randomfurlong's 2 0 1 3 lists

December 30, 201311 yr

'Sail Out'!! Was trying to work out what the top 2 could be after 'Settle' crashed out and i completely ignored that :o

But what an EP and touching to hear the effect it had on you. A real beauty :wub: (not heard the #1 and wasn't a big fan of the single you sent SORRY)

December 31, 201311 yr

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December 31, 201311 yr

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"And can you feel the fire burning through your face"

(23-30-28-10-7-12-14-27-28-30-40-34)

Arriving in signature Florrie style - a march of drumbeats and trumpet calls - 'Live a Little' is an incredibly energetic number, taking close to a minute before Florrie says anything more than the word "la", and when she does, her voice isn't warm and inviting. It's coy, sexy, and dangerous - the song is less a call to arms and an embrace of life than it is a warning, a fierce announcement that she's in the same mood of the whirlwind melodies the song whips through, tempting you to join her in a manic world where you may not survive. It's a thrill.

December 31, 201311 yr

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"I've never been so wrong"

(17-9-5-9-15-19-26-38)

Few things proved as haunting this year as Hannah Reid's earthy, desolate vocals, and nowhere more so than on 'Strong', where she slides right into the slow, bare musical frame as if another instrument, before crowing upward on that haunting, desperate chorus. Yet there's some kind of catharsis here, too, a kind of clarity in the song's sparseness and the resonance of Reid's louder notes, which feel like a release of a pent up sadness - "I might seem so strong", she sings, and there's a naked honesty to admitting the fragility of that front that leaves 'Strong' as a memorable confessional.

December 31, 201311 yr

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"Why would you call this love when you knew that it wasn't?"

(10-1-1-2-5-)

An indelible portrait of melancholy closes out Jhené Aiko's Sail Out EP. In 'Comfort Inn Ending (Freestyle)', Aiko's anger peaks early, her voice tough and loud above the skittering, bubbling beats effervescing below, before she starts to crumble, reminiscing on a broken love - a love that her partner never shared. The song unfolds in increasingly longueurs of sadness, as Aiko berates herself for falling so hard and behaving so foolishly, happy, intense memories twisting in her devastated mind, until the song fades into the air, Aiko's sensual vocals continuing beyond it, lost in the utter despair of a broken heart and the illusions of love she'd once believed in.

December 31, 201311 yr

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"Will your footsteps follow mine?"

(3-5-11-20-19-10-3-8-12-20-26)

Wrapped in what is almost certainly the sexiest production job of the year, 'Into the Night' lives up to its name, with the echoing, glittering soundscape transporting you straight into the twinkling night sky - in my head, it's that particular sort of black, the one that glows imperceptibly with a kind of polished sheen, stars brightly reflecting from it. It helps that the (gorgeous) vocalist has one of the most richly sensuous tones you're ever likely to hear, which make his crowing vocals both desperate ("For you, I'd live it all!") and intoxicating, in such a way that you can't believe he has to demand someone's attention so heavily.

December 31, 201311 yr

that florrie track is a jam

December 31, 201311 yr

Author

"The one in 1964, it was devastate"

(1-3-4-2-5-9-18-39)

I heard that piece of grinding production months before I finally heard the song of my own volition, and it instantly sounded like a refrain that had been embedded in music culture for decades - such was the euphoric reaction of the crowd, at least, as it seemed to fit ideally between the house classics surrounding it. It's one of those pieces of music that always feels alive, a clarion call that almost outsizes the song around it. But Unique's flow does, indeed, drop like an earthquake, a fiery, fast piece of work that brings the jittering speed of DJ Fresh and the blaring grind of Diplo to a gloriously dirty summit.

December 31, 201311 yr

Wonderful start to the top 20 with Live A Little and Strong.

Love seeing Settle in the top 3 although I expected nothing else (and how high January is in your singles chart too :heart:)

December 31, 201311 yr

Earthquake was really quite a pleasant surprise. Dibby Dibby Sound is good too although not quite as instantly iconic- still, liking the more 'noisy' DJ Fresh alot more (though it's kinda hard to tell how much input he actually has in these songs)!

December 31, 201311 yr

Author

"Baby come lay your head down"

(7-7-10-5-3-2-4-5-10-17-16-26-33-32)

Talk about oozing sex. There are some low notes resonating slowly in the background of 'Operate' that are like a slow, sensual striptease, and the skittering beats and wild synths going on elsewhere all make for a track without any through melody; instead, the track unfolds with the dangerous unpredictability of sex itself, and it's all brought together by the grooving, sharp vocals which are never self-consciously sexy, but casually disengaged, that louche sort of sex appeal that just exists.

