Tag: best albums 2023

10 yeule: softscars

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

Soft scars on my skin, silicone, porcelain
I’m not one of them, love you ’til thе end
Give me onе more dose, turn me into a rose
Water me ’til I wither, 404 error

God created man, motherboard, wires and
Blood, bones, flesh, breathing, suicide engineering
Soft scars on my skin, silicone, porcelain
I’m not one of them, love you ’til the end

x w x

Oh my God! That’s it! Fuck you, Protomartyr, with your “kissing the ass of billionaires” nonsense, why should I listen to any of you? You’re all, like, a million years old. Nat Ćmiel, the Singaporean genius behind yeule, is in their mid twenties, they know what human beings’ attempted relationship with the online world is grasping at. Ćmiel knows that we’re not reaching out to praise a capitalistic God. They know that capitalism has already beaten any true beliefs out of us. Late stage capitalism has divided us, it has forced us into isolation, crushed anything approaching ‘community’ into tiny pieces of dust and demanded that those pieces of dust reach out to nobody, just become statistics and scrolling machines to tempt enough of the other specks of dust to pay their own subscriptions so they can wokescold you for buying a McDonalds, because you don’t really have the time nor money to do all you’re allowed to do to protest Israeli genocide. Of course, if we just came together and organised we could maybe make real roads towards overthrowing the imperialist system, making atrocities like the ones taking place in Israel, Yemen… Oh, never mind, you’re still writing a lengthy post complaining about Nat Ćmiel using they/them pronouns, aren’t you? We’re all on the same side, you egg sucking dog.

EXCUSE MY STATE, I’M AS HIGH AS YOUR HOPES

Seth Manchester’s 2023

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

Aw man, it has not been easy to keep up with Seth Manchester this year. It’s been more than five years since Seth’s otherworldly production on ‘Goodness‘ convinced me to buy every single album that Mr Manchester produced from that point onward. This has lead to around 15 further entries on this list. And a lot of death metal. Well, it stops here.

Well, kinda stops. I use Discogs to keep up with Seth, and going off that they’ve been involved in a total of forty records in 2023 (!), though that is including some rereleases and a handful of albums I can just find no other information on anywhere else. This is obviously unsustainable, especially when you consider that Manchester works on quite a few records that I do not enjoy listening to at all. But there is also some very interesting stuff that I missed out on this year that might have made the list. were I not wasting money on more instrumental noise rock.

So the Seth Manchester run will continue. I still think they’re the greatest rock producer working and they introduce me to music that I’d overwise have no chance of coming into contact with. Already on NE2023 we’ve seen the Manchester produced Lingua Ignota project, who I only know in the first place because of the Seth ties. Only, in the future I’m going to listen to an album first and then decide if it’s likely to be worth me spending money on and adding it to the Necessary Evil rotation. Yeah, I know, you probably thought I did as much already, right? Nope. I’m a fucking idiot. Anyway, I’m going to run down some of the more notable 2023 Seth credits.

BEEN SOME DARK DAYS LATELY AND I’M FINDING IT CRIPPLING

11 Protomartyr: Formal Growth in the Desert

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

That’s kind of what the Internet or modern life is like. You’re throwing all this stuff—personality, or music, or whatever the hell—into the Internet, and you have no way of really knowing if anybody’s reacting to it. A lot of times you’re just throwing it down a well, or you’re hoping that someone’s hearing you. It’s kind of like people praying to God; it’s the hope that somebody can hear you, but they probably don’t. You especially see it now on Twitter, or X, or whatever the fuck it’s called, you know—the people really kissing the ass of billionaires. (mockingly) “Please, please, look at me!” It’s not a very original thought. But it is weird that people are basically praying to these billionaires now. “Notice me!” That sort of thing.”

singer Joe Casey explains a a line from Let’s Tip the Creator to Tune Glue

And in explaining how the content they have created comments on mindless content creation, the Swamp Rock David Cameron (Joe Casey) both creates content for one website while also leaving themselves open to be quoted by a second website (hello!) to open a post on why the wider content that included twelve separate but intertwined pieces of created content was the eleventh greatest such collections of content in a near arbitrary period.

LAST NIGHT REALLY WAS THE CHERRY ON THE CAKE

12 Mogwai: Mogwai Young Team (Remastered)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

Listen, boys and girls and others, I’mma keep this relatively brief. I feel like my words are pretty irrelevant here, I’m not sure that it’s easy or even possible to explain the beauty, the power, the genius of one of the greatest albums released during my lifetime. My short lifetime. I am young. I’m basically a baby.

1997 was the best year for music, don’t @ me. There wasn’t even a Manics album that year, so I’ll let that sit in just how powerful a statement that must be coming from me. British music, at least. I was in Britain at the time, you see, and though we were still obviously pathetically in awe of the USA – all the cool kids hated Friends, while every movie at the cinema starred Will Smith or George Clooney or… erm… Robert Carlyle…? – the world wide webification hadn’t yet taken over. What’s big in the US is now just big in the UK, because we’re all hooked up to the same companies’ propaganda machines, but back in ’97 we still kinda did our own stuff. Fucking Full Monty was the biggest movie of 97 (and, for a short time before Titanic, of all time in the UK*), nine of the top 10 selling albums of 1997 were by British acts. Trust me, bro: Jewel? Third Eye Blind? Tim McGraw? Notorious motherfucking B.I.G?? We had no idea who these people were. And you know what? We were happy.

