And so after much ado: no more! No more waiting, and no more dragging of the feet. Behold! The rest of 2014's most excellent albums, in release date order (don't ask, it really seemed like such a good idea at the time.) Fair reader, read on:
- July- Flamingods Hyperborea: Exotic & psychedelic, and released on the daring, multi-media Art Is Hard Records, this album is deliciously funky and strange. Check out the whole thing on bandcamp.
- August- Adult Jazz, Gist Is: In parts dissonant and at all times, achingly pure, this record is as complex as it is beautiful. Only a few tracks are available to preview, but check them out, and if you can see them live, just. do.it.
- September- Interpol, El Pintor: (The flaws in the month by month approach start to show... September, you BEAST.) Interpol (late-to-the-party alert) have been making critically acclaimed music since there abouts 1997, but I have just discovered them in the autumn of 2014. El Pintor is a velvet study, inspired by the skin-itching rhythms and sadness of post-punk, the beats are unrelenting and the guitars make quick work embedding fuzzy melodies into your skull - it's addictive.
- October- Iceage, Plowing Into the Field of Love: I love this record, it's so angry. And the rage has a poetic scale, in the misshapen vocals of Elias Bender Rønnenfelt and the decaying, muffled orchestration. The result is an aggressive, embellished punk record.
- October- Caribou, Our Love (or not an album of the year): This album has spilled a lot of ink. It has been so greatly anticipated and I have read over and over again about how this is the album Dan Snaith made, not for himself, but for us. Sadly, it is miles away from the deeply eccentric, playful, bizarre sounds of Swim. Instead, it is a collection of melancholic, down-tempo, house-esque murmurs. While some tracks are hypnotic beyond a fault (see Can’t Do Without You), for the most part, it is a graying drawl of indifferent beats and electronic drums. So while no, it is not an album of the year, Caribou has been so essential to the last 12 months that to not mention it seems, well, lacking.
- November? To Be Decided… Run the Jewels? Alex G? Hookwurms? Only time will tell, and by that I mean, if I don’t decide in the next 4 days then gosh darnit, we may never know, and STREAKS might just move on to an entirely new set of posts and ideas to thrill the heart and capture the soul. Still, if any one is interested, I’ll endeavour to find out. (And don’t even get me started on December, I mean really.)
What a kick ass year, 2015, you better bring your A-Game.
Kate x
