Top Song
Cherry Blossom Promenade, Carwyn Ellis
There’s no way to ignore the last 10 months of our existence. 2020 from February on was a steady stream of atrocities that seemingly had no end. For many, music has been a therapeutic outlet and a blessing. And in trying times, there has been a trove of new music to serve as tonic.
Somewhere in mid-2020 came a single song that called out through the madness and set our minds at ease, even if for a moment. It wasn’t written during this time, but when it landed, it was a simple, pure, and blessed. Carwyn Ellis has been responsible for so much incredible music over the past ten years or so, he is a veritable font of creativity and musical genius.
The first listen to this track on Adam Walton’s program on BBC was heaven sent. It’s simply Carwyn on a slightly out-of-tune upright piano and a heavy sustain pedal providing a delicious reverb. And then Carwyn takes over as master storyteller, reminiscing about a stroll along the banks of the Saho River with his wife and her father. The cherry blossoms were in bloom and we are instantly transported to a perfect day in Spring watching the pedals drop from trees into the water. Carwyn sets up a chorus that echoes his verse, and in slow motion, pedals cascade to our feet and into the water.
We all have a lot to learn from the Cherry Blossom Promenade – and living a simple life. All proceeds from the sale of this recording continue to go to Tarian Cymru to help source personal protective equipment for health and care workers in Wales. If you purchase one song after reading this, it would this one. This is the finest song of 2020.
Best Albums of 2020
1. Chaos Wonderland, Colorama
Ever since Colorama’s debut Cookie Zoo more than a decade ago, Carwyn Ellis and company have been turning out songs with far too much ease and too many easy hooks. Chaos Wonderland is honestly no different, diligently mining so the genres across the ages as though there really was a time machine in the studio. And after a few listens you really have to wonder if that’s the case.
This album effortlessly taps into old vibes and instrumentation from the 60s through the 90s that are still fresh and vibrant. That’s where Chaos Wonderland thrives — in an ever churning decade that bumps into soul, Motown, R&B, psychedelia, 70s Cali country, and pop. It’s useless to point to one influence (as is typical with Colorama), because Carwyn has absorbed so much over the years. All that’s left is Carwyn’s own voice which make both a musical chameleon and one of the most prolific and gifted songwriters of our age.
And sets a powerful mood on the opening track, with a Beatles-esque psychedelic production. Me & She is a wonderfully funky track featuring Lay Low on vocals and presumably Carwyn on the bass harmonica. It’s excellent. Every track has something noteworthy, but Black Hole carries something extra special in composition and especially in the arrangement. You’ll get pulled in by the hypnotic vibe with bouncy beat, and vicious fuzzed out guitars. But the harmonies unexpectedly thrill you like listening to an old exotica composition unfold. Chaos Wonderland was a perfect tonic for a troubled year, and an easy pick for top ten albums of the year.
2. Joy, Seazoo
Joy was such an easy pick for the best of 2020. Seazoo are among a handful of bands that embrace the moment to produce very tight pop hits that you’ll remember years from now. Joy opens with the swirling Pleasure that electrifies the feet and spine in a simple tune that’s replete with raunchy electric guitars and their own excellent brand of weird atmospheric (and sometimes deep) synth blandishments.
Led by Ben Trow, guitar and vocals, and Llinos Griffiths, vocal and aforementioned weirded-out synths and Tesla coil/Theremin baby head, Seazoo are simply one of the best bands you’ve likely not heard of – but you’ll be sweetly hooked for a lifetime after a single listen.
Like previous releases, Seazoo leans on short but lush compositions with Ben Trow’s laidback and nonchalant storytelling vocals. It’s a laconic delivery that is more akin to a breathy poet intoning verses to himself backstage ahead of the limelights. Or is Ben the friendly voice in your head? It’s different for sure and completely accessible.
