#21 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Pale Jay

January 11, 2024 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

Bewilderment by Pale Jay

Soul music has had its ups and downs here on the Top 31. From Seattle’s own Pickwick hitting #1 back in 2011, to Leon Bridges and St. Paul & the Broken Bones, to the goddess herself, Sharon Jones in 2017 (RIP), the genre remains alive and well. Enter Pale Jay, a newcomer to the field, with his debut album, Bewilderment. With a voice like Lee Fields or Curtis Mayfield, and easy-living music evocative of Khruangbin, Pale Jay will have you leaning back in your chair and blissfully dreaming about easy breezy summer days.

There’s not much information out there about Pale Jay. He has no wikipedia page, he plays anonymously, and his web presence is boiled down to a single Bandcamp page. He does maintain an active Instagram account, a la SAULT or Banksy. The music on his page only goes back to his first EP, back in October 2021. And aside from a couple singles, this short-but-sweet debut album (with eight songs and coming in at just 24 minutes) is all we get of him. I did find a site reviewing this album who claims Pale Jay was trained as a jazz vocalist and pianist and calls southern California home.

There have been a few artists over the years here on the Top 31 who have chosen to keep their identity a mystery. Some choose to wear obfuscating makeup, such as The Knife or Fever Ray (2009 and 2017). Others choose to stay out of videos and remain unnamed, like Sault (2019, 2020, 2021, and who could forget their SEVEN albums that were #1 collectively just last year). Or there’s artists like Orville Peck, who have worn a mask in public for their entire musical career, and have never dropped character when the public is watching or listening.

Pale Jay fits into the Peck line of anonymity. But whereas Orville Peck has been around long enough that people have been able to put together who his true identity is (thanks to matching up the tattoos he wears all over his body), Pale Jay remains entirely anonymous for the time being. He wears a red balaclava in public (reminiscent of Pussy Riot, who choose to remain relatively anonymous for fear of retribution from the Russian Government), along with a white bucket hat with a red plastic brim. Those combined generally with an all-white turtleneck and white pants, he is effectively covered from head to toe aside from his (yes, pale-skinned) hands, ankles, lips, eyes, and sometimes forearms. (It’s only a matter of time before someone identifies him by the bird tattoo on his left inner elbow.)

You can watch videos Pale Jay has created for each song on the album, each featuring the artist in his signature costume, mostly walking / biking / boating in one long take to each of these songs.

There’s also this video for a beautiful acoustic rendition of “By The Lake” that will set aside any worries that Pale Jay is unable to master that gorgeous falsetto in a live setting. I chose the featured video above only because it has him driving while lip syncing, with others blissfully trusting their lives to the masked man behind the wheel.

Put Bewilderment on, right now. It’s a short, 24 minute commitment, and you won’t be disappointed. I guarantee it.

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#22 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Ratboys

January 10, 2024 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

The Window by Ratboys

There seem to have been a slew of artists on the 2023 Top 31 who have been writing, performing, and producing music for over a decade before finally hitting my radar and/or making something great enough to beat out the competition. Please add Chicago’s Ratboys to that list. The band formed back in 2010 when their lead singer, Julia Steiner, and guitarist David Sagan were going to Notre Dame. They released their debut album, AOID, in 2015. Four albums later, here we are with their fantastic fifth full-length, The Window.

I haven’t yet compared Ratboys’ The Window against their previous work, but I feel safe in saying there’s a reason their new album has risen above the fray to land here on the Top 31, and that reason goes by the name Chris Walla. You may know Walla as a huge part of the formation and longevity of Death Cab for Cutie. He left DCFC in 2014 after 17 years, but has continued producing other band’s work to great success, including The Long Winters, The Decemberists, and Tegan and Sara.

Ratboys has a little more fuzz in their twang, but they remind me of a number of past Top 31 alt-country artists. Steiner’s vocals most closely resemble Jenny Lewis (#24 in 2014). There’s a little Big Thief (2017, 2019, and last year), and some definite Katie Crutchfield in there (aka Waxahatchee, whose Saint Cloud was #1 in 2020). If you’ve liked any of those bands, then The Window is for you.

