union – one of the leading labels with a high curatorial benchmark, impeccable signings and associations – and there was little doubt we’d not fall in love with I Break Horses.
“It feels like a deeply personal record”, explains our editor Rich Thane, “not only for its creators but also for us. Disposable music washes over us on a daily basis and it’s records like Hearts that – given time – will go down as classics of the modern day.”
Put simply, I Break Horses are a band that, we’re convinced, will continue to dazzle, to experiment and to intrigue. Hearts is our album of the year.
-Paul Bridgewater
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