The Sounds In My Head So Far This Year
We’re halfway through 2015 — I mean, summer is practically done already and the next six months will be gone before you know it, even though each goddamn day will take an eternity to get through — so let’s take a look at what’s been good so far this year if you’re me listening to music. Rather than load down your page with a ton of sound and video I’ve placed a link back to tracks from each selection, where available; those albums without links are just as worthy of exploration, particularly the Ensemble Signal take on Steve Reich, which I can’t stop listening to. Anyway, you will notice that most of this music is wordless and fairly blippy-bloppy-meer-meer intensive, which is deliberate because fuck words, but I will still vouch for the albums that maintain a traditional “rhymes set to music” scheme. These are listed more or less in order of release but I probably screwed up one or two dates. Also I’m the last person who listens to actual albums, right? These should probably just be singles you saw on Snapchat or whatever. I don’t know what to tell you except I liked these records and maybe you will too, enjoy.
• Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Euclid
• Natalie Prass, Natalie Prass
• East India Youth, Culture of Volume
• Andreas Ottensamer, The Hungarian Connection
• Kendrick Lamar, To Pimp a Butterfly
• Mahan Esfahani, Time Present And Time Past
• Ludovico Einaudi, The Taranta Project
• Ben Chatwin, The Sleeper Awakes
• Mbongwana Star, From Kinshasa
• Kuba Kapsa Ensemble, Vandraught 10, Vol. 1
• Thore Pfeiffer, Im Blickfeld
• Ensemble Signal, Reich: Music for 18 Musicians
• High Wolf, Growing Wild
• Nick Diamonds, City of Quartz
• Kölsch, 1983