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I'm yet to hear the 10 minute version which is something I plan to do soon as have only listened to the shortened version so far but she's been delivering with the Taylor Version tracks I have checked out and I've just received a couple of albums for Christmas so I'm ready to get stuck in asap lol.

 

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8. Sewerslvt – Jvnko Still Loves You

9. DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ – Try Not to Be Afraid

 

I've decided to combine these two as while I certainly know they are both my favourite BJSC discoveries of the year, they are somewhat one and the same, they just both do it in a glorious way. Both are essentially seven minutes of loud noise with some spoken word segments to break it up, that's the superficial view but if you look deeper, it is two great outpouring of emotions told musically, a wall of sound.

 

Sewerslvt (from what I know of them and that needs to increase) I did get a glimpse of the last time they were sent to BJSC the year before, but this one really digs deeper and through a mix of harrowing choral vocals, crashing drum'n'bass and just when you think it couldn't get any more somber, a cutesy little vocal comes in at the end which adds a reassuring and light at the end of the tunnel feel from the intense production we've seen until now, it's apparently from Cowboy Bebop which I'm currently watching, but haven't yet got to that point. Hopefully, when I've seen it I can come back to this and see why they included it and how it fits into the song, context is fun x

 

DJ Sabrina takes a more uplifting approach with busy, retro production that's full of life throughout, it really digs in with the 90s-esque electronica with strings and sax orchestra and has a lot more sampled vocals that make it a lot more busy and varied in style, yet still combine make it a rather beautiful vibe that would inspire just about anyone to not be afraid.

 

I hate tied positions so if you had to force me, I'd pick Sewerslvt, but it's very much the same page. Tonally, these two walls of sound are different in the way they convey their message, but both ultimately are coming from the same feeling of that light in the tunnel at the end of the darkness, and it adds a truly wonderful element to what already are beautifully constructed songs.

 

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I'm yet to hear the 10 minute version which is something I plan to do soon as have only listened to the shortened version so far but she's been delivering with the Taylor Version tracks I have checked out and I've just received a couple of albums for Christmas so I'm ready to get stuck in asap lol.

 

Omg make that the one thing you take away from this thread now x

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7. Vancouver Sleep Clinic – From a Distant Dream… (EP)

 

Alright yes, it is an EP rather than a song with three distinct parts, yet the whole concept and feel of the songs just don't feel truly complete if not listened together and it is extremely short even for an EP, so I simply must include it here. Vancouver Sleep Clinic, who I've kept us with somewhat over the past decade after the beautiful Flaws, started the year off with this lockdown project in which he blended his own songs with samples from the folk musician, kyooo and the Eastern tributes are furthered by clips from 1950s classic Asian films, Ikiru, Tokyo Story and Early Summer. The combination of sample, lyrics and imagery and the fantastic lead vocal meld together seamlessly to make something truly somber yet magical and beautiful at the same time. The three songs - You Open My Mind, Into the Black and I Sunk In All The Memories - fit together narratively as well as some kind of dream sequence of a lost connection, making it feel exactly like its title in many ways. It's the sort of gorgeous art that can only come from letting your emotions free in lockdown and I highly recommend it to all who didn't already hear it in BJSC x

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6. CHVRCHES & Robert Smith - How Not to Drown

 

I've hinted at it earlier but CHVRCHES were really in need of a huge standout after their last era went by relatively unnoticed in my eyes (apart from an inspired choice of collaboration). The first time I heard this I knew this was truly THAT song. It's dark production and lyrics, anthemic chorus and a surprise appearance from the Cure lead singer make it a true delight and still a real standout on the album. Its structure is unconventional, peaking with the final chorus when there is still over two minutes of the song left and it descending gradually into a murky, shimmering sound not too dissimilar from the Smith's own Disintegration, and it fits CHVRCHES extremely well even if there aren't as many trademark synths. All in all, a wonderful exemplification of the different things CHVRCHES tried this era and how it can really work.

I didn't realise you were watching Cowboy Bebop! That's something I need to watch again as I feel when I watched it years ago I underrated it and didn't really pay as much attention to the detail of the episodes as there is in there - the lines "Jvnko Still Loves You" samples are from one of the episodes that stuck most in my mind though, hopefully you like it when you get to it.

 

Very much agree with your commentary on "Jvnko Still Loves You" and "Try Not To Be Afraid" of course, two beautiful songs.

 

"How Not To Drown" is a great one, can definitely see that being the fave off of Screen Violence for some, it's probably my 3rd, it really has some awesome production and will likely age well.

