| 1 |
Sleeper |
"Look At You Now" |
single |
This is the first new Sleeper song in 21 years. When the last new Sleeper song came out, I was barely 30, and 158 weeks into what ended up being a 500-week weekly music column. |
| 2 |
Small Talks |
"Nicotine & Tangerines" |
single |
Things sometimes seem to end, but this is an illusion born of limited perspective, |
| 3 |
Charlotte Gainsbourg |
"Such a Remarkable Day" |
single |
and then they start again and your error is obvious. |
| 4 |
HEALTH |
"SLAVES OF FEAR" |
single |
The ominous synth-moans begin in "SLAVES OF FEAR" and I'm in my childhood bedroom hearing Depeche Mode for the first time. |
| 5 |
Marsheaux |
"Can You Stop Me (now)?" |
single |
Keyboards burble in "Can You Stop Me (now)?" and I'm dancing to "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" somewhere in the blur of high-school turning into college. |
| 6 |
Rotting Christ |
"Fire God and Fear" |
single |
Rotting Christ doom-march into "Fire God and Fear" and I'm in college discovering Bathory and Celtic Frost and the St. Matthew Passion. |
| 7 |
Windswept |
"Stargazer" |
single |
"Stargazer" coruscates into blast-beat catharsis, and I'm buying Leviathan and Xasthur CDs, and I lived here because there were book stores and record stores. |
| 8 |
To the Rats and Wolves |
"Cheap Love" |
single |
Things don't really end, but the next layer of secret truth is that they don't really begin. |
| 9 |
Dave Days |
"Thank U, Next" |
single |
You think you hear echoes, but this distinction is arbitrary. |
| 10 |
For I Am King |
"Forever Blind" |
I |
The air moves. There are no parenthetical waves. |
| 11 |
Arm The Witness |
"Happier" |
single |
It's hard to even be sure they're reaching you in the same order they were produced, and sometimes the second set is clearer. |
| 12 |
Young Culture |
"21 Days" |
single |
"21 Days" crunches and sighs, and I'm with the Gin Blossoms driving too fast on suburban access roads. |
| 13 |
Redwood |
"Mono" |
single |
We are formed by forces within our reach but out of our control. |
| 14 |
Children Of Bodom |
"Under Grass and Clover" |
single |
The guitar hook in "Under Grass and Clover" sinks its barbs, and I'm hearing "Neon Knights" for the first time. |
| 15 |
Dream Theater |
"Untethered Angel" |
single |
"Untethered" spools out coils and currents and I have Queensrÿche and Fates Warning in my first headphones, also made of coils and currents. |
| 16 |
Soen |
"Martyrs" |
single |
Every year there are fewer wires, but more connections. |
| 17 |
Joachim Witt |
"Herr der Berge" |
Rübezahl |
Every year another year becomes more familiar, if not always any less mysterious. |
| 18 |
Ewigheim |
"Vom Mond gemalt" |
single |
Every year the places you haven't been take one step closer. |
| 19 |
Huminoida |
"Thoughts Like Insects" |
The Grey Area |
We are shot by both sides, |
| 20 |
Red Mecca |
"A Spectrum of Black Lights" |
single |
armored in grace, |
| 21 |
Pedro The Lion |
"Model Homes" |
single |
becalmed in mass-produced |
| 22 |
Sigur Rós |
"Falinn" |
Liminal 3 |
and wordless faith. |
| 23 |
ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION |
"Memories of the Ruins" |
Can't Sleep EP 5 |
There is no parenthetical love. |
| 24 |
Kyuso Nekokami |
"真面目に" |
ギリ平成 |
Guitars are externalizations of the nervous system, |
| 25 |
Hitsujibungaku |
"1999" |
single |
