12/28/2023 0 Comments Kelis brave download![]() Oh, blimey… Dinosaur Jr.‘s “I Bet On Sky”!! How could I forget that!?! And… what? Gaz Coombes had an album out? And John Foxx and The Maths, that was an ace album that just slipped my mind and I cant see how to shoehorn it in. And Beak > and that other Geoff Barrow project which was most certainly double top. Cornelius‘ top remixed-by-his-good-self album “CM4” (his fourth collection of unique remixes for other people) was excluded as it’s really a compilation album, while salyu X salyu’s album “S(o)un(d)beams” came out in 2011. Azealia Banks (who is the exception that proves my self imposed-rule on excessive gratuitous swearing spoiling records) misses out because she only released a 4-track ep and a mixtape this year, while the top Japanese chillwave Bandcampers LLLL are omitted on a technicality that a four or five track ep (or a couple thereof) still isn’t a proper album. ![]() Just as Neil Young failed to ratchet up a higher position for the perfectly acceptable “Psychedelic Pill” due to rather trying lyrics on Ontario, and Lana del Rey missed the boat completely – despite a year of stonking remixes – simply because those bloody lips annoy me and the hype has sadly outshone the music. Nonetheless a handful of quite possibly inclusion-worthy releases registered too late on my not-as-sharp-as-it-once-was musical radar – Swans, Actress and a handful of rappers-who-might-just-be-swearing-and-bigging-up-their-own-love-lives-a-tad-too-much-over-the-course-of-their-album-even-though-musically-and-“flow-wise”-they-may-be-pretty-spot-on (yer A$AP Rockys, yer Kendrick Lamarrs etc) missed the cut for. While trying to avoid the influence of the popular pages’ picks of the past year (try saying that with a mouthful of sausage and egg McMuffin) some did catch my eye and remind me of a few albums I’d not heard. This inaugural year-end best of is probably a melange of the obvious, the not-so obvious and the odd curveball extrapolated from many of the music blogs, podcasts, Mixclouders, Soundclouders, happy Bandcampers and Twitterers (tweeters? tweeps?) I have drained of bandwidth over the past 12 months or so. The indier-than-thou bloggers can sleep easy, knowing that I probably haven’t stolen a march on them and unearthed the coolest LP of the year that you never read about before… BUT… The hipsters at Pitchfork and Stereogum needn’t be worried. So excited for this debut.It’s hardly the Festive Fifty. ![]() lol Wings of Ebony is the most precious of gems- all of YA fantasy and every teen who reads it will be better for it. It also holds a mirror up to non-racist allies who might not realize how much they may subconsciously sympathize with systems of oppression that they benefit from. It’s not harsh, but it hits real and true and cannot be missed. Wings of Ebony also holds a mirror up to racism and colonization in a way that slowly brings the message into focus. The language and spells used got me so hype and ready to see young fans cosplaying and spell-casting.Īt the heart of this story is a complicated, heart-rending relationship between a girl and her absent father, and the unavoidable ways in which a father-daughter relationship shapes a girl’s idea of who she is and what she’s capable of. The world-building in Houston and in the magical (literally) land of Ghazan is the perfect balance of Contemporary and Afrofuturism. Ready to save her own self and everybody else, but a guy can help if he wants. She’s scared, but never a damsel in distress. (even though hella girls are this way in real life). She gives Katniss Everdeen vibes, mostly because we’re not used to reading young female protagonists who are self-sure, brave, pragmatic, tough, etc. She says what’s on her mind, you can pardon her French or not, and asks the hard questions until she is satisfied with the answers. J.Elle has written a book that gives us a brave, no-nonsense black girl, blessed with more magic than she knows, and a mind that doesn’t stop until everything makes sense. In a country where black girls are constantly being told to tone it down, Rue is like, bump that, we turning up. Rue, the protagonist in Wings of Ebony, is the antitheses of what America would love black girls to be.
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