Cultured Vultures’ Best Albums of 2014…So Far

Livvy J Hooper

Illusory Blues – Messenger

Billed by some as a Led Zep/Pink Floyd hybrid, Messenger have crafted an beguiling debut album full of languorous beats and drifting psych. With members coalescing from other bands [black metal and ambient sounds to name two genres] Messenger have been around since 2012. Now with Finnish label Svart, Illusory Blues mixes earthy folk and celestial psychedelia across the board, and while no track comes in under 5 minutes its centerpiece ‘Midnight’ that stuns; at near-as-damn-it 9 minutes it throws pretty much everything at you- strains of Radiohead and circa-Kashmir Zep strings, before an about-turn in tempo and everything else to a Muse-ish stadium strum and QOTSA-like riffing. While the album hinges on folk and psych, it’s got a bit of everything, even shit you didn’t know you needed in your ears. I highly doubt you’ll hear anything else like it this year.

 

 

III – Badbadnotgood

Canadian experimental threesome Badbadnotgood eschew all ridiculous notions of mere genre conventions with their third album, and throw all the rules out the window. Their first LP of purely original material after covering Frank Ocean, Tyler, The Creator, and Odd Future on previous albums (BBNG [2011], BBNG2 [2012]), III weaves oh-shiiiiit beats [hear: Can’t Leave The Night] with insane musical tapestries through its 48 minute run time. All edgy peaking and crescendo-ing [that’s a word now] the Toronto trio have created an album that ebbs and flows through menace and sexy, sensual tones, in a fluid and inventive LP with more imagination than post-rock on acid.

 

 

Romantic Works – Keaton Henson

The afternoon before his sold out show at Royal Festival Hall [part of James Lavelle’s Meltdown Festival], the shy and illusive Henson did a Beyonce and dropped an album out of nowhere. Unlike 2010’s debut Dear…, an album of sad and spartan acoustic songs, and 2013’s Birthdays, both of which have earned him comparisons to Jeff Buckley and Nick Drake, Romantic Works is an entirely instrumental classical album. He may not be able to read music, but this guy sure can write it; the strings in ‘Healah Dancing’ leave you broken with deep, intrinsic sorrow, and ‘Earnestly Yours’ is a beautiful piano arrangement lavished in sincerity. Described by Henson as a “bedroom classical”, the gut-wrenching emotion of Romantic Works may well leave you consigned to your bed for days. Breathtaking and soul-destroying, in the best and most beautiful way.

 

 

Nathan Harris

The Long Goodbye – LCD Soundsystem

The Long Goodbye is the live recording of LCD Soundsystem’s final show, a spectacularly iconoclastic event that took place at Madison Square Garden over 3 years ago, and finally sees mass release later this month. The show in its 3-hour entirety has already been documented in the film Shut Up and Play the Hits and now mixed especially for vinyl sounds better than ever. An incredible farewell for what was an indisputably brilliant and groundbreaking career; TLG has incendiary performances of near enough the band’s entire discography, particular highlights being a heart wrenching rendition of All My Friends and a blistering triumph in Dance Yrself Clean. In a word- fucking fantastic.

 

Sonic Crusader – Mr Flash

French electro head Mr Flash returned nearly a decade after his previous full length, Monsieur Sexe, with his most established and realised work to date. A cool mix of hip-hop, with guest spots from Action Bronson and Oh No, combined with wonderfully 80’s synth pieces that could be lifted straight out of a John Carpenter movie. Tracks like Domino Part A and the title track Sonic Crusader are beyond. With Flash being signed to Ed Banger it’s all got the beautiful French Touch as well, so think Justice fronted by Kurt Russell with a keytar.