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Best Music of the Year 2022- Paul Van Nevel

Paul Van Nevel's vocal ensemble has been either on my record player, CD player, or MP3 player for over35 years continuously. The selection of composers and specific compositions is enlightening, year after year. And the quality of the interpretations are always very high. This years album is a wonderful selection of early vocal music that I love. More, Paul.

From BBC Music:

Paul van Nevel has been recording medieval music since 1971. This, his latest project, seems to have two purposes: to give a potted account of the development of Franco-Flemish polyphony c1400-c1550, and to show how the landscape of the local areas from which the composers came is embodied in their music.

The earliest composer here is Johannes Hasprois, who died c1428. His ‘Ma douce amour’ is an intricate work and the resonant acoustic does not help the texture, nor does the slightly lax approach to rhythm. The group is more at home in later pieces such as l’Héritier’s motet ‘Locutus est Dominus’ (c1552) the clamorous sounds of which they bring to a captivating conclusion.

The landscape angle is slightly odd. We are not talking here about how the sounds of a landscape might be replicated (babbling brooks, birdsong etc), or its musical associations quoted (folksong etc), or even how a composer’s emotional attachment might be expressed. Rather (according to van Nevel) the landscape itself replicates ‘the spirit of its culture in a powerful way’. Hence Baston’s ‘Ung souvenir’ embodies ‘misty Artois’ (though the lines are sung with great clarity), Gombert’s ‘O malheureuse journée’ reflects the desolation of the Lele Valley (though it is performed rather stolidly), and Ockeghem’s Sanctus is actually modeled in part on a work by Dufay who grew up elsewhere. Luckily some real landscaping can be heard in Hesdin’s motet ‘Parasti’ where the performers shape the form and contour the dynamics splendidly.

 

From ALL Music:

The general trend in recordings of Renaissance polyphony has been toward typing music to specific surroundings: royal festivities, religious feast days, and the like. This collection by the Huelgas Ensemble goes in the other direction, providing three CDs' worth of music ranging from the medieval era to Anton Bruckner, with most of the pieces falling into some stretch of the High Renaissance. The music was recorded, beautifully, in a Romanesque church near Dijon in 2018, and the program is unified loosely by a set of general guidelines for the selections at that event: the music emphasized "unknown repertoire, undeservedly obscure composers, and experiments that fall outside the scope of the normal concert season." All of those factors are present here, with that undeservedly obscure composer Anonymous heading the list, and the ensemble makes a strong case for the large body of rarely performed Renaissance music that's out there. Listen to the gorgeous Lamentations of Jeremiah of José de Vaquedano at the end of the first disc, or the delicate but serious chanson Que null'étoile sur nous of Claude Le Jeune, otherwise known mostly for a few metrical chanson experiments that turn up in music history classes. Each piece is given a careful and often affecting performance by the veteran Huelgas Ensemble and director Paul van Nevel, and with the extraordinary sound, this release may be just the thing for listeners who want to luxuriate in some unfamiliar Renaissance music for a couple of hours.

From BBC Music:

The Huelgas-Ensemble and director Paul van Nevel celebrated its 35th birthday in 2005 with live concerts of some truly complex, multi-voiced polyphony…including the 40 part work, Ecce beatam lucem by Alessandro Striggio, which was the catalyst for a splendid piece of 40-part retaliation from Thomas Tallis: "Spem in alium", the best-known work here. The Huelgas-Ensemble has recorded both before for Sony, but heard live, these performances are less restrained, perhaps in a way that might not please the purists. But as the many polyphonic strands surround you – and here they do surround you, thanks to this hybrid SACD – you’d have to have a cold heart not to be caught up in the performances. The ingenuity of the composers is extraordinary; there’s one of the strangest and in its way most original works in the Eton Choirbook, by the late 15th century English composer Robert Wylkynson. His setting of "Jesus autem transiens" is a 13 part canon, with every voice moving within the same restricted vocal compass. And before it there’s a 24-voice setting of "Qui habitat" by Josquin in which the singers divide into four choirs, each with its own six-part canon. It has a hypnotic effect...and so does the work which opens the concert, a newly-commissioned piece by Willem Ceuleers (in 35 parts of course, one for each year), which had me fooled until some decidedly modern touches broke through the renaissance texture. It’s ingenious, but it does outstay its welcome, unlike every other work on this astonishing disc.

Best Music of the Year 2022- Marta Sanchez

 

I've always been captivated by Sanchez' music-her compositions, her piano style, and her talented groups. Her groups evolve and her music sinuous pathways elaborate melodies and rhythms I come to associate my on past. Her most recent work continues this fruitful trend into a land that begins to incorporate more solidly the New York roots that have begun to take hold.

From New York Times:

When Marta Sánchez’s mother died unexpectedly in late 2020, the pianist was at a loss. But Sánchez knew, almost instinctively, where she could process her grief: at the piano, pen and paper in hand, sounding out new music for her quintet.

In the decade since she moved to New York from Madrid, the quintet has been Sánchez’s main creative outlet. And since the release of its strong 2015 debut, “Partenika,” it has made itself known as one of the most consistently satisfying bands in contemporary jazz — largely thanks to the well-ordered complexity and openhearted energy of Sánchez’s tunes, which blur the divide between lead melody and accompaniment, steady pulse and unruly drift.

The group’s personnel rotates often, but the format has never shifted: a pair of saxophones out front, often in high contrast with one another; a bassist; a drummer; and the tension-raising technique of Sánchez’s piano.

As a composer, she culls a lot of her inspiration from life experience, and no matter how technical her music gets, it retains an unpretentious, poignant appeal. (On “Partenika” the deftly sculpted tunes often had prosaic names, like “Patella Dislocation” — yes, inspired by a knee injury Sánchez suffered — or simply “Yayyyy.”) So it’s no surprise that the quintet’s fourth album, “SAAM (Spanish American Art Museum),” is both musically complex and emotionally direct, managing to convey the raw, implacable pain of loss.

 

From Downbeat:

A fine pianist who is a particularly inventive arranger-composer, Marta Sanchez has led a quintet since 2015, one that has recorded four albums so far. A constant has been Roman Filiú who played alto on the other quintet recordings but for this project switches to tenor. Altoist Alex LoRe is a major asset, often sounding quite relaxed and laid-back even while improvising over the most dissonant backgrounds.

The opener, “The Unconquered Vulnerable Areas,” has a soothing theme before it builds in suspense and tension. LoRe shows that he can hit high notes with ease while Filiú has a stormy and stirring tradeoff with Sanchez.

