Little Simz - "Sometimes I Might Be Introvert"
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Little Simz
Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
Label: AWAL-AGE 101
Label: AWAL-AGE 101
approx. € 14.99
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If you still think Little Simz is undervalued, why don't you stop being such a sheep and change the narrative. The London rapper tweeted about the release of her fourth album in September. Quite belligerent for a woman who outlines herself as generally more introverted in her new songs - by the way, that alone is a courageous achievement in the battle and bragging trade of the hip-hop genre.
The 27-year-old Simbiatu »Simbi« Abisola Abiola Ajikawo, British with Nigerian roots, should really not be underrated after this year: To indulgent, expansively luxurious soul and R&B sounds, which she differs from the hip Inflo (Sault), she tells touchingly about everyday racism despite Black Lives Matter, the dilemma between ambition and shyness, the danger of being abused as a black symbolic figure and the struggle for recognition in British society. Everything mirrored by spoken word passages by actress Emma Corrin, who most recently played Princess Diana in the series "The Crown" - another introverted woman who had to learn to assert herself in a world full of royal rules. In Ajikawo's case the rap gamewhich this year also produced new albums by stars like Drake, Kanye West or Tyler, The Creator, but which did not come close to the musically overwhelming, gripping "Sometimes I Might Be Introvert". Little Simz therefore not only lays claim to the throne of her genre, she has - sorry, Adele! - also released the best pop album of the year.
You can read our review from September here.
Pharoah Sanders, Floating Points & The London Symphony Orchestra - "Promises"
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Floating Points X Pharoah Sanders X LSO
Promises
Label: LUAKA BOP
Label: LUAKA BOP
approx. € 11.99
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There was a lot of discussion among critics about this jazz album in the spring: Purists held the collaboration between free jazz legend Pharoah Sanders and British electronic musician Sam Shepherd alias Floating Points accompanied by the LSO (London Symphony Orchestra) on for pure one or two notes of unimaginatively tumbled down kitsch. Fair enough. However, if you let yourself be enchanted by the spherical, cautious electronic instrumentation and the saxophone pirouettes of the 80-year-old Sanders touching this wide open space, this modernized spiritual jazz album in the style of the sixties and seventies offers a lot of transcendental consolation in difficult times. And always a happy smile when Sanders suddenly frees “Movement 4” “Brrrblbrrblbrrbledidum? Brrrblbrrblbrrbledidum! «To himself, uh,mumbles. Casual championship.
You can read our review from March here.
Dry Cleaning - "New Long Leg"
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Dry cleaning
New Long Leg
Label: 4ad / Beggars Group / Indigo
Label: 4ad / Beggars Group / Indigo
approx. € 10.99
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This place among the best albums of the year actually belongs to the furious debut album »Bright Green Field« by the group Squid, but you have to decide: Dry Cleaning, also a British rock band with their debut album, scores with self-irony and stunning laconism and the sympathetic, misanthropic everyday views of her singer Florence Shaw. She is actually a visual artist, illustrator and author, was discovered by her bandmates at karaoke - and actually speaks with a provocatively monton Siri voice rather than singing. Something like
mail is added to this
-Postpunk played: Young Marble Giants, Wire, Sonic Youth, Mogwai, to be added as desired.
Dry Cleaning as well as Squid and bands like Black Midi or Black Country, New Road come from the area around the South London live club The Windmill, where a new rock sound, often emblazoned with jazz, a lot of groove feeling and anger at the circumstances, is currently being formulated .
Genres that have been declared dead always live longer than you think.
You can read our review from April here.