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I didn't realise you were watching Cowboy Bebop! That's something I need to watch again as I feel when I watched it years ago I underrated it and didn't really pay as much attention to the detail of the episodes as there is in there - the lines "Jvnko Still Loves You" samples are from one of the episodes that stuck most in my mind though, hopefully you like it when you get to it.

 

Very much agree with your commentary on "Jvnko Still Loves You" and "Try Not To Be Afraid" of course, two beautiful songs.

 

"How Not To Drown" is a great one, can definitely see that being the fave off of Screen Violence for some, it's probably my 3rd, it really has some awesome production and will likely age well.

 

Yes, I started watching late last year with the news of the live action remake, I knew that would inevitably suck and I saw the original was on Netflix so I used this as an opportunity to actually start on it due to reputation, I'm really enjoying it so far, excited to see where it goes x (I now also know where that phrase See You Space Cowboy comes from)

 

How Not To Drown is a decent song! Never got round to adding it to my playlist but it's certainly stuck in my head which is always a hallmark of a good song.

 

Thank you! If you don't already know it, I'd recommend Vancouver Sleep Clinic, I feel like it's your thing? Maybe.

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5. Hunter as a Horse – The Breaking of the Shell

 

First of two of my BJSC entries in the top 5, these two really did strike me so much on the first listen and wouldn't let go. Hunter as a Horse are an obscure folk/disco/pop/cinematic style group hailing from South Africa, they've had a few songs feature in soundtracks and a few have popped up in my New Music mix, which is probably how I came upon this which is easily their best I've heard. With its ominous backing, deep-voiced vocal, strange and foreboding lyrics including 'here I stand with nothing to fear but fear itself', and grandiose sweeping orchestral production, it packs a lot into its short runtime and the video's doomsday-like images serve to complement it as an enigmatic yet intensive journey. It saddens me it's only just broken a thousand views after over a year, more people need to hear this.

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4. Kero Kero Bonito – Well Rested

 

Kero Kero Bonito are an act I was introduced to via BJSC and for the most part, I really quite love their cutesy, internationally fused pop takes, but Well Rested really brought another layer to them that I wasn't expecting. This seven-minute long track incorporates acid house elements, spoken word philosophical quotes as well as an overarching, somewhat preposterous yet genuine cry out to humanity to hold together in the wake of 'the ascension', and frankly after the years we've had, I think that's all we need. The production leaps around to many places that it feels fitting to its big, worldly message. I liked the other songs on the EP, but this one felt particularly standout and was KKB at their most experimental and daring and showed there was more to them than what I first thought.

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3. Crows in the Rain – Unfinished Dream of Sadako

 

Sometimes when you're on a late-night YouTube trawl, you can make some truly beautiful discoveries and that was certainly the case here. I always love a bit of post-rock and it's so long since I'd heard any so I went to this thriving online community and this was certainly the biggest takeaway, it was also one of my biggest hits of the year in BJSC which made it all the greater a find. The song itself is a ten-minute ambient journey that can tell any tale but works particularly well when taken in the context of its title, referring to not the girl from the Ring but the name of a victim of the Hiroshima Bombing who was two years old when the bomb dropped and would live for another ten years due to the dangerous exposure she was born into and came to serve as one of the most widely known victims of the Hiroshima and for her thousands of origami cranes that she folded in her life. Starting from small frail guitars, the intensity heightens continuously until the screeching guitars combine with a somber piano to take the song slowly back to its ambient roots although its repetition only serves the 'unfinished' purpose of the title, a life taken too soon. There's a video on Vimeo that makes extensive use of imagery and symbolism and reframes the song to serve as something of a retelling of her own dreams and life. It's a really wonderful example of storytelling through song, and even if you don't buy that, it's a striking experimental take on the post-rock genre that will linger in your mind for a long time after listening.

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2. NYX & Gazelle Twin – Jerusalem

 

Yep, I've gone full-on experimental in my top songs this year. The highlight from NYX and Gazelle Twin's trippy collaboration discussed earlier takes much of what the album does exceptionally and reframe a classic song to uncover the darkness underneath. I won't repeat myself from earlier, so I'll focus on this song in particular. It stood out to me so much I think because it was a classic song I knew and really loved (I will forever campaign to Jerusalem to be our national anthem x), yet what starts as a faithful retelling of the first few lyrics of that poem soon becomes very sinister as the drone vocals and rasping sound effects come in over the more pristine choir and turn it into a song that's almost mutating on itself and cracking under its own pressure, the focus on 'dark satanic mills' and 'England's mountains green' helps to capture that darker side of the poem. It has made me reluctant to listen to the original again, that's how much it's worked, listen at your peril but if you're up for a dark reimagining of a classic song, they don't get much better than this.

