Sometimes you love the music, and sometimes you love the artist. With Aldous Harding, the singer/songwriter behind the album here at #19, it’s more the latter than the former. Don’t get me wrong, I do like Harding’s music quite a bit. But it’s the look, the creativity, the humor behind the New Zealander’s music that really sold me.

Watch the video above, as this is exactly how I first heard of Aldous Harding. It’s innocent enough at first, with the 30-ish Harding, whose real name is Hannah Sian Topp, doing a very stilted minimal twist in a womb-like space. But as you watch her movements, or, rather, move away from the movements and start studying the space around her, you see the ridiculous hat and asymmetrical pilgrim garb and you start to wonder about what you’re seeing. The video cuts to a full-body shot, and you see she’s wearing bizzare platform cloth-wrapped boots, and her dance gets slightly more strange. The dancing continues unabated, and eventually you see the full, phallic height of the hat. Just after minute three of this tame insanity, the wheels fall off of the bus, or, rather, the hat falls off of her head, revealing a rather frightening blue face that’s apparently been attached to the top of Harding’s head this whole time, covered up by the hat. What the hell. Shortly thereafter, the hat magically reappears, and the music comes to an abrupt halt. With 40 seconds left, the music kicks back in and Harding has gone through a complete wardrobe change, giddily dancing with maracas. The video ends, and you’re left trying to sort out everything you’ve just seen.

And that’s why I love Harding. She is clearly a free soul, does whatever the hell she wants, and could care less what you or anyone else thinks. The two other videos she’s released for Designer, her third album, are no less bizarre. “Fixture Picture” has her playing a guitar in a field and doing her strange controlled twist in and around her “band”. “Zoo Eyes” has her alternating between exaggerated clown-like makeup and black pixelated face makeup. This third video feels the most self-consciously weird, purposefully presenting nonsensical imagery to accompany Harding’s quiet, Joni-Mitchell-like songwork. That’s where she loses me a little — it seems less “I like to be weird because I like to be weird” and more “I think this will be weird so I’m going to do that,” if that makes sense.

Be that as it may, I do recommend this album as well. It’s quiet, so makes for a good Sunday morning, and well-constructed. It lacks dynamism, but that works to its advantage. Give it a listen, or, more importantly, watch the videos, and fall in love just as I have.

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20. Norman Fucking Rockwell! by Lana Del Rey
21. Our Pathetic Age by DJ Shadow
22. Juice B Crypts by Battles
23. Pony by Orville Peck
24. Hyperspace by Beck
25. Eraserland by Strand of Oaks
26. Dogrel by Fontaines DC
27. You’re the Man by Marvin Gaye
28. Big Wows by Stealing Sheep
29. 1000 gecs by 100 gecs
30. In the Morse Code of Brake Lights by The New Pornographers
31. Radiant Dawn by Operators

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