OFF: Best Of 2014

[Keith Henderson]

Hi Folx...

I hope you all had a good "slide" into the new year, as they say in Germany.  Well, I finally settled on my Best of... list for 2014, and it was really hard this year to decide.  I had nearly 120 new releases to review and choose from, which took some time.  In the end, my Top 10 goes like this, and if you want to see the rest of the list, plus the other writers at AI.com, click on the link.  In my case, you can also click on the link underneath each entry, so you can have a listen for yourself.

http://aural-innovations.com/blog/2015/01/aural-innovations-staff-picks-for-best-of-2014/

1. 3rd Ear Experience (US) – Incredible Good Fortune
2. Space Invaders (Germany) & Nik Turner (UK) – Sonic Noise Opera
3. Camera (Germany) – Remember I Was Carbon Dioxide
4. The Spacelords (Germany) – Synapse
5. Sleepin Pillow (Greece) – The World Is Over…
6. Barrows (US) – Red Giant
7. Eye (US) – Live At Relay (B-side new material), plus Second Sight (end 2013)
8. Yuri Gagarin (Sweden) – Yuri Gagarin
9. ST 37 (US) – I’m Not Good
10. Gong (Australia) – I See You

I love looking at other people's end-of-year lists, since you can find out about other obscure bands that like-minded folks have discovered but you haven't yet.  I guess my discoveries for the year are mainly Sleepin Pillow (a weird mix of gothic electronica, middle-eastern sounds, and hard-drivin' krautrockish psych-rock) in Greece, Polska Radio One (a great Russian-language band with both 60s swirly psych and modern hard psych rock influences), and then a bunch of South American bands, like Anjo Gabriel (Brazil, long-form psych), La Hell Gang (Chile, shoegazery psych) and Foellakzoid (Chile, motorik krautrock), but only one of these put out an album in 2014.  Also, Fairuz Derin Bulut in Turkey, who also put out an album last in 2013, is pretty cool.

Scott Heller also has his list out at http://writingaboutmusic.blogspot.com/ and amazingly, he chose the same No. 1 album of the year!   3rd Ear Experience also appears on two of the three other lists at A-I.com, so they must have something going.  Yeah, last year's Boi was also very high on my list, and along with White Manna and my favorite kraut-revival bands (Camera, Cave, Foellakzoid, etc.), and a fun, poppy-but-cool-psychedelic band from Newcastle UK called Parastatic (due for a new album soon) are just about my favorite bands going these days, at least among the relative newcomers.

Anyway, hope you're all doing well, whoever's left on the list these days (where has everybody gone?  I don't do social media, apart from email, pathetic as I am).  The lineup for Hawkeaster 2015 is looking pretty strong, I'd love to get myself there for it, but doubt that I will make it happen.

Keith H., where it's freezing rain at the moment