This might be true for nearly every last album in this review, the tracks on this album are very deep and rewarding. Pleasure, Throw It Up, Honey Bee, Throw It Up, Heading Out are easy standouts. Throw It Up is a driving and hooky romp full of wonderful sonic embellishments, and Heading Out is slightly more raw but no less wonderful. The mixture of jangling distorted guitar noise and lovely twinkling synths makes complete this tune. And then I See Beauty provides one more big punch. The album ends on a dulcimer vibe that can’t be missed. Play it loud.
Knowing that the vast majority of musicians/bands struggle in today’s unbelievable horrid artistic climate, it’s absolutely astounding that a band like Seazoo exists. This band can’t come with higher recommendations. They are wonderful joyous people and this album lives up to its name. Get in.
3. Kidsmoke, A Vision In The Dark
One of the most awaited debuts in years is finally out. Kidsmoke have previously whet our appetites with singles and a few extended plays, but their promise is now fulfilled in a full album out on the brilliant Libertino Records label. A Vision In The Dark explodes out of the debut gate with lush and longing pop magic. Passenger sets the album’s pace a glorious lofting chorus atop driving guitars and drums. By the time the second track kicks in, Layla’s Love utterly melts your ears with gentle guitar passages and harmonies that are unmistakably Kidsmoke’s signature sound.
Harkening back to such painfully beautiful lyrical collaborations such of Paddy McAloon and Wendy Smith, there are more than hints of Prefab Sprout in Kidsmoke’s DNA. But this new iteration led by Lance Williams (lead vocals/guitar) and Sophie Ballamy (lead guitar/vocals) carries a fresh sense of storytelling in its approach to making music. Listen carefully through the album to the interworking of the guitars. Sophie is one of the brightest guitarist at present, setting emotive hooks and expansive soundscapes. James Stickels’s outstanding bass work on Colourfield gives you an indication of what’s to come. And Ash Turner’s drumming throughout anticipates every skip of every heart beat and punctuates in ways that are reminiscent of so many great drummers from the 80.
The real magic of Kidsmoke lies in tight song construction and a breathtaking ability to build swirling crescendoes seemingly on demand on the chorus and then not let go until the song ends. It’s deeply emotive work anchors in your stomach and makes you ears exceedingly happy. This is the case on She Takes You Under and Take Me To The River. This in inspired music that will stick with your ears for years to come. Expect more greatness and hopefully a long ride with this band.
4. Gwenifer Raymond, Strange Lights Over Garth Mountain
There’s no easy way to say this. Gwenifer Raymond may have ruined the aspirations of guitarists young and old, far and wide. But what else is a PhD in astrophysics good for if not applying that genius mental focus to something like American primitive-style guitar music? Her new album, Strange Lights Over Garth Mountain, is nothing but purely amazing.
Like her last album, You Were Never Much Of A Dancer, this new effort dives the listener into deep instrumental explorations. But this album is an even wider, deeper and stranger dive. Hold your breath, you’ll need to concentrate to get back to the surface.
Each song starts on or builds to a specific theme and then sets into pick apart phrases in such wonderment for the listener. She examines each phrase, carefully applying chord progressions, rhythmic counterpoints, pacing all the while stunning us with her multitude of hand and finger techniques, before coming back to the core theme or chorus. The result is dynamic instrumental storytelling that uses no retakes or overdubs — it’s simply a woman and her guitar and some of the richest stories you’re likely to hear from 2020.
Every track on this album needs to be heard, but if you like darker stories, Hell For Certain and Gwaed am Gwaed are perfect. Ruben’s Song is a lovely upbeat bluesy folk composition to invoke a tapping toe and nodding head. Perhaps the best song on the album is Eulogy for Dead French Composer, which starts out as a dark blues exploration before the classical shade sets in to reveal a particular repetitious and minimalistic build. After much head scratching as to who this eulogy was intended, Gwenifer revealed the composer during a recent radio interview. It was a brilliant “a-ha” moment that seems obvious now as you can hear this composer so clearly in her work here. But this review won’t spoil the mystery for you – it’s simply a song that must be heard.
