1. Promises, Floating Points, London Sym. O. and P. Sanders
The trend was initiated before the pandemic, but it seems to have increased the interest of composers and music lovers for soothing, introspective, comforting music. “Pro-mise” outfits: the Briton Floating Points has imagined the perfect musical accompaniment for this eventful year. Between jazz and post-minimalism, this record is of any beauty, the legend of the saxophone Pharoah Sanders offering here a poignant performance on the nuanced orchestrations of the London Symphony Orchestra.
2. Collapsed in Sunbeams, Arlo Parks
Released at the end of January, as much to say an eternity, the intimate song, slowly groovy and delicately soul of Anaïs d’Oluwatoyin Estelle Marinho more than held firm. Yes, she claims to be Joni Mitchell. It is still necessary to support the comparison. It’s the case. The Briton is the voice of her generation. Better still, she is the witness. She names (three of the titles are first names), she observes, describes, comments, barely striking. Calmly, tenderly, she sings about life. Today and forever.
3. Africa victim, Mdou Moctar
He can dazzle and does not deprive himself of it, this Nigerian virtuoso, he can play it folk-blues as much as explode with all the colors of a psychedelic sound and image, he varies to vertigo the effects and the tempos, but it is never in vain. He’s on a mission. It is a question of being heard in the coco-phonie of the world, and even on the dance floors, one cannot not be touched by what he expresses of the condition of his people: “Africa victim of so many crimes / If we don’t say it, they decimate us ”.
4. They’re Calling Me Home, Rhiannon Giddens
This album, recorded in a makeshift studio not far from Dublin, is a world. Better still, it’s THE world. Nothing is foreign to Rhiannon the Irish, the African, the European, the American, the Native. She lives in songs and emotions like countries, and the songs she has chosen (or created) for this new project are places of meditation and mourning. Because death is everywhere, the pandemic mows without ritual. Rhiannon and his ally Francesco invite us into the church of their music.
5. Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, Little Simz
Sometimes I Might Be Introvert differs from the first three Little Simz albums in its breath. From Introvert at the opening, we have the impression of watching a movie, with the British rapper in the lead role, larger than life. Seventeen songs, not one too many, a committed, feminist, humanist story, which, as a tribute to classic soul (Two Worlds Apart), then transports us to musical Africa (famous Point and Kill and Fear no man) passing through the London marginal world (Rollin stone) without going astray.
6. At My Piano, Brian Wilson
Brian Wilson all alone. Who plays his songs on the piano. Only this and all that: the exquisite beauty of his celebrated melodies, initially intended, for the most part, for his Beach Boys. Sixty years later Surfin ‘, Brian finds his best friend at the piano. And does what he always did: build. Track after track, the songs take shape: there is no harmonic interlacing voice or fabulous instrumentation, and yet everything is there. Under the fingers, in a few notes, a myriad of sounds. Miracle.
7. Fire, The Bug
English electronic composer Kevin Martin had the smart idea to revive his industrial dancehall project The Bug, as if he wanted to highlight the issues that preoccupy us. Thereby, Fire can be listened to like the soundtrack of our end of the world: its cataclysmic bass, its decrepit sound textures, the urgency of the texts of the poets and guest MCs. Powerful, oppressive, visionary, Fire warns of a bleak future if society stands still in the face of the challenges it faces.
8. Carnage, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis
Two years after the monumental Ghosteen, the Australian Nick Cave offered this more modest Carnage, co-written and recorded during confinement with his old accomplice Warren Ellis of Bad Seeds. The coppery voice of the musician finds the perfect setting in these dramatic songs with orchestrations of strings; the apocalypse is never very far in the work of the poet, but pearls like the title song and the pastoral Lavender Fields soften the worries of the musician, worthy heir to the late Leonard Cohen.
9. Black to the Future, Sons of Kemet
With Africa victim by Mdou Moctar, the London jazz orchestra Sons of Kemet offers the most militant album of 2021. And to better drive the point home, Shabaka Hutchings and his colleagues invite poets and singers (including Moor Mother and Angel Bat Dawid) to reflect on questions of identity, emancipation of the descendants of Africa and social justice by incorporating musical influences from the West Indies and the African continent into their compositions, consolidating the influence of the British on jazz today.
10. Bright lights, Susanna Hoffs
Whatever she revives, with the Bangles, in tandem or solo, she is the performer par excellence: without distorting anything, everything shines. She thus found in her catalog of the heart other songs loved between childhood and adolescence. Her taste so sure and her passion thus brought her back on the path of Emitt Rhodes and his group The Merry-Go-Round, of the Velvet Underground with Nico, of the Monkees, of Badfinger, even crossing a Syd Barrett. And Susanna sings all these beautiful people, and the world is more beautiful.
11. Deaconserpentwithfeet
The American composer and performer Josiah Wise had already made a good impression in 2018 with his first album Soil. With Deacon, he rises, inventing a modern soul, respectful of its gospel origins, but influenced by modern electronic and contemporary music. Her precious voice, her singular, baroque way of expressing lost or found love and her flair for memorable melodies make Deacon a successful record from the first to the eleventh song.
12. Burn the fire, Juliette Armanet
First title: The last day of the disco. You have been warned. Here is the heiress of Véro Sanson and Barbara who surrenders to the boom boom of the devil to the body, resolutely seventies, as we say in France. But so skillfully, with so much dexterity, such a sad AND irrepressible sense of melody, that the pulse becomes a space for maneuver, a mode of survival. Dance disco when things are not going well, dance disco with joy, not dance disco all the time either: to Juliette Armanet the floor, full freedom.
13. Call Me if You Get Lost, Tyler, the Creator
Building on the success of his album Igor, composer and rapper Tyler, the Creator has refined his lyrics and chosen to make Call Me if You Get Lost a tribute to American hip-hop of the 2000s, inviting in particular DJ Drama, Pharrell Williams and Lil Wayne to collaborate on this playful disc, colored by its forays into jazz, reggae and soul, warm and indifferent to trends on the stage hip-hop. We won’t be surprised if he beats J. Cole, Nas and Kanye West at the Recording Academy Awards.
14. Sinner Get Ready, Lingua Ignota
From the nine minutes of the striking The Order of Spiritual Virgins in opening, we understand that this disc will require our total attention. What a shock ! With Sinner Get Ready, American composer Kristin Hayter (also known as Lingua Ignota), trained in piano and classical singing, opens up about the abuse, physical and psychological, she suffered. His encounter between experimental and folk music from the Appalachians, between his modern discourse and his rural roots, results in this important, violent and unforgettable album.
15. Heart, Clara Luciani
Sitting down that she was on her first cover photo, here she is standing, decided… grown up! Not just tall, but THE tall, new dance queen of pop. Song of affirmation after song of affirmation, she shatters ceilings. “Love, love has never killed anyone,” she declares, freed. Funky song in France Gall era Michel Berger, intimate letter to Françoise Hardy, ballad of summer ball with Julien Doré, the world of varieties belongs to him from now on.