Masha Qrella - "Elsewhere"
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Masha Qrella
Somewhere else
Label: State Act (H'Art)
Label: State Act (H'Art)
approx. € 15.49
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2021 was a year in which there were many very good albums by young musicians and songwriters from Germany, including Sophia Kennedy, Girlwoman and Albertine Sarges. Masha Qrella from Berlin published her (preliminary) masterpiece with »Elsewhere«. In the poetry of the GDR writer and dissident Thomas Brasch, who died in 2001, which is translated into electrifying music, she discovered words and a voice that were still missing in her English-language pop. By groping for the »blue dark«, the longing for the »sea« or tracing the »ghosts« of the past, the singer, born in East Berlin in 1975, not only managed to sing in her mother tongue, but also to songs that were sometimes melancholy Wrestle with German-German questions of identity in a danceable swing.We'd all like to be somewhere else, but this literarily charged, yet not at all artificial pop album makes it easier to stay.
You can read our review from February here.
Native Soul - "Teenage Dreams"
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Native soul
Teenage Dreams
Label: Awesome Tapes from Africa / Cargo
Label: Awesome Tapes from Africa / Cargo
approx. € 15.99
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With the exception of a few weeks in summer it wasn't dancing again this year.
Fortunately, there were two very differently inspiring albums from the African continent, to which you could fidget a bit in the living room: the rousing and virtuoso psychedelic rock by Tuareg guitarist Mdou Moctar on "Afrique Victime" - and the fascinating minimal house debut by Native Soul from South Africa.
Kgothatso Tshabalala, 19, and Zakhele Mhlanga alias DJ Zakes, 18, are the stars of a new dance genre called Amapiano consisting of afro-folk, deep house and jazz, which is played in the townships around Johannesburg and Pretoria.
Strictly instrumental, urgent, tense, feverish - the quiet and gently kicking dance sound of the hour.
You can read our review from September here.
Playlist: Top-Songs 2021 (D / A / CH)
Expand area Seats 1 - 5
1. Danger Dan:
It's all covered by artistic freedom
Photo:
Jens Büttner / dpa
2. Ozan Ata Canani:
All people on earth
3. Kummer & Fred Rabe:
The Final Song (Everything will be fine)
4. Masha Qrella:
ghosts
5. Albertine Sarges:
Free Today
Expand area Seats 6 - 25
6. Chuala:
Wake Up!
7. Mieke Miami:
Horse
8. Maurice Sums:
Organic
9. Sophia Kennedy:
Orange Tic Tac
10. Rickie Lee Kroell: The
main thing is nothing with people
11. Nura:
Never stress with cops
12. Badmómzjay:
Badmómz.
13. Nashi44:
From the pussy
14. Mine:
ice cream
15. Kuoko:
Worlds Apart
16. Christin Nichols:
Today I Choose Violence
17. Tribulation:
Girls are the prettiest boys
18. Luis Ake:
Summer
19. Zwanie Jonson:
The Hook
20. Laure Lee And The Jettes:
Craigslist Boy
21. Isolation Berlin:
Private Problems
22. Violence:
submission
23. Tristan Brusch:
The scum
24. Alexander Winkelmann:
Airfield
25. Tocotronic & Soap & Skin:
I show up
To the Spotify playlist
To the Apple Music playlist
Jazmine Sullivan - "Heaux Tales"
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Jazmine Sullivan
Heaux Tales [Explicit]
Label: RCA Records Label
Label: RCA Records Label
approx. € 10.99
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On her debut in 2008, Jazmine Sullivan furiously threw her ex-lover in the car window in the single "Bust Your Windows"; for her comeback with "Heaux Tales", published in January, she chose more rhetorical but no less powerful weapons. The »tales« that the US soul singer, who has long been revered in the scene, tells herself here together with interspersed spoken word contributions from friends like Ari Lennox, are about outrageous, self-determined sexuality and the liberation from male stamps, who should be a "bitch" or a "hoe" for why: don't forget to collect your mimosaic feelings when you leave, she calls out to the guys in her great declaration of independence "Pick Up Your Feelings". Every old school swing beat is sittingevery self-empowering power punch hits this musically frugal, but content-wise all the more demanding R&B album of the year.
You can read our review from January here.