like songs are shaped and set-free breath. |
| 26 |
LAMP IN TERREN |
"New Clothes - from The Naked Blues" |
The Naked Blues |
We howl, |
| 27 |
Nitroday |
"ヤングマシン" |
マシン・ザ・ヤング |
and only sometimes does it come out as words. |
| 28 |
WEAVER |
"Loop the night" |
single |
We call only some of these movements dancing, |
| 29 |
Maaya Uchida |
"youthful beautiful" |
single |
but all rhythm comes from subdividing time |
| 30 |
Sayuri |
"Dawn" |
Dawn +1 |
to make it seem to last longer. |
| 31 |
AKKOGORILLA |
"GRRRLISM" |
GRRRLISM |
We will share the future with brighter suns |
| 32 |
BiSH |
"stereo future" |
stereo future +1 |
and warp-jumps to formerly faraway stars. |
| 33 |
Machinefabriek |
"IV (with Marianne Oldenburg)" |
single |
Marianne Oldenburg's self-harmonies slide and bend, and I'm a tiny theater with nothing but darkness and Jane Siberry's voice. |
| 34 |
Damned Anthem |
"Save Your Soul" |
Uncovered 5 |
Damned Anthem turn Jewel's candor into epicore angst, and I'm watching Jewel singing this with just a guitar, backed up against the new-release rack in Newbury Comics. |
| 35 |
NERO |
"Lullaby" |
single |
Stories converge upon revision, |
| 36 |
Kathryn Joseph |
"Weight" |
From When I Wake The Want Is |
which is what makes early drafts precious. |
| 37 |
Rascal Flatts |
"Feels Like The First Time" |
Jukebox 3 |
I'm ten years old. I don't have my own radio, and it's Texas, and I exist because my parents met folksinging in Connecticut, and this means I only get to hear current music in the car. |
| 38 |
Love and Theft |
"Need To Breathe" |
single |
I'm landing in Nashville on the first plane trip I ever booked myself, and there's a sign in the airport saying "Music Capital of the World". |
| 39 |
Kaufman |
"Malati D'Amore (feat. Galeffi)" |
single |
You could put that sign up in every airport on the planet. |
| 40 |
Romix |
"Adamas" |
single |
We are armed with bright swords |
| 41 |
R-chord |
"It's you (feat. 王艷薇)" |
single |
and the ability to project holograms from our hearts into the night air. |
| 42 |
Supper Moment |
"LOVE is NEARBY" |
single |
Love is nearby and all around half caught in our throats. |
| 43 |
Ann Bai |
"讓我逃離平庸的生活" |
single |
Ann Bai is singing about escaping from mediocrity, and I'm hearing Garnet Crow for the first time and tunnels to the other sides of the world are opening under me until there's hardly any ground left. |
| 44 |
Charlotte Perrelli |
"Låt mig gå" |
single |
It's 1999 and Charlotte Nilsson is winning Eurovision for Sweden and I've only been anywhere they don't speak English once. |
| 45 |
Lovebites |
"THE FINAL COLLISION" |
CLOCKWORK IMMORTALITY |
It's 2005 and I'm standing in Tower Records in Tokyo with a dictionary in my hand and if I hadn't walked in with another human I'd probably still be there trying to translate every single CD spine. |
| 46 |
Faze Miyake |
"Decided" |
single |
It's 2001 and I'm standing outside a pub near Highbury, watching Arsenal fans watching Arsenal lose the FA Cup. |
| 47 |
LZZ X DABZ X LATTS |
"Inferno" |
single |
I mostly didn't really understand hip hop, I think, until I heard how it sounds in a hundred other places. |
| 48 |
Laura Pausini |
"Verdades a medias" |
Hazte sentir |
Maybe that's ultimately true of everything. |
| 49 |
Manuel Mijares |
"Mil Ciudades" |
Rompecabezas |
