{"id":14203,"date":"2017-12-29T13:49:17","date_gmt":"2017-12-29T11:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/culturedarm.com\/?p=14203"},"modified":"2019-10-23T15:16:32","modified_gmt":"2019-10-23T13:16:32","slug":"culturedarms-albums-of-the-year-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/culturedarm.com\/staging\/5793\/culturedarms-albums-of-the-year-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Culturedarm&#8217;s Albums of the Year 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_19482\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-19482\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-19482 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/culturedarm.com\/staging\/5793\/wp-content\/uploads\/Bjork-Utopia-1.jpg?resize=696%2C464&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"696\" height=\"464\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/culturedarm.com\/staging\/5793\/wp-content\/uploads\/Bjork-Utopia-1.jpg?w=1200&ssl=1 1200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/culturedarm.com\/staging\/5793\/wp-content\/uploads\/Bjork-Utopia-1.jpg?resize=978%2C652&ssl=1 978w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/culturedarm.com\/staging\/5793\/wp-content\/uploads\/Bjork-Utopia-1.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/culturedarm.com\/staging\/5793\/wp-content\/uploads\/Bjork-Utopia-1.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/culturedarm.com\/staging\/5793\/wp-content\/uploads\/Bjork-Utopia-1.jpg?resize=370%2C247&ssl=1 370w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/culturedarm.com\/staging\/5793\/wp-content\/uploads\/Bjork-Utopia-1.jpg?resize=270%2C180&ssl=1 270w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/culturedarm.com\/staging\/5793\/wp-content\/uploads\/Bjork-Utopia-1.jpg?resize=570%2C380&ssl=1 570w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/culturedarm.com\/staging\/5793\/wp-content\/uploads\/Bjork-Utopia-1.jpg?resize=770%2C513&ssl=1 770w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/culturedarm.com\/staging\/5793\/wp-content\/uploads\/Bjork-Utopia-1.jpg?resize=1170%2C780&ssl=1 1170w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/culturedarm.com\/staging\/5793\/wp-content\/uploads\/Bjork-Utopia-1.jpg?resize=870%2C580&ssl=1 870w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 696px) 100vw, 696px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-19482\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Credit: Photograph of Bj\u00f6rk by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.santiagofelipe.com\/\">Santiago Felipe<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">40. Japanese Breakfast \u2013 <em>Soft Sounds from Another Planet<\/em> | 39. BICEP \u2013 <em>BICEP<\/em> | 38. Lana Del Rey \u2013 <em>Lust for Life<\/em> | 37. Colleen \u2013 <em>A flame my love, a frequency<\/em> | 36. Actress \u2013 <em>AZD<\/em> | 35. Sampha \u2013 <em>Process<\/em> | 34. Yaeji \u2013 <em>Yaeji \/ EP2<\/em>\u00a0| 33. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith \u2013<em> The Kid<\/em> | 32. Fever Ray \u2013 <em>Plunge<\/em> | 31. Bonnie \u2018Prince\u2019 Billy \u2013 <em>Best Troubador<\/em> | 30. DJ Python \u2013 <em>Dulce Compa\u00f1ia<\/em> | 29. Xiu Xiu \u2013 <em>FORGET<\/em> | 28. Tyler, the Creator \u2013 <em>Flower Boy<\/em> | 27. Shabazz Palaces \u2013 <em>Quazarz: Born on a Gangster Star<\/em> \/ <em>Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines<\/em> | 26. Julie Byrne \u2013 <em>Not Even Happiness<\/em> | 25. Lil Uzi Vert \u2013 <em>Luv Is Rage 2 <\/em>| 24. Jefre Cantu-Ledesma \u2013 <em>On the Echoing Green<\/em> | 23. The Magnetic Fields \u2013 <em>50 Song Memoir<\/em> | 22. Quercus \u2013 <em>Nightfall <\/em>| 21. Migos \u2013 <em>Culture<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>20. Princess Nokia \u2013 <em>1992 Deluxe<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"AH-LyInSNYw\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"TOMBOY - PRINCESS NOKIA\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AH-LyInSNYw?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>19. Kedr Livanskiy \u2013 <em>Ariadna<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"3kM-NXin1Ec\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Kedr Livanskiy - Ariadna (Official Video)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3kM-NXin1Ec?