For an artist who has deep musical interest outside of American primitive style, it’s amazing to realise that she plays entirely from ear. One might extrapolate that her deeply scientific mind hears notes and compositional elements the way mathematicians see multivariable expressions exploded in their mind. She simply has no use for reading music beyond understanding the conceptual building blocks. Regardless of explanations of how something is build, it’s easy to say that Strange Lights Over Garth Mountain is a massive album from one incredibly gifted and complex musician. If you get a chance to see Gwenifer perform live, she’s a must see.
5. El Goodo, Zombie
Having listened to El Goodo with fascination now for many years, every new release from them is a curious joy. Who makes music like this anymore? And who makes it as well we they do? Before getting too far into questions, an introduction. To listeners who haven’t heard El Goodo before, they’re a band from South Wales who swim the deep eddies of 60s and 70s musical gems (they’re mildly obsessed with this era) in search of old sounds to make new again. Think of versions of Beau Brummels, Byrds, Big Star, The Zombies, and even the Beatles, and then think of how you could improve on that. That’s exactly what El Goodo does amazingly well.
Mixing elements of 60s California pop rock, country, folk, psyche, surf, and other genres, the latest album Zombie continues the bands trend for splashing with an immaculately produced and recorded an album every few years before disappearing back to what must be their daily lives.
Zombie is belter of an album, full of tight song construction, melancholy keys, spooky harmonies, and nasty guitar hooks that pull you back to a decade long past. Sure, there are strong echos of old phrases and hooks you already know, such as on I Can’t Leave, but the modern production and recording techniques leave old notions in the dust. The Grey Tower is a very strong example of this. Never mind the George Martin interlude midway through the tune. By the time the song jumps to the bridge and shifts to its surf and psyche phrase, you might be tricked into getting your ya-yas out and dancing along. But then the dance floor turns into a dark mosh pit as the the song ends on a grunge-infused head banging psyche romp.
I A Daze One Sunday Morning is a fully modern exploration giving only a nod to older genres and sounds. There are plenty of softer songs as well on this balanced affair, and It’s Been A While is excellent. If you find yourself grooving to this record, please explore their catalogue in full detail. It’s all excellent.
6. Death Particle, Selected Works, Vol. 1
Composing under the nom de disc of Herald P Cattie, Death Particle have been one of the best mystery bands of the past two years producing an unending stream of phenomenal instrumental multi-genre compositions. After many album releases with little to no fanfare or information, Death Particle recently announced the end of this chapter of their activities and released Selected Works, Vol. 1 on vinyl.
Crossing boundaries between jazz, classical, and rock, Death Particle would fit in nicely with other 21st Century modern instrumental ensembles who have produced a high quality of production that would/should spark more than casual interest with Pinewood film producers.
There’s no need to describe this selected works other than to point you to it. Lovers of expansive modern cinematic music will find this work and all others enthralling. Expect to be swept up.
7. Eyelet, Islet
Aye, Islet, Eylet! It would be incorrect to simply drop this in the electronic section and call it a day. It would far more on target to consider this one of the trippiest feel good albums of the year. Islet are brothers Mark and John Thomas, and Emma Daman on vocals and their latest release on Fire Records paints lush and minimalistic soundscapes that frequently blossom and explode with crescendos.
As these songs build, it’s easy to just let the music take you along. Initial melodies and phrases repeat and build on each other as they surround Emma’s vocals, with elements of orchestration and rhythm dropping in and out. There’s definitely plenty of experimentation.
Some of the standout songs on the album include Caterpillar, Geese, Sgwyfla Rock, and Clouds. On Geese, Emma’s heavily reverbed vocals loft up and the beat kicks in with the mix building slowly around her as she intones, ‘be my paradise”. Before stripping all the way back to the core sound. And then the mix explodes with an even trippier dream pop finish. The Gwenno remix of Geese is equally as good.
