Nathan's Favorite Records, 2015

1. Tame Impala, Currents

Great psychedelia is intoxicating and messy. It should lead your imagination toward one place and then zig when you expect it to zag. Which is to say this album is a rabbit hole of “holy goddamn, how did they think of that?” songwriting.  

2. Kamasi Washington, The Epic

A muscular, form-defying three-hour jazz odyssey from the saxophonist in Flying Lotus’ cutting-edge stable. From Coltrane to Sun Ra to funky fusion, Washington channels every permutation you can think of and add a few more.

3. DāM-Funk, Invite the Light
In a time where retro is king, the man means to carry his namesake forward. Layers of synths grind and sputter into something grand. It takes a few listens to fully access the many levels of this record.

4. Dr. Dre, Compton: A Soundtrack
The retirement album of a master, who to everyone’s surprise had something new to say. Yes, Compton is as self-serving a cartoon as the movie that inspired it. I could knock the hustle, but the beatsmithing and guest verses are up to normal exquisite standards, and there’s something else too, new to Dre: a sense of playfulness.

5. Destroyer, Poison Season

Kaputt from 2011 could never be imitated, and luckily, Dan Bejar does not try. Heavy on orchestration but light on groove, quality still shines through these lonely symphonies.

6. Blur, The Magic Whip
Damon Albarn’s track record continues almost unblemished, and here he returns to the band that made him famous. An older band less interested in showing off, and better for it.

7. Dawn Richard, Blackheart
Taking a page from Janelle Monae’s multi-album conceptual journeys, Richard composes a sequel to Goldenheart that is, as she would say, “on that new shit.” She defies pop rules as cannily as she invents new R&B sounds.

8. Deerhunter, Fading Frontier

This is the first Deerhunter album I felt was seriously extraordinary. A mixture of pleasing classic rock and noise, it's quite the collection of weird anthems.

9. Erykah Badu, But You Caint Use My Phone
Slight? Maybe slightly. This was an unexpected pleasure Badu dropped out of nowhere, with a satirical edge I never expected. Beyond the takes on Drake and the Isleys and the Andre 3000 verse, even at 36 minutes, it still feels smooth and complete.

10. Jay Rock, 90059

West-coast rap was too rich to believe in 2015. Yet somehow this brisk, uncompromising entry in the nu-rap canon was regarded as a disappointment. I defy anyone to listen to “Money Trees Deuce” or “Gumbo” and tell me Jay-Rock is somehow lesser than Kendrick.

Favorite Songs*
A$AP Rocky Feat. UGK and Juicy J, “Wavybone”
Boogie, “Oh My”
Cashmere Cat Feat. Ariana Grande, “Adore”
Drake, “Hotline Bling”**
Freddie Gibbs, “Fuckin’ Up the Count”
Ilovemakonnen Feat. Migos, “Whip It (Remix)”
Mutemath, “Used to”
Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, “All the Gold in California”
Young Thug, “Best Friend”

*No reason to limit myself to just singles or radio hits

**The heart wants what it wants, and the ear likes what it likes

Freeze That Verse: Aaron's Favorites, 2012

1. R. Kelly, "Write Me Back"

Bravura soul form a bravura soulman. The singer's a student, rebuilding from lush, gently shifting blueprints drawn decades ago, alive to their possibilities today. Says it himself: love has the greatest vision of all time.

2. Goat, "World Music"
A furious, mindbending stew of nearly every sound blurted out to fuck with your head in the Twentieth Century--from psych and drone to metal, Afrobeat and pastoral folk. Recklessly borrowed, played with abandon.

3. Kendrick Lamar "good kid, m.A.A.d city"

A tour of King Kendrick's life, years before that title became appropriate. Woozy, jazzy and menacing, narrated by a shapeshiting MC, at turns thoughtful and impulsive, but always true to himself.

4. Miguel, "Kaleidoscope Dream"
His five 2012 EPs are also a must, collectively the flowering of an R&B auteur. Miguel's a suave oddball--his compositions run from grown and sexy to achingly needy--unafraid to throw out an idea, look the listener in the face, and dare you to join him.