Danger Dan - "This is all covered by artistic freedom"
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Danger Dan
All of this is covered by artistic freedom
Label: Antelope Money Laundering (Warner)
Label: Antelope Money Laundering (Warner)
approx. € 16.99
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Über die rhetorische Cleverness, das juristisch unangreifbare Bashing von Jebsen, Kubitschek, Höcke oder Elsässer und den unverblümten Aufruf zur Militanz im grandiosen Titelsong dieses Albums ist wohl alles gesagt. »Das ist alles von der Kunstfreiheit gedeckt« ist das relevanteste deutsche Pop-Album dieses Jahres – auch wenn nicht alles so aggressiv politisch ist wie die »Kunstfreiheit«. Die biografisch-anekdotischen Songs, die den Großteil der Platte ausmachen, »Lauf davon« oder »Eine gute Nachricht«, sind aber nicht minder amüsant, wenn nicht berührender. Dem Rapper Danger Dan von der notorisch linken Antilopen Gang gelingt es auf erstaunlichste Weise, mit einem Album voller Piano-Balladen im Old-School-Liedermacherstil, seine Botschaften gegen Nazis, Spinner und Rechte nicht mehr nur in die eigene, enge Hip-Hop-Blase zu tragen, sondern auch in ein bürgerlicheres Publikum. Das ist eine gute Sache, aber natürlich auch eine Art von Kapitulation im politisch ja keinesfalls geeinten Rap-Game. Dort übernehmen bis auf Weiteres nun junge, furchtlose Rapperinnen wie Shirin David, Nura, Badmómzjay oder Nashi44. das Debatten-Battle. Sollen die Jungs also ruhig noch weiter besinnlich am Klavier herumklimpern.
You can read our review from April here.
An interview with Danger Dan here.
The Weather Station - "Ignorance"
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The Weather Station
Ignorance
Label: FAT POSSUM
Label: FAT POSSUM
approx € 13.05
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Viel Zeit brachte die kanadische Schauspielerin und Sängerin Tamara Lindeman damit zu, eine möglichst perfekte Kopie von Joni Mitchell zu werden. Mit ihrem fünften Album als The Weather Station gelang der 36-Jährigen nun jedoch ein musikalischer Befreiungsschlag. Mit ihren naturverbundenen Inhalten gegen die Ignoranz des Klimawandels (»Atlantic«) und die fortschreitende Umweltzerstörung (»Robber«) bleibt sie sich selbst und dem Spirit von Mitchell-Klassikern wie »Big Yellow Taxi« dennoch treu, ganz direkt sogar in ihrem Song »Parking Lot«. Mit raschelndem, durchs dürre Geäst rumpelndem Öko-Folk hat der reichhaltige Regenwald-Sound von The Weather Station aber nichts zu tun. Die luxuriösen, luftigen Arrangements, getragen weniger von Gitarren als von dringlich treibenden »Big Love«-Drums und schwirrenden Keyboard-Klängen, erinnern eher an den satten, warmen Westcoast-Rock von Fleetwood Mac – und liegen auch damit punktgenau im Trend von 2021. Musik für die Weltumarmung.
You can read our review from February here.
Arlo Parks - "Collapsed In Sunbeams"
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Title: Collapsed In Sunbeams (Deluxe) [Explicit]
approx € 15.98
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»We all have scars, I know it’s hard, you’re not alone like you think you are«: Mit solchen emphatischen Versen (aus ihrem Song »Hope«) wurde die junge britische Sängerin Arlo Parks binnen weniger Monate zur neuen Pop-Stimme der Generation Z, sie gewann den Mercury Prize für das Album des Jahres, den Brit Award als bestes neues Talent und ergatterte zwei Grammy-Nominierungen. Wie ihre Londoner Kollegin Joy Crookes, 23, die dieses Jahr ebenfalls ein beeindruckend souveränes Debüt-Album veröffentlichte, setzt auch die 21-jährige Parks auf einen wärmend analogen, nur sanft modernisierten Vintage-Sound aus Folk, Barjazz und Soul. Zu entspannten Grooves erzählt sie bedrückende, melancholische, aber auch tröstliche Storys über Teenager-Depressionen, Rassismus-Erfahrungen und Einsamkeit. Parks und Crookes, beide mit migrantischer Herkunftshistorie, sind die sensiblen, klarsichtigen Erbinnen von Amy Winehouse - die Zukunft des britischen Pop.
