Lomelda

Big Thief

Stephen Steinbrink

Daniel Caesar

Beautiful sound and beautiful lyrics from Daniel Ceasar. First time hearing his doings and discovered him this year. Love the instrumentation, vocal ability, and style throughout the album.

Smino - blkswn

Just heard this album early this year. But to my knowledge it was released in 2015. Amazing album and amazing vocals from Smino. Amazing rapper lyricist and singer.

Kaiit - "Natural Woman"

Beautiful angel with one of the most soulful vocals you’ll ever here. Came out with "Natural Woman" this year. Her star power, character, vocal and songwriting abilities have continued to blow me away.

I’ve listened to this track from Jon Brooks ("Ascent"), more than any other this year, it reminds me of early Eno and I’m using every day as the soundtrack to my meditation practise. Timeless, gentle beauty.

On the subject of "music as therapy," I think most people thought I was joking when I offered this as a download….but I wasn’t! Instant calm.

My favourite music book of the year...wonderful stories and the inside track on the last Talk Talk albums

My sound, the Kodie Shane Sound (growing every day).

Tour life, I'm out on my 5th tour this year and it's amazing!

Smooky Margielaa—he's a dope young artist like myself, I'm a fan

A great discovery of 2017 is Charlotte Dos Santos, pure 70's inspired soul music that's dreamy and sensual. She supported me in Germany with her solo show and I look forward to seeing her full scale live production. She's really inspiring.

Gal-Dem Radio/Magazine is a fresh new platform that's been blowing my mind this year. They write articles on a diverse range of topics and create spaces for interesting events. Definitely one to watch!

I am really impressed by Holly Macve, with her bold and beautiful voice, making a unique and engaging contribution to British Country Music.

Chicano Batman

An amazing band influenced by different Latin cultures coming together to make amazing psychedelic rock. Seeing them live is unforgettable.

Finn Wolfhard

Of course I’m a huge "Stranger Things" fan (like everyone) but finding out Wolf was a musician was one of my favorite surprises of the year. His cover of Mac DeMarco's “Cooking Up Something Good” is top 5 best things I’ve heard all year.

Lil Uzi Vert being a Paramore fan

I came across an article where Uzi Vert was talking about how Paramore is his biggest musical influence and I was super excited about that, emo kids forever

Fieh's live show (we saw the band last Friday, eye opening experience, she also plays the flute!!!<3)

Arca x Jesse Kanda - Fluid Silhouettes

We recently discovered whale song, or singing whales. It is amazing listening to the sound of nature in another form than birds chirping, or wind in the trees, but as a song from under the water surface :)

Lil Uzi Vert is one of my favorite finds of this year. Luv is Rage 2 has such a fresh sound and it's full of emo bangers. "The Way Life Goes" has to be one of the best tracks this year - and bonus track 20 min is amazing as well.

This year I discovered Yo La Tengo, and they have quickly become one of my favorite bands. It's perfect music for the fall and for long drives (which I do a lot on tour). Painful has been my favorite album recently, but there are so many more that are great too.

Earlier this year I discovered an album by a bandcamp artist called Motiongazer that is really amazing. I know this artist and had listened to his music before, but discovering II was a really great experience. It's a really beautiful album with a unique sound. My favorite song is "Luke," but I highly suggest you listen to the whole album.

I've been doing more mixing and engineering this year than before and am always trying to find new sounds so I don't fall into patterns with effects. A friend recommended using rotor on vocals and that's probably my favorite new sound I've heard in a while!

As far as live sounds, I recently got to play a benefit show for an elementary school music program along with some other amazing bands—one of them was L'Rain who absolutely blew my mind and I can't wait to see again soon.

And now i'm gonna cheat to use my last answer to fit extra answers in, but the new albums I listened to the most this year were probably by Lana, SZA and...Weezer! lol. I've loved Weezer since I was really young and I think some of their new stuff is their best, it's cool to see a band that's been around for so long get really strong again. Also every time Lana puts out an album it's my new favorite, she keeps topping her own work. And SZA just writes some of the best songs I've ever heard.

Jorge Ben - Jorge Ben (Brazil, 1969)

Hiroshi Satoh - This Boy (Japan, 1985)

J.D. Emmanuel - Wizards (USA, 1982)

Aminé

I saw his performance on Fallon and then I found the video for "Turf" and have been addicted ever since. His album is amazing and I love that he is kinda a one man show basically destroying the Internet.

Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Room

Went to L.A. this Summer and visited The Broad where I got to experience the Infinity Mirrored Room. You only get 30 seconds in the room but it felt weirdly long. I felt like I was lost in some sort of Disney acid room. Really amazing.