Still having doubts? Then check out the band’s unbelievably good live set they performed at KEXP back in October. I only just watched it for the first time today, a couple days after I wrote the rest of this review, and just one day before this review is published (thanks Pete for pointing it out to me!), and now I’m wondering if I’ve ranked this album too low on the Top 31. That extended guitar solo in the middle of “Black Earth, WI” is Doug Martsch-esque. It‘s too late now to change it, but mark my words: when Ratboys’ next album is in the Top 10 for the year it comes out, I’ll come back here and read this review and remember exactly why it’s at #22.

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#23 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — DJ Shadow

January 09, 2024 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

Action Adventure by DJ Shadow

Today will forever be known as the day I learned that DJ Shadow’s 1996 top-100 all-time masterpiece Endtroducing… is the Guinness World Records’ holder for “the first album to be recorded using only sampled sounds.” This feels somehow dubious / impossible, but I suppose someone had to be first, and it only adds to the greatness that is DJ Shadow’s debut. But that album is not what I’m here to talk about.

Action Adventure is DJ Shadow’s fantastic 7th studio album (his 6th album, Our Pathetic Age was #21 in 2019, and his 5th, The Mountain Will Fall, #9 in 2016). Where those two previous albums featured big-name guest vocals from the likes of Run the Jewels, Raekwon, and De La Soul, Action is almost entirely instrumental. Aside from the random vocal sample, (such as the lovely sample “All my records are tapes” repeated throughout “All My”), only “You Played Me” feels like a standalone pop song (see the video above). That vocal track, sampled from Jan Jerome’s 1990 R&B B-side “Baby, Got Me Goin,” gives the song an 80s throw-back vibe that will have you bouncing in your seat.

Lacking vocals, the rest of the album feels like it could be the soundtrack to one amazing late 20th Century movie, or perhaps the collected instrumental versions of an album that was originally released with rapping and singing on top. That’s not to say the album is not good — it is great, at being the background to your day as you go about cleaning the house, or hosting a party, or perhaps even on a run. Instead of being the soundtrack to an older movie, it can be the soundtrack to your life today. Watch the video for and listen to “Ozone Scraper,” and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

With a career nearly 30 years in length, DJ Shadow — aka Josh Davis — still has an amazing ability to tap into samples and sounds from the past and make them sound entirely new. Action Adventure fits right in with the work he did on the first U.N.K.L.E. album, 1998’s Psyence Fiction, and his 2006 album The Outsider. He remains a magician at creating beats and blending sounds, and is showing no signs of slowing down.

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#24 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Lil Yachty

January 08, 2024 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty

I can feel you all collectively rolling your eyes at this pick. That’s ok, I understand. And yet… Lil Yachty’s complete reimagining of himself, his fifth studio album Let’s Start Here., is the 24th best album of 2023.

I’d be surprised if you’ve not heard of Lil Yachty or this album. When it came out at the end of January 2023, the popular music wing of the World Wide Web was up in arms about it. Despite efforts to the contrary, I live in a fairly protected musical world, and consequently had not heard of Yachty prior to release of Let’s Start Here. So in hearing the hubbub about the album and how divisive the opinion was about it, I was intrigued. What could possibly be causing all this fuss?

Upon first listen, it’s clear this is no rap album. Experimental rock? Acid jazz? Synth pop? Psych rock? The world seemed dead set on defining the album as a Tame Impala ripoff (another band I’ve not paid any attention to — maybe now I should?) While being unable to define what it was I was hearing, I could say that I was enjoying the music. It travels all over the musical landscape, but does so in a way that feels cohesive, similar to Wish You Were Here or The Age of Adz. This is a concept album – but what is the concept?

Yachty, whose real name is Miles Parks McCollum, was just an exceedingly accomplished, viral-song inducing rapper until he released this album. A year before the album came out, and two years after his previous album, Lil Boat 3, Yachty announced in an interview his next project would be a “non-rap album,” calling it “alternative” and “like a psychedelic alternative project. It’s different. It's all live instrumentation.” It’s not his fault nobody took him at his word, because a year later that’s exactly what he released.

You’ll need to put the album on yourself to hear first hand the album that could cause so much turmoil. It might not be for you, but you’ll better understand why so many people are so confused by it.

