Tashi Dorji – Begin From Here
“Strumming in opposition to the towers” is how the Bhutan-born, US-based guitarist Tashi Dorji describes his abstract, improvised music. His song and album titles are equally poetic evocations of resistance and decay – his new album is called We Will Be Wherever the Fires Are Lit and contains songs such as Meet Me Under the Ruins and Flowers for the Unsung – and the brusque, clanging strums of his acoustic guitar resound with turmoil and determination. The album opens with Begin From Here, his strings sounding rusted, his attack frenzied. But, gradually, a bass motif emerges from the static – cool-headed and clear of purpose. Laura Snapes
Uniform – American Standard
Michael Berdan, frontman of US post-hardcore band Uniform, wrote an essay this year on living with bulimia, in which he explained the title of their album American Standard is “the name of a ubiquitous plumbing fixture company. Go to your toilet bowl right now, and chances are you’ll see their logo. I’ve spent countless hours of my life with my head bowed before that clumsy blue script etching. I will doubtlessly spend countless more.” The title track is similarly frank and powerful. It opens with Berdan yelping in horrified a cappella as he dissociates from his body: “There’s meat on my legs / It hangs off my legs”. He decides “it can’t be me” – and his band crash in, playing a brutally ironic triumphal march like a military band down Broadway, complete with twinkling tuned percussion. This slows in the song’s sludge-rock central section, as Berdan fixates on a bug in his hand being crushed – but both bug and man seem to be Berdan himself, experiencing an episode of bulimia. There is a moment of calm, but it’s an illusion: the band suddenly return to their earlier symphonic noise, now doubled in intensity. At over 21 minutes in all, American Standard doesn’t just break the bounds of conventional songwriting but also reimagines what it might even hope to confront and express; this is a work of total candour, stunning bravery and unforgettable humanity. Ben Beaumont-Thomas
Emmylou – Cigarette
Emmylou’s song about taking a smoke break while a disappointing man ignores her for his phone has shades of vintage, Video Games-era Lana del Rey. There’s an unlikely breeziness to this song about the drudgery of straight situationships, thanks to the New York songwriter’s detached delivery: sexy in a sort of lobotomy-chic way. The intro line, about the double indignities of not only finding another woman’s fake eyelash in her boyfriend’s car, but also being lied to about it (he says it belongs to his sister) made me gasp upon first listen – oh no he did not! Country-tinged pop is having a moment in the mainstream, from Sabrina Carpenter’s gen Z Nancy Sinatra schtick to Chappell Roan’s sapphic cowgirl bops, but there’s a homespun charm to Emmylou’s stripped-down production. At just over two minutes, it’s a short song, but an addictively repeatable one. Apropos for the whole chain-smoking vibe. Alaina Demopoulos
Milan W – All the Way
“Do you want to go all the way?” is such a funny turn of phrase – teenaged and hopeful but a little sinister at the same time, both bludgeoningly obvious and troublingly ambiguous. Antwerp’s Milan Warmoeskerken uses that uneven interpretive ground as the foundation for All the Way, the highlight from his 2024 album Leave Another Day. It’s a louche, deeply sexy track that’s also embittered and sad, a one-sided plea for a secret situationship to go public: “Let’s go out and spend our money / Make some fun pretending we are lovers / I’m getting tired of the situation / Getting closer and then pulling away,” he sings, enunciating every word like his mouth is forever stuck in a pout. The track skips and ambles along except when Warmoeskerken sings the title phrase, at which point everything stops for a moment; sirens blare in the background, adding to the tense, unsettled atmosphere. Once you did listen to All the Way this year, it was hard to stop. Shaad D’Souza
Rubblebucket – Rattlesnake
The Brooklyn-based indie-pop outfit Rubblebucket, made up of Kalmia Traver and Alex Toth, is known for catchy yet incongruous tunes that deftly combine provocative lyrics and horn-propelled melodies you can’t help but bust loose on the dancefloor to. Case in point, songs like 2011’s Came Out of a Lady (their most popular by far) and If U C My Enemies (get it?) demonstrate a distinct edge mixed in with their respective backgrounds in jazz (Toth plays trumpet while Traver’s smooth on the sax). Earlier this year, they continued that tradition with the release of their seventh album, the curiously-titled The Year of the Banana. It boasts the joyful Rattlesnake, a funky butt-shaking single which should have been everywhere but somehow wasn’t. The slithering song is weird, wild and captivating – just like the past 12 months. “Do you have the time to unwind?” they ask the listener. Why yes, we do! Rob LeDonne
Stephen Hero and Uncle Fester: “Can’t Stop” (feat Aquakultre)
The blue collar MC Stephen Hero raps to rally the masses on this socially conscious boom bap track. Its producer, Uncle Fester, (who, like Hero, is an east coast Canadian hip-hop head) heaps on enough soul to keep step with show-stopping guest vocalist Aquakultre (Canada’s answer to D’Angelo). Fester’s sampled horns and keys also evoke the heart-swelling verve of hoisting your fist and a protest sign high. That’s perfect for Hero’s layered rhymes about inequality in his home province of New Brunswick, notorious for being gripped by alleged oligarchs. Hero renders those compelling specifics universally relatable with his Dead Prez meets MF Doom lyricism. By the time Aquakultre’s hummable chorus about galvanizing and organizing laborers kicks in, you’ll be convinced to first stick it to the “the man”, and then call the Canadian Maritimes the world’s new backpack rap capital. Kyle Mullin