Billy Joel is singing "Uptown Girl", but other cities are organized along different axes. |
| 50 |
Swervedriver |
"The Lonely Crowd Fades in the Air" |
single |
Swervedriver broke up in 1998, like Sleeper, but only stayed gone for 10 years instead of 20. |
| 51 |
Last Idol |
"愛しか武器がない" |
愛しか武器がない |
Most of the members of Last Idol were born when neither band existed. And I don't mean yet. |
| 52 |
amiinA |
"Unicorn" |
Discovery |
"amiina" is a quiet Icelandic acoustic-ambient band. "amiinA" is a twee Japanese electropop group. Nobody has taken "Amiina" yet. |
| 53 |
Danheim |
"Fella" |
Runagaldr |
We are skin stretched over frames, |
| 54 |
SKÁLD |
"Flúga" |
single |
so it's no wonder these drums sound primal. |
| 55 |
Percival Schuttenbach |
"Pieśń małej Marii" |
Dzikie pola |
We will share the future with the legions of the reconstituted pasts, |
| 56 |
Building 429 |
"Glory" |
single |
and the new pagan gods that coallesce inside our prayers despite their virulent intents. |
| 57 |
Magic Dance |
"For A Time (The End Of My World)" |
New Eyes |
So few scriptures, so many movies. |
| 58 |
Barilari |
"En Este Mismo Lugar" |
single |
Everywhere we look for gods, we catch sight of ourselves in other people's clothes. |
| 59 |
DJ Raff |
"Resistencia" |
Resistencia +2 |
We look different in neon, |
| 60 |
Leander Kills |
"Hazavágyom" |
single |
and firelight, |
| 61 |
Indochine |
"Song for a Dream" |
Song for a Dream +3 |
and countless new gold dreams. |
| 62 |
Grete Paia |
"Kui Isegi Kaotan" |
single |
I'm taking pictures of consecutive umlauts on Estonian street signs in Tallinn, |
| 63 |
I Wear* Experiment |
"Jupiterz" |
Jupiterz 6 |
on a trip my daughter won't remember, but she has been to places where they don't speak English before she is two, |
| 64 |
Sandra Nurmsalu |
"Soovide puu" |
single |
and I have come back from another one as if returning from home. |
| 65 |
Vatican |
"Thirty-One Staples" |
single |
We are all of these people |
| 66 |
Skraeckoedlan |
"Kung Mammut" |
single |
haphazardly fastened together, |
| 67 |
Perkele |
"One Day" |
single |
no longer sure which of us is imitating whom. |
| 68 |
Dara Bubamara |
"All Inclusive" |
single |
All of us are all of us, |
| 69 |
THE SxPLAY |
"海淀南路36-Hai Dian Nan Lu-" |
Memento |
that seems most gloriously likely. |
| 70 |
Simonetta Spiri |
"Il viaggio dei pensieri" |
single |
If we're sent back where our DNA is from, I'll be in Italy, where I haven't even been yet. |
| 71 |
Raindear |
"World Below" |
single |
I'd trust Ancestry.com more if they said my ancestors |
| 72 |
Гурт [О] |
"Машина" |
single |
migrated here through the internet. |
| 73 |
Vesperteen |
"Operate" |
single |
DNA is code for joy, |
| 74 |
Huntza |
"Deabruak gara" |
Xilema |
and thus every one of us can be from anywhere, |
| 75 |
J.Fla |
"Bohemian Rhapsody" |
Natural |
can be anything. |
| 76 |
Ki:Theory |
"Harder Better Faster Stronger" |
single |
Our cyborg metaphors are as much nostalgic as dystopian: |
| 77 |
Nonn |
"Home" |
XVII |
methodologies for retreat |
| 78 |
Echos |
"Seraphin" |
Even Though You're Gone |
disguised as love, |
| 79 |
Maria Ilieva |
"Nishto" |
Vsichko |
evasive seduction metonymized |
| 80 |
Ciaran McMeeken |
"Tidal Wave" |
single |
as ecstatic reverence, |
| 81 |
r.roo |
"Mountains Scream" |
single |
intractable math repurposed as computational composure and its inevitable syllogistic return. |
