Ed Masley

The Republic | azcentral.com

It was a great year for local releases in Phoenix, from psychedelic indie-pop to hip-hop, garage-punk and Through & Through Gospel Review’s idea of a gospel album. If I had to pick a favorite, I’d probably go with Le Zets, although some days it’s Diners. Then again, some days it’s Fairy Bones. Or No Volcano. The point is this: Whichever album ended up at No. 15 (just because that’s how it goes when you start putting things in order), it would still be well worth tracking down. That’s why I’ve done this alphabetically. And these are only Valley artists (with apologies to decker., whose latest effort, "Patsy," would have made the list if he lived any closer than Sedona).

Best albums of 2015: Courtney Barnett, Kendrick Lamar

Luna Aura, “Supernova”

This soulful young singer's self-titled debut made my list of best local releases of 2014. On her second EP in two years, she sets the tone with "Like You," an electro-pop ballad as haunted as "Radio," the first track on her previous effort, before arriving at the perfect blend of classic Prince and '80s synth-pop on the album's most infectious track, a tribute to her baby brother who died last year, called "Dancing With a Ghost." She calls her music "cosmic dream-pop electronica," and that seems about right, although it doesn't quite acknowledge the hip-hop sensibilities she explores on the title track.

The Bambinos, “The Bambinos”

Singer-songwriter Austin Gibbs, a local-scene veteran who now lives in Nashville, and Brennan Smiley of Technicolors cut this gently rocking gem with Chuckie Duff of Dear and the Headlights on bass. On “Barcelona Fantasy,” Gibbs effortlessly channels the essence of ‘70s yacht-rock in a richly orchestrated triumph whose chorus would have been enough to take them to No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 had they been around to make this kind of record at the time. As it stands, it’s merely timeless. And so is the EP's first single, "The Power," a haunting soft-rock ballad of the sort Lindsey Buckingham might have written. Smiley’s songs are much closer in spirit to the power-pop side of ‘90s alternative-rock and he has the voice to pull it off. It’s a tribute to the spirit of collaboration that those two distinct approaches work so well together.

Diners, “It’s All True”

A five-song effort whose longest track takes 2 minutes and 42 seconds to make its case and go away, “It’s All True” sets the chiming guitars of “Always Room” to the side without turning its back on the seemingly effortless pop sensibilities that made that album feel like an instant classic. The opening track is an indie-pop daydream, wandering in on a wistful bassline and gradually taking on textures, from fuzzed-out guitar chords to what sounds like a synth but in reality is another guitar run through an ADT effect. Meanwhile, Tyler Broderick brings the romance with “I really like the way you talk / I really want to hear your thoughts / I want to know what makes you excited.” The less romantic “Must Be Nice” may be closer in spirit to the vibe of “Always Room” but again that vibe is filtered through new textures, including what sounds like a string section (although it's really MIDI strings). “My House” is a bittersweet fuzz-pop gem that pulls back on the thick guitars to hit you with a dreamy keyboard-driven bridge. “Only You” is indie-pop perfection and they sign off with an EP-closing lullaby that lasts all of 54 seconds.

Emby Alexander, “Behaves Like Beehives”

A followup to 2014's "Frontispiece," ”Behaves Like Beehives” is a winning blend of densely textured psychedelic headphone music and avant-garde experimental pop, setting the tone with the constantly shifting terrain of "Dance to the Pulse of the Throbbing Pain" before settling into the echo-laden atmospherics of "Remember Wishing We Was Born Dumb." Other highlights range from the piano-led baroque pop instrumental “Born Dead” to an album-closing lullaby on which they briefly set aside their more experimental urges long enough to hit you with the pathos of a song whose title says it all: “Breaking No One’s Heart But My Own.”

Fairy Bones, “Dramabot”

Chelsey Louise is blessed with one of those attention-grabbing voices that never comes off like it's desperate for attention. It's an art. And she's used it to brilliant effect on "Dramabot," Fairy Bones' first full-length release. They raised $5,000 through IndieGoGo to record at Flying Blanket with Bob Hoag producing. The result is stunning, setting the tone with the widescreen drama of “Demons and Dogs,” an emotional epic that could hit the back rows of an amphitheater as hard as anything by Florence + the Machine, before following through with such highlights as "Waiting" and "Yeah Pretty Yeah." Louise’s voice is a versatile instrument, as perfectly suited to belting it out with unbridled emotion as it is to delivering the line “When it’s over, it’s not really over” with a shrug that comes through loud and clear.