Lady Bird

Just saw it and loved it. Greta Gerwig is the best! I guess I first was introduced to her with Frances Ha and I’m so glad she is now also directing. My mom and I went to see it and I kinda felt like it was the first time I saw a real depiction of a mother and daughter in a film. I just thought it felt really cosy but also tumultuous and just a great little story.

ASMR

I wish it was 30min instead of 3, but luckily this is just one of many millions of bliss videos on youtube dot com.

Horse Jumper of Love live at The Sinclair in Cambridge, MA

Every move was perfect, my first time seeing them play, my favorite concert I’ve ever seen.

Playing Piano for Dad by h hunt. Give more love.

The Cende album #1 Hit Single is my most played album this year.

Louis Cole: Multi-instrumentalist/weirdo. This is the first video/song I ever experienced by him and I'm obsessed. It's called "Blimp"

I went to Boise Idaho for my first time ever because I had a show at this venue Neurolux.I didn't have particularly high hopes for the show, but it turned out being one of my favorite nights of tour. Met a bunch of flight attendants and really cool people that were pumped about music. Boise is a hidden gem.

BROCKHAMPTON

The Infinite Mix, an exhibition in London

Eminem's beard

Lafawndah

Aisha Burns

The Boyd Family Choir who often perform at Bethesda Terrace in Central Park as Peace Industry Music Group.

Seeing Mdou Moctar live with his band at the Bishop in Bloomington, Indiana. I watched his hands playing guitar in awe the whole time.

Rediscovering the genius of Van Morrison's Moondance, an album that played a lot in the background of my childhood.

Hearing Mike Adams play an acoustic cover of "Love Is" by The Chi-Lites at my wedding.

La Confusion by Amadou and Mariam

The sounds on this record blew my mind when I first heard it. I was driving from Seattle to Oakland and my jaw was dropped the whole time. Amazing dancey synthy tunes, cannot believe it came out this year! Plus the videos are killer!

Nightmom

A friend sent their record Glider Heaven to me really recently. Kinda blown away by the guitar parts and really spacey vocals. I was so saddened to learn that the guitarist was one of the victims of the Ghost Ship fire last year in Oakland (it feels like that tragedy will echo through the community forever; my friend also passed away in the fire). Nevertheless this music is incredible and should be shared and enjoyed.

2017 is the year I discovered I can sideways yodel, and I'm learning to wield this power with care.

"Me Myself I" by Joan Armatrading

Very late to the party with this one. For some reason I had it in my head that Joan was a US artist. I also had no idea how many amazing songs she had written. "Me Myself I" has very quickly become soundtrack and anthem to my life. I identify with it on every level. I want to be this song.

Miles Davis biography

I've been talking about this all year to everyone (partly because I haven't finished it yet) but mainly because it is truly fascinating . Sheds both light and darkness on the 40s bebop era of New York, and is a very personal and honest account of the man himself.

Wilma Archer – Like a Hunger ft. Amber Mark. Just one of my favourite tunes from the whole year.

Rural (Music Festival) at Uchiyama Camping Village Nagano, Japan

Rural is my favourite music festival & organiser team in the world. They sometimes present events in Tokyo clubs but their main festival is held every summer in beautiful nature in the countryside, with a great sound system. Hot springs, forest walks and sometimes ice cream with local fresh fruit give us additional pleasure. The line up always has a thoughtful balance/mix of decent and fresh. I saw lots of amazing acts in last 3 years: Solar, Jane Fitz, Wata Igarashi, Batu...uncountable. In 2017 I played my live set for the first time in the main open air stage and it gave me lots of musical discoveries & happiness. Looking forward to it next year too!

Contentious Constant at Zeiss Grossplanetarium Berlin.

I visited this amazing planetarium for the first time this February. Geo form Nous Disques (who released my EP The Role of Purity) showed me the place. I dreamed I could play my ambient music there...and the dream came true in November. I played with M.E.S.H and Moon Wheel, and each of us had special, exclusive projections for the show. It was just beyond reality. Meditative, ecstatic, intense, all those changing moments were full of musical pleasure. It’s really unforgettable and I’ve been motivated to pursue my musical journey.

Ableton Loop at Funkhaus Berlin

This is not the exactly a music gig but was very interesting for me. For this event I took charge of studio session, young producers’ discussion and club performance at Tresor. I can’t talk about full details for each but I leaned a lot from all of them. These days people and companies in the music industry are interested not only in music, but also education, technology, and this year especially, social contexts such as gender movements and global politics, so I saw each session and panel as reflections of that.