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>18. Waxahatchee \u2013 <em>Out in the Storm<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"zDiIhwGBIig\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Waxahatchee - Recite Remorse (Official Music Video)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zDiIhwGBIig?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Katie Crutchfield has a remarkable knack for churning out three-minute pop songs, perfect because imperfect, a merging of the sounds and sensibilities of garage rock and singer-songwriter folk. They feel at once offhand and finely wrought, and there is nobody better at conveying in plain language the complex desires and motivations which transfigure even the most apparently mundane lives and relationships. Compared to the more synth-driven, psychedelic edge of her previous album <em>Ivy Tripp<\/em>, <em>Out in the Storm<\/em> finds Crutchfield in fully-fledged rock and roll mode, with one or two exceptions. \u20188 Ball\u2019 features country-esque pans and strummed guitars offset by a deliberately muted, directionless, breathy vocal, a gently oscillating organ provides a meditative quality to \u2018Recite Remorse\u2019, and \u2018Hear You\u2019 is fuzzily buoyant.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>17. Ryuichi Sakamoto \u2013 <em>async<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"pygwK0sBUdM\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ryuichi Sakamoto - &quot;andata&quot; (from &quot;async&quot;)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pygwK0sBUdM?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>16. Ariel Pink \u2013 <em>Dedicated to Bobby Jameson<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"nwe76N7J0EI\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ariel Pink - Another Weekend [Official Video]\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nwe76N7J0EI?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>15. Moses Sumney \u2013 <em>Aromanticism<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"CMyRfIpNvPs\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Moses Sumney - Doomed [Official Video]\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CMyRfIpNvPs?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>14. Kendrick Lamar \u2013 <em>DAMN.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"tvTRZJ-4EyI\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Kendrick Lamar - HUMBLE.\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tvTRZJ-4EyI?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Following the jazz, funk, and soul-infused <em>To Pimp a Butterfly<\/em>, politically conscious, profoundly American, and Pan-African in scope, the conceit on <em>DAMN.<\/em> is more personal and straightforward yet almost seems a little too arch. As spelled out on the opener \u2018BLOOD.\u2019, its songs alternate between the ostensible poles of \u2018wickedness\u2019 and \u2018weakness\u2019, but rather than restricting the range of beats and samples on display, the dichotomy allows a certain freedom, to play between the lines and for radio-friendly bang and slap. Framed by an evocative origin story, Kendrick\u2019s lyrics cover the breadth of lived experience, from childhood reminisces, to prime-time controversy over the content of his lyrics, to his pre-eminent rap status, to the cyclical mundane day-to-day. Where one finds weakness there is also patience and humility and perseverance, while on \u2018ELEMENT.\u2019 with its loping gloats, stuttering percussion and halting keys, even the wicked is suffused with ennui. \u2018LOVE.\u2019 is the exception, which floats by on a tropical breeze, Kendrick\u2019s sweetest confection to date.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>13. Charlotte Gainsbourg \u2013 <em>Rest<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"eRwgL_PrQYQ\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Charlotte Gainsbourg - Rest (Official Music Video)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eRwgL_PrQYQ?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>12. Arca \u2013 <em>Arca<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"0WKWZ9y-dvU\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Arca - Reverie\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0WKWZ9y-dvU?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>11. Laurel Halo \u2013 <em>Dust<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"IrjeMN_U1hw\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Laurel Halo - Jelly (Hyperdub 2017)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/IrjeMN_U1hw?