5. Spiritualized, "Sweet Heart Sweet Light"
A sound born from Spaceman's latest, darkest chemical experiences. An album dreamed from a sick bed, shuffling towards a transcendence it realizes through celestial rock and roll.

6. Café Tacuba, "El Objeto Antes Llamado Disco"
An ebullient blur of fluttering, ringing, propulsive noises, artful in the most subtle and spectacular ways.

7. Dinosaur Jr, "I Bet On Sky"
Choppy waves of riffage clash up against the pointilistic clarity of J Mascis' solos. Alongside J's voice, as high and whiny as his Jazzmaster, the sound is as massive and breathtaking as ever, maybe a little warmer.

8. Tame Impala, Lonerism

Drenched in flange, swimming synth and clattering drums, Kevin Parker's dense, enormous visions radiate outwards--just beyond comprehension, easy to get lost in.

9. Tennis, "Young & Old"
Songs fashioned from Beach House guitar lines, untangled and exposed to the sun. Featuring not only 2012's acest deployment of organ, but the sweet churn of Patrick Riley's guitar and Alaina Moore's heavenly sighs.

10. Rick Ross, "Rich Forever"
The finest product the Bawse has distributed thus far, not simply consolidating his success, but justifying it. An appropriately monstrous and expansive set of beats forms the bed for Ross and his business partners' cartoon villain games.

Aaron's Favorites, 2010: Always Never Not Giving A Fuck

With apologies to Let's Wrestle, who's fantastic In The Court Of Wrestling Let's has been deemed ineligible, Aaron's 10 favorite releases of 2010:

1. Beach House, Teen Dream

A diffuse, gorgeous sound world. Listening to Alex Scally's guitar unfold over Victoria Legrand's vocal and keyboard melodies is the most enveloping, elegant narcotic on the market.

2. Big Boi, Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son Of Chico Dusty
Big Boi just wanted to make an album. Label trouble delayed it for years and kept Andre 3000 away. Whenever it was released, Sir Lucious Left Foot's virtuosic mic acrobatics were never really in doubt. But who could have predicted an album this joyous, this gleeful about the possibilities of funk?

3. Crime In Stereo, I Was Trying To Describe You To Someone
On their swan song, the Long Island group construct a violent, fractured punk. This is "melodic hardcore," but there's little melody here. I hear only fury--in the controlled explosions of the tempo, in the anguished dual vocals, and in the eviscerating guitar textures.

4. Caetano Veloso, zii e zie
The Brazilian master, now 68, cracks open his skull and lets us take a peek inside. The contents--languid, martian jams, which Veloso has termed transambas--are no surprise, and yet he makes each moment sound like a revelation.

5. The-Dream, Love King
The synthesizer symphonies of Love King are a letdown after last year's genius Love Vs. Money, but only just. Dream's music remains the platonic ideal of contemporary R&B--effortless, immediate music, with quirks and charms still revealing themselves months later.

6. Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
A fascinating and uneasy mix of West's egocentric philosophizing and terrible humor with the collective ennui of the group vocals, always popping up to comment on the action, as in Greek tragedy. The production is, of course, next level--dizzying, colorful collages of sound that pulse and thump with tenacity.

7. Das Racist, Sit Down, Man
Overheard on Sit Down, Man: "We just like rap, we don't even need rap." Maybe so, but rap needs Himanshu Suri and Victor Vazquez, at once laconic and whip smart, and surely the first hip-hop group to make eating nachos and reading critical theory sound ill as hell.

8. Grinderman, Grinderman 2
This unholy alliance of Nick Cave and a trio of the baddest seeds don't yet rival their day job band, but damn if they're not coming close. The Grinderguys pound out a strain demonic blues-scuzz you thought they didn't make any more.

9. No Age, Everything In Between
All indie-rock should sound like this: flurries of fuzz and hooks. The album gets stuck in an ambient ditch for a few tracks, but No Age can shred and transcend at will, and even sneak in a couple mid-tempo stunners.

10. Tame Impala, Innerspeaker
A big, groove-oriented psychedelic record in a year when even Dungen disappointed. The reverberations and acid-tinged flow of Innerspeaker aren't just retro signifiers though, they're the building blocks of 2010's most immersive sound.