“Dear Worthiness” is a thoughtful and dark piece about self-doubt that includes a fluent alto solo and some pretty expressive playing by the leader.

“SAAM” is filled with dissonance and the assertive drums of Allan Mednard, while the harmonized horns on the ballad “The Eternal Stillness” are memorable, as is arguably the best piano playing of the set.

“Marivi” was written as a message to Sanchez’s mother, whom she was not able to visit in Spain during her last days because of COVID-19 travel restrictions. The emotional piece features singer Camila Meza and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire as guests.

Of Sanchez’s other originals, “If You Could Create It” is relatively playful yet purposeful, Filiú and bassist Rashaan Carter star on a somber “The Hard Balance,” “December 11th” has a tango feel and a sparkling piano solo, and the closer “When Dreaming Is The Only” is highlighted by the interplay of the saxophonists.

From Jazz Trail:

The pianist/composer Marta Sanchez was born in Madrid and works in New York, where she has already demonstrated bold compositional skills with contemporary jazz pieces that adhere to form and structure. The quintet has been her preferred format since 2015, but on this new outing, SAAM (Spanish American Art Museum), she recycles the lineup with new musical partners. She maintains the Cuban saxophonist Roman Filiu in the frontline - here surprisingly playing tenor only - and welcomes Alex LoRe, whose blustery alto statements are an excellent match. The group is complemented by a zestful rhythm section in which Sanchez teams up with bassist Rashaan Carter and drummer Allan Mednard. 

As the title implies, this recording mixes elements of her Spanish and American experiences, but its central piece, “Marivi” - a tribute to Sanchez’s mother who passed during lockdown - falls outside the predominant mood as she abdicates from the saxophone players to feature the guest vocalist/guitarist Camila Meza, who sings in Spanish, and the trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, who sails serenely with a mix of keening and brightness.

Most of the pieces have relatively short themes, and “The Unconquered Vulnerable Areas” ushers in a stimulating rhythmic drive, having the expeditious LoRe delivering gracious ideas. After that, there's a shared soloing moment in which Sanchez and Filiu articulate a nice musical conversation. Displaying more reflective tones are the following: “Dear Worthiness”, a ballad with a three time feel in direct relation to an onerous sense of insecurity; “The Eternal Stillness”, a pool of gorgeous effulgence; and “The Hard Balance”, a delicate chamber-like number with horn polyphony and polyrhythmic feel that spotlights the group’s atmospheric strengths. The latter two pieces feature bass improvisations.

Best Music of the Year 2022- Beth Orton

 

A slight revelation for me. Like a jazz album it evolves as the theme is repeated and refined as it progresses. The music changes like the weather but it is the same day. An incredibly capturing set of songs and Orton's voice with her grainy filter makes it just right. Lovely.

From Pop Matters:

Yet Weather Alive is a fascinating creature, one that belies easy categorization. Working with jazz drummer Tom Skinner and sax player Alabaster dePlume, Orton self-produced a record of deep atmosphere and warm tones; it sounds like morning fog receding from a beach aglow in the morning dawn. Its jazz players only give jazzy overtones to songs that don’t quite exist in the realm of folk or pop or rock. The eight tracks on Weather Alive sound like Beth Orton songs, which is a rare treat.

“I was so embarrassed to play these songs to people at first because I know how they are all just kind of strung together,” notes Orton during her interview with The Line of Best Fit. “I know that some of my processes in the editing were really rudimentary. I mean, it was mostly done in my shed.” While the album was born of several stops and false starts, it’s clear that all of Weather Alive‘s songs come from the same relaxed place, all rolling out at their own casual pace (which is why the record’s shortest number clocks in at just under 4:30).

Opening with the atmospheric title track, Orton’s voice is the first thing that jumps out of the mix. Unafraid to represent herself plainly, her ever-distinct pipes are lightly weathered now, a coarseness baked into her inflection with some tones even halting and stuttering. While her last album (the still-underrated electro experiment that was 2016’s Kidsticks) was awash in bedroom electro styles and sounds, her voice was often run through filters and echoes, which makes her so bluntly showing the state of her vocals on Weather Alive that much more pointed. Orton is not hiding behind studio tricks this time out: she’s emotionally naked at every turn. “It was just excruciating to listen to in front of other people,” she says during that Line of Best Fit interview. “Every bit of it was personal and exposing.”

From The Line of Best Fit:

On her eighth and newest album, Weather Alive, Orton sounds freer and more comfortable than she has at any other point in her career. Inspired by a soot-filled, second-hand piano - and aided by the newfound freetime Orton had while her children were in school - it is a warm, immersive LP whose wisdom unfolds gradually over repeat listens. It is her first self-produced album and, through no coincidence, happens to be far and away her best.

The title track is the album’s most definitive statement - a transcendent, percussive, 7+ minute epic grounded by Orton’s cracked, aching voice. Backed up by a full band, Orton’s musings on the everyday beauty of nature take on otherworldly significance. Towards the song’s end, Orton repeats the words “coming alive” almost half-a-dozen times, her voice gradually becoming buried under the song’s sublime arrangements; almost mirroring the feeling of going outside on a wet and windy day and feeling overcome by the elements.

Weather Alive isn’t just Orton’s best album, it’s also one that could have only come at this juncture in her life - as she nears the 26th anniversary of her breakthrough Trailer Park. There’s so much wisdom to be had listening to Orton’s eighth LP. On it, she alternates between mystifying poetry that evokes the bewilderment of the late David Berman’s lyricism (“Thought about living with nothing to lose / With windows to see them before they see you”) and straightforward confessionals and dialogue (“Why I feel like shit for what I didn’t do wrong?”). On “Haunted Satellite”, Orton pens the album’s most incisive line, in the form of a rich, evocative metaphor that speaks to the sense of displacement that swirls throughout Weather Alive (“I have lived as a satellite / I’ve saddled up, I’ve settled up, I don’t sit right”).