December 31, 201311 yr

Author

"Take it, leave it, out the door"

(2-2-3-6-10-14-21-27)

'Invisible' is rolling as soon as it starts, that menacing jamboree of sounds wheeling straight in, pausing only momentarily to let Annie climb on board. Her familiarly thin vocals split themselves between verse and chorus - low and sensual for the tease of the verses, high, reedy and impetuous for the chorus - and then, surprise!, computerised into a masculine tone for the second verse, a gruff rebuff to Annie's vanishing act. But it's the interminable circling of that beat that really does it here, and Annie and Richard X let vocals drop out for a large central section, an intoxicating refrain travelling into your ears like an addictive rush.

December 31, 201311 yr

Loving a lot of stuff here! Especially liking the Let the Groove Get In love :wub:

Edited December 31, 201311 yr by Rabbit Heart

December 31, 201311 yr

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"You’ve got something, show me what"

(20-17-16-14-31-34)

Snaking upward, tinged with some sort of ethereal tribal march, 'The Throw' is constantly twisting and turning, beats scattering across one another, some light and sprightly, some heavier and more decisive. It comes from the same alternative rock style as The Stone Roses, folding in acid house euphoria and rolling guitar rhythms, with entrancing, increasingly nonsensical vocals riding higher and higher into the tracks circular rhythms. It's a blistering piece of music that never comes close to the harshness that word might conjure up; this is blistering in the sense that the noises popping around you explode like dizzying supernovas.

December 31, 201311 yr

Author

"I wish you felt the fire / The way it burned the first night"

(20-1-1-2-7-10-17-27-31-39)

Gliding in through a mist of sound, Kelly Sweet's vocals form the centre of this enveloping, devastating, magisterial track, where the cry of the chorus mourns the dissolution of a relationship ("Hear me in the silence / I still love you"). It's full of sorrow and desperation, and Sweet's vocals, which are more restrained and somehow more upsetting on the verses, are constantly registering that pain through the incessant rolling of the beat, from which ribbons of synths dance to create an echoing soundscape in which Sweet seems ever more alone.

December 31, 201311 yr

Author

"Don't patronise me / I'm not your clown"

(4-3-4-7-8-7-8-6-10-10-14-24-34)

From the moment it those strident beats struck up, I knew 'The Apple' was something very different from V V Brown. This is, as many have noted, so Grace Jones - the robust depth of the vocals is quite astonishing, and lends the whole song a confidence that matches the dark, booming production. It's the fiercest kiss-off of the year - when Brown segues into "oh"s and the synths spike wildly, it almost sounds as if the song has caught fire. Brown lets you feel the darkness and the pain, but the empowerment rules over it all, a swagger verging on gospel, a rejection of what's been left behind.

December 31, 201311 yr

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"Give me a kiss"

(2-1-1-2-2-1-1-4-4-6-6-8-15-21-18-3-4-11-16-22-31)

Oh, what twisted world. 'I Feed You My Love' is so deliriously, deliciously strange, yet without relinquishing its Scandi origins; perhaps thanks to Berger's emotive, harmonious vocals, always tinged with a sense of sweetness - even as, in here, she's singing about knifes in backs and having the future on her tongue. That sweetness, contrasted with the grimy crunch of the guitar and the simple hit of the drums, makes the whole enterprise even more peculiar, peaking in the moment when Berger slides the title off her tongue, stopping the chorus dead with a invitingly suggestive wag of the finger.

December 31, 201311 yr

Swooning at Salvat, Sweet and V V :wub:

So much else too of course but those three are the big ones for me so far.

December 31, 201311 yr

Author

"My mirror staring back at me"

(13-1-1-2-3-7-13-12-14-21-24-39-38)

'Mirrors' knows it's magnificent from the beginning - just listen to those notes ringing out like the prince has just returned home. And, well, he did - for a while at least. How often is an eight-minute long song one of the year's biggest hits? All of Timberlake's album followed this model, but only this, really, makes sense as a single - a song that has its length encoded into its DNA, a self-professed epic dedicated to Timberlake's other half - and again, how often do such warm, effervescent tracks have such success? Timberlake does temper it with imaginings of life without, perhaps because his tones have always suited that slightly pained delivery, but Timbaland's rhythms are all light and bright, swiping along throughout the track, pausing only for a necessary period of handclaps, which were to be expected as soon as the song began.

December 31, 201311 yr

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"You are not alone"

(40-1-)

When the first major beat of 'Come Down to Us' strikes up at 0:48, it has already had the power to push tears into the corners of my eyes almost immediately. They run, accompanied by intermittent vocal laments, for nigh on six minutes, and the immense power of them is their simultaneous despair - the echoing emptiness - and the inexplicable joy of how they float around, pulling you with them through Burial's magical soundscape. As the song progresses, vocals of various tones and timbres entice you out of the darkness, and when the song morphs and changes into a brighter, sharper experience, you've experienced the release from the dark ("This is the moment where you see who you are"), and tears might flow again as the joy overcomes you. "You are a star, there's no other like you," it goes, and the song is a glorious realisation of the value of life and loving people - as summed up with the use of Lana Wachowski's touching speech to end the track, after it seems to have finished. Such an expansive piece of music encompasses such a range of feeling, yet its message is clear, simple and direct.

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