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>From the wobbly synths of \u2018Jelly\u2019, to the jazzy \u2018Arschkriecher\u2019, to the djembe drums, rumba rhythms, and big band flourishes of \u2018Moontalk\u2019, <em>Dust<\/em> finds Laurel Halo incorporating a wider range of genre influences into the usually robust sonic palette of bleeps, buzzes, and hums, skittering kicks, and abstract synth patches, elements alternately layered and foregrounded to create urbane, street-level, and cave-like compositions of place. This is the least confrontational album she\u2019s made: rather than enacting the process of negotiation, it\u2019s about defining the fraught space, and then leaving if desirable or necessary. Lyrics read like diagnoses, accusations, and open-ended questions, of the moment yet it\u2019s never quite clear whether they are being uttered or felt. Fragmented in the manner of collages and sound poems, they cohere on the level of mood rather than semantics.<\/p>\n<p>On \u2018Who Won?\u2019 a lounge lizard smoothly utters non sequiturs on the themes of time, location, and access by password or phone number, a cross between a hotel receptionist and a would-be lover. On \u2018Syzygy\u2019, Halo sings \u2018I said \u201cGet up\u201d \/ I said \u201cTime for love\u201d\u2018 in a tone that suggests the time has already passed, each figure locked in their own orbits. The later tracks on <em>Dust<\/em> seem to break out of the city into a rumbling, swooning nature, before album closer \u2018Buh-bye\u2019, a stumbling carousel, is finally overcome with a brassy sunset sheen. <em>Dust<\/em> features a stellar group of contributors, including Eli Keszler, Klein, Lafawndah, Michael Salu, Craig Clouse, and Julia Holter. It\u2019s the sort of album you can dip into at any point, and it\u2019s a lot of fun.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>10. Vince Staples \u2013 <em>Big Fish Theory<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"0l9kzS_B7gg\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Vince Staples - Big Fish (Official Video)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0l9kzS_B7gg?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>9. Jolie Holland & Samantha Parton \u2013 <em>Wildflower Blues<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"HXHOkCgM9SU\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"&quot;You Are Not Needed Now&quot; - Jolie Holland & Samantha Parton Official Video\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HXHOkCgM9SU?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Opening with a rollicking cover of Townes Van Zandt\u2019s \u2018You Are Not Needed Now\u2019, one might expect that this is where Jolie Holland and Samantha Parton \u2013 co-founders of The Be Good Tanyas, reuniting for the first time since Holland\u2019s 2008 album <em>The Living and the Dead<\/em>, three years after two car accidents left Parton requiring brain surgery for an aneurysm behind the left eye \u2013 will more or less end up: in something folksy and rootsy, with handsomely executed harmonies, outlined by Holland\u2019s utterly distinctive trill, and with the occasional swagger and rock. But Holland\u2019s solo work has always pushed at genre boundaries, never more so than on 2014\u2019s wide and rumbling <em>Wine Dark Sea<\/em>, and any thought that this might be a down-home roots retread is dashed by the next song, the title track \u2018Wildflower Blues\u2019, a scuzzy jam firmly in the milieus of psychedelia and early-90s grunge.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s soul-infused R&B, jazz flourishes, gospel vocals, fuzzy 60s garage rock, laid-back rockabilly, songs that veer towards dream pop and new-age, and even an instrumental ragtime closer, on what are finely-wrought mostly original lovelorn compositions, with a cover of \u2018Jocko\u2019s Lament\u2019 by Michael Hurley and a reworking of Bob Dylan\u2019s \u2018Minstrel Boy\u2019 featuring new verses evoking the poets Steven \u2018Jesse\u2019 Bernstein and William Blake. The result is a record that\u2019s deeply meditative at the same time as it\u2019s transitory, happily informal and offhand, roving but not quite restless, surprising even on repeated listens, an effortlessly elegant and endlessly pleasant trip in the company of old friends.