If December is marked by something, it’s the end of the current year. So, as usual, reviews of 2018 and “best of” lists were everywhere—even though some started the dance early, in November—including Heavy Blog’s many “tops” and the genre-specific “Jazz Club” best-of, in which I partook. But this post is not a yearly wrap-up; it’s merely a showcase for three albums I listened to during this month. As always, one from the current month, one from the past, and one that I’m anticipating! Let’s dive into it.
The Current One
In December, I’ve written about many albums, both on my own website and on HBIH, but there are always a handful of releases of which I hear only after the month has ended. One of which is from Ahmet, Prince of Denmark, a bleak audio experiment between atmospheric folk and electronic music.
Odprawa pedałów polskich is at times suffocating, but it’s for its more light-hearted moments that it shines. The first example being the second track, “Piosenka z pedałem w tytule”, which translates to “Song with a Petal in the Title”. This post-folk piece is stunning: simple but elegant, and with a certain naïveté and gaiety drenched in a certain contemplation and nostalgia. The whole album is similarly beautiful and ethereal, truly a work of art.
The Past One
I haven’t listened to much “old” stuff this month, but I’ve caught up on some releases from earlier in the year that I missed. One I enjoyed quite a lot was Math Marriage: Abel and Krell‘s Икона (Ikona), or, under its English title, Icon.
The Russian quartet plays their own brand of sludgy post-metal that delivers brutal riffs in sometimes-odd measures, and the marriage is pretty convincing and enjoyable! It’s an album loaded with fun songs and banging riffs, so give it a shot!
The Future One
So, what am I excited to listen to, in 2019? Some albums I anticipated already came out—Forests‘s Spending Eternity in a Japanese Convenience Store, or Yvette Young‘s Piano EP—while others surprised me—Burning Ghosts‘s American Circus and the Potion/Car Made of Glass split—but what I’m most looking forward to is Sungazer‘s Volume II.
It’s not a secret that bassist and YouTuber Adam Neely is a beast on the instrument and a proficient composer, but I knew his band before I knew his channel, and its first volume was quite fantastic. With time, I believe Adam will have improved many aspects of his musicianship, so there’s bound to be plenty of surprises on this release. By the time you’re reading this, the EP will already be out, so go there and listen to it right now!