Artists' charts

This year I wasn't a good listener from a qualitative point of view, but I was fairly good from a quantitative one. I think I listened to about fifty records (all the way through, I mean), but I know I missed some important ones (These New Puritans, Dream Syndicate, Lana Del Rey, Vinicio Capossela, Thom Yorke, whose concert was elegantly superb and magnificent, are the first ones that come to mind). It's impossible to listen to "everything": you wouldn't find two identical playlists anywhere on the planet. The sheer amount on offer is monstrous… But there it is.

Below are the ones I felt like listening to more than once, which is to say the ones I liked. A lot, an awful lot, or just enough. I wish there were more Italian records on here, but unfortunately I only came across four this year (I'll point out the only one I truly enjoyed): if you want to keep up with what's happening internationally, as is naturally in my nature, you end up missing out on the dozens of things being made here at home, and every year I feel a certain regret over this forced, entirely unwanted inattention of mine.

Here's my "eighteen-pick", in no particular order.

He's a neo-soul-r'n'b producer. And he does the same thing with his own music. I generally have some reservations about this genre (neo-soul, I mean), but this record is gorgeous. Maybe because it doesn't come across as smug or trendy. There's real substance here, which to me carries an old-fashioned flavor, an approach to singing and songwriting that reminds me of certain traditions. In short: this kind of thing usually isn't my cup of tea, but this record, I repeat, is gorgeous. Jimmy Lee is his brother, who died of an overdose.

He's a Danish musician-producer-DJ named Loke Rahbek. It's an electronic music record, dark and gloomy pop, dazed, troubled, deconstructed (beats sometimes off-time, obviously entirely on purpose). Here and there vocal fragments appear out of nowhere and are ready to vanish just as they arrived. Female voices, sometimes spoken, sometimes thin and ethereal, but always unsettling. I don't know how many people would like it: it fascinates me a great deal.

Swans – Leaving Meaning

They're a band I loved enormously (and for me the quartet of "The Burning World", "White Light From The Mouth Of Infinity", "Love Of Life" and "The Great Annihilator" – the folk-turn period following the magnificent obsessive claustrophobia of before – was pure emotion), but lately I'd come to perceive them as tired and somewhat stuck in formulas that no longer had anything to add. Nothing serious, but unfortunately they bored me. This double album, on the other hand, strikes me as much, much better, and here and there it has thrilling, inspired moments. Maybe it's because I hear again that kind of folk I'm so responsive to.

Bruce Springsteen – Western Stars

I've never loved him. Respected him greatly (of course), but without being blown away. And yet I find this record truly beautiful, with great sounds and captivating orchestral arrangements. They say it's his pop turn: as a non-fan, I think I can understand why. And a dear friend of mine, a hardcore Springsteen fan, tells me that true-blue Springsteen devotees like him, unlike him, are quite irritated (to put it mildly): from direct experience, this doesn't surprise me one bit, even though there's always a part of me, the more instinctive part, that never stops being disappointed by these clichés of human psychology. Some songs are moving, above all "Western Stars" (stunning) and "There Goes My Miracle", which reminds me, at least in its vocal timbre, of a band I like a great deal, namely Elbow.

I've loved him for more than thirty years. Never had a single problem with his records: even the much-maligned “Nocturama” won me over straight away. The second-to-last one (“Skeleton Tree“), which is very close in spirit to “Ghosteen”, I'd almost rank among his very best. And yet, for now, I haven't fallen head over heels for this one, which happens to be a record of definitive canonisation. A record that turned him into a living legend, in the purest and least overused sense of the word. Just look at the scores on Metacritic.com to believe it… (I don't think any living musician has ever been treated quite like this). The fact that I haven't yet been floored by love doesn't mean it's not among my favourites of 2019: for me, pretty much anything he does is huge. I probably still need to sit with it, and at some point it will start to move me. Regardless of my own experience: three listens are enough to grasp the unmatched artistic density of this record. (And as I write this, having just relistened to it – the eighth time, maybe? – I was overcome by a deep melancholy: it's on its way…) 