Good Friends, Great Enemies, “Cautiously Poptimistic”

They set the tone with a 44-second excursion into psychedelic whimsy of the sort that would appeal to fans of Brian Wilson at his most eccentric. By the second track, they’ve shifted gears into the even more eccentric art-punk of the shape-shifting sax-driven “Gonna Die,” on which the singer memorably notes, “I don’t want to share / the fate of the polar bear.” They rarely stay in one place very long, exploring a variety of genres, sax in tow, from the waltzing psychedelic soul of “Nunu the Great and Powerful,” on which the singer asks, “Is this the reason we’re killing each other / One disagreement on the nature of nature?,” to an expansive jazz-rock ballad called “Middle Class Kenny.”

The Hill in Mind, “Thimble, Needle and Thread”

The album combines three Hill in Mind EPs, the first of which, "Thimble," is an intimate, primarily acoustic affair with haunting orchestration that should speak to fans of early psychedelic folk and modern indie-folk alike. The third section, “Thread,” is a family history of sorts told by Josh Hill, the Hill in Mind’s leader. On the Vaudeville-flavored “Two Joes,” with its heartbreaking chorus of “Two Joes who nobody knows aren’t coming home for Christmas this year,” he tells the story of a great-uncle who died at Pearl Harbor. The album’s darkest track, a melancholy piano ballad titled “N.O. Kinslow,” was inspired by the devastating story of his great-great grandfather, who lost his farm and ended up killing himself. “Now father, he wants me to write a song to sing,” Hill sings, “so I can find some meaning to why you took your life.” So no, it’s not an easy listen, but it does reward repeated listens.

Le Zets, “Deadweight”

"Deadweight" is a primal blues explosion that at times recalls the speaker-shredding swagger of the White Stripes' first few efforts, especially on "Favor for a Favor." After serving notice that "We're making all our own rules now," lead singer Margo Swann lets loose an unhinged shriek going into the solo and Richard Romero lives up to the promise of that introduction with a brilliantly raunchy explosion of notes. When they strip it down and go unplugged on “L.O.B.S.,” a Swann and Romero duet, they leave a lot of doors wide open for the next release. The sound throughout is perfect for the task at hand. Producer Bob Hoag, pulling double duty as the drummer, may have gotten Romero's amp to go to 12 for those times when 11 just isn't enough of an extra push over the cliff.

Mega Ran, “RNDM”

The nerdcore icon sets the tone by rapping along to a lone piano, sharing his life story and dreams of returning to his childhood home in Philadelphia “with a Grammy and a full ticker-tape parade with blue streamers and wise words for the dreamers.” But by the time the track is over, it’s clear that he’s tempered those dreams with the harsh realities of the music business, grateful and jaded in the same breath (“Now I point the mic at the fans, they know the songs / A beautiful feeling I fought for for so long / Now my name gets bigger on the party fliers / Which means I get to play when everybody’s tired.” Other highlights range from “Infinitive Lives” (in which we’re reminded, “The goal isn’t to live forever but to create something that will”) to the album-closing “Losses,” which features a guest rap from indie-rap icon Murs.

No Volcano, “Who Saved the Party”

Remember Trunk Federation, those Valley-based indie-rock heroes who hooked up with Alias Records in the '90s, effectively becoming labelmates of American Music Club, Archers of Loaf and Yo La Tengo? Well, guitar-playing front man Jim Andreas and drummer Chris Kennedy have a great new project with bassist Jake Sevier (with whom they also played in Letdownright) and guitar-playing organist Jeremy Randall of Colorstore. "Who Saved the Party" is their first release, on which they somehow found a way to live up to the promise of their first two videos — the slide-guitar-fueled psychedelic majesty of "Tribute" and the far more acid-damaged "New York Drugstore." There’s a hard-rocking swagger to “Keyhole” that sounds like someone channeling the Rolling Stones through Royal Trux and back again and they managed to work a little soul (and funky bass) into the mix on the bittersweet ballad, “Next to You,” changing things up with a sleeper that went on to be my favorite track.

