Ok, look...I get it. This is a blog for experimental music, I mean it says so right in the header, right? Also, I get that today, being new years day, it is technically 2018 and therefore not the best time to still be posting these things. But sometimes, you just gotta break some rules in the name of good music finding new ears. Anyways, I'll be the first to admit to liking a good pop song, I don't at all subscribe to the idea of "guilty pleasures". Simply put, If you like it, own it, don't feel the need to justify your tastes! Luckily for you, who might not share that same sentiment as me when it comes to pop music, most of the stuff on here is still pretty out there, a bunch of which could have easily ended up on one of my electronic or ambient lists if not for a) slight deviations from certain criteria, like lyrics or acoustic instruments, or more likely b) me forgetting to add them to those other lists until right now and so therefore scrambling on new years day to create ONE LAST LIST before everyone inevitably sets their sights to 2018. Anyways, now that I've gotten this absurd rant out of the way, it is my distinct honour to share with you my favourite pop, rock, and instrumental records from 2017, in no particular order (except for Midwife which is pretty much the best album of the year! sorry!)
Midwife - Like Author, Like Daughter
If I had to choose a single favourite album from 2017, in any genre, this would be the one. It also happens to be the one that fucks with my emotions the most, the one that I have to listen to most sparingly, lest I fall headfirst into the all too comfortable, all consuming melancholy that beckons from the grooves of this record so enticingly. Comfort is the real danger here, Madeline Johnston (formerly Sister Grotto) singing defeated lyrics' like "I'm ready to die" in a way that sounds almost empowering in it's self assured sadness, a chorus of relief in having given up so completely. The repetitive, slowly building power chords of Johnston's reverb drenched, fuzzed out guitars, paired with ethereal vocals that drift like snow, sounds something like Grouper's Liz Harris taking on the nostalgia drenched guitar work of 90's slowcore legends Duster, making for some of the most soul-crushingly beautiful, and beautifully soul crushing music you could ever hope to hear.
https://midwifeco.bandcamp.com/album/like-author-like-daughter
Mauno - Tuning
With Tuning, Mauno have perfected the art of the grower album. The post-punk inflected indie rockers from Halifax have a knack for creating some of the most unassumingly catchy yet deceptively complex rock songs that slowly reveal themselves on each listen, until seemingly out of nowhere, you find yourself singing every single word, anticipating every sudden change in melody and playing air guitar along to every jagged edged riff to come ripping out of the speakers. Male and female vocals trade back and forth with words of regret and loss, two heartbroken slackers exchanging stories of their biggest fuck-ups and trashed relationships. Voices ascend and drift gently to the earth like leaves hanging in the wind, jangling guitars following closely behind, resulting in a sound that comes across as something like Grizzly Bear fronted by a bunch of angsty, post-punk obsessed twenty-somethings.
https://mauno.bandcamp.com/album/tuning-canada-us
Girl Ray - Earl Grey
A collection of absolutely charming pop music created by three 19 year old girls from North London, these songs display at once an undeniably youthful, wide eyed energy and lust for life, as well as a maturity in craftsmanship and confidence that extends well beyond the young age of these psychadelic pop-rockers. With classic rock sensibilities and impeccable production that bring to mind some of the best English folk and rock music to come out of the 60's and 70's, mixed with the more modern classic folk sounds of Andy Shauff and Cass Mccombs. A truly ambitious approach to such simply written pop songs, Earl Grey offers sprawling arrangements, complete with surprise horn sections and Beatles-esque three part vocal harmonies that soar through the air with confidence, a Phil Spector wall of sound scaled down to the confines of a teenagers bedroom.
https://girlray.bandcamp.com/album/earl-grey
It It - Formal Odours
Certainly the strangest album on this list, Formal Odours brings together a kaleidoscopic blend of post-punk, field recordings, and abstract, sample heavy sound collaging to create one of the most unknowable records of the year, a truly baffling work of art that reveals itself one moment, before once more disappearing into a shroud of mystique, new sounds and elements jumping out at you on each listen. A truly engaging experience, the sharp twists and turns that these songs take requiring you as a listener to stay on their your at all times, lest you miss even one moment of the utterly transcendent, singular weirdness on display here.
https://ititpgh.bandcamp.com/album/formal-odors
Tonstartssbandht - Sorcerer
The hard rocking, free wheeling, reverb loving real-life sibling duo with the weirdest band name on earth, are back with their best album yet, a collection of three 10ish minute sprawling bluesy classic rock shredders that serve both as as unadulterated guitar worship to the gods of classic rock, while also maintaining that signature brand of cock-sure, psych guitar rock so undeniably their own. Exchanging back and forth their open-tuned, psychadelic 12 string guitar freak out's and rollicking, self indulgent kraut-rock percussive gymnastics, this is the sound of two brothers who have grown up making music together their entire lives, a communication between players that exists on a genetic level, allowing for the most impromptu, impovisational shifts on the turn of a dime. The result is an album of the energetic, positively invigorating kind of rock and roll that just makes you want to throw up the devil horns and chug a beer, and maybe even get into a little bit of trouble with the law.
https://tonstartssbandht.bandcamp.com/album/sorcerer
Ulrika Spacek - Modern English Decoration
It's would be extremely difficult for me to write this review without name dropping a certain band, so I'm just gonna go ahead and get this out of the way real quick: this album sounds alot like Microcastle era Deerhunter, down to the twanging guitars, deep-travelling psychedelic instrumental breakdowns, and distorted, shoegaze-y vocals. And you know what? I am perfectly OK with that, because Microcastle was a perfect fucking record in every way and this is the only rock album I've ever heard to match that blurred out escapist rock sound with something new and fresh. Do not get me wrong; Ulrika Spacek absolutely bring much of their own thing to the table; trading off Deerhunters dreamy, starry eyed brand of melancholy for something a bit more angular, and rough around the edges, a defiant middle finger and a hard glass of whiskey to Microcastle's tears and opiate-numbness.
https://ulrikaspacek.bandcamp.com/album/modern-english-decoration-2
Circuit de Yeux - Reaching for Indigo
Apparently Circuit De Yeux have put out five records already, and though this is admittedly the first I've ever listened to them, Reaching for Indigo has proved an incredibly rich and diverse foray into their unique blend of styles, a dense mixture of sounds that brings new rewards on each repeated listen. Carried by Haley Fohr's androgynous, haunted vocals that bring to mind the deep croons Nico and Bridgette St. John, with instrumental arrangements equal parts kraut and progressive rock, swirling with the earthly tones of flutes, piano, violin, and other acoustic instruments, the sound is pushed forward with a persistent Motorik kineticism that just barely manages to hold this vast tapestry of ideas together by the seams.
https://circuitdesyeux.bandcamp.com/
Delia Gonzales - Horse Follows Darkness
Another album on this list that is largely indebted to the space-rocking, cosmic travelling sounds of early German electronic bands like Neu and Harmonia, Horse Follows Darkness is a modern kraut-rock infused trip to the far reaches of the cosmos, piano's and keys surfing along the vast darkness and leaving behind bright tracers of neon lights that dance and flutter in their wake. Much like the hypnotic, trance inducing rhythms of techno music, Horse Follows Darkness employs the use of minimalism and repetition as a means of emphasizing moments of utter cathartic release, minute elements given space to grow and shrink back, before inevitably being freed in an overwhelmingly glorious torrent of sounds and colours, liberated from the confines of Delia's expertly methodical restraint.
https://deliagonzalez.bandcamp.com/album/horse-follows-darkness