1. Hands of Time – Margo Price
from Midwest Farmer’s Daughter (Third Man; 2016)
2. Torch Song – Laura Stevenson
from Cocksure (Don Giovanni; 2015)
3. Real – Lydia Loveless
from Real (Bloodshot; 2016)
4. Atomic Number – case/lang/veirs
from case/lang/veirs (Anti; 2016)
5. Kismet Kill – Haley Bonar
from Impossible Dream (Memphis Industries; 2016)
6. No Spare Key – Honeyblood
from Honeyblood (Fat Cat; 2014)
7. Your Best American Girl – Mitski
from Puberty 2 (Dead Oceans; 2016)
8. Sister – Angel Olsen
from My Woman (Jagjaguwar; 2016)
9. I Can Change – Haley Bonar
from Impossible Dream (Memphis Industries; 2016)
10. Tom Sawyer / You Know Where You Can Find Me – Laura
Stevenson
from Cocksure (Don Giovanni; 2015)
Through-lines this year: female artists (exclusively, based
on this round-up!), countryish bents and callbacks to the 90s. Not new, but
striking in its consistency.
Unusually, there weren’t any individual songs or albums that
I became really obsessed with in 2016. But I did find myself coming back to
Laura Stevenson’s sugar-sharp Cocksure throughout the year, all evocatively
cryptic lyrics and spiky melodies and none better than “Torch Song”, plus the
epic (even in its name) “Tom Sawyer / You Know Where You Can Find Me”, the kind
of soft-loud with-arms-outstretched anthem that’s so often attempted and so
rarely pulled off.
Meanwhile, two recent favourites of mine put out new records
that cleaned up their respective sounds but retained the raw edge and
musicality that distinguished them in the first place – Angel Olsen (“Sister”,
a wendingly heartfelt electric folk journey), and Lydia Loveless (“Real”, a
more concise statement of chiming country-rock yearning). And there was the
unexpected gift of a collaboration between Neko Case, Laura Veirs and k d lang,
three of the most characterful and best voices in americana etc, and as
graceful and interesting together as you’d expect.
In terms of new discoveries, Margo Price crept up on me with
her simple storytelling and arrangements in songs so well-crafted as to
transcend their genre trappings, Honeyblood provided a jolt of the closest
thing to 4ad-style alternative rock that I’ve heard for a while, right in the
sweet spot, and there was the instant classic that was Mitski’s stormy,
crystalline “Your Best American Girl”.
But it was Haley Bonar’s shimmering Impossible Dream that
was my favourite album of the year. “I Can Change” is the stand-out but “Kismet
Kill” isn’t far behind, both in their different ways lit from within by Bonar’s
wisp of a voice and gift for gauzey hooks and pop song dynamics (including
little post-punk touches), and the whole thing is sheer delight. I didn’t see
her coming – but here we are.
- December 2016
