The Best Projects of 2018
In no particular order:
Some Rap Songs by Earl Sweatshirt
The reclusive nature of Earl Sweatshirt made it all the more understandable for me of his reasons. The reasons for the lengthy space between projects, the rare release of song snippets that don’t make any sense, the tweets that stand on level with Kanye in how abstract they often seem to be. And after releases that have been surrounded with hype (Doris peaked at 5 on the Billboard 200 following Earl’s release from Samoa), this release, for the first time, seemed almost underwhelming to many followers. The lines were unclear. The beats persisted in repetitive loops. He had fully abandoned any trace of Odd Future.
However, it’s made me realise that Earl is moving away from the signature intricate rhymes and darker beats that addled Doris and IDLSIDGO. This is a poetic conversation, a man recovering from grief over his father. He’s also a man that is tired and has realised that he cannot change from rapping about the tiredness around him. ‘Sittin’ on a star, thinking how I’m not a star’ dominates the track ‘Veins’, and this album reflects that kind of isolation. He’s like a Dr. Manhattan; in a year of people demanding ‘conscious’ rap, Earl is staying out of frontlines. He hasn’t called anyone out, and he’s not trying to save anyone with his words. He’s only saved himself in SRS in a straggled world of jazz and wordplay, and that’s what makes him the best of his peers.
High as Hope by Florence and the Machine
Florence Welch has this weird talent of taking normal issues, the normal everyday, and transforming it into this spirit-like style of music. This is particularly relevant on High as Hope, an album that is dominated by an internalised orchestra; each string strummed and key tapped emulates the very human pain that is being sung from this powerful, almost alien sound. It has been like this for ages, and someone might criticise me for placing her so highly in a year of groundbreaking music. And yes, there are one or two tracks that signal she may be playing safe. Yet, upon listening to how intricately she has included snaps of anger, hurt and even bliss, it makes this album more about Florence Welch than anybody else. It becomes all the more impressive she can sustain this power through her own lyricism and voice.
It is an unusual choice to couple this album with the more popular choices for AOTYs. However, this album’s ability to find the glory in devastation, liberating the material mind with abstract verses and reflections, is something that would be an enormous gift for any artist to possess.
Safe in the Hands of Love by Yves Tumor
This, for me, is the most intriguing project of the year. Yves Tumor’s music appears eerie, disconcerting and very much remote through the realm of electronica he has refined. The inclusion of a range of talented vocalists from James K to Croation Amor has only added more voices to the chaos, a collection of voices floating across city fumes. The experiments he has explored in Safe in the Hands of Love echo the styles of Arca and Death Grips. However, what makes Tumor stand out from these artists is the distinct ecstasy in his sound. There is an ambience in songs like ‘Noid’ that stand unfazed amidst the scuttling sounds and chanting in ‘Hope In Suffering’, conveying a shred of human emotion to his warped presence.
Experimental music, especially the type that intermingles jazz and dream-pop with discordant clashes, is not for everyone. Nevertheless, the ethereality and the power that this album exhibits is unique from the random jabs at noise someone flexed at a Boiler Room set. It’s made for not understanding but relating, something to listen to for which no explanation can be fathomed. This is Yves Tumor’s magnum opus, an exposition of his fears, frustrations and joys, and that makes it a real technical achievement.
Runt by Slowthai
On the music video for ‘T N Biscuits’, Slowthai grabbed the mike, spat two lines and got an instant reload. The sheer ferocity but the dark humour in his lyrics became his signature, and distinguished him from the ‘grime’ industry that Pitchfork naively classed him in. He is now something different entirely, and on Runt, we see someone echoing a mixture of Ghostpoet, afro bashment and the UK hip hop that made Boy In Da Corner what it was. He is surprisingly sombre and reflective, sounding like the aftermath of a grime set when it’s all over. Growing up has made him realise he has ‘missed dreaming’, instead ‘drowning in the deep’ of a lifestyle that he was forced to mature into.
He comes across as arrogant and unpleasant, but hearing Runt shows a much more complex conscious and emotional understanding behind the vicious bars. Slowthai is still as wild and unique as ever, with ‘GTFOMF’ paying testament to this (from ‘captain of my universe’ to ‘go have tea with my Nan’). Nevertheless, to make songs just as honest as they are listenable is a talent that some UK rappers only realise when it’s past their prime, and Slowthai is right in it.
Be the Cowboy by Mitski
This was definitely an experience to listen to, and to restrict this to ‘indie rock’ does injustice to the wide range of styles Mitski covers on this. It’s also something I typically wouldn’t listen to, but this was a rare occasion where I couldn’t help but admire how she has fleshed out guitar rock into a surreal vision of pure feeling. It’s void of politics or dominating social messages, but instead surrounds her own isolation in an environment where she, as the title says, forces herself to ‘be the cowboy’. It is clear that she has aspirations in America, adapting culturally and emotionally, and the rousing instrumentation gives her the power to do so. Yet her voice becomes distorted and quietens in the clamour, far from perfect, but that’s what betrays the compelling soul that she has embellished her words with.
Again, this style of rock, or music at that, is often very hard to understand in its experimentality. Complex ideas translate to poetic ability, so artists in this community try their hardest to complicate the listening experience. Be the Cowboy abandons this entirely and hence transcends above, keeping a simplicity that makes each word said more memorable and intriguing as the last.
Black Panther: The Album by Various Artists
This film is up there with the best comic book films of all time, and hence it is no surprise that this soundtrack is similarly as magnificent. Kendrick Lamar, in a spark of genius, steps back to allow a horde of hip hop and R&B excellence to take over the reins. A personal favourite is the titular song ‘Black Panther’, which I could immediately parallel to ‘u’ from To Pimp a Butterfly in its surprising honesty with Kendrick’s isolated voice. It is admirable that for all the fantastical footage, the music is still grounded in the far from fantastical reality of police brutality and poverty but also a world in desperate need of pride in one’s roots. Stan Lee’s creation of this character that can serve as a representative of the broadening of cultures in the US was further genius. It allowed artists from Anderson Paak to Babes Wodumo to access a genre of film worth billions to spread a message that I didn’t feel DAMN. replicated with as much power.
The forms of hip hop and R&B is ever-changing in the album, from an unusually slack G-funk in ‘Paramedic’ that morphs into a quickfire flow in ‘Opps’, or the rousing vocals of SZA in ‘All The Stars’. It is a celebration of the culture that ‘offends you’, as Jorja Smith sings in ‘I Am’. And for the first time, in front of an audience of all ages, it is its moment of glory.