Never before have we been gifted with such multidimensional songwriting from Orton. Her parents - who both died when she was a teen - are given voice on the hauntingly desolate “Lonely”. After listing all the reasons she’s supposedly unloveable (“I’m a whore / I’m too exposed”), Orton repeats the titular word a devastating fifteen times - conjuring up all the horror and isolation of grief in the process. The following “Arms Around a Memory”, by contrast, is perhaps the loveliest song Orton has ever recorded. ”Didn’t we make a beautiful life / In your eighth floor walk-up that night”, she declares. Like PJ Harvey’s “You Said Something”, it captures the magic of love’s most intense moments - how it puts the rest of the world on pause and makes even the least remarkable of settings glow. Yet, rather than succumb wholly to nostalgia, Orton reflects with the benefit of hindsight - dissecting both the faulty nature of memories, as well as their ability to immortalise the purest moments of our lives. Here, the song gains real bite, as she snaps back at the song’s other protagonist: “And I've come to questioning my credibility / Like you’re the reliable witness to what I feel”, she snarls.

 

From Uncut:

Stormy psychic and physical weather buffeted Beth Orton as she made this record. When long-standing health issues were correctly diagnosed and medicated in 2014, the ground perversely shifted beneath her feet. Meanwhile, 2016 saw the release of Kidsticks, the most electronic album of a career which has eased between her pioneering ’90s folktronica’s polar extremes. But as this personal flux continued, the organic sound of a battered, stand-up piano in her garden shed became her anchor. Playing this unfamiliar instrument recalled picking up a guitar to write songs in the ’90s, returning Orton to first principles.

Relying on simple, modal patterns, she then began to sculpt homemade soundscapes using her midi setup. In the process, vivid memories rose up, ranging from old affairs in New York to the loss of her friend Andy Weatherall, becoming the nascent album’s flickering heart. “I kept reliving these fragments of past lives,” Orton recalls, “and putting them in music was like putting them in amber. A moment would be there like light on a wall, it didn’t hang around long, and I’d write around that.” These sensual visions were then rigorously honed into songs, as Orton tested if “something so fallible and amorphous” could hold compositional weight.

Eventually, Orton invited The Smile and Sons Of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner to add to her homemade palette. He was joined by other often jazz-minded collaborators, such as the ecstatic poet-saxophonist Alabaster dePlume, suiting Orton’s fascination with Alice Coltrane’s spiritual jazz, alongside ambient vistas from Talk Talk to Springsteen’s stark Nebraska. Thrown further back on her own resources by lockdown, Orton self-produced Weather Alive, a project which began with her identity in crisis ending as her most personal statement.

Best Music of the Year 2022- Abdullah Ibrahim

 

 

Been many years that I've listened to this master of the piano and jazz. His group work in the 80's helped transform jazz from a large ensemble into a lightweight group that had similar coloration and soul. His solo piano works from the 70's was a strong alternative to Jarrett's and whose African lyricism gave it a distinctive flavor. The solo work that Ibrahim is generating today is more compact and classical. And that is the wonderful work he is doing today.

From All About Jazz:

Solotude is neatly titled, with its aching sense of seclusion and repose. The record was made at Hirzinger Hall in east Germany, during the 2020 lockdown, with no audience beyond a technical crew. If anything, this format works better as each piece is left framed by brief silence rather than applause. The only background noise is actually supplied by Ibrahim with his occasional grunts and gasps of concentrated pleasure. Just possibly they could be groans of annoyance at a fluffed note, inaudible to any but himself. But more probably Ibrahim was captivated in the moment at his piano, just as the listeners are left enrapt.

The opening cut, "Mindif," is one of several which he revisits from a stellar career. Shorn of its previous orchestration, the track's blend of mystic light and golden silence sets a tone; also the album's most spectral cut, it echoes some of Espen Eriksen's noirish turns. "Trieste My Love," reworked from Dream Time (Enja Records, 2019) conveys a sweet sense of longing, while the playful rolls and jabs of "Nisa" are distinct from the brassy rendering on The Balance (Gearbox Records, 2019).

More geeky fun can be had with hearing "District 6" retain its funky swagger from the vibrant African Magic album (Enja Records, 2002). Elsewhere, a stark version of "Sotho Blue" supremely mimics the original's haunting sax and flute parts. Trying to unravel Ibrahim's sonic secrets is probably futile, though his fingertip sensitivity and use of sustain are evident on the romantic contemplations of "Blue Bolero" and "Once Upon A Midnight." Further, several short fragments, such as "Peace," "Blues For A Hip King" and "Tokai," echo a philosophical quality found in Franz Liszt's more intimate works.

From Jazz Times:

When it comes to stately beauty, it’s damn near impossible to surpass an Abdullah Ibrahim solo piano set. The 87-year-old NEA Jazz Master and South African cultural icon has continually returned to this format over the decades, exploring and deepening a lifelong romance with rumination while epitomizing grace and wisdom. Oftentimes, as with the performance captured for 2019’s Dream Time, an audience is in attendance at Ibrahim’s recitals, giving him the opportunity to commune with company. But for Solotude, as the title implies, the seats were empty.

Forgoing a standing birthday concert out of necessity due to COVID-19 lockdown measures in the fall of 2020, Ibrahim still managed to make the most of the moment by substituting a recording session in its place. The music he conjured for the occasion, as with several other late-career solo ventures, has a certain gravitas yet remains remarkably weightless. In short, it’s pensive perfection drawing on a lifetime of cultivation and pruning.

Ibrahim’s signature touch, appreciation for space and abiding love for encapsulatedcommunication(s) are all on display as he explores one memorable melody after another. There’s the haunting “Mindiff,” lingering in midair; a quick glance at “Blues for a Hip King,” offering gospel-like comforts; the stirring “Tokai,” delivered as a rickety and righteous fragment for all times; and a gorgeously subdued trip down the aisle for “The Wedding.” More than a dozen other compositions appear—some projected as passing thoughts lasting less than a minute, others fairly compact but fully realized—and each adds substance without any accompanying heft. Using spare lines that demonstrate the art of restraint while simultaneously giving of himself completely, Abdullah Ibrahim proves to be both the model of good taste and a freehearted storyteller.

 

Best Music of the Year 2022- Ambarchi, Berthlin, Werliin

 

An impressive groove filled with flavor and agility. And this wasn't the only album for Ambarchi this year this prolific and creative musician makes a lot of music and I'm surprised it took me this long to realize it.

From Pitchfork:

On Ghosted, the groove reigns supreme. Recorded live at Stockholm’s Studio Rymden in late 2018, the album showcases a carefully stripped-down sound. Berthling plays acoustic double bass on all but the second track, where he opts for electric. Werliin favors a palette of shakers, toms, and glancing snares, sketching out the contours of the beat by tracing its crags and cavities. And while the timbre of Ambarchi’s guitar couldn’t be mistaken for any other instrument, he typically avoids strummed chords or picked melodic lines in favor of a wash of tone run through a Leslie cabinet. The three players fill this wide-open sound with ephemeral shapes that hint at a possible meaning behind the album’s title: The music swims with darting shapes, flickering traces of energy, that feel almost supernatural in origin.

