Music of 2017 — Side 6/12

June

Remember Venn-diagrams? And the area where two diagrams overlap called intersection? As I see it, the intersection is nothing but filling in the gaps.

Let me explain. You have The XX and Daughter, the intersection there is London Grammar. This British trio makes music filling the gaps between the other two trios. Royal Blood are filling the gap between Muse, The Black Keys and The White Stripes. Roger Waters is filling the gap between Pink Floyd and the 21st century.

All these artists released new albums this past month. London Grammar’s sophomore release, Truth Is A Beautiful Thing, is a great progression to their debut effort. Royal Blood also came up with a strong sophomore release, titled How Did We Get So Dark?. Roger Water’s first album in 25 years and fifth solo LP, Is This The Life We Really Want? is getting the praise from the critics, but I’m yet to spend more time with it.

While some gaps are filled, new ones are being created. This month marks the move of my friend, ex-colleague, concert goer, record spinner, and massive music lover — leaving from The Hague and moving back to the equally rainy Seattle. We’ve spent countless hours discussing, agreeing and disagreeing on music topics for almost five years. We’ve shared new music discoveries, links of exciting new KEXP performances and organized a one day 600km round trip to see The National live in Cologne.

I suppose now we’ll rely on the technology to fill in the gap of distance. Good luck to the people at NSA deciphering whether I like Ed Sheeran or not.

Take care, Laurel.

Discovery

My top discovery this month is Noga Erez. This 27 years old Tel Aviv based lady released her debut album titled Off the Radar. It’s a political album touching on daily life in Israel, raising questions about war, surveillance, government, bombings, rape and fear. But if you don’t pay close attention to the lyrics, you might get a completely different feel about this album. I find it hard to place it into any sort of Venn-diagram. There’s a lot of electronics, broken beats and poly-rhythms. There are some tense hip hop grooves, catchy hooks, experimental R&B and the final package is a forward-facing protest pop album.

Repeats

It was about four years ago when Royals took the world by storm and brought the attention to Lorde — a then 16 years old, all black goth looking girl from New Zealand. It is a great song but I will be honest and say that I didn’t pay attention to the album at all. I felt it might be just another music industry money-making product.

Earlier this year when Lorde announced her new album, I was curious what her next move would be. I thought that she might go to three possible directions: Katy Perry, Florence & The Machine or Lykke Li.

My expectations were pretty low, and I was completely blown away when the new album was released on 16 June. I find out that she picked a fourth direction, her own — Lorde.

Entitled Melodrama, it’s a concept album that explores the theme of solitude, in the framework of a single house party with the events and moods that entail it. All these moods are perfectly articulated in the way this album is produced. The album opens with the lead single, a flashing Green Light, a banger about Lorde’s first major heartbreak. Before dipping into a first of many blurry patches, Sober, which contains one of the most striking lines across the whole album: But what will we do when we’re sober?

The album continues through front facing, loud, catchy songs and a misty, sticky, spacious, introspective interludes. Ending with Perfect Places, but what the fuck are perfect places anyway?

It’s a remarkable effort and one that not only contests for album of the year but puts Lorde into its own category of young musicians.

The second album on repeat this month was Waiting on a Song by Dan Auerbach. More prominent as one half of the blues rock duo The Black Keys, Dan comes up with a second solo record. Being based in Nashville for the past few years, Dan built friendships and relationships with many of the veterans of American blues, rock, country music. Many of these legends are featured on this quality summer album.

THE BANGER

Probably the banger of the year comes from unexpected location. Arcade Fire’s leading single and title track from their upcoming album titled Everything now. It’s like an 80s-classic turned 2017 and it’s about the technological alienation and contemporary impatience. Although the lyrics reveal facts about the culture today, the catchy music is optimistic and makes this a perfect summer hit.

Two weeks later, The Killers came up with new music after five years of waiting. The Man is the leading single for their upcoming album Wonderful Wonderful. It’s funky, it’s funny, it’s lovely. And if you think it’s sonically similar to Everything Now, you’re not alone.

Who&Why

Hi!

I’m Darko Krstevski, The Hague based Brand Designer. I’ve taken on the challenge to publish my monthly music highlights during 2017. There are three reason for this:

• To improve my writing and articulation
• To experiment with web/mobile editorial
• To celebrate the music artists that help me create, work, enjoy and exist

If you want to get in touch, you can find me on Spotify, Dribbble, Instagram and the good’ol email.

Happy listening.

This article was first published in July on ReadyMag.
Written and designed by Darko Krstevski