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>8. Jlin \u2013 <em>Black Origami<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"cxPBqUh3kSU\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Jlin - Carbon 7 (161)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cxPBqUh3kSU?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>On <em>Black Origami<\/em> Jlin pushes footwork beyond its usual locales, its roots in Chicago and its destination in face-offs at parties and clubs, on a dynamic path that encompasses world music while treating it as a ripe discovery, her honed electronics terraforming as they go. Coiling, unfurling, intimately concerned with space at the same time as it rushes headlong, there\u2019s not a branch of music it does not touch, nor a brain centre or nerve ending. On the opener and title track, computer game blips and beeps, roving ambient swipes with an industrial sheen, and rolling rapid-fire drums somehow cohere in a song which enacts the forming of voice, all palate. \u2018Enigma\u2019 takes a Missy Elliot-esque vocal sample and layers it over skittering tabla.<\/p>\n<p>Glistening wind chimes, a Hindi vocal, and synthetic birdsong provide the access points on the bright and airy \u2018Kyanite\u2019: if this is a forest, we\u2019re constantly emerging through the canopy for a view of life from above the treetops. On \u2018Holy Child\u2019 with William Basinski, a Baltic folk sample is transformed through operatic swoops, muzzled jazz, and syncopated percussion into something balletic. Anxious polyrhythms characterise \u2018Nyakinyua Rise\u2019, the marching drums on \u2018Hatshepsut\u2019 open triumphantly before being drilled into something more dangerous and defiant, while amid the reverberating beats and slinking shakers of the eastern-infused \u2018Calcination\u2019, the short track remains resolutely choral. \u20181%\u2019 with Holly Herndon samples <em>Resident Evil<\/em>, more apprehensive than frightened, with a segue just before the midpoint into something lovely and watery. The youthful exuberance of \u2018Never Created, Never Destroyed\u2019 proves a late highlight.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>7. JFDR \u2013 <em>Brazil<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"eikLsHzfpL4\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"JFDR - White Sun\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eikLsHzfpL4?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>The debut solo album by J\u00f3fr\u00ed\u00f0ur \u00c1kad\u00f3ttir \u2013 already well established in her home of Iceland and beyond thanks to her work as the frontwoman of Samaris and Pascal Pinon \u2013 offers an uncanny juxtaposition of elements. Guitar and piano loops remain tautly elegant even as they are doused in feedback, even as they unfold with a simple and carefree gait. Percussion shifts moment to moment from the granular to the monolithic, sandy and scuzzy and bold and brash. Synths reverberate and then are briefly suspended in air, loping and lulling and eternally washing. The sound palette broken down to its component parts is a fusion of sixties folk and garage rock, some of the droning sensibilities of John Cale-era Velvet Underground, and new age music, yet the invocation here is utterly modern and distinctly fresh.<\/p>\n<p>In the midst are J\u00f3fr\u00ed\u00f0ur\u2019s vocals, sometimes swirling in the mix, other times impressing themselves more steadily, a sort of choral spoken word. The lyrics straddle uniquely the personal and the mythological, nowhere better than on the album-opener and standout track \u2018White Sun\u2019. A road trip, even a single journey conjures a mini-history of Iceland, natural and mythic, terns and other seabirds, the nighttime sun, and the \u2018intense wonders\u2019 of the island giving way to a vision of shared destiny, as a breakup song seamlessly attains the communal.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>6. Zola Jesus \u2013 <em>Okovi<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"RVtwUxQ1TeA\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Zola Jesus - Siphon (Official Music Video)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RVtwUxQ1TeA?