Ghosted consists of just four tracks: three long, extended vamps and one atmospheric coda. The trio is joined on the first, “I,” by Christer Bothén, a Swedish multi-instrumentalist who collaborated with Don Cherry in the 1970s. Here, as on recordings like Cherry’s 1974 album Eternal Now, he plays donso n’goni, a lute-like West African instrument that pairs with Berthling’s bright plucking to create a sound that’s warm and luminous. It’s the most joyful and easygoing of the album’s four tracks, with a shuffling, circular groove and a loping two-note bassline that evoke the feel of a desert road arrowing endlessly toward the horizon. In tone and mood alike, it’s faintly reminiscent of Joshua Abrams and his group Natural Information Society, where the guimbri—a North African descendent of the n’goni—plays a similarly hypnotic role.

From Soundohm:

It was early in 2019 — no, November 2018! — that Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling and Andreas Werliin met at Studio Rymden, in a quiet suburban district of Stockholm, to make the music that became Ghosted.

Rooting in the rich tonality and repeating figures of Johan’s acoustic (and sometimes electric) bass, the four tracks that make up Ghosted unspool themselves with the terse flow of krautrock jams — percussive riffs and repetitions that build continuously, with subtle shifts rippling across the stereo spectrum, captured in minute detail. Oren’s guitar sounds organ-like, with notes of fire and glass wafting over the percolation and permutation of Johan and Andreas’ rhythms, patiently evolving variations within a minimal framework.

On the first single, "II", Berthling’s chiming bass harmonics form the pattern and the pocket, Werliin’s kitwork explores the nuances within the groove, locating a thousand new accents within the time, and Ambarchi floats dreamily about, with keening, chittering signals that register both in and out of lead-instrument designation – both ambient and psychedelic. Transformative jams!

 

From The Quietus:

I’m walking with my headphones on. It’s not the best context to hear this music but needs must. What starts with a twinkly loop rapidly escalates. Andreas Werliin’s drums swirl while Johan Berthling’s bass hovers across the beat. Oren Ambarchi’s guitar shimmers ominously in the background, sounding like a fried Hammond organ rather than six strings. My stride quickens even though the bpm of ‘II’, the second track on the trio’s new album Ghosted, doesn’t. The music reaches towards an ever deferred crescendo. As my pace accelerates, I lose awareness of my surroundings. Ambarchi’s guitar suddenly snaps into focus. It rises into a squeal. The intensity ascends. And then… Nothing.

I’m back to reality with almost violent effect. The track wasn’t meant to stop. Something’s gone wrong and my ancient mp3 player has reset itself. An accident that brings into clarity that this album needs to play uninterrupted to really do its magic. The trio explore the relationship between repetition and difference that’s long been a fascination in exploratory music, creating something that, disorientatingly, sounds equal parts quantized and free-flowing.

The outline of a motorik pulse drives the first two tracks, but Ambarchi, Berthling and Werliin unearth colourful fluctuations from rigid rhythms. As if they’re teasing at just how much they can shuffle within a precariously balanced structure before knocking it over. There’s hints of TNT-era Tortoise throughout as repetitive phrases dance through jazzy variation. But the trio feel more interested in embracing rather than relieving tension. The tracks come across like sonic Rubik’s cubes, exploring the possible permutations of a confined structure.

 

Best Music of the Year 2022- Whatever the Weather (Lorraine James)

We continue to be impressed with James' sonic experiments and ability to produce well-formed and coherent explorations. Not sure if it's me but these recent pieces really show and agility of creation. Keep it up.

 

From Pitchfork:

Emerging from the restrictive winter cold into the unpredictability of spring, it can be tempting to read a weather forecast like a horoscope. A brief glance at a row of temperatures and precipitation odds can send your mind running wild, soaring with hope at the suggestion of a sunny weekend day or plunging into despair at the thought of digging out that down jacket yet again. When you’re still emotionally digging your way out of the snow in March and the screen says it’s the bad number outside, your heart stops. 

Skim the tracklist of Loraine James’ Whatever the Weather and you might feel a similar reaction. In place of words or phrases, James has used only temperatures as titles. Such precise values might feel alien to ambient’s delicate dreaminess—it’s easy to project a series of highs and lows onto the journey before it’s had a chance to settle around your eardrums. But across these 11 tracks, James savors every opportunity to subvert the forecast, supercharging a balmy “17℃” with frenetic drumming, conjuring up a counterintuitively glacial synthesizer march for a beatless “36℃,” and letting the frigid “0℃” stand in for the record’s most danceable groove.

Such misdirection is hardly surprising for James, a genre-busting musician whose excellent 2021 album Reflection tore holes in the dancefloor large enough for the entire ’90s IDM scene to crawl through. Built from sessions that ran parallel to that album’s blisteringly funky experimentalism, along with lingering ideas unearthed from five-year-old project files, Whatever the Weather lightly tethers itself to ambient’s cool stylings, but the 26-year old also gracefully covers new ground; her experiments with improvisation lend this side project a lively, unpredictable edge. At every temperature, James finds a fresh inflection point, bending into the still-widening array of sonic identities at her disposal and shaking expectations loose.

From The Quietus:

Although the music of Loraine James – one of the hottest electronic prospects in Britain to come along in the last five years – usually evokes a basement club, the air thick with deadened kick drums and busy, chuntering percussion, her new Whatever The Weather project seems to gesture towards something cleaner and airier, though with less of a sense of place.

There’s something enjoyably knotty and awkward about this debut release. Even the song titles – various temperatures celsius – seem designed to dislocate you from any preconceptions about the music. Similarly, the beats – where present – can feel gutted, like they’re missing a vital percussive element that will link the whole groove together; this fragmentation means they seem jagged and spiny, sticking out at right angles from the skeletal ambient workouts.

On the albums James has made under her own name, For You and I and Reflection, there’s often a kitchen-sink production style that means many individual tracks seem to brim with ten, twenty, fifty ideas. However, on this album James selects two or three main sounds then runs with them, such as the interplay of piano chords and their twinkling tape delays on ‘14°’, or the gloriously incongruous cowbell on ‘4°’, or those two chords, also on ‘4°’ (an album highlight), that at first seem like they’ve been played an octave too low, but eventually persuade you of their roily delights. The bare bones arrangements make each piece feel like they’ve been cannibalised, gnawed at, so just a bleached carcass remains.