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#25 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Tennis

January 07, 2024 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

Pollen by Tennis

Tennis and I go way back. I think back to the time I wanted to be on the high school tennis team (this was the hey day of late 80s/early 90s tennis – think Reebok Pumps and Agassi vs Chang). Having had no training whatsoever, and no idea what it might take, I got the courage up to sign up for the round-robin tournament to get onto the team. Then the coach consequently forgot to put me in the lineup, and I had to muster even more courage to go ask him why. “Oh, I forgot, I’m sorry – here, I’ll have you play [name escapes me].” Turns out [name escapes me] was the literal best player on the team (and therefore had not needed to go through the round-robin either). We played a best-of-three sets match and I managed to eek out a 6-0 / 6-0 loss, surprising no-one, and resoundingly ending my budding tennis career there on the spot.

It’s a good thing Tennis, the indie-pop duo from Denver, is nothing like the tennis I know. Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley are husband and wife, and they’ve been releasing music together as Tennis for 12 years now. The phenomenal Pollen is their sixth album together, and the first one that’s resonated well enough with me to warrant repeated listening. Sometimes it just takes a while, you know?

Tennis have a shtick that may or may not work for you. Taking their album at face value, it’s full of solid pop music from start to finish. Nothing too flashy, but almost all of it catch and hummable. But then you look at their videos, such as the one above for “Let’s Make a Mistake Tonight”, or the other one released from this album, for the song “One Night with the Valet,” and it’s clear they’re totally goofing around. They’ve been doing it for their entire careers, so you’d think they’d get tired of it, but clearly not. These two videos are so fantastically bad they’re good, and that’s to say nothing of the great music featured.

Give the album a whirl. You can approach it from many sides – there’s some Chvrches in there, some Tom Tom Club, and even some Kate Bush for good measure. I know you’ll like it – and you may surprise yourself and love it enough to put it on repeat.

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#26 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Greg Mendez

January 06, 2024 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez

Sometimes artists don’t burst onto the scene so much as they take the long way around. Greg Mendez, from Philadelphia, has taken a long time to hit my radar: there’s an album on his Bandcamp site called “Home Videos (2006-2018)” as well as an “Early Demos” album from 2009 (14 years ago!). His gorgeous, self-titled album is his third LP in that nearly 20-year span of making music, along with 8 EPs of additional songs. And I only heard about him a month ago.

I have not (yet) had the opportunity to explore the depths of his catalogue, but this album sure makes me want to. The production on these singer/songwriter-driven songs puts Greg’s melodic, doubled voice right next to your ears, as if he’s drawn you in close to whisper something special. This places him in the musical room with Elliott Smith and Sufjan Stevens, and the simple guitar plucking that accompanies his striking melodies is from the room right across singer-songwriter hall, with Jose Gonzales and Sam Beam of Iron & Wine.

If you like any of those artists I just named, then Mendez is for you. But don’t take my word for it – download it and listen for yourself! Or you can check out these additional videos he’s created for his album:

“Maria”
“Goodbye / Trouble”

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#27 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Teenage Sequence

January 05, 2024 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence

My love for Teenage Sequence started with a live performance. I was sitting in my car, driving who knows where, and listening to KEXP. Surprisingly, I didn’t switch to something else upon hearing there was going to be a live performance from some band I’d never heard of. By the end of my drive, I was thoroughly impressed with the band.¹

Teenage Sequence is the alter ego of London-born, Texas-living singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Dewan-Dean Soomary. On the record, Soomary was backed by co-producer Kevin VanBurgen, drummer James Gulliver, and Kristin Ferebee (who happens to have been a part of Bacon Review favorites Beirut once upon a time and is now Summary’s wife). In the KEXP performance he was backed by Nick Tamburro on percussion and synths, and Rob Barrett on drums.

If you’re longing for the days of early LCD Soundsystem, where James Murphy wouldn’t sing so much as talk/shout over his wonderfully intricate dance-driven beats, then Teenage Sequence is for you. And this reference to LCD is blatant – upon reading up on Teenage Sequence’s rise in the indie music world, you’ll see numerous comparisons of the album’s opening track “All This Art” to LCD’s “Losing My Edge”. Soomary has taken the comparison in stride, so much so that he opens that song in his aforementioned KEXP performance of the song with the line “I’m losing my edge.” It’s less derivative, more a wonderful, immersive continuation of that music you loved 20 years ago.

