From lo-fi to hi-fi, piano to punk rock, this is a selection of Polari Magazine’s Favourite Music of 2013.
As Is • The Sulkies
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This duo’s debut album was a landmark in the history of queercore, combining dark industrial and synth sounds with incendiary lyrics advocating free art, individuality, and trans* identity. It was harsh and hypnotic, mixing an old school vibe with a distinctly contemporary sound. It’s hard to say what their next album will be, but it will be a challenge to top the fierce independence of As Is. – Walter Beck
Aventine • Agnes Obel
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After the success of Philharmonics, Agnes Obel held her nerve and focus by delivering a sequel more engaging and direct than its predecessor. A timelessness exists within these songs; lamenting time past, whilst sparking hope for the future through Obel’s lyrics. The warmth and life that glows from this album evokes an image of the singer sitting comfortably at a piano on a winter’s night, with snow lightly falling outside, while she sings these songs by candlelight. – Andrew Darley
One Breath • Anna Calvi
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Some of the year’s most intricate and soulful music, and this is indeed an extremely musical album, can be heard on Anna Calvi’s intimate and daring second album One Breath. Partly due to the assertive and academic use of an orchestra Calvi has created songs which take expected turns into light and dark. Like a more feral and restless sister to Agnes Obel’s excellent 2013 album Aventine, One Breath is a dramatic and cathartic experience that firmly cements Anna Calvi’s place within the genre. – John Preston
The Hand That Thieves • Toh Kay
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Toh Kay aka Tomas Kalnoky (lead singer of Streetlight Manifesto) and his brilliant folk pop album The Hand That Thieves are undoubtedly my musical finds of the year. Sometimes you find an album so rare, full of such musical gems that you want to keep it a secret, as if sharing it with the world will some how sully its beauty, and this is one such album. It is the album Elliot Smith might have written if he had taken his prozac. – Bryon Fear
Nightlife • Eli Van Sickel
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Released six months after his debut full-length Middle West, Hoosier folk musician Eli Van Sickel tops himself with Nightlife. Mixing a fair amount of traditional Irish folk songs with his own original compositions, he created a mythology of the world that unfolds when the sun goes down, telling of characters in love, who are lonely, and who share a taste for adventure and liquor. It’s probably the best album of late night living since Tom Waits’ early jazz and blues years. – Walter Beck
I Awake • Sarah Blasko
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Just as she declares on the opening track, “my heart is an adventurer”, this album is certain to take you on a journey. Over twelve songs, Blasko explores the joy and struggle in finding oneself. Lyrically, she deals with how people can lose sight of themselves in life, but how a person can once again reach an inner place of security and identity. Something crafted with so much care could not be made without the life experiences she sings of and the lessons learned from them. – Andrew Darley
Night Time, My Time • Sky Ferriera
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The ultimate 21st century pop star who never releases any music. Still unavailable in the UK, Sky Ferreira’s debut album was finally released in some parts of the world in 2013. 4 years in the making and a far cry from her earlier electro pop, sounding like it was recorded in 1978, produced by Mike Chapman and the missing album between Blondie’s Plastic Letters and Parallel Lines. A big, weird rock ‘n’ pop album with liquid melodies and Ferreira’s ability to seduce just about anyone. – John Preston
Electric • Pet Shop Boys
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In the spring of 2013, there was a buzz building for an album that was being hyped as the most exciting electronic dance record to be released since Fatboy Slim’s 1998 You’ve Come Along Way, Baby. I too was swept up in the tsunami of anticipation and couldn’t wait for Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, which managed to live up to most of the hype, but it was Electric by the Pet Shop Boys which would prove to be the unequivocal dance album of the year. It is 50 minutes of infectious, euphoric brilliance. – Bryon Fear
Aftershock • Motörhead
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For some people, age is really just a number and speed kings Motörhead certainly prove that with their 21st studio album Aftershock. Lemmy may have been playing at a thousand miles an hour for the last forty years, but he and the boys are just as loud, dirty, fast, and mean as they’ve ever been. Burning through fourteen tracks of blistering speedy rock ‘n’ roll, the album leaves you dizzy and breathless by the end. – Walter Beck
Dominae • Ejecta
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No artist has quite musically captured the imagination of love quite like Ejecta. Combining Leanne Macomber’s inimitable voice and Joel Ford’s charming productions, the pair created an unashamedly honest record about the cruelty and kindness of the heart. Dealing with love, loss and hope, Dominae is an album that ultimately makes you not necessarily think, but feel. It is the soundtrack of being a hopeless romantic. – Andrew Darley