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1. Wolf Alice - The Last Man on Earth

 

Early morning Radio 1 can grate - I'm too tired and anxious for the workday to properly engage, they don't half repeat the same shit dance songs over and over and they're very rarely funny, but what they are good for is keeping me focused on mainstream or just outside the mainstream that's worth paying attention to, I know to avoid the bad songs and if a song really stands out, I can go back to it when my morning haze has passed. One of those, to tie this long-winded explanation up, was this very song and it has stuck with me so well that it is my number 1 song. I've always kind of liked Wolf Alice without ever getting properly invested, but this immediately epic-sounding song that substituted guitars for a slowly building orchestra was what made them finally really click with me. Through an unconventional structure for a pop song, it goes from a hushed, piano-led beginning to a leap to a stratospheric cinematic sound with some building strings to reinforce that cinematic sound that persists throughout the album. This definitely feels the most profound of them all though, with lyrics inspired by Kurt Vonnegut about the selfishness of the human race and has such pearls of wisdom as 'do you want your dancing lessons to be sent from God'. Though I await their next era with anticipation, I doubt they'll ever top this for me, it feels like such a huge, anthemic moment that a band can only realise they are capable of once, but whatever happens, they've got a permanent spot in my good books with this, easily the best takeaway from the mixed year that was 2021.

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Full list:

 

1. Wolf Alice – The Last Man on Earth

2. NYX & Gazelle Twin – Jerusalem

3. Crows in the Rain – Unfinished Dreams of Sadako

4. Kero Kero Bonito – Well Rested

5. Hunter as a Horse – The Breaking of the Shell

6. CHVRCHES feat. Robert Smith – How Not to Drown

7. Vancouver Sleep Clinic – From a Distant Dream… (EP)

8. Sewerslvt – Jvnko Still Loves You

9. DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ – Try Not to Be Afraid

10. Taylor Swift – All Too Well (10 Minute Version)

11. Go_A – SHUM

12. La Femme – Pasadena

13. Lykke Li – BRON

14. Fix8:Sed8 – Human Harvest

15. Billie Eilish – Happier Than Ever

16. Coldplay – Coloratura

17. Let’s Eat Grandma – Hall of Mirrors

18. CLANN – I Hold You

19. Camelphat feat. LOWES – Easier

20. Bicep – Apricots

21. CHVRCHES – He Said She Said

22. Silk Sonic – Leave the Door Open

23. La Femme – Le Sang du Mon Prochain

24. Worakls & Rusanda Pafilis – Storm

25. Self Esteem – I Do This All The Time

26. Arlo Parks - Caroline

27. NewDad – Waves

28. Holly Humberstone - Scarlett

29. TAXI KEBAB – Ttabla

30. The Weeknd – Save Your Tears

31. Maneskin – ZITTI E BUONI

32. THE ANXIETY feat. Willow – Meet Me at Our Spot

33. Midnight Danger – To the Shadows and Back

34. Bo Burnham – Welcome to the Internet

35. Lost Girls & Jenny Hval – Carried By Invisible Bodies

36. Lil Nas X – Montero (Call Me By Your Name)

37. VNV Nation – When is the Future?

38. Little Simz feat. Cleo - Woman

39. Coldplay – Higher Power

40. Nathan Evans – Wellerman (Original)

 

Thank you all very much for following and commenting, I really appreciate it and it does contribute to me really enjoying doing these after all these years, I will try and repay the favour, but rest assured I am reading around. I feel 2021 was a much better year than 2020 for me keeping in touch with music, so I hope that can continue into 2022 and who knows we could go for a whole top 60? x Whatever happens, I'll be sure to document it here this same time in 12/11 months, until then, take care, Chez out x B-)

lots of love for KKB <3 i've been keeping up with them for years and they always deliver, their track 'The Princess and The Clock' will be defo making an impact on my year-end chart

 

the appearances for Bo Burnham, CHVRCHES and DJ Sabrina too *.*

 

Fab choice of #1 - I'm similar in that I'd never really paid Wolf Alice too much attention until this song came out but the whole composition and the way the song builds up is just fantastic. In fact it'll probably be appearing in my EOY very soon!

 

Thanks for posting this EOY, I've enjoyed following along ^_^

Love that All Too Well is in your top 10, what an incredible song, in both 5 and 10 minute versions! Taylor's Version has given it a new lease of life for me, it's aged like a fine wine since the original in 2012.

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