2014 in music: a retrospective

The pointlessness of end-of-year music lists

It's pretty common these days for music journalists and bloggers to be post their lists of 'best' music long before the year is out. I don't have a problem with this, but sometimes I get the feeling that lists are often rushed out before their authors have time to properly digest the music released in a given year. A related issue relates to the value of these lists in the first place. Since most people acknowledge that music appreciation is a strictly subjective phenomenon, varying not only from person to person, but also from moment to moment, why should we even try to rank music, an exercise that seems to presuppose some kind of objective or scientific process? For these reasons, I'm going to dispense with list-making, and discuss some favourite and otherwise interesting releases and re-releases from 2014...


Re-releases > new releases

Subjectively speaking, 2014 wasn't a good year in music for me. A lot of the best new music I encountered wasn't new at all. Take Bernard Szajner's wonderful Visions Of Dune discussed in my previous blog post - originally released in 1979, even if few people appeared to notice at the time. Another pair of re-released gems came from the mysterious figure going by the moniker of Lewis Baloue, also known as Randall A. Wulff. Despite some ridiculously 80s kitsch cover art, L'Amour (1983) and Romantic Times (1985) play like true lost masterpieces - as if Nick Drake was resurrected in the 80s and got into synth sounds in a big (minimalist) way. A lot has been written about Lewis in the music media, who seemingly surfaced somewhere in Canada without any interest in benefiting from the proceeds of his new found cult success. Anyway, back to the point: L'Amour and Romantic Times were as good as anything else new I heard in 2014.

New releases: subjective > 'objective' rankings

So what of the proper new releases? Despite a smaller pool of albums to listen to, around December time I tried to rank my favourites in a rather convoluted fashion. I listened to them all carefully on decent equipment, giving a score out of 5 to each track on each record, and creating other categories to which numerical ratings could be attached, averaged and ranked in a spreadsheet. It was only after this admittedly rather anal exercise that I realised how pointless it all had been. Yes, it was interesting to see what the result was, but I soon started to come up with ways to create different results - this or that rank wasn't quite right and so on. I was making it too complex, and not allowing for the possibility that the same album could affect me differently on different occasions. At the same time, the albums I was comparing were so different that objectively ranking them according to consistent criteria proved to be impossible. As a new convert to BestEverAlbums.com, I'm still not against the idea of listing my favourite records - just the tradition of end-of-year music lists that comes with the implication of objectivity.

Some albums I liked from 2014

Ditching the lists then, and having enough time to properly digest the music I purchased from last year, I'm going to discuss some records that I liked from 2014 - as simple as that. First up, and blending nicely with the reissue theme, is Linda Perhacs' The Soul Of All Natural Things.

Until 2014, Linda Perhacs was a singer-songwriter known largely for her one and only (but excellent) 1970 album, Parallelograms. While it is fair to say that Parallelograms fits the mould of classic records not truly appreciated by wider audiences until long after their original releases, The Soul Of All Natural Things attempts to translate the hippy vibe of her debut for a contemporary audience. The end result - aided by collaborations with the likes of Julia Holter - is a beautiful record that sits well alongside its predecessor despite the 44 year gap. This release is appropriately titled, having a magical and spiritual quality, perhaps being most apparent on tracks like 'River Of God' and 'When Things Are True Again'.

Next up, and something rather different, is Bécs by Fennesz. Christian Fennesz has been making gauzy ambient electronica since the 1990s, and Bécs in particular drew a lot of comparisons to his definitive and most accessible 2001 release, Endless Summer.

Bécs fully lives up to challenge of its 2001 spiritual predecessor. Although the summer vibe is missing here, Bécs retains the emotional warmth of Endless Summer, while ditching the more detached soundscapes of Fennesz's previous full release, Black Sea. The result is a more contemplative feeling record, with tracks like 'Static Kings' and 'Liminality' building nicely to the title track's jagged crescendo.

Sticking with the loose electronic theme, another record that's stuck with me well into 2015 is Flying Lotus's You're Dead!, a record that came with a lot more critical fanfare than the others that I've discussed so far.

The fusion of jazz, electronica, hip-hop, post-rock, and star collaborators (including Snoop Dogg, Thundercat and Kendrick Lamar) might sound like an impossible mix if you've never heard Flying Lotus before. What's more astounding is that this album is one of a long line of successive innovative and strangely coherent records from the artist. What makes this one stand-out from his previous records is the overarching theme. This is a concept album about death, complete with thoughtful street philosophy and plenty of humour to boot. Looking for a stand-out track, many people have rightly singled out 'Never Catch Me' (featuring Kendrick Lamar), but as a long-standing fan of Chicago post-rockers Tortoise, my favourite is the understated and perhaps aptly titled 'Turtles', one of the shorter bridge numbers on this record.


In conclusion...

Well, that's it. I didn't anticipate writing about only three new albums when I started this post, but it's nice to do something outside the tried and tested formula of regular end-of-year lists. This isn't to say I only liked three albums, far from it - just that these three were the only ones that truly clicked with me, perhaps in a more subjective way than my attempt to produce a proper ranked list. It would be an interesting experiment if other media outlets adopted a similar approach come December...

