From Hold on Now, Youngster to now, the band has moved from Beat Happening’s twee-pop leanings to Sleater-Kinney’s dense, powerful anthems (due in no small part to the continued involvement of their producer, John Goodmason). Musically, the band has always been inspired by the music of Olympia, Washington. His lyrical style approaces Morrissey’s tales of miserablila and despair without the layers of flowery pretense (no disrespect to Morrissey, he’s watching me from my wall as I type). Singer/songwriter Gareth Campesinos! has grown into a unique narrative voice over the years. On No Blues, their fifth album overall, finds a certain maturity in the arrangements as well as in the lyrical content. Every album they release seems to develop upon their established sound without ever becoming complacent and static. Los Campesinos! have been an incredibly reliable act for the last six years. Hopefully, this isn’t the last we hear from PrismCorp. On the contrary, ClearSkies takes a very ambient approach, luxuriating in the prismatic sunlight and processed sands of a digital landscape.
The environment is like having a dream while an infomercial or bad cop drama plays in the background, disturbing yet somehow delightfully surreal. The music on Home is quantized to the billisecond and frequently led by aggressively artificial instrument sounds. I listen to these records and think fondly of strip malls and Trotskyism simultaneously.ĬlearSkies is the dreamier of the two while Home takes a somewhat more aggressive edge. This year’s releases by one of the scene’s most prominent eSquatters, Vektroid (under one of their many PrismCorp aliases) both mock and sincerely celebrate the sounds of Capitalism.
It’s a found sound sort of genre where artists take sounds typically associated with dated Muzak recordings and warp them through our own expectations. There was a genre that some of you may have heard of called Vaporwave. Art is an amazing thing.ĥ ) ClearSkies / Home by PrismCorp Virtual Enterprises Thousands of people are sitting and listening to these records, all united by their simultaneous crises of identity. Pop music is becoming daring and, in a way, terrifying. My top three albums are all incredibly existential works if someone told me 6 years ago that these albums would all hit #1 on the Billboard top 40 chart, I would never have believed them. I wasn’t expecting this from the band who once sung about college hookups and the Colours of Benneton, but there’s a lot I wasn’t expecting this year.
I’ve given the top spot to the new Vampire Weekend record. Oneohtrix Point Never, Daft Punk, Savages, Chvrches, Death Grips, a lot of others. I feel like there’s a lot I left out from the last year. I usually never try to rank music, but I wanna be a Cool Kid so I’m doing it. No, silly! I’m not talking about letters to Santa! I’m obviously talking about lists ranking the past years musical recordings! Yay, Hanukkah spirit! I’m really excited to be writing a list like this. Okay so its the end of the year and all the Cool Kids are making lists.
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