Clouds might be the strongest track on the album. The instrumentation throughout the album is excellent, but the drumming unleashed on this song is superb. The crashing cymbals over the vocal harmonies on the chorus are excellent. It’s been a few years since the last Islet album, so let’s hope this new album signals more frequent releases from them.
8. Silent Forum, Everything Solved At Once
Silent Forum’s debut album was released late last year, so it technically qualifies as a best of 2020. In fact, it was an album too big to be contained in a month like December. The title alone was intriguing enough, but then the music kicks in and the fun begins. Many young bands have decades of music to draw from for inspiration and influence, but sadly many don’t seek to explore music history before setting out. This is not the case with Silent Forum, and band that have been focused on their craft for a few years now.
They’ve mined 80s wave and rock genre to come up with a powerful mixture of their own. There are plenty of influences that pop out here, including XTC, INXS, WIRE, Kitchens of Distinction, Squeeze, Gang of Four, et al. The result is a highly complex, delicately intertwined sonic landscape that twists and turns and sets your ears on edge. Everything Solved At Once is brash and penetrating album with its definitive lead vocal that controls your attention from beginning to end. The guitars throughout the record are equally as arresting and unique, painting an incredible soundscape with angular buzzsaw attacks, sweeping mathrock leads, and lush shimmering reverbed atmospheres. The bass and drums complete the this rhythmic attack with the drums are strongly reminiscent of Dan Goodwin’s playing style. This is a very tight ensemble.
I Am A Robot, Credit to Mark Sinker, Everything Solved At Once, How I Faked The Moon Landing all stand out on the album. But the last song is the perfect ending to a long album and a massive debut. It glistens in a wonderful swaggering weirdness.
9. Fontaines D.C., A Hero’s Death
The first listen of A Hero’s Death didn’t register like Dogrel did a few years ago, so it was quickly sorted into the vinyl collection and it sat for a few months. Dogrel was a bipolar effort with glimpses of two worlds, two different sounds — one punk, another an old school chip-on-the-shoulder rock ethic — distinctly different directions. But from that album came a sense of punk urgency that was infectious, participatory, and powerful, such as on Too Real.
Now in their second album, A Hero’s Death showed Fontaines D.C. taking a firmer shape and direction but it didn’t seem that have the same punch of the first album. Luckily, many months after that initial listen, songs from the album have willed their way into this reviewer’s ears through videos and lockdown performances. Is it post-punk? Who really knows. Maybe we should forget the labels.
A Hero’s Death opens more darkly, introspectively. But where attitude now drops off, a better music sensibility has filled the gap. In its place is a mood that feels more akin to The Twilight Sad such as on Love Is the Main Thing. Then on Televised Mind, the old power suddenly crashes back in with lovely effect. It’s a frantic mood and a very dark storm in the making. Deliciously flowing underneath this song is a deliciously powerful pace set by bass and very tight drumming. And on top is a raw, dark, and truly lovely guitar riff that cascades down in each phrase.
Continuing on this darker mood is one of the best tracks of the album, A Lucid Dream. This has yet another wonder guitar phrase that repeats throughout the song. As the song builds that dark energy surges in a raw distorted effect. It’s also Grian Chatten’s best lyric and delivery on the album. This is a track to get lost in.
After a few slower tracks, we’re back to it on the title track. A Hero’s Death like Dogrel is meant to be experienced live. This band has never failed to deliver from the stage, so if you haven’t seen them live yet, do so. Might change your opinion of them.
It’s worth noting that Fontaines D.C., like IDLES, carry in their wake a sufficient group of haters. Considering music should be a celebratory thing, it’s curious the number of people who hate something because it’s not like something else, or that a brand is Irish or Welsh or English, or that someone has achieved too much in a short time, or that it’s a woman or gay. Whatever the disdain or hatred, it’s absolutely meaningless in music. If you hear anything in conjunction with biases such as these, ignore it. It’s really just projection. Stick to your own path and enjoy the variety of life. Speaking of variety, if you do like this album, Ireland is ripe with talented bands right now. Get in.