You can read our review from January here.
Violence - "paradise"
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violence
Paradise [Vinyl LP]
Label: Clouds Hill (Warner)
Number of discs: 2
Availability: This item will be released on January 28, 2022. Pre-order now.
Label: Clouds Hill (Warner)
Number of discs: 2
Availability: This item will be released on January 28, 2022. Pre-order now.
approx. € 39.99
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Kaum hatte man sich über diesen zweiten Corona-Sommer hinweg wieder einigermaßen beisammen, hielt Patrick Wagner den gequälten Pandemie-Gemütern unerbittlich den Spiegel des allgemeinen Elends vor. »Paradies« nannte er das Debüt-Album seiner Industrial-Punkband Gewalt, die er seit einiger Zeit mit der Gitarristin Helen Henfling und der Bassistin Jasmin Rilke betreibt. Alles, was uns zusammen hält, Mann wie Frau, schwul wie hetero, ist am Ende doch nur die »Gier«, kräht er heiser – die Sucht nach Geld und Ruhm oder schlicht nach Zugehörigkeit oder Wärme. »Es funktioniert«, konstatiert er maliziös die intakten Verblendungs-Mechanismen des Kapitalismus.
Fieser, desillusionierender und furioser hat lange niemand die ganze Jämmerlichkeit menschlicher Existenz im Optimierungswahn entlarvt. Die Musik dazu schleift und schranzt, Metall gleißt, Gitarrenriffs schütteln das Skelett, Drumcomputer klappern bis ins Mark. Der ehemalige Labelchef und Kopf der viel geliebten Band Surrogat ist das wahrhaft unabhängige und kompromisslose Schreckgespenst des zumeist saturiert wirkenden deutschen Indierocks. Gut, dass er sich wenigstens für dieses mächtige Album noch einmal den Verwertungszusammenhängen der Industrie unterworfen hat. »Das also ist Deine verfickte Seele, Dein Leben, zufällig und durchschaubar«, ätzt er in »Stirb es gleich«: »Der ganze Kram vergeht«. Lärm und Katharsis, Baby.
Unsere Rezension aus dem November lesen Sie hier.
Playlist: Top Songs 2020 (International)
BereichPlätze 1 – 5aufklappen
1. Adele: Easy On Me
Foto:
Simon Emmett; Columbia Records / dpa
2. Arab Strap: The Turning Of Of Our Bones
3. Squid: G.S.K.
4. Dry Cleaning: Scratchcard Lanyard
5. Wet Leg: Chaise Longue
BereichPlätze 6 – 25aufklappen
6. Lonely Guest, Joe Talbot & Tricky: Pre War Tension (feat. Marta)
7. Pa Salieu: Glidin’ (feat. Slowthai)
8. Tommy Genesis: Peppermint
9. Little Simz: I Hate You, I Love You
10. H.E.R.: Fight For You
11. Arlo Parks: Hurt
12. Joy Crookes: Feet Don’t Fail Me Now
13. Mustafa: Air Forces
14. Jasss: A World Of Service
15. Jana Rush:
Moanin '
16. Moor Mother:
Shekere (feat. Lojii)
17. Spellling:
Little Deer
18. Tori Amos:
Spies
19. John Grant:
The Rusty Bull
20. Illuminati Hotties:
MMMOOOAAAAAYAYA
21. Olivia Rodrigo:
Good 4 You
22. Low:
White Horses
23. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis:
Hand Of God
24. Aya:
Somewhere Between The 8th And 9th Floor
25. Billie Eilish:
NDA
To the Spotify playlist
To the Apple Music playlist