albums etc. of 2021

[adevyish]

I didn’t get the chance to dig deeply into any albums this year. A few singles I was obsessed with, sure, but no whole albums or EPs. So the Spotify playlist that is meant to accompany this post turned into a playlist of songs I liked this year in general. And it happens to also feature some songs from albums that are also on this list.

☞ Spotify: 2021
Roughly: 1. alt rock; 18. pop rock; 26. electropop; 37. alt pop; 46. chill pop

Anyway, onto the albums etc! Links below are to Bandcamp.

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Indie Rock Pt 1

still too mainstream for Pitchfork

Said the Whale / Dandelion

I fell in love with STW’s college rock meets folk pop sound in 2013 just before the release of hawaiii. Their next album, As Long As Your Eyes Are Wide was grief-laden, more electro than guitar-driven; it was followed by Cascadia which tried to hard to be a political statement without really doing so. This album is a return to their hawaiii sound, but with the maturity that years of musical meandering have given them. (Lyrically, it’s weaker than their previous albums.)

However, between Cascadia and their Twitter presence, my patience with them has run a little thin in the past few years. So I like this album, but I don’t know if I can love it like I would have six years ago.

Sorry Youth / Bad Times, Good Times
拍謝少年 / 歹勢好勢

Before this album, what I knew of Sorry Youth is that they had a very pure rock sound — if you listen to any mainstream Taiwanese rock you’ll know what I mean. Their gritty Hokkien vocals gave them a real Taiwanese working-class feel.

With this album, their songwriting has gained melancholy melodies, highlighting the plaintive desperation of their vocals. “望時間會留” (The Moment), for example, has verses in the classic Sorry Youth rock sound, before diving into alternative, melodic guitars for its breakdown. It’s this letting go that deepens the sense of loss.

Other tracks of note: “出巡”, laden with traditional instruments thanks to experimental producer Sam-seng-hiàn-gē; and “踅夜市” (Nightmarket), which features my favourite Taiwanese singer-songwriter JenJen.

ROTH BART BARON / Haku’s Resurrection
ROTH BART BARON / 無限のHAKU

There’s a lot of hope on this chamber pop album. And by that I mean there’s definitely a gospel influence. Yet the places where this album shines most is when it tiptoes into tentative, uneasy instrumentation like in “みず／うみ” (Miz / Umi) and the pizzicato in “Helpa”.

Retro J-Pop

hashtag city pop

Cocco / Kuchinashi
Cocco / クチナシ

If you took 2000s anime music and worked backwards to its inspirations, you’d get something that sounds like this.

Perfect Young Lady / PYL DEMO AND …

(Not on Spotify.) For people who like silly ’80s/’90s anime ending themes.

STILL DREAMS / Make Believe

There’s something to be said for dreamy arpeggios. City pop put through a heavy bedroom filter.

Weird Section

here we go again

cokiyu / Kouya (EP)
cokiyu / 荒野

Alt ambient electro that dips into dance and traditional Japanese music.

Kabanagu / OYOGUMANE
Kabanagu / 泳ぐ真似

Weird glitch energy with operatic and ’00s techno hardcore bits; you don’t ever quite know where OYOGUMANE is going. Usually I don’t like too much electronic frying of vocals, but it works here..

Indie Rock Pt 2

someone please take shoegaze away from me

For Tracy Hyde / Ethernity

A well-executed album, but sometimes the ground this album treads is much too familiar — retreads of shoegaze and grunge rock songs past. What I do like: the way “Desert Bloom” wobbles between major and minor keys; “Interdependence Day - Part I”, because even if this is stereotypical college rock shoegaze it’s still a banger; the hope of “Heavenly” and “Sister Carrie”.

HANDSOMEBOY TECHNIQUE / TECHNIQUE

A fun take on piano-driven beach rock with a few forays into other musical genres.

Mele / Four Seasons (mini)
メレ / Four Seasons

This starts off in pretty typical J-indie beach rock sands, slowly breaking out before kicking off into proper guitar mode. Then it immediately 180s — to a pair of piano ballads with delicate vocal layering, which I think are actually the strongest tracks on the mini-album.

Nakigoto / Patrone no Uchigawa de (mini)
なきごと / パトローネの内側で

This is pretty mainstream as much as indie J-rock goes. There’s a bit of Vocaloid-esque pop rock, a bit of Aimyon-ish folk pop, and a bit of pop punk.

Uchunekoko / Hino Ataru Basyo ni Kiteyo (mini)
宇宙ネコ子 / 日のあたる場所にきてよ

It’s nice to hear a hopeful, relaxed combination of shoegaze and dream pop album that doesn’t the typical ground of this sort of music too much.

As Mainstream As It Gets

AAAMYYY / Annihilation

Alt/psych rock meets ’90s J-pop R&B. It’s much more coherent than her first album; as if AAAMYYY has moved from trying to copy sounds like she likes and to carving out a sound of her own. I was worried when the singles for this album started to come out that there would be a bit too much of Tempalay’s influence — she’s a non-writing member of that band — but the bulk of the album is uniquely her own.

Kyary Pyamu Pyamu / Candy Racer
きゃりーぱみゅぱみゅ / キャンディーレーサー

The pre-pandemic singles on this are pretty standard Kyary fare, but after those came out, this album lets loose. “Candy Racer” goes straight from four-on-the-floor to 8-bit Perfume-esque construction and “Dodonpa” is Kyary speaking beats on top of beats.

There is some post-March 2020 stuff that is more ~Kyary~ but it’s like “Perfect Oneisan” where it’s actually deconstructed Kyary dance pop with some Shibuya-kei influence and bass slaps thrown on top. (I could see this song as a Perfume song too and it’s also very in line with the Capsule songs Nakata — who’s the producer of all three — released this year.)

mekakushe / Hikari Mitai ni Susumitai
mekakushe / 光みたいにすすみたい

Light piano pop. It starts off slow and gets a bit close to jazzy elevator muzak, but there’s enough variation and melody to hold up. Where this album shines is the more upbeat chill hop and electropop songs.

Perfume / Polygon Wave (EP)
Perfume / ポリゴンウェイヴ

Retro sounds with a distinctly Perfume beat. Perfume has mostly stuck to pop in the past decade, but the breakdown in “Android&” has all of the musical unease you would hear in a dance song back on LEVEL3.

Various Artists / “N1” Nanguaq Works 1
Various Artists / 《N1》那屋瓦一號作品

A compilation of pop music by Taiwanese indigenous artists mainly in their own languages. The production is almost all western EDM, but there’s influences from indigenous music.