From Resident Advisor:

Just two albums and a few EPs in, Loraine James' catalog is already a scintillating web of abstract percussion, video game bleeps and glitchy production. Her work teeters on the edge of dance music and more introspective, home listening fare, as traces of grime and jungle appear subdued, or molded into prickly shapes. Even with that in mind, this LP from her new meteorologically-themed project Whatever The Weather is surprisingly sparse—she mostly abandons the bassweight in favor of iridescent ambient and IDM touches. The new name reflects a new kind of artistic freedom. Speaking to Pitchfork earlier this year, she explained that project's future might look like productions spanning anything from improv to math rock. "I don't want to limit what I make," she said. While working on her music over the years, James would file away tracks in the studio that didn't quite fit in with the music she put out under her own name. Close to the finish line of her 2021 album, Reflections, there were some outstanding ideas left on the cutting room floor that got the gears turning inside her head. Maybe there was a home for this material, just as part of an entirely separate project. These outliers make up Whatever The Weather's self-titled debut, an immersive assemblage of Telefon Aviv-inspired ambient tracks written in 2017 as well as music made by processing improv recordings through the sound design software Slate + Ash. Not every artist can pivot to beatless material and pass with flying colors. But what came out of James' many years of putting aside misfit tracks is a brilliantly serene album, where each song is assigned a different temperature, ranging from the biting winter lows to the blistering mid-summer heat. The record mainly homes in on resplendent, flowering arpeggios and frozen-over minor chords, but when James does lend her softly sung vocals to the project, her plaintive whine arrives airy and naked. (She's cited bands like Deftones and American Football as unlikely influences.)

Best Music of the Year 2022- The Soft Pink Truth

 

Boy I'm glad someone is putting out dance music of this quality out these days of commercialism. I only became aware of the The Soft Pink Truth about 3 years ago even though Drew Daniel has been producing music under this moniker for over 20 years. It continues, fresh as ever.

From Pitchfork:

Was It Ever Real? gives the impression of a brawny, fulfilling eroticism. The title alone of “Is It Going to Get Any Deeper Than This?,” not to mention the seductive moans and sighs that flutter throughout the mix like plumes of smoke, make the record’s preoccupations clear from its opening moments. Coil’s original 1986 “Anal Staircase” is a Stravinsky-sampling bruiser that seems to invite the listener to hitherto unknown pleasures, but Daniel replaces the unsettling laughter on the original with a smattering of lounge ambiance, and Balance’s screams simmer down to a close-mic’d whisper. This is a vision of sex not as something forbidding or forbidden but a healthy component of a comfortable life. The anal staircase is carpeted in velvet.

Daniel commits to a luxe version of deep house on these four tracks, ripe with vestiges of disco. The bass is big and plummy, and electric pianos mumble and splutter. The title track exists to flex this style. Acetone’s Mark Lightcap soars with a guitar lead that brings to mind the ‘70s-sleaze Shaft school of seduction, while a harpsichord performance from Tom Boram elevates the whole thing into the kind of orgiastic paradise-garden fantasy Prince conjured on the late-‘80s deep cut “Adonis & Bathsheba.” The pitch-shifted hi-hats, which seem to squelch through mud, impart a whiff of the peaty fertility of early-2000s albums by Matthew Herbert (whose challenge to Daniel to make house music led to the start of the Soft Pink Truth).

Much of the Soft Pink Truth’s catalog is devoted to provocative electronic tributes to genres like hardcore, black metal, and crust punk. This is his first project-length pastiche that isn’t a complete subversion, and it continues the turn away from “angry-white-guy music” that Daniel commenced on 2020’s beatific Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase? Like that record, Was It Ever Real? is a luxe, collab-heavy work that’s easier on the ears than most of his music. Unlike Sinning, this is a straight-faced genre experiment, leaning into club music’s carnal qualities without exaggerating them or sending them up, tunneling toward the center of classic deep house rather than scratching at its margins as Daniel did on his 2003 debut Do You Party?

 

From  Resident Advisor:

Depth in this situation doesn't mean the ideological, intellectual or thematic kind, but instead a type of immersion—the feeling of being transported into another world. Deep house retains the dynamic range of disco, where pianos and horns glimmer out of the mix as strings and synths simmer far away. Daniel employs a massive cast of collaborators in order to foster that three-dimensional feeling, from regulars like saxophonist Andrew Bernstein and his house-diva-of-choice Jenn Wasner to new faces like string arranger Uras Kurugullu and all manner of horn players, harpists, flautists and percussionists. The four-on-the-floor kick drum keeps the listener on a one-way track into the bowels of the 70-minute LP. Daniel does this by masterfully manipulating the mood of the album so that it's one thing and then another thing. without the listener ever really noticing the change. "Deeper" opens with 11 minutes of deluxe instrumental disco inflected with Latin percussion and loping rhythm guitars. Daniel keeps the groove going just long enough that we forget what we're listening to. Once we've started to settle in, here comes Xiu Xiu singer Jamie Stewart hamming it up on the Georges Bataille-referencing "La Joie Devant La Mort," taking exquisite queer melancholia to the edge of self-parody in that highwire way only Stewart can. Now that we know Daniel's going to use vocals, it's time to hear him do something beautiful with them: "Wanna Know" is a full-on pop song, with Wasner contributing saccharine Bee Gees harmonies. "Wanna Know" is probably going to be the all-time Soft Pink Truth banger, the one that ends up in playlists and party scenes in indie movies. Yet it does a great job of deepening the album—it's this record's "Tessio." Then it disappears back into the fog and smoke, and after a few minutes of "Trocadero" we realize, with a start, that there haven't been vocals for a while. Is It Going To Get Any Deeper Than This? proceeds like that for 70 minutes. It's deep, then it's funny, then it's pretty, then it's deep again, then it's funny again, then it's deep again. Actually, it's often at least two of these things at the same time. If the LP doesn't succeed at being the deepest album of all time, it's because of "Sunwash," a 13-minute Tangerine Dream-style sequencer fantasia that builds endless anticipation at the moment the album should be at its spookiest and most plangent. But it's hilarious when "Deeper Than This?" interrupts with close-mic'd, cartoonishly seductive French dialogue.