I admit I'd never really bothered with them (not out of prejudice, but because there's just so much to listen to…). Then we played together at Cinzella in Puglia, and I didn't even enjoy the show all that much. But it left me curious to hear them on record. So I did, with this “Five”, and I had fun, and at times found myself genuinely and seriously drawn in: rare moments of "full-bodied" rock (like the gorgeous “Fire And Wings”) that demanded my attention, even where the essentially pop side of things (which is the record's main calling card, chasing the effective hook and that Eighties wave sound) is the central focus. Harry McVeigh's derivative voice really works for me. The sound is cool and plenty of the songs genuinely work for me: they're a joy to sing along to.

Chelsea Wolfe – Birth Of Violence

I almost always like her. I like the alien atmosphere you find yourself immersed in. On first listen to this “Birth Of Violence” I was left a bit… how to put it? Indifferent. On the second I thought it was one of the darkest, murkiest things imaginable, and that suddenly made me warm to it. By the third I loved it. There's a lot of folk in here (transfigured by her aesthetic sense for murky imagery), dark and minimal. Swans, Dead Can Dance and Portishead peek through now and then. But she lives a life entirely her own, dark and priestess-like.

Americans, they also do folk. This one fits neatly into the indie-folk (or alt-folk) category: so none of the heaviness (in the best sense) of Swans and Chelsea Wolfe here, but rather the lightness (never flighty) of a whole frame of reference tied to the American way of being indie: an aesthetic attitude inherited, I'd say, from low-fi, with a more or less pronounced display of a certain kind of couldn't-care-less attitude (and Neil Young looming in the background, godfather to so many bands around the world, across so many eras…). It's a very good record, with a few small compositional lulls. The title track is gorgeous. I've seen some of their live shows on YouTube: they're seriously cool and out-there to watch, and in a very convincing way.

Bruce Hornsby – Absolute Zero

Here we're in the territory of extremely refined pop-rock, played by tremendous musicians. Not a record for anyone rigidly wedded to the comfort zones of genres that don't include… extremely refined pop-rock. An eclectic musician who moves from jazz to folk, from gospel to blues, on this “Absolute Zero” he conjures up the Eighties and certain Peter Gabriel-esque moments, while often steering his pop into avant-garde territory, which, if you wanted to file it under yet another label, I think could fall under the so-called "americana" genre. I don't follow this stuff much, as you can probably tell, but I've listened to this record a lot, and with real pleasure. And… I almost forgot: the single “Cast-Off” features Justin Vernon (Bon Iver). It's a beautiful song, and, as he himself has said, it's “about welcome and gratitude”: in these grim times, that's already a value in itself.

Massimo Volume – Il nuotatore

What can I say? It's Massimo Volume, and here they're particularly inspired. Bass, guitar and drums, and the same sacred atmosphere that only they manage to conjure. Great stuff.

Specials – Encore

The idea of carefree fun in music is pretty alien to me, and ska has never really grabbed me, except for the odd dancefloor moment back in my younger days. And yet this record wins me over precisely through its carefree spirit (though there are songs that deal with anything but carefree subjects): it's beautifully played (the musicians are top-notch) and some tracks, besides being well played, are also gorgeous. For me, a record to listen to and listen to again, closely too.

Weyes Blood – Titanic Rising

A Californian singer-songwriter named Natalie Mering. Brazenly sumptuous, "out of time" melodies, carried off with lightness and, I think, a touch of irony (even though the record is steeped in bitter reflections on things like the devastating climate crisis), plus an equally brazen use of synths that couldn't care less about the notion of cool and almost mocks it (unless, by now, using uncool sounds has itself become cool, and conversely using cool sounds is no longer cool). On first listen it might throw off anyone not used to melodies this wide open, prompting an instinctive rejection: but it ends up sticking to you regardless. It often reminds me of John Grant, whose “Queen Of Denmark” I loved a great deal.