Side Chaining

I wouldn't say is a discovery of 2017 knew about from around 2016 but really started incorporating it in my production towards the end of 2017 and it immediately makes a track sound 10 times better in my opinion. Its seems I'm attracted to sounds that bring out that air-pumped quality to music.

As a kid I would travel a lot and I've begun to pick that up again. I think the one thing I wasn't used to was, and sometimes still is, would be travelling alone or being on your own in different countries. I always had my mom or travelled with friends or family. So adapting to the beauty that is the sound of being with yourself; one could say adapting to the sound of silence.

I've always felt writing about being in love or in a relationship was too cheesy and overdone. But I think never really being open about that side of my life has made it harder for me to open up about the ugly and beauty that is love. This year I discovered that I'm capable of writing about love without it sounding too cheesy for my taste, and accepted it's one of those things that's just harder for me to open up and write about.

Logic Pro X

Since I started making recordings myself, I’ve been a devout Pro Tools user. Mostly because it’s what I learned first, and partially due to their “industry standard’ marketing that I subscribed to for so long, even subconsciously. But recently my computer started to get wonky, not being a person who can buy many dollars worth of software or equipment, and the r refurbished computer I managed to find on craigslist had Logic on it. When PT was eating up my CPU and running super slow, I decided to mess around with some tutorials and open up Logic, finding it immediately user-friendly, visually pleasing, and a new creative tool in and of itself. Experimenting with the different midi/drum machine sounds has opened up my world of recording immensely.

Jeanette Winterson (author)

A very dear longtime friend sent me her novel The Passion totally blind, no context. My favorite way to be shown something. It took me a few months to really start reading it and digesting it wholly, in between tours and lazy periods. I finally started to take it seriously and became hooked on Jeanette’s voice. Mystical and loaded and a very delicate mix of her own experience and the fantasy realm. Super queer, and manages to be romantic in ways that catch you off guard. There’s a real musicality/lyricism to her approach to writing.

Lily Konigsberg

I met Lily a while ago when they were playing in Palberta. That band blew my mind initially, and then a few months ago in the folds of the web I came across a collaborative record with Lily and Andrea Schiavelli. The song “Good Time” gets stuck in my head for days. Great arrangements, a proper amount of goof ballin, and unidentifiable sounds. This record led me to Lily on Horn Horse which has also been in my rotation for a while. Lily’s approach to ‘songwriting’, or just music making in general, is something I admire.

<3 <3 <3 Kadhja Bonet Forever <3 <3 <3

Thor Harris talking about "the subversive nature of kindness" in his column Yammer of Thor ~ Thor Harris for Texas Gov!

Syreeta, "I Love Every Little Thing About You"

Three places

• The Pompidou in Paris, France - we played our second Parisian show this year and visiting the city’s incredible art museum was really a treat. The top floor kinda has “the classics” you know, old stuff most ppl agree is important art in the past 200 yrs. The floor below though had a really impressive collection of stuff from the past 50 years. Favorite new discovery: experimental filmmaker Nalini Malini

• Basilica Soundscape festival in Hudson NY - just a really pleasant small scale festival experience. Vivian Goldman performed “Private Armies” for the first time (!) Finally got to see Zola Jesus live and she’s one of the greatest imo, also really liked seeing John Maus with a full band, Darcie Wilder and Morgan Parker reading, Yvette, Protomartyr.

• Barcelona Primavera festival - saw Solange and motherfucking Grace Jones

Circuit Des Yeux - Reaching For Indigo LP

Consistently awed by Haley Fohr’s records, and this one makes me more certain than ever that she’s one of luge greatest currently working musicians

Three books

a. The God Of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
b. The Door by Magda Szabo
c. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

They've been around for a minute (since 2010) but I didn't personally get deep into Orange Milk Records until this year and can always count on them to keep it weird and interesting (not to mention I'm obsesssssssed with their cover art, all by co-labelhead Keith Rankin).

I had seen her perform live video with Le Révélateur in Chicago a few years ago, but the solo show I saw early this year by Sabrinna Ratte at Young Projects was trippy, architectural, and unsettling in the best ways.

I listen to audiobooks constantly, and whenever I'm depressed I like to listen and relisten to books by Neil deGrasse Tyson, partially because thinking about the universe on a grander scale makes my problems seem trivial but also largely because I find his deep voice to be super soothing.

The Weather Station - sprawling, intimate, postured.

SZA - rusty, dynamic, soothing.

Liv.e - warm, psychedelic, funk.