From Anthony D'Amico:

The album kicks off in style with its first certified banger, "Deeper," which deceptively fades in with bleary drones before launching into a straight up classic disco groove with all the requisite hand claps and funky guitars. There is enough subtle dissonance to give it a somewhat delirious and unreal feeling right from the jump, but things do not get truly art-damaged until an unexpected church bell passage subsides. While the groove remains unswervingly propulsive for a bit longer, the insistent sexy thump is increasingly mingled with generous helpings of kitschy string stabs, tropical-sounding guitars, hazy flutes, and a host of other inspired psych touches before it all dissolves into smeary abstraction. I suppose the extended running time and ambient comedown preclude "Deeper" from being a hot single, but several of the pieces that immediately follow gamely rekindle the dancefloor fire. "La Joie Devant La Mort" is one of the album's more "perverse pop moments," as Jaime Stewart sings a George Bataille line about being in search of joy before death over an endearingly weird groove that calls to mind Coil's Love's Secret Domain album colliding with "A Fifth of Beethoven" and a chorus of tiny frogs. Wasner then takes the mic for the breezily sensuous "Wanna Know," which milks the album title's question for all its worth over a groove that could have been plucked from a Love Unlimited Orchestra album. The following "Trocadero" then pays homage to the "sleaze" disco subgenre synonymous with the titular SF club before "Mood Swing" ends the first half with a killer slow-building disco fusion of spiritual jazz, gurgling psychedelia, and Reich-ian piano patterns.

The second half is a bit more abstract and eclectic, as the 13-minute "Sunwash" is a chilled out bit of synthy Tangerine Dream-inspired spaciness. To some degree, It feels like it belongs on a completely different album than everything that came before it, but it makes a fine palate cleanser and it technically is on a different album vinyl-wise (Deeper is a double LP). The languorously dub-inflected "Joybreath" extends that post-club "morning after" vibe further, as Rose E Kross whispers and murmurs Bataille lines in French as twinkling piano and bleary sax and vibraphone melodies lazily wander through a fuzzy dreamscape. I imagine it evokes the feeling of waking up on a beach at sunrise after a hedonistic night of dancing and substance abuse, but my life is far too boring for me to be entirely certain of that. A couple of curious detours then follow, but the album ends on an incredibly strong note with a swooning cover of Willie Hutch's "Now That It's All Over" that feels half "psychotropic exotica bliss" and half "Love Boat" theme. It's a fittingly beautiful and poignant end to the album, as Daniel arguably sheds all of his ironic, sophisticated, and avant-garde tendencies for six minutes of pure naked joy (albeit pure naked joy repurposed from a blaxploitation classic). In any case, it is one hell of a cover as well as the perfect end to a thoroughly enjoyable album. And, of course, both Deeper and Was It Ever Real? have earned a permanent place in my heart for being primarily inspired by an anonymous woman's decades-old grievance with a club DJ.

Best Music of the Year 2022- Eric Chenaux

 

 

Chenaux's musical surprising sound continues to explore authentic emotions in a self-confessional way that sounds fresh and innovative, almost childish and it works just like Monk's musical ruminations. Amazing musician and singer.

From The Quietus:

Now at his seventh release with Constellation Records, longtime listeners of Chenaux will find in Say Laura the distinctive sonic palette that the Montreal-born, France-based songwriter generated in his career, made of trumpeting guitars, fuzzy reverbs, and distorted picking; melding (semi-)improvised, jazz-adjacent guitar and a full songwriter croon; and once again enriched by the help of Ryan Driver, providing lyrics and the occasional Wurlitzer.

There is an untethered quality to Chenaux's music. Vocals and guitars play a game of tag in his tracks, only with the pursuer at times swerving abruptly away from the one who is chased, and taking the listener with them, down the same unexpected directions that the greatest works of improvised music have taken. In his 1978 book The Jazz Life, Nat Hentoff recalls this exchange between a lecturer and Thelonious Monk during a jazz class at Columbia University:

"Would you play some of your weird chords for the class?"

"What do you mean weird? They're perfectly logical chords."

Monk a tutelar deity to Chenaux, the apparent 'weirdness' is a trait they share and that makes the listener stay, mesmerised by the Canadian's approach to the guitar. Experimenting with a prism of carefully studied effects and styles, the musician builds a Merzbau of sound, a habitable structure made up of found objects. "My music plays with what has been left behind and dropped on the ground," Chenaux has said in the release notes, adding: "These things were left on the ground to lighten the load so that those in the past could get somewhere more freely and less encumbered. To shed cultural threads. When we encounter these things that have been dropped we are altered so that in fact the space between ourselves and the space between ourselves itself does not hold the same weight. I care about everything in song. And who cares?"

Juxtaposed to this avant-garde attitude is a deep taste for more traditional songwriting, especially for love ballads. This yang to the guitar yin is expressed by the warm, embracing vocal delivery. More than any other time, here, Chenaux's singing is profound yet airy, opening even more possibilities to the already multifaceted soundscape, adding glimpses of melodies and touches of pop.

From The Guardian:

Permit some warranted hyperbole: the Canadian songwriter has one of the all-time great singing voices in popular music, an intensely romantic Chet Baker-ish instrument that seems to float with piercing direction, like a paper aeroplane thrown hard through mist. Backed with his equally distinctive burbling guitar, Say Laura is a perfect gateway to his oeuvre with some of his loveliest compositions – and There They Were may be his best ever.

From The Vanguard:

Back, four years after ‘Slowly Paradise’, with his new album, there is a lot to celebrate in ‘Say Laura’. Eric Chenaux is still working with Ryan Driver, who contributes lyrics and some Wurlitzer. He’s also still making woozy, sun-drunk music with wayward notes that somehow work just exactly right.

Chenaux sings and plays electric guitar (both plugged in and not plugged in), harmonica and some electronics. Having seen him play live, nothing is as loose as it appears and he spends a long time getting his tunings and effects just right. So when you hear a buzzing bluebottle, that is the intention. When the guitar takes a dive off-note to somewhere you didn’t expect, he wanted that to happen. Vocals and guitar sometimes seem to travel slightly different paths but the tension between that is the jazz in the music. It still sounds haphazard and fortunately co-incidental but it is actually an Expressionist painting in sound. The lyrical journey, for me, is merely a set of words to hang a melody on – it’s hard to focus on words when the voice and guitar are pushing and pulling in such interesting ways.