They play metal. I couldn't tell you the exact subgenre, but I'd say it's almost classic in structure (maybe that's nonsense… no offence to the purists). Unfortunately I'm not keen on the vocals, but musically there are adventurous, almost "progressive" moments (I think that's fair to say) that are genuinely top-tier. Those are the parts where it truly soars. Seventeen tracks: excessive and overlong, it could have been trimmed here and there. Clearly they considered everything indispensable. A difficulty I understand well as a musician myself.

Did you like Talk Talk? He, whose name is Paul Webb, was their bassist up until “Spirit Of Eden”. As far as I know, this is his second record after years of intermittent silence. Intense, melancholic, dark, solitary, deep, reflective, delicate, autumnal, it moves from folk to jazz (just a hint, nothing to worry about if you're not used to the genre), with songs whose main strength lies in the arrangements. Two names come to mind most while listening to it: Robert Wyatt and, above all, David Bowie. A listen that fills you with a relaxed kind of emotion. 

They're American and they play the kind of rock that tends to be rather out of favour among the elite of "advanced" listeners. I notice, though, that despite everything it has managed to win the attention of many of them: clearly the quality outweighs the prejudice. I like it a lot myself, and anyone who loved My Bloody Valentine (and shoegaze in general) and Smashing Pumpkins (and the more lyrical strain of grunge more broadly) ought to check out this “Deceiver” if they haven't already. Obviously a melancholic, depressed record, with vocals and harmonies leaning ethereal, harmonic-melodic ideas that feel fresh despite the sense of having heard it all before (though honestly that's not a "problem" that bothers me: I'm not someone chasing novelty at all costs), and a mid-tempo pace that holds things back, which is generally something I love a great deal (otherwise, to give an example, we would never have made a record like “S-Low”…)

It's a disturbing record, and in certain circles that seems to be reason enough for praise. I'm not sure a disturbing piece of art is automatically valuable just because of that, but here the music itself is, to me, very appealing: I hear the very earliest Sonic Youth in it (but also a lot else... the Fall, for instance) in a lot of what the band's guitarist plays, and you can see why I'd feel immediately at home. The disturbance, though, comes with the voice: the singer gives me trouble, I'll admit, because his anguished, monotone howl wears me down after a while and pushes me away. But it's exactly this disturbing element that seems to be the extra quid, especially since I read that he's depicting and staging, with raw realism, his own depression and psychic distress, panic attacks included: no prejudice here, quite the opposite, but as I said, he does it with a monotone howl that after a while becomes wearing, tiresome, and alienating. Musically, though, it's really remarkable, and inspiring too.

Billie Elish – When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?

She's a super cool kid (I think she's under 18, or just turned it), and her music can be really intriguing here and there, modern, DIY (she makes it with her brother, in fact, and sells like crazy worldwide: a prodigy). In the videos she's magnificent and really knows what she's doing (I'd love to see her live). And the great thing is that she doesn't need to pretend everything in the world is fine (I can barely stand that "everything's-fine-ism" that pretends it's all okay, or flaunts a well-being that ninety percent of the planet doesn't have, laughing and dancing, dancing and laughing, dragging the gullible along with it): no, she sings about her own troubles in language that doesn't hide behind convenient niceties, and says what needs to be said, with no pat on the back, no softening. And that alone makes her adorable.

Thurston Moore: Spirit Counsel

Over the past couple of days I've listened to the first two discs of three in this monumental work (the first track alone runs over an hour, taking up the entire first disc). I read in one review that it's boring... Unfortunately, anyone who lets themselves be bored by these meticulous, monk-like carvings of sound blocks locked together with rare magic, and worse still fails to grasp the dazzling beauty of the sudden shifts in atmosphere (all played live, with no editing tricks or whatever else), simply isn't equipped to tune in to this patient, fascinating art. There are no songs here: these are sound experiments, following in the footsteps of the teachings of Terry Riley, La Monte Young, Philip Glass, Steve Reich — musicians who always made cameo appearances even in Sonic Youth, and who here are pushed to the extreme. I don't think I can recommend buying this to anyone who doesn't know what they're getting into: it takes a patient, attentive ear, one willing to be dragged into many different vortexes — magnetic, magmatic, labyrinthine.

(Photo by Filippo Leonardi)