Linda Thompson – John Grant
There’s a long tradition of musicians saluting other musicians in their songs – everything from Stevie Wonder honoring Duke Ellington in Sir Duke to Lionel Richie bidding farewell to Marvin Gaye in Missing You. But hosannas of that sort don’t get more meta or moving, than Linda Thompson’s nod to fellow singer-songwriter John Grant. Not only did she name her song John Grant, she got the actual John Grant to sing it. Part of that came by necessity. Thompson (of “Richard and Linda Thompson” fame) suffers from dysphonia, a progressive ailment that hampered her ability to sing years ago. Luckily, that didn’t quell her will to write, so, for her comeback album, cleverly titled Proxy Music, she had guest singers voice all the songs. Because she and Grant are good friends it was a snap to get him to play along, though the lyrics must have been a bitch for him to sing. In the song, Thompson address the death of Grant’s mother, with whom he had a deep but troubled relationship. By circumstance, he wasn’t around when she died, leaving a sinkhole in his heart. The song recounts Grant’s guilt while also offering a very un-Thompson-like idealization – that his mother felt his love from beyond the grave. She amends that at the song’s end by depicting Grant adrift in a search for solace. The maternal comfort Thompson offers Grant, coupled with his sweeping delivery, makes this song something every hurt person needs to hear. Jim Farber
Billy Lemos ft Binki and $quib – Angel
There’s no messing around in Angel, a to-the-point head-lingerer that dives straight into its confident, shoulder-shaking guitar riff and keeps us moving for the next two minutes. Listing its assemblage of lesser-known talents – Billy Lemos, Binki and $quib – might make me feel hopelessly old (it’s reminiscent of the iconic Curtains for Zoosha tweet) but their mix of cool, low-level speak-singing and higher energy strumming is undeniable, no matter your age. It’s a short song but there’s a carefully elevated build making it feel that much longer, each addition to that riff burrowing deeper under your skin along with the lightly melancholic lyrics (“Writing you songs so I can forget”). Less than 80,000 streams on Spotify is unjust while less than 1,000 listens on YouTube is criminal. Benjamin Lee
Fake Fruit – Mucho Mistrust
The Oakland post-punk three-piece set the mark high with their self-titled debut and managed to completely upstage headliners Dry Cleaning when I saw them play at Webster Hall two years ago. Their even-better sophomore effort pays off on its three-year gestation starting with the tightly wound title track, a riff on the absurdity of commercialism packaged in angular guitar riffs, propulsive rhythm and perfectly wrought tension and release. It’s all brought together by the frontwoman Hannah D’Amato’s vocals, which oscillate between deadpan detachment and fiery urgency, mirroring a lyrical exploration of doubt and disconnection that’s both deeply personal and universally resonant. It’s the standout from a remarkably consistent batch of a dozen stripped-down songs where the second side may be better than the first. Bryan Armen Graham
Forest Law – Ooo, I
A garden shed in Romford is probably the last place you’d expect to inspire the sunny music of Brazil. But Forest Law’s take on bossa nova, samba and tropicalia has an off-kilter, homespun sensibility. The Essex-born, London-based multi-instrumentalist (real name: Alexander Burke) has a long-standing love affair with the region but infuses its styles with wizard-hooded folk influences from the more pastoral landscapes of home. His debut album, this summer’s Zero – recorded in said shed and also written in Porto and Iceland – has been years in the making, after Law came up through the UK new music incubator Future Bubblers, released a 2020 EP on Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood label and became a touring member of Esa’s Afro-Synth band. Ooo, I is its lithe lead single and funkiest flex, an ambitiously percussive sunburst of a track with sighing falsetto, radiant flute and a swirling psychedelic sensibility that wouldn’t be out of place on an Animal Collective record. But stay a while, because the whole of Zero is crammed with restless numbers, waiting to be discovered. Kate Hutchinson
Lizzie No – Deadbeat
In a year of yeehaw when country became a trendier and more crowded genre than ever, Lizzie No’s songwriting ran rings around all the dilettantes. On Deadbeat, a standout from her January album Halfsies, she opens with a charming, delicate harp riff and the cascading, evocative pun: “I’m a deadbeat / Dead ringer for a bad luck man / I’m dead set on doing better than my daddy ever did.” In just three lines, she sets up the song’s central tension. The song goes on to consider the long shadow of deadbeatism casts over both her and her paramour. Can their fragile happiness last when “I could promise that one day I’ll come around / But it’s in my blood, it’s in my blood / I’m good at tellin’ lies”? Such economical, fun writing is so rare and refreshing. She puts on a hell of a live show, too. Blake Montgomery
Source: theguardian.com