(Non-canonical) Visions of Dune

Frank Herbert's Dune is a wonderful book. Each repeated read brings new rewards as one is immersed in the utterly strange yet strangely plausible universe of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood, twisted mentats, spice worms, and kwisatz haderachs. Such excellence is continued in the five succeeding books, despite their increasing weirdness (the fourth in the series, God Emperor of Dune, is perhaps the biggest challenge for general readers). Fans of the books, however, have much to gripe about: the series is unfinished; it has been developed into a later iteration of largely disappointing novels co-written by Frank's son Brian and Kevin J. Anderson that complete the cycle and provide 'new' explorations in the Dune universe; and it has been subject to an inconsistent list of conversions to more popular media, which have done much to harm the reputation of the books (unlike, say the Lord of the Rings).

Let's consider the gripes one by one. The lack of a true follow-up to Chapterhouse Dune leaves the series on the brink of a major, Twin Peaks-esque, cliffhanger. Chapterhouse is a great book, but picking it up brings bittersweet feelings. Not simply because the ending is not revealed, but also because the new ending by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson doesn't quite carry the same engrossing qualities of the novels by Frank - even if aspects of the story are reliant on Herbert Snr's notes.

Are the newer prequels and sequels by Brian and Kevin really that bad? The answer will undoubtedly vary from reader to reader. I enjoyed the 'House' cycle of preludes dating to immediately before the Dune novel, if they were over-long and disappointing when compared to the originals. The 'Butlerian Jihad' cycle delved even deeper into the history of Dune. Despite its interesting premise, these books were much more of an ordeal to get through. Annoyingly, both cycles developed storylines that would re-surface in Brian and Kevin's attempt to complete the original series, requiring the hard-core fan to read six chunky volumes to make sense of the long-awaited Dune 7. Released as two novels, Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune brought closure to the Dune sequence, while leaving a lingering sense of dissatisfaction. Was it really worth it?

If you don't like the books written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, the various screen adaptations might offer an alternative indulgence in the Dune universe. Most famous is David Lynch's 1984 film, produced with big budget and featuring an an impressive cast. Despite allegedly not being cut to the liking of Lynch, this is a good film, perhaps even a flawed masterpiece. The sets, costume, and soundtrack are excellent, with several stand-out acting performances. What's the problem then? Firstly, to audiences weaned on the original Star Wars trilogy, Dune is a disappointing space adventure. This is in large part because the book is much more complex than Star Wars, requiring the reader to engage with concepts from ecology, philosophy, theology, and anthropology, not to mention SF ideas. And it is not really a true space adventure story. The ethics and morality of Dune are much more ambivalent than those seen in equivalent films. The special effects are impressive for the 1980s, but they are not essential for the story. Related to this is the film's second major flaw - its depiction of the sand worms of Arrakis. These iconic creatures are made to look like a ridiculous cross between a big rubber hose pipe and a school boy's phallic doodle. Enough said. As for the mini-series, I haven't seen them. Stills from the internet suggest a budget similar to 1970s Dr Who, and reviews are largely unfavourable. Steer clear.

So, where does this leave us, other than to re-read the originals by Frank Herbert? Well, there are a couple of jewels for those who are prepared look hard enough, as well as maybe expanding their horizons. Read on.

Last year (2014) saw the re-release of Z's (aka Bernard Szajner's) 1979 Visions of Dune, an album of 70s synthesizers and electronica inspired by the books in the vein of artists like Tangerine Dream, and more recently, Oneohtrix Point Never. Compared to the soundtrack of Lynch's film by Toto (and featuring Brian Eno), Visions of Dune is much more in keeping with the spirit (and weirdness) of the novels. Not only has the music stood the test of time (Pitchfork gave it a respectable 7.7), it also makes excellent background music to reading the books. All the track names come from the novels, with stand-outs like 'Bene Gesserit' and Kwizatz Haderach' often conjuring appropriate images of the names represented.  Highly recommended.

Inspired by Szajner's alternative Dune soundtrack, a little research brought Dr Willis E. McNelly's Dune Encyclopedia to my attention. Sounds pretty boring - right? One of those compendiums of terms for the forgetful and uninitiated. Actually, wrong. Not only is the encyclopedia a work of fiction that is set in the Dune universe after the events of God Emperor of Dune (in the hand of a certain Hadi Benotto in 15540), it was also written with the consent of Frank Herbert, drawing upon some of his unpublished ideas. While this might sound worryingly similar to the preludes and sequels of Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, the fleshed out back-stories here are considerably different from the newer novels. Perhaps for this reason, the Encyclopedia is allegedly now seen as non-canon by the Herbert estate. Nevertheless, it offers some genuinely well-written, well-illustrated and substantial (at over 500 pages) fleshing out of the original books that is well worth tracking down for those craving more Dune. Sadly, it is no longer in print, but it is still possible to track down second-hand copies at relatively low prices on the internet (I found one for around £20 in good condition).

As this post comes to a close, someone is bound to mention that I've not included the recent documentary film, Jodorowsky's Dune. This is for the simple reason I've not seen it yet! Rest assured a future companion post on this site will discuss it, along with other non-canonical visions, such as the Geidi Primes album by Canadian musician Grimes. Stay tuned.