Yeezus • Kanye West
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An artist who is consumed by his own obsession with culture, music and art, West has made the most startling album of his career. Where lyrical and sonic power collide magnificently, thematically Yeezus is an album about racism, ego and sex and sounds like nothing that you’ve heard from any of 2013’s big players. One step ahead of every genre, West has made an album that incorporates brutal and beautiful techno, Nina Simone, Marilyn Manson and Daft Punk; it restores faith in creativity and self-expression. – John Preston
Quicksilver, The Masquerade Macabre • Marcus Reeves
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Quicksilver harks back to the epic and unerringly conceptual albums of the ’70s. It is a wretched tale of one man’s search for a love that never materializes. With all the theatricality one would expect from a concept album it evokes Marc Almond, Boy George and the sincerity of Bowie. It is a collection of ballads, dance and torch-song tracks that have been masterfully produced. The fact that this album was created without the aid of a major record label is a significant achievement. – Bryon Fear
Distraktion EP • Asgath
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Experimental artist Asgath (the stage name of Élan O’Neal) releases his first record in four years and his first since relocating to Belgium. Distracktion is a weird and surrealistic journey, combining electronic minimalism, industrial, and noise. This certainly isn’t an album for casual listening; this is a thirty minute journey into the core of your mind. Asgath’s dark and noisy vision is something you need to experience. – Walter Beck
Move In Spectrums • Au Revoir Simone
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Au Revoir Simone returned this year delivering their most full-bodied and realized album to date. The synthpop torchbearers’ light has never shone so bright with their charming arrangements, romantic ideals and embellished melodies that will make you swoon. Move In Spectrums is a sign of a band becoming stronger with each release. – Andrew Darley
NYPC • NYPC
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In addition to changing their name and downsizing, NYPC (formally known as New Young Pony Club) have also released a brilliant record. Their third album is proof that the key members of this group needed to lighten the load in order to deliver what’s been promised since 2005’s tasty ‘Ice Cream’. Their best album by far, NYPC is a masterclass in electro pop that has personality and class. Concise, muscular with divine melodies and gleaming electronics throughout, it puts the competition in the shade. – John Preston
Dancer And The Moon • Blackmore’s Night
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2013 was a good year for folk in all its guises. Blackmore’s Night have been producing traditional folk rock since 1997 and their eighth studio album is one of their best. This album, and indeed the genre, may be just a little too safe for many, but I find the rich mix of folk, rock, and classical motifs spun with a bit of gypsy flair very appealing. The medieval influenced song structures combined with powerful melodies and killer hooks makes this one of my favourite Sunday afternoon albums. – Bryon Fear
Unhindered By Being A Faggot EP • Faggothocles
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One of the most violent, revolutionary records I’ve heard in ages, this debut release from the Faggothocles is nothing short of an audio Molotov cocktail thrown at straight society and commercial gay America. With ten tracks packed into about five minutes, this record mixes harsh noise, computer glitches, movie samples, and flat out weirdness into a potent, bloody brew undiluted by the corporate rainbow culture. This record isn’t for everybody, but for the defiant and radical, it goes down like a burning shot of moonshine. – Walter Beck
Immunity • Jon Hopkins
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I first mistakenly listened to this album on the speakers of my laptop. It wasn’t until I listened to it on headphones that I could hear the intricacies of the music and the full force of what Hopkins has accomplished. Hopkins’ glitchy electronic music swerves and bends with intelligence and passion. The way he sequences the album tells a moving story without any words. – Andrew Darley
Matangi • M.I.A.
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Miley may have got there first with her Bangerz title but M.I.A.’s outstanding fourth album is stacked to the ceiling with them. This was always going to be a difficult release as the critical spotlight had suddenly turned on the Sri Lankan born and London based rapper but instead of getting mad, M.I.A. got ecstatic. Vocals that can sound like gunshots, delirious rhythms and textures and just one massive indie, world-rave bash after another; Mantangi is the most pure and celebratory representation of M.I.A. to date. – John Preston
For Now I Am Winter • Ólafur Arnalds
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Icelandic composer and musician Ólafur Arnalds’ third album does what it says on the tin. The sparse yet expansive tracks hail the arrival of winter, and you can almost feel the temperature drop as they build, conjuring ice crystals that knit their way up a pane of glass. Arnalds’ work aspires and succeeds in being cinematic, not dissimilar to Craig Armstrong’s oeuvre but without the inclination towards the spectrum of pop music. This is a beautiful and immersive work of art. – Bryon Fear
