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Following on from recent debut EP Invisible Lines, Pink Feather's has shared the Eau Claire remix of The Feeling's Gone, which gives it a slightly more electronic feel and is definitely pushing my buttons. Check out the original version below.
Gorgeous track from London duo AZEDIA that combines layered loops to beautiful effect. I love the way the vocals form such a fundamental part of this track, to the point you forget they are even there. Kin is taken from AZEDIA's second album, due for release next month.
Pre-order the album now to receive Kin immediately and the rest of the album on 2 February.
Also check out earlier track Thunder and Lightening, which features some complimentary intricate female vocals. Love.
Another new track from Years & Years, who are gearing up for their sold out debut headlining tour, kicking off next month. This makes me more excited for an album in 2015!
An absolutely gorgeous to kick off 2015 from one of this year's most promising acts, The Night VI. Too late To Lie was produced by band member Jack Gourlay and is taken from the forthcoming third EP, due out on 30 September through Duly Noted. Pre-order it now to receive Too Late To Lie on MP3 and every other song as they are unveiled.
You can also grab the band's covers EP on Bandcamp simply by signing up to their mailing list (name your price at zero... Or more if you feel generous). Check it out here.
10. Ben's My Friend - Sun Kil Moon
Sun Kil Moon’s Benji was full of personal moments but none felt like they captured the maudlin sense of growing up and growing old in the same way as album closer Ben’s My Friend, complete with that lovely sax work. The way this song sets out the passing of time against Mark Kozelek’s friendship with Postal Service and Death Cab frontman Ben Gibbard is both touching and frighteningly real… Anyone over-30 will likely be familiar with the work that goes into maintaining friendships and the complexity that gradually seeps into life as you age. What once seemed simple and obvious gradually becomes harder.
9. I Can Be Your Light - Hugh
I’ve championed Hugh and band-member Joshua Idehen’s other project Benin City for some time, but I Can Be Your Light from Hugh’s I Can’t Figure You Out EP marked their best moment yet. There’s only so much you can say about this song - it’s not complicated, it’s just beautiful. The openness and the generosity… No track this year came closer to bringing me closer to tears.
8. Bassically - Tei Shi
If there is one artist I’m excited for more than anyone else in 2015 it’s Tei Shi, who seems destined to pick up the hype train where FKA Twigs has got off. After a cover version of Beyoncé’s No Angel, Tei Shi ended up releasing Bassically - a track so fully realised it is incredible she doesn’t even have an album yet. Dark, brooding and incredibly sexy.
7. Brain - Banks
Banks’ momentum seemed to peter-out mid-way through 2014 but her album packs a whole slew of great tracks and Brain remains one of the most thrilling moments of pop music we heard this year, like something evil emerging from the blackness...
6. Putty Tart - Mouse On Mars & Junior Boys
Snuck onto Mouse On Mars’ celebratory collaborations project 21 Again was this glorious slice of electronic R&B, and it pretty much picks up where Junior Boys’ Banana Ripple left off. So much energy, so much sun, so much warmth. Love love love.
5. Two Weeks - FKA Twigs
Two Weeks felt like the realisation of all that FKA Twigs ambition… Taking the passion and creativity of those earlier tracks and applying it to the Twigs’ first real widescreen production… The music and video are both sexy as hell, and Twigs breathless delivery verges on sinister, particularly on that killer line: “I can fuck you better than her” she declared.
4. I See You - The Horrors
What a way to tease your forthcoming album… The first track taken from Luminous sounded like Simple Minds channeling Donna Summer, and I See You feels like a trip aboard the epic Saturn V once it kicks in. Sadly Luminous had showed it’s hand before it even came out - nothing else it contained came close… But you would struggle to find a more epic seven-and-a-half-minutes this year.
3. An Ocean Between Waves - The War On Drugs
Dad rock goes epic. The War On Drugs’ Lost In A Dream managed to take the template from Slave Ambient and make it feel more real and grounded, but the epic Krautrock sense of movement was all over it’s best track, An Ocean Between Waves. Adam Granduciel’s struggle to establish connection is almost tangible here in those closing lines: “I’m at the darkened hillside / And there’s a haze right between the trees / And I can barely see you / You’re like an ocean in between the waves”.
A touching moment that evolves into something even more epic as the song finally hits its stride in the closing minutes - you sense Granduciel maybe managed to mount one of those waves, and is surfing his way to a complete view of the ocean beneath him.
2. Words I Don't Remember - How To Dress Well
One of the most emotionally honest moments on How To Dress Well’s What Is This Heart. Words I Don’t Remember sounds like a lover struggling to piece back together the way they feel - hands slipping through the sensations and feelings… “Who knows if I love you baby, but you’re the one thing on my mind”. Much as with An Ocean Between Waves, Words I Don’t Remember launches out of that emotional insecurity into an epic instrumental closing third, and it’s a staggering moment.
1. Can't Do Without You - Caribou
On which Dan Snaith distills that very feeling of needing someone so bad it hurts… The obsession and neediness that turns love into something darker. Can’t Do Without You is both the most joyous, loved-up and celebratory thing I heard this year and the most desperately cloying. And if I take one thing from this song it is the human connection: we all feel this, for to love that hard is what it means to be human. And Snaith made it into the most addictively beautiful and optimistic sounding piece of sound created this year. Turn it up and forget about everything but the love you feel.