Solfeggio Frequencies

Discovering these ancient healing frequencies really opened up more interest in me researching the relationship between sound & healing, & how the two marry together—from resonant frequencies shattering specific cancer cells to gong sounds baths unblocking emotional traumas. There's so much potential in sound we have yet to unlock!

Discovery of true self-worth

This is something as a woman i've needed to discover over-time - instead of it just being an inherent thing (which it should be). We've been part of a suppressive patriarchy for so long that we forget at times our power & value. Certain relationships in our life can exasperate this—especially those with particular men, which has been a topic in conversation for the final part of this year. The shit is coming to the surface and for the better.

"Success" as we think of it will not make you happy

Well, maybe it will...but only for a fleeting moment. It's great to have dreams, ambition & a goal—but what I've realised is that you often miss out on life & real living when you're too focused on one particular thing. The beauty is in the process of the thing you're creating, whatever that may be. Don't forget to connect with friends, family, community, nature & yourself / your inner world—that's where the real magic is! Slow down.

No Home of the Mind by Bing & Ruth

This album has been a balm for me throughout the tumult of the year. It has filled my slumber in the back seat of the van on tour and also carried me through long drives when I’m at the wheel and my bandmates are all asleep. It soothes and stirs. It’s the rich, warm cascade of piano and siren-like bowing of the double bass that speak to the haunted places in me, a wordless churning that nevertheless communicates all I’ve dreamed and have yet to say.

The siren at my summer rental

And speaking of sirens, this summer I lived with my bandmates in a rental chalet, a deep teal bungalow on a pond in upstate New York. It’s where we recorded most of our new full-length album. In the middle of our first night there, a siren wail broke out in the silence and I thought it was the world ending. We heard that siren again and again throughout our time in that house, and later learned it was the local fire siren. Dry summer, frequent fire. I recorded the sound on my phone and it now lives forever on one of the tracks of the album.

Cherry Glazerr live at Dot To Dot in Manchester, UK

Back in May, I was on tour when I read a horrible comment about me on the internet that questioned my abilities as a musician, being a woman. Despite a lifetime of building armor against the pushback of the patriarchy, I felt the burn, the internal roil. I knew I was so much more than what they reduced me to, but I couldn’t help feeling the slump into smallness. The next night, I performed at the Dot To Dot festival in the UK on the same bill as Cherry Glazerr. The timing could not have been better. I watched side-stage as Clementine snarled and hurled herself around the stage, so awesome in her undiminished anguish. The keyboard player, Sasami, was equally transfixing, blasting off monster riffs on her synth bass and howling her vocal parts with pristine power. I was watching actual superheroes, and my smallness unspooled and sprawled and grew large in their presence.

Brian Eno's diary

"Never Known" by The Durutti Column. Tokyo 1984 version.

The Apples in Stereo. Nature's Toothbrush Forever

Kero Kero Bonito - "Flamingo"

Florist - If Blue Could Be Happiness

This shit right here.

"Sideline" (Live) - Niia ft. Jazmine Sullivan

I've stanned for Jazmine Sullivan for years but this collab with Niia took my breath away. Between the strings and runs and texture, I'm shook every time I press play.

"Earth to Andre 3000" by Will Welch

Andre 3000 feels like the coolest uncle you never had and this insight into his style, growth, and creativity was most delightful.

"Scared Money" - NxWorries Official Video

I've been rocking with Anderson .Paak since Breezy Lovejoy days and the devastating duo he makes with Knxwledge is honestly kinda unfair, but in the best way possible. Personally think the second half of the video that showcases the "Best Ones" remix and a gorgeous vista of a Cali basketball court gives me ALL the feels.

Jimi Hey, a musician and DJ based in Los Angeles, who writes and records highly produced and intricately composed songs.

Ekster, a record label located in Antwerp, Belgium, which is releasing a wide range of skillfully curated electronic music – from experimental jazz piano to minimal melodic electronics.

Chuggy Leath put together a mix earlier in the year for Farr Festival—amazing selection!

Soft Ethnic

It's Liam Benzvi from the band Strange Name's solo project. It's amazing, think Rufus Wainwright singing over Arthur Russell grooves. With great dancing. (Matty Fasano)

Working Women

A group of women who are insane house/disco dj's. They dj'ed our release show and absolutely crushed it. Huge house grooves. (Matty Fasano)

"Northern Disco Lights"

The story of Norwegian dance music, how artists from Biosphere to Lindstrom changed a country best known for subarctic winters, reindeer, and oil with an ecstatic new brand of space disco. Our favorite music doc of 2017. (Joe Fassler)