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>A dense forest suddenly permeated with shafts of light, the subject matter of Zola Jesus\u2019 fifth album <em>Okovi<\/em> \u2013 death, drowning, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, the specifics coalescing as an attack on the body to be resisted at all costs \u2013 might sound dark and depleting, but this is music infused with measure and balance, a sense of space and steady hope. \u2018Doma\u2019 is a rebirth, the first sight of a clearing, its lyrical chants and repetitions recalling Zola Jesus\u2019 breakthrough <em>Stridulum<\/em>, but instead of menacing drums and driving synths, an industrial clash and clamour, we are out in the stillness of nature, awestruck and enveloped by a choral piece.<\/p>\n<p>Those pummelling percussive beats do make their presence felt on \u2018Exhumed\u2019, along with jagged strings and a lyric in counterpoint, which is a plaintive entreaty against being submerged by grief perversely framed as the act of swallowing one\u2019s tongue.\u00a0\u2018Soak\u2019 is written from the perspective of a serial killer\u2019s victim, who wrests back control by choosing to die, an allegory for the entire record. \u2018Ash to Bone\u2019 features lovely loping, diving, swallowing strings as Danilova\u2019s vocals soar above and the chaotic hum of percussion and bass bubble underneath, a more oblique sort of hymnal. \u2018Witness\u2019 \u2013 the first of two songs about a close friend\u2019s suicide attempts \u2013 interpolates Max Richter\u2019s \u2018On the Nature of Daylight\u2019 on cello, viola, violin, and double bass, boasting some of Danilova\u2019s most affecting vocals.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Veka\u2019 emerges gradually, through abstract ambient rustle and stretched, pitch-shifted shunts of Russian poetry, into a hypnotic piece on the theme of legacy, a temporal change of tack, before the club breakout at the close, the dance floor and flickering lights a fitting destination and climax. \u2018Wiseblood\u2019 keeps time, \u2018Remains\u2019 gives in to the swirl and pace of life, and \u2018Half Life\u2019, the elegant and optimistic instrumental closer, embodies a rebuilding of the edifices of life and self. \u2018Okovi\u2019 is an old Slavic word meaning \u2018shackles\u2019, but here Zola Jesus still finds room to stretch and breathe.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>5. Mount Eerie \u2013 <em>A Crow Looked at Me<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"H2R2Ck8qKWM\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"&quot;Ravens&quot; by Mount Eerie (official video)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/H2R2Ck8qKWM?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Working as The Microphones then as Mount Eerie, Phil Elverum\u2019s music \u2013 often viewed as if from a shallow ridge, at a slight remove and in brief retrospect \u2013 has always sought to both embrace the elevate the moment. Imbued with rumbling organic sounds which belie their sparse instrumentation, his songs demonstrate a keen sense of place and an acutely sensitive, poetic, yet still decidedly modern sensibility. On recent albums <em>Wind\u2019s Poem<\/em>, <em>Clear Moon<\/em>, <em>Ocean Roar<\/em>, and <em>Sauna<\/em>, his fragile but present voice has been increasingly encompassed by an unsettling, always alert ambience bridging the gap between lo-fi folk and the experimental outreaches of drone music and black metal.<\/p>\n<p>How to square presence, a keen sense of place, and music of profound intimacy \u2013 with an atmosphere that now teeters on the verge of existential dread, salvaged by the through-line of the embrace of nature \u2013 with the stark fact of the loss of your partner? How to inhabit those domestic spaces which through the devastation of absence still imply the life, the shape, the fading warmth of another? After Genevi\u00e8ve Castr\u00e9e, a cartoonist, illustrator, and musician, died of pancreatic cancer in the summer of 2016, her husband Phil Elverum began writing and recording songs in her room in an attempt to document the experience while providing some sort of testament.