I GOT A NEW MAN ON ME, IT’S ABOUT TO GET SWEATY

14 Jamila Woods: Water Made Us

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

Aaaaaaaaaah, love, isn’t it? Don’t you love love? Don’t you love love, where you finally find the one who allows you to live your life and not make any sacrifices. Love, where you don’t need to make any effort at all, just vibe? Love that allows you just be yourself, right? Love, where you and your soulmate just sit in each other’s company and feel? Love, the kind you clean up with a mop and bucket, like the lost catacombs of Egypt, only God knows where we stuck it?

Or maybe your love is the passionate sort?? Maybe your love is defined by long periods of anger and trauma interspersed jarringly with incredibly lascivious and incredibly loud sex? Your love is broken cutlery and broken backs? Your love is screaming in anger but occasionally screaming in pleasure? You have one of those steamy relationships like they do in the movies, right? Your relationship is sometimes that argument scene in ‘Marriage Story‘, sometimes they’re outside the house doing a ‘STEEEEEEEEELLAAAAAAAAAAAA‘, but sometimes it’s the opening scene in ‘Betty Blue’, you know warram saying?? Seriously, the only place I can find that clip is on porn sites! Hot! Spicy! Nobody else understands! They only hurt you because they love you, right?

BACK TO MY WAYS LIKE 2019

15 Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter: SAVED!

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

Religion sounds like a hoot, doesn’t it? Like, imagine if you were into Live Action Roleplaying/LARP or civil war re-enactments, you loved all the play pretend that you had to work within (“Put your phone away, Stuart!”), loved these artificial rules that you’re being asked to work under. And then some weirdo, probably wearing a cloak and maybe a golden hat, comes up to you and says “A’ight, that’s cool and all, but I’ve got a game that you have to play you’re whole life, and if you break any of our artificial rules, you’ll burn in hell for eternity!!” That’d be pretty dope, no?

the next step after atheism is ‘TikTok Live NPCs’

Mate, religion is some next level LARPing. You’re always in the game because this God, or these Gods, they’re everywhere, all the time, and they can see everything you do. And the punishment for breaking the rules isn’t just some sinbin, or a disapproving look from Janet because they don’t believe you should be wearing New Balance sneakers if you’re supposed to be an Elemental Elf. If you get the rules wrong, this God character – or these God characters – will burn your soul for eternity!! And you thought Rio getting eight months for missing that drug test was excessive! And yes, that is the most recent cultural reference I can think of! Oh, and some of these Gods have, like, lions for heads and shit, you do not want to fuck with them. Seriously, they’re metal as fuck.

TOKE THIS JOINT HOW I’M BLOWIN’ THIS STEAM

16 Young Fathers: Heavy Heavy

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

I want your shield
I want your weapon
Gimme that bulletproof vest
And don’t forget I’m not susceptible to your nonsense
I’m a winner

No falling for your charms
No crash into your arms
Handful of coins
And a balled-up fist
Picking rubbish
Cleaning rubbish

I Saw

Aw, man, Young fucking Fathers, dudes??

They’re up there with Janelle Monae as Necessary Evil legends – and given the cultural importance of this blog that essentially makes them musical legends of the past fifteen years – with a simply inscrutable back catalogue that now demands they’re expected to meet higher standards than their peers. Like, I really loved the RobinPlaysChords album, but am I unconsciously and immediately setting it against some of the greatest music of the century? This means artists like Young Fathers, Let’s Eat Grandma, and Janelle – the most golden of Gold Star Artists – are, unfortunately and perhaps unfairly, held to a higher standards than mere mortals like Lauren Auder.

YOU’RE ASKING ME MY SYMPTOMS, DOCTOR, I DON’T WANNA FEEL

17 Lauren Auder: the infinite spine

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

I was born an open wound that only suicide could sow up
But I refuse that healing thread, I wanted God to look at us
And she whispers you sweet nothings, you hope it’s true enough
To keep you here ’til you give yourself up

33 & golden

Do you know what happens when you open an album with a line of delicious ideation like “I was born an open wound that suicide could sow up”? Do you know what door you prise open when you begin your album career with such a beautifully nihilistic suggestion like that? Do you know what you get if you awaken my never fully dormant but always pathetic Richey Edwards fandom??

You get what you deserve.

Which is my attention.

DOCTOR, DOCTOR, HAVE MERCY ON ME, TAKE THIS PAIN AWAY

18 Lost Girls: Selvutsletter

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

Fancy a quick look behind the curtain? A glance into the magicians’ circle? A unobstructed look up the wizard’s sleeve?

“Who’s ready to PAAAAAAAAAARTAAAAAAAY?!?!”

I kind of wasn’t going to bother with the Lost Girls’ second album?? I mean, I bothered to an extent: I bought the album digitally the day it came out, because I’m the last person in the world just buying albums because I like to financially support artists I consider incredibly important but that I worry about their work being financially rewarding in late stage capitalism. It’s bullshit, I know, and Bandcamp is about to be stripped for parts, because it’s a gross company like all the other gross companies, but it makes me feel better. Oh, and artists like Olivia Rodrigo who are too big a deal to ever have a Bandcamp page? Yeah, I torrent that shit. We don’t have time to discuss all of this now, what I mean by not bothering is that I wasn’t going to bother putting it on the list this year.

DOCTOR, DOCTOR, ANYTHING, PLEASE