2017: Re/Unions (Once in a lifetime)
Know what’s funny? As I was drafting this piece in my head (well, actually putting finger to keyboard, as it’s been percolating upstairs all year) the first line that came to mind was actually what I opened last year’s year-end list with, though I didn’t realize I’d already used it. Which meant that I’d have to come up with some way of expressing that as awful as I thought 2016 was, 2017 actually managed to be so much worse as far as the state of the world and general existential angst and anxiety goes. Was this bottom? Is there a bottom?
And yet on a micro-personal scale, once again, things were actually pretty good. First off, I got married (see non-staged pic above), a thing that went wonderfully and and capped off a pretty intense two-year complete refactor of my existence. But as the dust settles, I can tell myself, this is my beautiful house. And I can tell myself, this is my beautiful wife. And I know how I got here. So I’m just going to take a breath and let the days go by.
Musically, my gig-going didn’t increase, but didn’t decline either. And while there were no adventures abroad for shows this time (just honeymooning in Europe and dog-sitting in Manhattan), any stretch where you get to see Ride, Swervedriver, Luna, PJ Harvey, Midnight Oil, and Slowdive (twice!) to name but a few, well that’s a good year. And I do realize I could technically have seen them all the first time around back in, say, 1992 but my tastes weren’t nearly as refined then.
Listening-wise, when I wasn’t completely removed from the zeitgeist and immersing myself in the back catalogs of Cocteau Twins, Roxy Music, and The Cure (chorus pedals forever!), I was appreciating how the class of 2017 knocked it out of the park. There was new music from artists I never thought I’d see in a studio again, the fruits of which ranged from good to stunning. And maybe the best part of that was that I didn’t feel obliged to write a single word about any of it, I could just listen and enjoy. Until now, anyway.
Same as it ever was.
Since starting out at 75% original lineup, the Afghan Whigs reunion has gradually morphed into The Twilight Singers, particularly after guitarist Rick McCollum departed following 2014’s Do To The Beast and more Singers alumni were gradually brought into the fold. But if that’s what it takes to put out a document as powerful as In Spades, then I’m okay with it. Moodier and more experimental around the edges than Beast, it stands tall with a raw and defiant emotional core. A worthy tribute to guitarist Dave Rosser, who succumbed to cancer not long after its release.
It was no secret that I was bowled over from Alvvays since the first moment I heard them (and they were still Always). With their sweet female vocals, wryly bittersweet lyrics, and irresistible melodies, their jangly dreampop could easily have been formulated in a lab specifically to appeal to me. That they were from basically down the street from me was an extra bonus. That said, I figured that would also doom them to being local heroes with enough genre appeal to be perennial “best band you’ve never heard of” contenders abroad. Instead, they’ve blown right up to nearly universal acclaim (relatively speaking) and, even better, their second album somehow manages to better their debut with more assuredness and range without sacrificing any of their winsome charm or biting wit. Utterly delightful and one of the best things to come out Toronto/Canada/Earth.
Kind of a dumb name for an album, never mind a band, and yet perfectly descriptive of the singular atmosphere contained therein. Consider the deep, dark reverb everything is immersed in to be the post-coital haze and frontman Greg Gonzalez’s smooth, androgynous vocals to be the soft glow of a long, satisfying drag — sensual with just the right amount of sleaze. This was an album that worked its way from curiosity to periodic obsession without my even realizing it. If you need something to dim the lights and luxuriate to — smokes optional — it does the trick.
Despite reforming with the original three-piece lineup responsible for their more overcast early records rather than the lusher English quintessence of their later output, the return of The Clientele to active duty was an unexpected delight. Their return, that is — not the album. Music For The Age Of Miracles was a sprightly and gorgeous collection of elegant, shimmering, baroque pop that reminded us what we lost when the band went on hiatus in 2011 and how lucky we were to have them back.
The full-length debut of bedroom pop from New Zealander Amelia Murray may sound superficially simplistic — no, there’s not tonnes of stuff going on there — but what is there is perfectly arranged and sprinkled with just enough sonic sauce to keep things interesting for those like myself who need some zip in their ears. The perfect soundtrack for late Summer afternoon daydreams, or trying to pretend you’re not trapped in the dead of a bitter Canadian winter.
I was too late to Michelle Zauner’s last effort Psychopomp — a dreampop gem whose sonic giddiness belied the lyrical heaviness contained therein — to capture it on my 2016 year-end list; happily, the follow-up is also good enough to rate a spot on this one. Less overtly ‘gazey and more genre-hopping, what it loses in ADD it gains in Zauner’s increasingly confident vocals and songcraft, to say nothing of her obvious joy in just making music.
A clear nod back to my bloggy days, with seven years of radio silence since their wonderful second album A Coming Of Age, I reasonably thought they’d gone the way of so many other steadfastly independent bands and just closed up shop and got jobs. And maybe they did, but they also spent that time getting properly schooled in vintage disco and funk and that education is put to good use here. The retro-soul of their debut is still present if you look closely — as are Ali Howard’s sweet and deceptively powerful vocals and the band’s phenomenal pop sensibilities — but it’s all bathed in the glimmer of the mirror ball.
Considering how much I enjoyed last year’s Atomic soundtrack and the fact that this was the band’s first collaboration with uber-producer Dave Fridmann since 2001's discography-best Rock Action, I should have liked Every Country’s Sun better than I did. The high points are still stellar — “Party In The Dark” on repeat, thanks — but it seemed to lack the cohesion of their last few studio efforts. That said, Mogwai were still my second most-Spotified artist of the year (behind Cocteau Twins) and so I clearly still found it a worthy record.
Considering how potent the reunited Ride was as a live act, you’d think that I’d have been more excited about their return to the studio to craft album number five. Yet you have to remember that their creative peak was Going Blank Again, and neither Mark Gardener or Andy Bell had written anything nearly as good in the quarter-century since. On top of that, the advance tracks didn’t exactly set one’s ears ablaze. Expectations hereabouts were guarded, to say the least. And yet Weather Diaries didn’t disappoint. An album much greater than the sum of its parts — those aforementioned previews sound so much better in context — it smartly places Ride in 2017 rather than try to resurrect 1992 (they saved that for the glorious post-album “OX4”-saluting single “Pulsar”) and turns the graph of their discography from a straight downward slope into an exhilarating parabola.
Even if there were no other worthwhile records released in 2017, the fact that Slowdive existed would have made it a banner year. The stylistic distance between 1993’s dreampop masterpiece Souvlaki and 1996’s electronic ambient genre-defining Pygmalion was a vast one that hastened the band’s initial demise, and yet connecting the dots between the two and projecting ahead far into the future makes Slowdive seem like the most natural progression. Unlike his peers in Ride, Neil Halstead never stopped writing gorgeous songs with Mojave 3 and as a solo artist, so the songcraft here is top notch and the sonic tapestries draped over them — all chiming echoes and deep space reverberations — are gorgeousness made sound. Rare is the record that comes with so much weight of expectation that you almost wish it didn’t exist, lest it disappoint, and yet it still manages to exceed every one, even exponentially so. Transcendent.