This is ultimately a joyously relaxing album, a playful tugging of the earlobes and tweaking of expectations. It rarely goes in the direction expected, preferring to dance Puckishly away from the path we predicted. Eric’s sweet and pure lyrical voice is at odds from these wayward guitar notes that punctuate and illustrate the songs. The tunes are simple in concept but devious in delivery once the guitar has wandered around and the sonic space is wide and open, creating a big space for simple sounds to deliver complex ideas.

Effects pedals deliver beats, modulating the guitar and warping proceedings just enough to create exploratory tensions. These are fully explored and pieces average out at about ten minutes – time enough to bend into the strange head-space these sounds create. There is a beauty here, created from apparent randomness, focusing the ears into a light-hearted and spiritually free space. A special and other-worldly beauty that turns jazz guitar into an unhinged yet perfectly judged summer’s afternoon.

Best Music of 2021-Igor Levit

Shostakovich and Levit seems like a perfect marriage. Levit has both the intelligence to interpret Shostakovich's compositions and the manual dexterity to translate it into the piano sounds with coherence and a master storyteller's pacing. A three disc extravaganza. Good lord!

From Alex Ross of the New Yorker:

Levit introduced himself to the international public in an ostensibly conventional manner, with a recording of Beethoven. The Sony Classical label signed him in 2012, after he had attracted notice as a member of the BBC’s young-artist program. His first Sony project was nonetheless bold in concept, even brazen: where other début pianists might have stuck to the “Moonlight,” the “Appassionata,” or the “Waldstein,” Levit offered a two-disk set of Beethoven’s final five piano sonatas, including the titanic “Hammerklavier.”

To some, the gesture smacked of arrogance. He told me, “I know there is this attitude that you are supposed to wait until you are sixty-five and have seen life and the world and suffering before you approach late Beethoven. But I know thirteen-year-olds who know a level of suffering that these full-of-themselves, elegant mid-sixties artists have absolutely no fucking idea about. Give me a break! Anyway, that’s where I started, with late Beethoven. Matti really helped give me that attitude. He would say, ‘Just go do it. Just be a pianist. I will help you not to be an idiot.’ ”

When that début recording arrived in the mail, I rolled my eyes, but skepticism soon gave way to wonder. The opening gestures of Opus 111, in C Minor, were almost frightening in their intensity; the inward-searching lyricism of the second movement suggested a sage elder who could remember the world before the wars. When Levit traversed the entire cycle for Sony, in sessions extending from 2017 to 2019, he considered rerecording the late sonatas, but decided that his earlier attempts held up. A sleight of hand happens as you make your way through the set: Beethoven gets older while Levit gets younger.

From Gramophone :

Levit is unquestionably the finest artist of current times to have added it to his repertoire and I heard him give a thrillingly visceral, epic reading at Wigmore Hall a couple of years back. This studio account is every bit as compelling, making you realise afresh what a masterpiece this is. The many moments where Stevenson seems to transcend the possibilities of the keyboard, becoming positively symphonic in his writing, leave him unfazed and each section follows with complete inevitability, yet there’s plenty of contrast, too, for instance in the sequence of dances that form the Suite in the Pars prima, while the ‘Pibroch (Lament for the Children)’ has a desolation to it that is as heartfelt as the composer’s own.

Moving on to the Pars altera, the ‘Fanfare – Forebodings’ section is terrifying, while the ‘Glimpse of a War Vision’ has a surreal beauty (Stevenson was a conscientious objector and spent a year in Wormwood Scrubs after refusing to sign up for National Service); from the depths then grow ‘Variations on “Peace, Bread and the Land” (1917)’, in which Levit reveals a Messiaen-like colour palette. This is one of those jaw-dropping moments where most pianists (James Willshire and Murray McLachlan among them) show some strain, but not Levit – the ‘Central Episode: Études’ is dispatched with a hyper-virtuosity but also a rare grandeur. The DSCH motif is ever present, of course, but never becomes overbearing or merely repetitive. To the Triple Fugue, which is overly softly contoured in Willshire’s reading and too coolly efficient in McLachlan’s hands, Levit brings a plasticity and an inexorability ameliorated by a humanity that is very potent.

Pars tertia takes us back to Bach and the ‘Subject II: BACH’ is alluringly coloured, while the following ‘Subject III: Dies irae’ seems to be hewn from solid rock, Levit alive to its terrifying vision. The final section, based on a French ouverture-type dotted rhythm around the DSCH motif, is again given due weight and as we reach the Passacaglia’s final moments there is a fitting sense of having experienced an epic journey with the most imaginative of guides.

The Bachian element in Stevenson’s homage to Shostakovich is also at the root of the Russian’s great cycle of Preludes and Fugues, premiered by Tatiana Nikolayeva in 1952. And, much as I admire her reading of this set, Levit is more than a match for her. Space precludes a detailed analysis but let me offer a few observations. His sense of characterisation in each piece (often determined by key) is unerring: there’s a freshness to the opening C major Prelude, while to the Fugue he brings a quiet absorption, the textures always perfectly balanced. But he’s equally alive to Shostakovich in more acerbic mood, whether in the nervous march of the Eighth Prelude in F sharp minor (where Nikolayeva is also persuasive) and its anxiety-laden Fugue, rendered monumental in Levit’s spacious reading, or the sardonic D flat major Prelude (No 15) and its Fugue, a tour de force of complexity; Donohoe doesn’t manage the same impact, even though he’s not exactly sluggish, tempo-wise. Shostakovich the symphonist is there too, in the B minor Prelude of No 6, its dotted rhythms conveying a sense of immutable strength and leading without resolution into a growly, obsessive fugue. Here he treads a middle ground between Nikolayeva, whom I find a touch too deliberate, and Donohoe, who makes less of its power. To the Bach-inspired numbers Levit brings a characterful immediacy, whether in the bustling E major two-voice Fugue of No 9, for instance, or the Prelude of No 10, which quotes directly from the ‘48’. And the 14th Prelude in E flat minor has never sounded quite as starkly anguished as it does here, with a folk-like melody against a tremolo backdrop.

From The Classic Review:

Having to fill the shoes of Tatiana Nikolayeva, to whom Shostakovich dedicated the Preludes and Fugues (and who recorded them three times over in 1962, 1987, 1990), is a tall order. Levit surely does not disappoint: for those in search of a contemplative and highly-nuanced version, this is it. There are a myriad of influences present – Bach, of course, but also Russian folk melodies, Orthodox liturgy, and nods to the composer’s other pieces. While showcasing the variety, what Levit manages to do simultaneously is treat the set as a unified entity. He imbues it with what I might best describe as ‘overarching dignity.’ Gradients, ranging from restrained elegance to stately austerity, are captured in a thoughtful and thought-provoking manner.

