TV COLOURS
Beverly
(Dream Damage)
TV Colours are a great live unit, but they never manage to be able to capture the majesty of Beverly on stage. Maybe you simply can’t beat the perfection of the version presented on Purple Skies, Toxic River. The cracking of the cassette as you hear it loaded in the tape deck at the beginning, the R Stevie Moore via Big Black mechanical drums, the big fuck-off chainsaw riffs. That chorus, man. It’s bigger than us.
LIL WAYNE FEAT. 2 CHAINZ
Rich As Fuck
(Cash Money)
Recent years have seen Lil Wayne stuck in the deepest nadir of his career, spitting mediocrity on albums and mixtapes alike. This year’s I Am Not A Human Being II was mostly tedious shit, but the Tity Boi-featuring Rich As Fuck is vintage Tunechi. Each line is a flawless Weezy-ism, take your pick. “She blowing kisses at me with her pussy lips / Smooches”.
ST VINCENT
Birth In Reverse
(Loma Vista)
I only just reviewed this last week so lemme hit ctrl-c ctrl-v, alright? Here we go: This track is insane. I think Annie Clark might be insane. A genius. The definingrock star of our generation, please. The guitars sound all kinds of fucked up.A Birth In Reverse is fucked up imagery when you think about it. Maybe don’tthink about it. Just dance like crazy. Fuck like crazy. I don’t care. “Take out thegarbage, masturbate”. The track is all kinds of great. I can’t stop listening.
CLIENT LIAISON
Feeling
(Independent)
Melbourne duo Client Liaison are primed for a breakthrough in 2014 (think I’ve used Savage Garden as a feasible benchmark in the past), dealing in a damn enticing brand of pristine, dreamy retro-pop. The executive-nostalgia imagery of Ansett and Skase is all pretty great, the aesthetic somehow compounded by an exceeding musical talent that belies any semblance of jokiness.
SEEKAE
Another
(Future Classic)
A mere tease of what’s to come, Sydney electronica heroes Seekae made a seamless transition into vocal-led material with the haunting Another. Their production yet again sits ahead of the curve, laying the groundwork for a 2014 full-length. While the track was the only Seekae release of the past few years, vocalist Alex Cameron backed it up with a solid stripped-back LP Jumping The Shark.
JIMBLAH
March
(Elefant Traks)
Even after repeat listens, March still brings the goosebumps with Jimblah’s ridiculously good flow and rally-cry observations. A highlight from one of the best hip hop album of 2013, Phoenix. World class.
JANELLE MONAE FEAT. ERYKAH BADU
Q.U.E.E.N.
(Bad Boy)
In a lot of ways, this is the definitive track of 2013. It captured what was going on, before it was going on. It’s a State Of The Union from the funkiest reaches of the galaxy. You can listen to it for the hundredth time and still ask yourself, “woah, what just happened?” The booty don’t lie.
LONTALIUS
For The Ideas
(Independent)
When Wellington singer-producer Eddie Johnston (Lontalius/Race Banyon) breaks through in the next year or so I’m gonna be like “I TOLD YOU SO” but till then, we have a solid year’s worth of releases, including a perpetual stream of covers, the occasional Race Banyon track here and there, and For The Ideas – a brief Casiotone meditation taken from The World Will Never Know About Us EP.
KIRIN J CALLINAN
Landslide
(Siberia/Remote Control)
For all his transgressions – the stage invading beefcake-for-hire, epilepsy-inducing farce, at-times depraved lyrical themes, walls of guitar abrasion, – it’s easy to forget Kirin J is more than adept at crafting moments of profound beauty. Not that the boundary-pushing isn’t great. Landslide is the finest moment from Callinan’s cauterising debut Embracism, threading a series of landscape-as-metaphors into a genius whole.
SINGLE OF THE YEAR
DICK DIVER
Alice
(Chapter)
The opening few tracks from Dicky D’s Calendar Days are a veritable trove of guitar pop gold, the title track and Water Damage could earn a place at the top of the 2013 podium. I’ll go with Alice, its slinky bassline recalling the band’s feel-great classic Head Back, delivered alongside punchy bursts of sunshine guitar. “I live in the city / You don’t deliberate / You set goals / And you reach goals” I think about that line a lot. I probably always will.