<\/p>\n<p>The result at once coheres with the rest of Mount Eerie\u2019s catalogue and stands utterly apart from the body of recorded music, an extended, harrowing, private, often overwhelming, mustering, still graceful look at death and grief. Pared back to acoustic guitar and the drip-drop of minimal percussion, bearing dates and grim specifics and symbols that double as spectres, devoid of possible interpretation but still passionately felt, <em>A Crow Looked at Me<\/em> ruins \u2013 for those of us who just have to bear its duration \u2013 the notion of music as escapism, baring the boundaries between imagination, empathy, and experience itself. Listen to \u2018Real Death\u2019, and how coping mechanisms, efforts to record and compute death, swoon and plummet in the face of death, in the modulation of Elverum\u2019s voice in the long-flowing final verse, fond and desperate and clawing. Love and death: both are real and both enduring.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>4. Kelela \u2013 <em>Take Me Apart<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"ePi5BLJogyA\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Kelela - LMK\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ePi5BLJogyA?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>The process and the narrative of <em>Take Me Apart<\/em> \u2013 Kelela\u2019s studio debut after the acclaimed <em>Cut 4 Me<\/em> mixtape and <em>Hallucinogen<\/em> EP \u2013 begins with \u2018Frontline\u2019, which might sound like an apt title for an album opener, but the track itself finds Kelela putting her back foot first. Its late-night synth throbs segue into a tale of breakup and defiance, Kelela\u2019s voice besieging her about-to-be ex lover from all angles before the click of heels and the shuffle of gravel signal her walking out the door, two bleeps and she\u2019s in the driver\u2019s seat, moving off for someplace else. It\u2019s a conjuring trick she pulls off again and again throughout <em>Take Me Apart<\/em>, her layered, shifting vocals buttressed by pristine synthesizers and whirring percussion, creating senses of place utterly tangible in their dimensions and for their feelings and atmospheres even while the specifics remain abstract.<\/p>\n<p>The breakup inevitably doesn\u2019t take, and we pass through chance street encounters and passionate nighttime soirees to the lull and steady acceptance of \u2018Jupiter\u2019 and \u2018Better\u2019, before \u2018LMK\u2019 \u2013 one of the sharpest and sultriest and club-friendliest tracks of the summer \u2013 provides a reset, strident steps towards new romance. Amid the dripping sensuality of \u2018S.O.S.\u2019 Kelela takes full command of all the body\u2019s pleasure centres; a burgeoning, burnishing openness characterises \u2018Blue Light\u2019; \u2018Onanon\u2019 bristles and bubbles with conflict; and after Kelela sings \u2018All the light you keep brings out the darkness in me\u2019 on \u2018Turn to Dust\u2019, screeches by turns mechanistic and animalistic figure vulnerability and give way to elegant perseverance on \u2018Bluff\u2019. \u2018Altedena\u2019 then is no mere sendoff, a message to a loved one which doubles as a message to the self, graceful and pared back and broadening in scope with each shuffle and sigh to encompass patience, striving, and hope.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>3. Lorde \u2013 <em>Melodrama<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"dMK_npDG12Q\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Lorde - Green Light\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dMK_npDG12Q?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>2. SZA \u2013 <em>Ctrl<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"hHXfCOjb3fk\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"SZA - Love Galore (Official Video) ft. Travis Scott\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hHXfCOjb3fk?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Bleeding at the borders of conventional and alternative R&B, with a sonic palette that incorporates elements of soul, jazz, trap, trip hop, disco, chillwave, indie and more, over laid-back guitars and languid, squelching, sometimes tropical beats, on <em>Ctrl<\/em> SZA takes centre stage. There is a huskiness to her voice which both claims and portends intimacy, which can alternate seamlessly with a snapping conversational high pitch; and yet at moments, usually unexpected, the husk opens and the construct gives as a sudden turn, a repetition, packed syllables or a particularly poetic line spur a vocal soar, ripe and vulnerable, as on album opener and standout track \u2018Supermodel\u2019, upon the realisation her adulterous ex was only ever a \u2018temporary lover\u2019, or amid the ascending synths of \u2018Garden\u2019 when she sings \u2018I need your support\u2019. Some of the percussion sounds ramshackle, half-formed, almost a warm-up, buttressing loosely and serving to highlight SZA\u2019s voice, helping towards the album\u2019s twin airs of casualness and immediacy. Sometimes the beat lags behind SZA, sometimes she lags behind the beat.