Here is this year's finale:
1. JPEGMafia & Danny Brown SCARING THE HOES:
produced by JPEGMAFIA entirely on a hardware sampler, the raw and rangy production character of Scaring The Hoes becomes its third power. Samples play a big role in many of the beats, with sped-up '80s R&B vocals meeting up with doomy synths and hectic breakbeats on opening track "Lean Beef Patty." Elsewhere, easily identifiable rap tracks get chopped and mangled into new, ugly forms. Kelis' ubiquitous 2003 hit "Milkshake" is rendered frazzled and frantic on the exhilarating "Fentanyl Tester," with her vocals chopped to bits and rearranged in rhythms that shift from banging drum'n'bass to a glitchy tech-house-style ending. Throughout, Brown and JPEGMAFIA contort their tracks like kids playing with Legos, running spirited gospel choirs through blown-out filters on "God Loves You" and mismatching subtle piano jazz and blustery drum breaks on the stop-start stumble of "Jack Harlow Combo Meal." For as defiantly anti-pop as Scaring the Hoes is, Brown and Peggy still achieve something unexpectedly catchy and captivating with these lawless creations. It's crowded, confusing, ridiculous music, but despite its scary intentions, the album's renegade production and impressive performances make it more exciting than frightening. (ALLMUSIC)
2. Gaika DRIFT:
recorded in a secret vault under Truman Brewery in Brick Lane, accessible by invitation only and through multiple secure doors—Drift was a term used by Gaika to describe the movement and exchange of creative energy cultivated in this space by him and the artists who contributed to the record. Production assists from the likes of Kidä, avant-garde producer brbko and a host of classically trained musicians bring psychedelia and a bark that matches the bite promised by a talent pool as rich as this one. Letting go of the things that didn't serve him, emigrating to London and generally finding his place in the world as a man and musician are examples of what the term Drift also came to represent for Gaika—the currents of life and the directions in which they can carry us in. (RESIDENT ADVISOR)
3. Danny Brown QUARANTA:
whether Brown is ruminating on the consequences of gentrification on the stellar, Kassa Overall-featuring “Jenn’s Terrific Vacation” or discussing the lifelong impact of growing up in an underserved area alongside fellow Detroit rapper Bruiser Wolf on “Y.B.P.,” he demonstrates his keen perception and ability to translate the world he sees around him time and again. Quaranta is Danny Brown at his finest—and his most personal. It’s one of this year’s best albums: a no-skips project from an artist committed to stepping into the light and putting his best foot forward every day, despite the clouds that sometimes obscure the sun. “Probably never win a Grammy or chart on the charts / Should I still keep going or call it a day?” Brown raps on the meditative “Hanami,” a term borrowed from the traditional Japanese custom of appreciating the ephemeral beauty of cherry blossoms. For now, Danny Brown seems content to stop and smell the roses. It’s high time we give him his flowers. (PASTE MAGAZINE)
4. Avey Tare 7S:
Tare achieved something magical on 7s. The collection of music presented on the album changes with every listen, almost like watching a plant grow. The more your surrender yourself to the album’s intensity, the more you find solace in the hecticness. Tare toyed with the ideas of nostalgia and self-analyzation and filtered them through fuzzy guitar progressions and electronic elements that still feel human. Tare took a snapshot of his headspace and built an entire universe around it, swallowing every little moment and spitting out fully-realized breakthroughs that manifest themselves through dense arrangements and poetic lyricism. (GLIDE)
5. Sufjan Stevens JAVELIN:
like much of his defining work, Stevens wrote, recorded, and produced Javelin almost entirely alone, minus a few key appearances. Centering the devotional melodies and heart-tugging intimacy that characterized his early masterpieces, it’s the type of record, two decades into an artist’s career, that tends to be called a “return-to-form,” suggesting an embrace of his strengths and a diminished instinct to surprise or provoke. (PITCHFORK)
6. Kali Uchis RED MOON IN VENUS:
makes a case for allowing love’s every phase to wash over you like a powerful tarot reading. Uchis’ blissful melodies often call on the universe’s cosmic energies to deliver divine intervention and feeling. “See I’m praying God will send me an angel/Will the angels bring me back to you?” she coos over the smooth jazz-pop of “Blue.” In its shades of grief and desire, Red Moon in Venus asks us to feel the force of love’s power, whether for good or ill. One of its best moments, the gently spangled “Moonlight,” uses a principle of astrology—the moon as the center of inner emotional wisdom and divine femininity—as a space to relinquish love’s brutish gravity and give into the transcendence of possession. “I just wanna get high with my lover/Veo una muñeca cuando miro en el espejo kiss kiss,” she playfully asserts, more featherlight, liberated, and Cancer sun than ever. Kali Uchis’ music is a path towards a kind of spiritual enlightenment, but only if you open yourself to life’s most feminine energy. (PITCHFORK)
7. L’Rain I KILLED YOUR DOG:
that appetite for fullness underlies the record’s restless motion. The prominent seams of instrumentation that course through these songs accent Cheek’s uppercase emotions, which span from resentment (“I Hate My Best Friends”) to loneliness (“New Year’s UnResolution”) to wonder (“Oh Wow, a Bird!”). The arrangements and mixing foreground the abundance of sounds being produced and manipulated, the emphasis underscoring both Cheek’s many collaborators and her multiplicity. Where past L’Rain music channeled the woozy fog of memory and the daunting haziness of the future, these songs take place in the chaos of real time. (PITCHFORK)
8. Liv. e GIRL IN THE HALF PEARL:
Liv.e cooks up so many ideas on Girl in the Half Pearl that it’s hard to wrap your mind around. But sink into it and the Los Angeles-based artist’s shapeshifting, mercurial sound reveals itself as the product of both careful construction and introspection, an honest portrayal of rebirth and inner turmoil that can never quite extricate the two. Melding alternative R&B, lo-fi hip-hop, and jazz into its soupy chaos, the record allows itself to get tangled up in complexity but never strays from its core ethos, using its experimentation to unbottle the difficult corners of heartbreak, grief, and insecurity. It’s rare for a record so sonically adventurous to sound like an internal monologue rather than a soundscape of indistinct personality. (OUR CULTURE MAG)
9. Caroline Polacheck DESIRE, I WANT TO TURN INTO YOU:
flourishes appear in one place, then echo in a new location—wings flapping, whistles beckoning, blades slicing, bells chiming. She opens Desire with her father’s warning to “watch your head, girl” and concludes with the image of a decapitated angel. But what really binds the album is the dynamism of Polachek’s vocals, the culmination of years of bel canto operatic training and the hunger to get it right. There is so much conviction in her delivery that ceding space to anyone else, even guest spots from Grimes and Dido, feels like a disservice: Within the span of one song, Polachek’s voice will smear like paint, swoop like a crane, and bubble like lava. (PITCHFORK)
10. Mick Jenkins THE PATIENCE:
flying under the radar, Mick Jenkins' The Patience is another dose of his sultry smooth yet wickedly concise bars that this time around deftly weave between his life and the bigger picture. Being able to produce a project populated with jazz instrumentals while unloading his pent up thoughts on everything from the state of rap to racial injustice is a classy combination, one that posits Jenkins as a unique voice with inimitable grace. His state-of-the-nation delivery manages to whip into a frenzy as easily as it relinquishes control, always giving an otherworldly exhale in either case. His stature is tall, his joy contagious, and his rage palpable - if Jenkins is out of anything it would appear to be patience. (THE LINE OF BEST FIT)