^{1. I love the rare phenomenon of hearing a musician perform live before hearing any of their recorded music and instantly falling in love with it. There are many many artists I’ve loved more because I saw them live. But hearing someone for the first time in a live setting, being present in the moment with them and truly hearing them enough to connect with them, that’s something special. KEXP live performances allow you to do that from the comfort of your personal space.↩}

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#28 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Slowdive

January 04, 2024 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

everything is alive by Slowdive

The dream of the 90s is alive here at #28 on the Bacon Review. Slowdive are an English band that formed in 1989 and released a couple of fantastic shoegaze albums before imploding after the release of their third album in 1995. 19 years later, they reformed, toured around the globe, wrote and eventually released their fourth album in 2017. And now, with the release of everything is alive, they’re back to their original glory, proving they know better than anyone else what shoegaze is all about.

The five piece started working on the album just as the pandemic hit in March 2020, and were forced to put things on hold during the lockdown. The band suffered greatly during the early months of the pandemic, with two members losing parents to COVID-related illness. The music shifted throughout that time, effectively turning into an escape for the band to weather the storm. After many emotional ups and downs, the album finally saw release on September 1st to much critical acclaim.

When you’re looking for music that can survive while played in the background, adding to rather than getting lost in what is happening in the foreground, then Slowdive is where you should turn. everything is alive is well worth listening to, and if you’re not familiar with the shoegaze label, it’s as great a spot to start as any.

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#29 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Arlo Parks

January 03, 2024 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks

Breaking away from the parade of old white dudes we saw at #30 and #31, here comes Arlo Parks with her sophomore record, My Soft Machine. “Soft” is the optimum word here – there’s no denying Parks’ songwriting prowess, but the end result often paints a rose-tinted, soft-focused soundscape of pop.

Parks (whose real name is Anaïs Oluwatoyin Estelle Marinho) saw her debut album, Collapsed in Sunbeams, land at #14 two years ago. Machine picks up where that stellar, Mercury-prize winning album left off, and Parks shows that she’s grown in the interim. A little more edge, a little more bite, and even closer to what I’ve liked from similar artists, like Japanese Breakfast.

If you liked Arlo Parks’ previous album, you’ll like this one, too. You can check it out on the playlists below.

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#30 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Peter Gabriel

January 02, 2024 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

i/o by Peter Gabriel

Somewhat unbelievably, here comes 75-year-old Peter Gabriel with a brand new album. After initially loving his 2010 cover concept album Scratch My Back (#27), my opinion of Gabriel soured due to the fall-out of that album’s companion I’ll Scratch Yours. It felt at the time that the theme of Gabriel covering other artists’ songs and then having those artists cover a Gabriel song was a desperate attempt by an aging artist to stay relevant in a musical world that was quickly outpacing him. David Bowie, Neil Young, and Radiohead backed out or never agreed to record a Gabriel song, and yet he pushed forward releasing covers of their songs, in what felt like an attempt to force those artists back to the table.

While that album floundered, Gabriel released an album of orchestral instrumental covers of his previous work, New Blood, in 2011, further cementing his place on the “past my prime so I’m milking the past” pedestal. The compilation of Gabriel covers by other artists eventually did get released, in 2013, as And I’ll Scratch Yours, with Brian Eno, Joseph Arthur, and Feist filling in for those who had backed out earlier. Neither of those albums made it onto the Top 31 that year.

Despite my best efforts to no longer like the man, I like i/o. The last time Gabriel released wholly new material was 2002’s Up — 21 years ago! Amazingly, some of the production for this new album began even earlier than that, in April 1995. Consequently, this album sounds like the Peter Gabriel you remember from the 90s. The fact that it still hits home speaks to the timelessness of his sound. Soft pop music under lyrics about life and death, with lively orchestration and soaring choruses. There’s no “Sledgehammer” or “Steam,” but you’ll recognize the song structures of “Don’t Give Up” or “Blood of Eden” in this new body of work.