Pro Teens, “Pro Teens”

They ease you in with a wistful daydream of a psychedelic ballad called “Control” in which the singer sighs, “I’m telling you, Emily, I need to learn some control.” And even when they let it rock a little harder on “One of These Days,” that hazy quality remains. They’re at their soulful best on the ballads, where their oft-stated goal of “a surf-y Michael Jackson sound” results in something much closer to Morrissey fronting a lounge band on “Gjeez Kjinny,” where singer Andy Phipps establishes the tone with “Awesome / fermented grapes will get you there.” Other highlights range from the reverb-laden soul of “Mona” to the acoustic-guitar-driven pathos of “I Wanna Die.”

The Stakes, “The Stakes Music Volume 1”

Like the Roots before them, the Stakes have live musicians laying down the groove while MCs Lord Kash and ZeeDubb drop rhymes. This is a brilliant introduction to their sound with jazzy guest vocals from the always-welcome Holly Pyle. It starts with a well-chosen dialogue sample from a campaign ad that follows a countdown to a nuclear explosion with President Lyndon Johnson saying, "These are the stakes. To make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die,” his message underscored by loping funk bass. The track that follows isn’t nearly as political, but it does deliver on its promise of “a break from the mediocrity of what’s being fed” while summing up their musical philosophy with “jazz, hip-hop, funk, soul, we got it all connected” (although in their heavier moments, there may be some Rage Against the Machine in there as well).

Sweetbleeders, “We Were Never Here”

This is one of those albums that demands to be experienced in full, from start to finish, but not because the songs don’t hold up on their own. After setting the tone with “Albuterol I,” an instrumental that feels like a piece of a film score as it makes its way from ominous to wistful in 52 seconds, they hit you with the psychedelic popcraft of a track called “Dumptruck,” the whimsical tone of which is in stark contrast to the lyrical approach. The first words out of Robin Vining’s mouth are “There’s a little black lump of coal where her heart should be.” Imagine XTC writing a musical. Now imagine it turning out brilliant. That’s the kind of world they’ve created here, a collection of vividly realized lyrical vignettes accompanied by music steeped in classic songcraft where show tunes and art-pop are part of the same continuum, arriving at a result that sounds like nothing so much as a Sweetbleeders album.

Through & Through Gospel Review, “On the Lord’s Wrecking Crew”

Did it really take me until just a minute ago to wonder if "wrecking crew" is a reference to the studio musicians who played on “Pet Sounds” and Phil Spector’s greatest hits? It did — in part because the music doesn’t do much to invite comparisons to anything remotely like that. In a good way. Joel Marquard of Gospel Claws and Samuel L Cool J is back with a second collection of songs steeped in traditional gospel but filtered through his distinctive sensibilities. That last part is crucial because as cool as it sounds when he channels the spirit of an overdriven Alan Lomax field recording of a spiritual in the opening seconds of the title track, it's even cooler that the track keeps getting noisier and weirder. By the time they hit the third track, "God Provides," it sounds like gospel as the Clash might have done it toward the end of "Sandinista!" Other tracks betray his love of doo-wop — see the finger-popping soul of “Reach Out” — and he signs off with a reverb-saturated shot of soulful country-blues, "I'm Pleased."

Treasure Mammal, “I Will Cut You With My EBT Card”

This is my favorite local album title of 2015, and there are guest appearances by Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, R Stevie Moore, Yvonne Lambert of Octopus Project, Sean Bonnette of Andrew Jackson Jihad and Lonna Kelley. But the guest list isn’t nearly as intriguing as the odd artistic vision of head Treasure Mammal Abelardo Gil, who welcomes you into his world with an ode to cassette tapes that sounds like cruise-ship music being played on a Casiotone. “I found you at the thrift store,” he croons, “In the music department / You were in between ‘Sing Along With Mitch’ and Wham / Or was it Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass.” Other highlights range from “Missed Connections,” where blasé recitations of missed connections ads are offset by Kelly’s ethereal chorus hook, to “Manifest Destiny’s Child,” which features Coyne.

Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Twitter.com/EdMasley