Music 2014
Saucer.cc music selections for 2014
November
Parquet Courts / Content Nausea (What’s Your Rupture?, 28 November 2014)
20141128
Ariel Pink / Pom Pom (4AD, 17 November 2014)
20141117
TCF (Lars Holdus) / 415C47197F78E811FEEB7862288306EC4137FD4EC3DED8B (Liberation Technologies, 17 November 2014)
20141117
October
Excepter / Familiar (Blast First Petite, 14 October 2014)
20141014
Li Xi / Meet Me Somewhere (Sundowning, 15 October 2014)
20141015
Debut album by this San Francisco four-piece who reference neo-prog à la Fiery Furnaces and the psychedelic soundscapes of Broadcast.
September
Boothroyd / Idle Hours (Tri Angle Records, 30 September 2014)
20140930
July
La Morte Young / La Morte Young (Ba Da Bing!, 8 July 2014; released 1 December 2013 in France on Dysmusie)
20140708
June
Hildur Guðnadóttir / Saman (Touch, 30 June 2014)
20140630
Fucked Up / Glass Boys (Label, 3 June 2014)
20140603
Parquet Courts / Sunbathing Animal (What’s Your Rupture?, 3 June 2014)
20140603
May
John Linger / Inversion (self released, 31 May 2014)
20140531
April
Sleaford Mods / Divide And Exit (Label, 28 April 2014)
20140204
Fucked Up / Year of the Dragon EP (Label, 15 April 2014)
20140204
Klara Lewis / Ett (Label, 14 April 2014)
20140414
Dream inducing flows of electronics and field recordings. Lewis is the daughter of Edvard Graham Lewis of the seminal art punk band Wire.
HSY / Cyberbully/Phantasm Blast single (Buzz Records, 10 April 2014)
20140410
March
Lee Paradise (Dan Lee) / Water Palace Kingdom (Pleasence Records + Not Unlike Records, 25 March 2014)
20140325
Dan Lee of Hooded Fang and Phèdre triangulates Cate Le Bon (retropsychedelia), Suicide (synth drone), and Ariel Pink (art pop) on this solo debut.
Cyclobe / Sulphur-Tarot-Garden (Phantomcode, 24 March 2014)
20140324
Vertigotronica dronescapes. These short-film soundtracks saw limited CDR release in 2012.
Kandle / In Flames (Dare To Care Records, 4 March 2014)
20140304
Scintillating, pitch black blues rock evoking Led Zeppelin as well as Gemma Ray. Insidious, ineluctable.
Gallon Drunk / The Soul Of The Hour (Clouds Hill, 7 March 2014)
20140207
On the knife edge… fervid, audacious, thrilling addition to the Gallon Drunk canon, worthy of its extraordinary stature.
When Nalda Became Punk / Indiepop Or Whatever (Shelflife Records, 4 March 2014)
20140304
Pure pop at the critical nexus of naïveté and wisdom… Elena Sestelo & her band deliver brilliant songcraft on this four-track follow-up to last year’s
A Farewell To Youth.
Future Punx / 999 b/w Livin’ In A Movie single (Dull Tools, 11 March 2014 with original release in alternate form October 2013)
20140311
Future Punx channel The Feelies, Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft, and X-Mal Deutschland, fabricating fresh synth/dance rock.
February
Young Fathers / Dead (Big Dada, 3 February 2014)
20140204
Scottish psychedelic hip-hop out of Africa, warping your neural connections with lyrical, melodic, and harmonic juxtapositions revealing keen sociopolitical insight.
Nicolas Bernier / Frequencies A/Fragments (Line, 24 February 2014)
20140224
A mostly overcast morning on Ganymede as a distant sun fails to move the mercury, skyships drift by, and robotic miners do their doings.
Vox Populi! & Pacific 231 / Cut Chemist Presents: Funk Off (Now Again Records, 24 February 2014 with original limited release 29 October 2013)
20140224
Darkness disco in this retrospective collection of underground ’80s tracks. See also Joy Division, Bauhaus, Skinny Puppy, Throbbing Gristle.