Gabriel still suffers from an inability to edit himself, the mark of a performer still questioning himself and what his audience wants. i/o was released as a double-album, with each song having been mixed by two separate engineers: renowned English producer / engineer Spike Stent (“Bright-Side Mix”) and renowned Texas-born producer / engineer Tchad Blake (“Dark-Side Mix”). I’ve listened to both, and they’re equally good and frankly, not noticeably different enough to warrant the double-album treatment they’ve been given. A third, alternative Dolby Atmos mix was released separately, “In-Side Mix,” mixed by Hans-Martin Buff.

Despite the grandeur of presentation, if you’ve liked Gabriel at any point in your life, you owe it to yourself to give this new album a chance. Like me, you may be pleasantly surprised.

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Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#31 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

January 01, 2024 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

Fifteen years! That’s how long I’ve been tracking my Top 31 albums by year. 15 years honestly doesn’t feel that long. When I started examining, categorizing, and logging what had formed my listening habits across the previous 12 months, I was 35 years years young. By the time I’m done reviewing the albums that shaped my 2023, I’ll be 50.

The little imposter syndrome voice in the back of my head says opinions on current music from a 50-year-old are less relevant now than they would have been 15 years ago. But I also know that the Bacon Review audience is special (you’re special!). Most of you have been following the Top 31 for years, your musical tastes growing older alongside my own. I do strive to push my own listening boundaries ever outward, and I am able to bring my fifty years of listening experience to more easily see the differences and similarities I hear in new music. Having an ever-expanding library of reference points is key to the enjoyment of new music here at The Bacon Review.

The music of 2023 continued its march into new and uncharted territory. But as you’ll see as the Top 31 unfolds, new music by past Top 31 bands proved to be the mainstay in my speakers. A quick count on the expected 2023 Top 31 has only 11 or 12 new-to-the-Bacon Review artists. That’s just under half of the new albums that will be featured over the next month. It feels like an imbalance to me, but I haven’t done a comparison to past Top 31s – maybe they’ve all been like that, or maybe there’s been a natural slow decline in new artists featured as the Top 31 gets older and the list of featured artists grows longer. There’s probably some mathematic principle that refers to the decline of new elements introduced to an annually-recurring list phenomenon. If you know what that phenomenon is called, please let me know.

Let’s get on with it, shall we?

Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

We’ll be starting the 2023 Top 31 off with an album from a handful of names you likely don’t recognize, but whose instrumentation you most definitely have heard before. Garret “Jacknife” Lee is an electronic artist who has been producing albums for U2, Bloc Party, Crystal Castles, The Editors, and even R.E.M.’s final studio album, Collapse Into Now (#30 in 2010). Peter Clarke, aka “Budgie,” is best known as the drummer for Siouxsie & the Banshees. And finally, Laurence "Lol" Tolhurst was the founding drummer for The Cure (he was asked to leave after Disintegration due to increasing complications from his alcoholism). Kevin Haskins, the drummer for Bauhaus, was originally in the project but had to bail early for a Bauhaus reunion tour, forever robbing the resulting album of ever achieving its full gothic glory.

Tolhurst and Budgie met while touring with Siouxsie and The Cure way back in 1979, and Los Angeles marks the first official songs they’ve created together as well as being their each of their solo debuts. Lee got involved in production on the album when Haskins left the project and the remaining drummers were feeling their work was too steeped in their gothic past. Starting anew in 2019, the trio wrote a suite of distinctly non-gothic instrumental tracks as the foundation for their budding album. The “band” was still trying to sort out what the songs would be when the pandemic hit in March 2020.

A couple of the tracks ended up in the hands of James Murphy (of LCD Soundsystem), who agreed to write lyrics and sing on the album. From there, the trio brought in a number of big names: the Edge (U2 guitarist), Bobby Gillespie (Primal Scream’s singer), and Isaac Brock (Modest Mouse’s singer). Joe Talbot from Idles was even going to appear on the album, but had to back out due to conflicting schedules. The resulting Los Angeles album feels a bit scattered in places, given the distinct vocal stylings of the singers who ended up performing on the record. But if you love Murphy, Gillespie, or Brock, I highly recommend checking out the album.

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