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Prom\u2019 juxtaposes the promise of the future, readily imagined and always almost tangible, with the gropings and limitations of sloppy romance and self-conscious youth. \u2018The Weekend\u2019 feels like the album\u2019s emotional centre, even as SZA\u2019s voice sounds flat, frayed, tired out. When the Azzaro pour Homme fragrance first came out in the late 70s, it advertised itself with the tagline \u2018For men who love women who love men\u2019; here on a perfumed and subtly intoxicating song about having to share, SZA inverts the formula, explaining \u2018My man is my man, is your man, heard it\u2019s her man too\u2019, although she thinks she\u2019s got things covered for the weekend, just about. Encapsulating the rest of <em>Ctrl<\/em>, the song is about asserting agency even where the options are imperfect and self-esteem far from its peak. On \u2018Broken Clocks\u2019 SZA struggles to free herself from a loop, as the daily grind and hard-won independence still teeter in the face of stale but comforting romance.<\/p>\n<p><em>Ctrl<\/em> itself is imperfect: Kendrick Lamar provides an awkward, energy-sapping verse on \u2018Doves in the Wind\u2019, and the second half of the record sags just a little before Isaiah Rashad swoops in on \u2018Pretty Little Birds\u2019 and \u201920 Something\u2019 provides an elegiac and forlorn guitar-strummed close, still tinged with a little perseverance and hope. But the atmosphere manages to cohere throughout, and it\u2019s insatiable and encompassing, SZA both despondent and engaged, cozy and affectionate and aloof. It\u2019s a bold statement about emotional fragility, late-night and swooning, anxious and frustrated, but patiently and determinedly and artistically wrought.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"RIGgn1s3AvI\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"bj\u00f6rk - the gate\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RIGgn1s3AvI?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>1. Bj\u00f6rk \u2013 <em>Utopia<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Teeming with life, human, animal, and man-made, organic and wind-up, with birdsong eliding the boundaries between many of the tracks, on <em>Utopia<\/em> Bj\u00f6rk willingly and self-consciously gives herself up to an enveloping paradise. Intended as an about-turn from the \u2018hell\u2019 of <em>Vulnicura<\/em> with its austere and astringent uncoiling of heartbreak, it features all of the hallmarks of Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s idiosyncratic percussive production, its volcanic eruptions and spurts, sputtering beats, and gushing electronics, here in especially lush surrounds. Yet the proximity to\u00a0<em>Vulnicura<\/em> and her continuing relationship with Arca \u2013 who arrived at a later stage of the previous project but here worked as Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s closest collaborator throughout \u2013 still affords some of the same spatial qualities, punctuated deliveries and swirling, throbbing builds.<\/p>\n<p>Sonically \u2018Batabid\u2019, a \u2018Pagan Poetry\u2019 B-side, and \u2018Ambergris March\u2019, from the <em>Drawing Restraint 9<\/em> soundtrack, have been cited as touchstones, and the overall ambiance does feel closest to this period, perhaps <em>Med\u00falla<\/em> most of all from Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s full-lengths. That album eschewed strings for beats and breathy vocals with throaty or choral accompaniments, and while strings do feature on <em>Utopia<\/em>, they\u2019re in a supportive rather than a structural role, with the focus given over to woodwind sounds and instruments, most of all the flute. At the time of <em>Med\u00falla<\/em>\u2018s release Bj\u00f6rk described it as a political album, its \u2018human spiritualism\u2019 offering a counter to the fervid patriotism which she experienced especially in the United States following the 9\/11 attacks. There\u2019s something of that too in <em>Utopia<\/em>, at once a retreat and an act of forthright defiance.