Kate Tempest / Lonely Daze single (Big Dada, 24 February 2014)
20140224
Ageless poetry, ageless beats. First single from Tempest’s solo debut album slated for late May. She was previously in
Sound Of Rum.
Beth Israel / Dental Denial (Dull Tools, 26 February 2014)
20140226
Trippy, wispy, Dadaist pop, so delicately structured and yet in beautifully… flawed… perfection, more corporeal than music with ten times as many notes. Don’t miss 2013’s
self-titled debut.
Various / Inner City Beat: Detective Themes, Spy Music And Imaginary Thrillers 1967-1977 (Soul Jazz Records, 24 February 2014)
20140224
Instrumental music written for spy movies and cold war television, expertly curated for your auditory pleasure. Utterly brilliant.
Koenraad Ecker / Ill Fares The Land (Digitalis Recordings, 17 February 2014)
20140217
Cellos, acoustic percussion, and computers contribute to this dark, abstract masterpiece. Belgian renaissance musician Ecker plays in/as Stray Dogs, Eject The No, muteBoy, Lumisokea, Nieuw Ensemble, Bansuri Collectif, Nagg, and Audio Damage.
Karen Gwyer / New Roof (No Pain In Pop, 17 February 2014)
20140217
Filmic, layered electronica… sometimes beats, sometimes flows, sometimes the two together. 3-track EP follow-up to Gwyer’s Saucer.cc 2013 best-of winner,
Kiki The Wormhole.
Kevin Drumm / Shut In (Editions Mego, 17 February 2014)
20140217
Beauty in minimalism. Fathoms of fascination in harmonic manipulation and difference-frequency beating. Mind stopping.
Younghusband / Left Of The Rocks single (Sonic Cathedral, 14 February 2014)
20140214
Lush psychedelic rock. New studio track "Gun" plus a fantastic live version of the title track. Side A was on 2013 debut
Dromes.
Sleaford Mods / Chubbed Up. The Singles Collection. (self released, 14 February 2014)
20140214
Harsh street punk poetry rants over high-energy, minimalist beats. Compelling. See also: Ian Dury, John Cooper Clarke, Arab Strap, The Fall.
Stefan Jaworzyn / Drained Of Connotation (Blackest Ever Black, 3 February 2014)
20140203
Meditative, primitive intensity. Freshly surfaced first release of 1982 treasure from a member of Whitehouse and Skullflower.
Orphan Fairytale / My Favorite Fairytale (Aguirre, 1 February 2014)
20140201
Lo-fi, nursery rhyme dreamscapes or impossible glimpses through the cosmic membrane. OF is Belgian solo artist Eva Van Deuren who plays homemade & toy instruments.
Current 93 / I Am The Last Of All The Field That Fell (The Spheres, 11 February 2014)
20140211
An epic, timeless folk-prog opera featuring David Michael Tibet's impassioned words and voice with an all-star cast (James Blackshaw, Nick Cave, Andrew Liles, John Zorn, many more).
D/P/I / 08.DD.15 (Leaving Records, 10 February 2014)
20140210
Unrelenting, soft explosion of convulsive start-stops, thrillingly musical over its manic 32 minutes. Solo project of Alex Gray (in Sun Araw, Deep Magic, DJ Purple Image, Heat Wave, and Dreamcolour).
ππ (PyPy) / Pagan Day (Slovenly Recordings, 11 February 2014)
20140211
Brightly-lit psychedelic garage from Montréal in this project from members of CPC Gangbangs, Red Mass, and Duchess Says.
Shoes This High / Straight To Hell (Siltbreeze, 4 February 2014)
20140204
Archival, live New Zealand postpunk, curated and released 34 years on in this wonderful collection. Performed at Billy The Club in Wellington, 22 June 1980.
