Saturday 17 March 2018

The Distrans Continuum Top 10 Albums of 2017

Okay, this post comes a little late. Nevertheless, we're just about still in the first quarter of 2018, so a respectable period of time has passed for a proper retrospective on 2017. One of the reasons the post is so late is that I'm a bit old fashioned, and wanted to wait for the physical releases of one or two records, especially Fever Ray's Plunge. As it happens, that album didn't make the cut, but in the meantime I've had long enough to firm up a definitive top 10.

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10. Kamasi Washington - Harmony Of Difference



Kicking off the top 10, I'm cheating a little bit by including an EP. Still, this is such a good record, and clocking in at over 30 minutes is worthy of inclusion alongside full-blooded album releases. Harmony Of Difference comes hot on the heels of Washington's superb 3CD 2015 album The Epic, and the shift towards a more concise musical statement is both refreshing and rewarding. The EP better captures the emotion and euphoria of Kamasi Washington live, right from the get go on opener 'Desire'.

9. The Shins - Heartworms



While it's been five years since the last Shins album, Heartworms is a welcome return to form from James Mercer. While the sound is denser, and seems less effortless and airy than the classic Shins albums of the early 2000s, this is definitely one of the better comebacks of 2017.

8. Broken Social Scene - Hug Of Thunder



Another comeback album, an even longer hiatus - the last BSS album being released in 2010 (the excellent Forgiveness Rock Record). Although it fades somewhat in the second half, Hug Of Thunder sounds just as urgent as their classic You Forgot It In People (2002). The title track is a sublime slice of indie rock - as are many others here.

7. Toro Y Moi - Boo Boo



The most underrated album of 2017? Boo Boo must be a contender. While Toro Y Moi's previous albums have glittered while flattering to deceive, Boo Boo really delivers with his most consistent and compelling album yet. Unjustly perhaps, the record seems to have passed beneath the radar of many 2017 best album lists. Not only are there some great pop tracks here, but there's a new depth of emotion that really comes to the fore in some of the instrumentals.

6. Fleet Foxes - Crack Up


Another comeback album, and one that many were eagerly anticipating. While it doesn't take the easy route that the band could have opted for by reproducing the formula of their previous albums and EPs, Crack Up fulfills the promise of those releases, and challenges the listener to boot. Most importantly, it still sounds unquestionably like the Fleet Foxes of old.

5. Jens Lekman - Life Will See You Now


I have a special affinity for the music of Jens Lekman. While most consider his best album to be 2007's Night Falls Over Kortedala, for me it will always be 2012's break-up record, I Know What Love Isn't - every single track seemed to evoke some deeply-felt aspect of the divorce I was going through at the time of its release. Life Will See You Now occupies something of the territory between those two aforementioned releases - at once fun, witty and contemplative.

4. Do Make Say Think - Stubborn Persistent Illusions



Another comeback album, and this one is yet again a serious contender for the best release in the band's back catalogue. As with Broken Social Scene, the keyword with this album is urgency. While many past DMST albums tended to meander around in jazzy and spacey instrumental rock, Stubborn Persistent Illusions drifts closer to the sounds of mainstream post-rock (if not a contradiction in terms), with resoundingly euphoric results.

3. Slowdive - Slowdive



Okay, this is the last comeback album on the list, but boy, what a good one, and what a wait. Slowdive's self-titled album comes a full 22 years after 1995's Pygmalion, disproving the notion of the slow decline after an initial burst of creative and innovative releases. I'll be frank, while I love Souvlaki, Slowdive is the better album. This is as good as any dream-pop the likes of Beach House have made in the last 10 years.

2. Sufjan Stevens, Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner and James McAlister - Planetarium



Something of a divisive release, this album is long, sprawling, illogically ordered, and messy. At the same time, it is utterly gorgeous, and defies all its faults to demand listen after listen. There are many high points here ('Jupiter', 'Venus', 'Pluto' and 'Saturn' are just a few), and while the longer instrumental tracks may put some people off, I found their presence vital to do justice to the celestial theme of the music. Well worth coming back to if it didn't click straight away.

1. Visible Cloaks - Reassemblage



Wow. I've long been a fan of electronic ambient music, but this album not only blew me away, it also opened my mind to a new world of obscure electronic albums from 1980s Japan (future blog posts to follow on this subject). Like a lot of minimalist ambient music, getting the most out of this requires careful selection of context and mood, so in a sense, it is harder to compare directly with the other music on this list. Aside from the music itself, another major reason it is number one is the impact it has had on my music buying and listening in the last year or so. After delving into some of the music that inspired this album, it was pleasing to hear, among other things, echoes of Japanese maestro Yoshio Ojima, an artist I would have probably never encountered without hearing Reassemblage.

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