<\/p>\n<p>After the eye-rubbing, arm stretching, wide awakenings of \u2018Arisen My Senses\u2019 and \u2018Blissing Me\u2019 \u2013 songs which recall and reaffirm intimacy through the possibility of intimacy \u2013 \u2018The Gate\u2019 unfurls more patiently, its barriers pushed steadily ajar allowing beads of affection to pulse through. \u2018Body Memory\u2019, a centrepiece and the album\u2019s longest track, amid squelching percussion and choral backing figures a reunion with nature, which for Bj\u00f6rk is always biological and molecular, breathing in familiar air and tramping with the same bend of arch underfoot. \u2018Features Creatures\u2019 is about creature comforts, the most fundamental of which is the cherished form of the one we love. And there\u2019s a nice segue, led by flutes, between \u2018Body Memory\u2019, \u2018Features Creatures\u2019, and the more club-oriented \u2018Courtship\u2019, an ebullient take on forestalled and one-time intercourse.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Losss\u2019, laid on thick with beats by Rabit and Arca, subtly yet tangibly shifts the pace. A turbulent track, it offers not a lament but an act of recognition, based on the realisation that we must fight to redefine ourselves in the face of lost love. The sibilance of the extra \u2018s\u2019 in the song\u2019s title here conjures not nature but the spluttering of machinery, firing and clanking and hammering in an effort to rebuild. For its sound palette, its candour and vehemence, \u2018Losss\u2019 and the following track \u2018Sue Me\u2019 approach <em>Homogenic<\/em>-era\u00a0\u2018Pluto\u2019; with limpid lucidity \u2018Tabula Rasa\u2019 elaborates on a theme, Bj\u00f6rk striving for a \u2018Clean plate: Not repeating the fuck-ups of the fathers\u2019. The closing tracks of <em>Utopia<\/em> are similarly optimistic and egalitarian and watery in the best sense. \u2018Paradisia\u2019 is a sunny instrumental which brings birdsong and flute to the fore, \u2018Saint\u2019 a personification of music with overlapping, undulating vocals which pays tribute to music\u2019s indiscriminatory healing powers, and \u2018Future Forever\u2019 \u2013 a spare closer interpolating \u2018All Is Full of Love\u2019 \u2013 requests \u2018Imagine a future and be in it\u2019, a message of hope amid twinkling and glistening, diving and surfacing synths.<\/p>\n<p><em>Utopia<\/em> features some of Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s most involved, coiling and charming lyrics, for instance on \u2018Blissing Me\u2019, which opens \u2018All of my mouth was kissing him \/ Now into the air I am missing him\u2019 and later \u2018The interior of these melodies \/ Is perhaps where we are meant to be \/ Our physical union a fantasy \/ I just fell in love with a song\u2019. It\u2019s an album that encompasses, that bends and gives, and that grows with every listener and every listen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>40. Japanese Breakfast \u2013 Soft Sounds from Another Planet | 39. BICEP \u2013 BICEP | 38. Lana Del Rey \u2013 Lust for Life | 37. Colleen \u2013 A flame my love, a frequency | 36. Actress \u2013 AZD | 35. Sampha \u2013 Process | 34. Yaeji \u2013 Yaeji \/ EP2\u00a0| 33. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith \u2013 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4555,4018,3880],"tags":[505,4515,4472,1716,4158,3945,1824,4491,2171,4495,3690],"class_list":{"0":"post-14203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-albums-of-the-year","8":"category-lists","9":"category-music","10":"tag-bjork","11":"tag-jfdr","12":"tag-jlin","13":"tag-jolie-holland","14":"tag-kelela","15":"tag-kendrick-lamar","16":"tag-laurel-halo","17":"tag-lorde","18":"tag-mount-eerie","19":"tag-sza","20":"tag-zola-jesus"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Culturedarm&#039;s Albums of the Year 2017 - Culturedarm<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/culturedarm.com\/culturedarms-albums-of-the-year-2017\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Culturedarm&#039;s Albums of the Year 2017 - Culturedarm\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"40. 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Japanese Breakfast \u2013 Soft Sounds from Another Planet | 39. BICEP \u2013 BICEP | 38. Lana Del Rey \u2013 Lust for Life | 37. Colleen \u2013 A flame my love, a frequency | 36. Actress \u2013 AZD | 35. Sampha \u2013 Process | 34. Yaeji \u2013 Yaeji \/ EP2\u00a0| 33. 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