Henry Blacker / Hungry Dogs Will Eat Dirty Pudding (Riot Season, 3 February 2014)
20140203
Dirty ass rock'n'roll (as John Cale used to say) inspired by Steve Albini’s (late ’80s band) Rapeman and Felix Pappalardi’s (early ’70s band) Mountain. Sludgy crunch.
Magic Eye / Babylon (Not Not Fun, 4 February 2014)
20140204
Trip-hop ballads and ethereal choirs played through thick neon fog in a phosphorescent glass world… and it comes out of the oven as a sort of lo-fi postmodern shoegaze.
Gábor Lázár / ILS (Presto!?, 4 February 2014)
20140204
Algorithmic, arhythmic, atonal experiments introspecting one single note over the course of 11 tracks and 40 minutes.
Janek Schaeffer / Lay-By Lullaby (12K, 4 February 2014)
20140204
Soothing and vertigo inducing juxtaposition of freeway noise, spidery electronic scintillations, and the loveliest of ethereal, Kosmische drone.
January
Trick Mammoth / Floristry (Fishrider Records, 31 January 2014)
20140131
Ø (Mika Vainio) / Konstellaatio (Sähkö Recordings, 13 January 2014)
20140113
Spectacular space/impressionistic music that fucks with the capabilities of hearing (and challenges any tech between the sound files and your brain). Hypnotic, trippy, alien, sometimes ominous.
Ex-Easter Island Head / Large Electric Ensemble (Low Point, 20 January 2014)
20140120
A chorus of chords and percussion in arcs of energy and emotion that extend across the four lovely tracks of this remarkable EP.
Grand Mal X / Life EP (Beläten, 31 January 2014)
20140131
Minimalist/goth industrial pieces for dead dolls with discerning taste. Disarmingly anachronistic.
Bohren & Der Club of Gore / Piano Nights (PIAS, 24 January 2014)
20140124
Enormous, glacial, black light landscapes in this hour-long follow-up to 2008’s Delores. Echoes of Popol Vuh.
Cherry Glazerr / Haxel Princess (Burger Records, 14 January 2014)
20140114
Pure rock composed with teenage skin and bone, persuasively arguing for guitars over computers. (2013’s
Papa Cremp album has different versions of half of these songs.)
Indian / From All Purity (Relapse Records, 21 January 2014)
20140121
Crushing, cathartic metal brutality with forays into power noise. The video is difficult as it contains some abhorrent misogyny scenes. As a palate cleanser, here's last year’s winners of the
International Women Of Courage Awards.
N.M.O. / Dominant Akkord (anòmia, January 2014)
201401
Percussive, pattern-based musical structures in conversation with atonal imaginings. (Limited edition cassette version was released in December 2013.)
Elitechnique / Intrusion (II) (Clone Loft Supreme Series, 27 January 2014)
20140127
Stylistic nods to early NYC disco, ’80s synthwave, Krautrock, the French duo Air, and Philip Glass… yet all of a piece. Follow-up to the band’s 2012 Intrusion EP.
The Hidden Cameras / Age (Evil Evil, 27 January 2014)
20140127
A subtly subversive, glorious, wet gift for this dull world. Utterly danceable. First album in five years from the sometimes-Berlin-based Joel Gibb & Co.
Helm / The Hollow Organ (PAN, 17 January 2014)
20140117
Layered and nightmarish cum intricately minimalist and mysterious. Solo project of Luke Younger from the drone duo Birds Of Delay, and owner of the Alter record label.
Negra Branca / NB (Tesla Tapes, 2 January 2014)
20140102
Dreamy, hypnagogic, gentle. Expanded, 2014 edition (of the similarly-named March, 2013 release) from Gnod's Marlene Ribeiro.
About this page
Published continually throughout 2014. Selections are the Saucer.cc candidates for best of the year. Still curious? Look at the Saucer.cc WTF page.
Receive updates by RSS: http://saucer.cc/music/rss/saucer.xml. You can view this page as RSS in Feedly.
C o n t a c t : m u r r a y . a t . s a u c e r . d o t . c c
Saucer.cc 2014 by @saucer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://saucer.cc/music/2014/2014.html.