The unassuming C major Prelude (Volume 1, track 1) derives a hypnotic feel through the sway of its dotted rhythms. Yet, the work is not mired in predictability: Levit shows us the rich colors of the innovative harmonic language through well-blended voicing. The long lines of the fugue complement the prelude, which is based more upon chordal textures: here, his remarkably even tone is a fine counterpart to a mellow canvas absent of sharps and flats. The perpetuum mobile A minor Prelude (Volume 1, track 3) sets up an interesting comparison to a rendition by the composer himself. While Levit’s might not have the same electrifying ferocity, his clarity and detail certainly make up for it.

The G# minor (Volume 1, tracks 23 & 24) cannot go without mention. The Prelude has a powerful orchestral opening that melts away into a lovely middle, and eventually, a meditative conclusion. What drives these changes is not only the melodies, however – the left hand ostinato is what fuels the passacaglia, and Levit’s has an array of temperaments from declamatory to shadowy. The impressive Fugue is a vibrant contrast with its assertive persona, heard in the marcato textures and crystalline dissonances. That said, the sound quality never comes off as harsh on the ears, and the final moments (including the major ending), lend a quiet profundity and balance to the work.

 

Best Music of 2021-Linda Frederiksson

Pensive, subtle, strong, cohesive and hummable. . . as first time listener I was captivated by song-like structure to what in the end is a jazz rendition of music that could go in many more less adventurous directions but the path taken is the most adventurous one for us, the listener.

From Jazz Journal:

Composed over the course of several years and crystallised during lockdown, Juniper often resembles an audio-visual journey through a series of interconnected rooms. Melodies are instantly hummable, and Fredriksson’s expressive bass clarinet and alto and baritone saxes are always centre stage. Rather refreshingly there is little attempt to dazzle with untamed virtuosity, and by combining texturally layered field recordings, analogue keyboards, guitar and voice with remotely recorded contributions from a cast of familiar guests, Fredriksson manages to imbue each piece with its own distinct atmosphere.

Neon Light captures that familiar feeling when skies darken and a storm washes over the city. Downcast alto traces a long and graceful melodic arc before the track dissipates in a haze of multiphonics, and headphone listeners will hear the sound of falling rain recorded outside the saxophonist’s Helsinki studio. The title track’s ritualistic beats and floating theme momentarily recall the late Jon Hassell, before a burst of raucous baritone quickly returns the music back to earth.

Nana-Tepalle, dedicated to Fredriksson’s departed grandmother, moves through the full gamut of emotion, and Matti Bye’s Satie-esque piano is a near perfect coda. The rustic airs of Pinetree Song, introspective and longing, feature Fredriksson’s battered old acoustic guitar, while the intro to the shape-shifting Transit wallows in sheer melodic bliss. The elegiac Lempilauluni (“My Loved Song”) is carried by Fredriksson’s (wordless) voice, and the closing Clea seems to miraculously condense the scale and grandeur of Jarrett’s Arbour Zena into a mere six minutes.

From Uncut:

Saxophonist Linda Fredriksson is a product of Helsinki’s thriving contemporary jazz scene, epitomised by the label We Jazz. Their playful trio Mopo won the Finnish equivalent of a Grammy for 2014 album Beibe, and they’re also a member of the more avant-leaning Superposition. Two members of the latter play on Juniper, but this is very much a solo project in terms of vision and execution. While Fredriksson references sax greats Eric Dolphy and Pharoah Sanders, their approach here was equally influenced by Neil Young, Feist, and particularly Sufjan Stevens’ Carrie & Lowell, the 2015 album dedicated to his mother and stepfather. Touchstones don’t come more personal than that.

Fredriksson says they often write songs at home on their battered acoustic guitar before transposing them to the jazz idiom. But in this case, co-producer Minna Koivisto persuaded them that the demos were the essence of the whole project, and that they should build the recordings carefully around these scratch home recordings rather than simply overwriting them. Some tracks feature up to five additional musicians – Koivisto on synth, Tuomo Prättälä on keyboards, Olavi Louhivuori on drums, Mikael Saastamoinen on bass and Matti Bye on piano – but you can still sometimes hear the buzzing strings of Fredriksson’s old acoustic, the dry ambience of a living room and the glitching of the iPhone mic that recorded it. Other songs are enhanced by field recordings of seagulls or the sounds of wind on rocks, captured near Fredriksson’s family summer-house in Taalintehdas, on the Archipelago Sea. It makes for an album rich in small details, instantly welcoming and endearingly vulnerable, proud to wear its heart right on its sleeve.

From Clash:

Look at the artwork for ‘Juniper’. What do you see? In front of a lilac background there are some bushes, possibly juniper, painted in orange. In front for those are some purple, or dark blue depending on whether I’m looking on my phone or computer, petals that are falling. The mood it creates is one of serenity, but also of movement. If you have ever watched petals fall to the ground, you know that it doesn’t take long, but their descent isn’t a straight line either. They can be buffeted by the breeze and end up somewhere unexpected. This is exactly what Linda Fredriksson has created on ‘Juniper’. A slow descent to an unknown destination.  

Throughout the album Linda Fredriksson has created something that sounds like a traditional jazz album. Deep horns. Subtle repetitive motifs, which deliver massive emotional impacts. There are wailing solos and freak-outs. However, underpinning this is an electronic foundation made up of throbbing synths and frenzied bleeps. All the while rolling percussion fills in any gaps, while keeping things moving forward.

There are times during ‘Juniper’ where I think “These are some of the tenderest pieces of music I’ve heard for a long time”. ‘Neon Light [and the sky was trans]’ is filled with yearning and passion, but with these moments of aggression that bubble up, then slow dissolve. The final third features Fredriksson on sax. Sometimes melodic, others playing free. Many of the themes on ‘Juniper’ are executed expertly on ‘Neon Light [and the sky was trans]’. One theme feels like an inability to express what you are actually feeling. This is something we’ve all had to deal with over the past two years, or so. It's hard to get across how frustrated you feel, or the sadness when reading the news. Or the elation when seeing a friend by chance in town. You have so much you want to say, but all that comes out is something about work, or how you need new shoes. Here Fredriksson is trying to articulate their inner torments, but only painfully squeaky sax comes out. It is a fitting end to a glorious song, but also a fitting start to one of the strongest albums released this year.