10. The Wants, Container
Dark storytelling doesn’t have to be altogether unenjoyable. The Wants debut smashes out with Container an album of dark futuristic tales of consumerism, bleak environments, technology, anxieties and isolation told in an unrelenting pace through monotone lyrics, raw riffs and angular and dissonant guitar chords, dark pulsating synth scapes, and steady rhythmic punches.
Container deftly taps into a modern musical lexicon without pausing too long on any one genre or sound to pigeon hole it. Instead, The Wants have carefully tapped into the energy of multiple music scenes, drawing from elements of kraut rock, electronic, post-punk, Manchester and other British scenes, along with several more American-styles to craft a more refined unique sonic landscape for themselves. When they aren’t telling stories, they’re immersing you dark and hypnotic instrumentals.
After the title track, which features some of the albums best lyrics, some of best songs include Fear My Society, The Motor, and Clearly A Crisis. But Container as an album feels cohesive as a single story unit, with many connecting moments. It’s best listened to end-to-end.
As a live act, The Wants are not to be missed. The Motor in particular showcases this trios live talent. At the helm of this talented trio is the oft leather-clad Madison Velding-VanDam, the axe wielding frontman who mirrors his angular chordal contortions on stage with dancing moves like the great Nijinsky. Heather Elle provides the perfect counter to Madison, standing stone faced as she paints this trio’s darker sounds on bass and synth. Jason Gates, plays more the straight man on drums but keeps the sound exceedingly tight and on target.
11. Sister Wives, Gweler Ein Gofid
This album was a surprise for 2020 first heard via a friend in Sheffield. It’s really an EP, but it deserves notice. This four-piece from Sheffield has so much promise. Dark, mysterious, urgent – they’re a page from 4AD and a new page yet to be written. Consisting of Donna Lee, Lisa O’Hara, Liv Willars, Rose Love, this guitar, bass and drums quartet’s incredible sound covers all the bases from krautrock, psyche, post-punk, and folk. But the overall impression is of a haunted rock band with wonderful rhythmic propulsion and ongoing drive towards ancient ritualistic musical performances. It’s weird, it’s wonderful.
Wandering Along sets the bands tone, with a dance-worthy beat and synths and bass leading the melody. Over that are diatonic harmonies that sweep high above. The guitar wash is purely atmospheric but delivers and excellent mood. The synth lead carries the song throughout. It’s perfect ritual krautrock dance music.
Sun Will Come take a slightly different direction, but it’s in the same vein as the first song. This time the bass carries the melody and the snare lead on the drums set up a bouncy cadence. Finally, See My Grief concludes this EP with massive doom psyche rock affair complete with dissonant harmonies and stomp worthy chant complete with an shouty rap in an ancient language. Keep an eye out for the full album next year.
12. Georgia Ruth, Mai
There have been so many good albums this year, that it’s sad to miss a few in this review. But one that couldn’t be passed up was Georgia Ruth’s incredible album, Mai. Recorded prior to the lockdown and then, Mai is one long joyful modern indie folk and pop record, full of quiet and melancholy moments as well as songs full of bright sunshine.
By the time this was released in late March, the lockdown had just begun for many of us, and this album was an instant saving grace. Recorded by too many wonderful musicians mostly live in a single recording space, Mai is an amalgam of beautiful and very human acoustic sounds from guitars, violins and other string instruments, harps, keyboards, drums and a variety of percussion instruments. The resonance of live instruments comes through perfectly in the final production. It very much feels like a live album. And on every track is Georgia’s finest instrument. The vocals on this record are sublime as as the stories from each track.
From a very dark period, an exquisite folk album about Spring was the best medicine we could have asked for, and it’s a lush album that will be worthy of listening to decades to come.
