Best of 2014 Part 4

Slept in today. Still tired. Soldiering on. 

#12

Brock Berrigan

Four Walls And An Amplifier

36 minutes of the dopest beats you've heard all year, no doubt. This guy is arguably the most prolific basement dweller of the modern age. He describes himself as "beat maker, music enthusiast, multi instrumentalist, sample hunter, town drunk". He forgot inspirational guru. 

Old school soul samples and old blaxploitation clips sliced over the phattest hip hop grooves on the east coast. Apparently he's got hordes of unreleased material he doesn't want to release, occasionally dropping one on his SoundCloud page. Put this guy in the ring with any of the world's best lyricists and you've got yourself a chune. I wonder if he wears that chicken mask at home?

Reading Rambo

Clockwork

Why The Funk Not

#11

Beck

Morning Phase

Is the old Beck gone? The funky dude who thought he was a loser? If he is, we'll understand, but hopefully he's just on hiatus. In the meantime, we have a return to the "Sea Change" sound, only this time it's more ethereal and, frankly, much better.

He's definitely not breaking any new ground on this one, but it doesn't seem like he's pretending to. It just sounds like he wanted to chill out for a while, and we've been let in on a few minutes of his thoughts. It's an easy listen, one you'll likely repeat several times once you give it a shot. I'm not really sure it gets better with time, because it's good on the first go. Thumbs up from me.

Say Goodbye

Heart Is A Drum

Blue Moon

#10

Wild Beasts

Present Tense

As soon as I heard the opening track on this one I knew it would be a winner. I haven't really given them much time before, but they got plenty of it this year. It's kind of hard to put a finger on why it's such an engrossing album. It's largely a synth-heavy melancholy sound, but the production is really well done, it's nice and crisp but at the same time buttery smooth.

They all seem to be talented multi-instrumentalists, with Hayden Thorpe and Tom Fleming adding the lyrics in an interesting, kind of semi-falsetto muddy-tenor mix that has a nice contrast. The songwriting is pretty good, a step up from their older stuff, and it sounds like they have higher places to reach for in the future. I'm looking forward to the next one.

Daughters

Sweet Spot

Mecca

EP #4

Wigbert

This And That

Minimal tech house leaning more towards techno than house, this is the best of that genre I've heard all year. It's not overly complicated, pretty straight forward stuff, but subtle and really, really tight. This isn't big-room blast your ears off, it's late night vampire keep that brain moving and those toes tapping. The lost art of simplicity done right. 

Okapi

This And That

Head Machine

Into the best of the best, starting tomorrow!