Got a mind full of TNT - I need a lunatic just like me

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's 50 best albums of 2017.

#35 : Green Twins - Nick Hakim

As the surreally gruesome album artwork suggests (it features a slime-trailing eyeball admiring itself in the mirror), Hakim’s debut album gives classic soul a psychedelic sheen. Like the memory of a dream, Green Twins is hazily impressionistic, and its subject matter includes a musing that his girlfriend bears a resemblance to God.

Another first mention ever for an artist and I'm not entirely sure what my expectations for psychedelic soul are - I suspect it will either terrible or surprisingly bearable.

Well, having listened to it, I'd say that psychedelic soul is actually a very good description for it and I found it surprisingly bearable. I was reminded of Prince when he was in one of his laid-back introspective moods - it's quite noodly, but not excessively so. It just has a good mellow vibe to it - but obviously, I'll never listen to it again.

Wikipedia doesn't have an entry for the album, but his entry tells us he went to Berklee College and this was his debut album - and that's pretty much your lot! The critics were very nice about the album but commercially we only have some very minor chart action to report - one week on the Independent Album Breakers chart (which I believe is a chart for independent artists that haven't previously charted, so it's pretty niche).

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a CD for a fiver or you can splash out £110 on a vinyl test pressing - your choice, I guess! Overall, this was a pretty decent offering - different, but not off-puttingly so.

#34 : Halo - Juana Molina

Molina was known in her native Argentina for a sketch-comedy show, which she ended in the mid-90s to work on music. The title of her seventh album, Halo, refers to a spooky Argentine folktale, and the music is similarly unsettling, with Molina whispering her vocals over heady waves of percussion and snaking bass. 

Another first ever mention - and another one I have absolutely no idea what to expect from the description provided.

And we've got vibes on this album as well - it is indeed pretty spooky but with some interesting rhythms involved as well. All in all, I didn't mind this but I'd say this is quite difficult to describe and I've no idea what you're supposed to do with it - I guess it's useful if you fancy mildly unsettling yourself. Or you could just look at the album cover, I guess.

There is a Wikipedia entry for the album and it tells us it's her seventh album - they describe it as folktronica, art pop and experimental and I'd say it's all of those things, and yet somehow also none of them. The only thing it tells us is that the title refers to the "to the Argentine folk legend for will-o'-the-wisp, known as the "luz mala" (Spanish for "evil light"), which floats above the ground where bones are buried". Critically, everyone was very nice about it with it making a load of year-end lists, but commercially the only thing we've got is #15 in the US Latin Pop album chart - and whilst I've no idea what this, it's definitely not Latin Pop! I was intrigued to learn from her entry that she's 61 - it's all got a much younger vibe to it.

discogs.com tells us that you can pick up a CD version for a fiver or a vinyl option for £25 - and, somewhat disturbingly, I think the vinyl cover is even more unsettling than the CD cover shown above. Despite the general unnerving aspects of this album, it's an interesting listen - I can't quite bring myself to say I enjoyed it, but it's certainly well done.

#33 : War & Leisure - Miguel

The R&B singer’s voice is as seductive as ever, but here he fills his boudoir with decidedly psychedelic aromas. Guitars twang and heave like D’Angelo or Lenny Kravitz at their most languorous, as Miguel traverses tropical funk, lo-fi grunge and heavy, head-nodding hip-hop. When it soars into its upper register, his voice is one of pop’s most powerful weapons.

For a change for this round, this isn't the first mention for Miguel - and not even the second! Yup, this is his THIRD whole mention in over five years. However, I do have to clarify that both previous mentions came in the "people also listened to" section and were immediately followed by "(who?)". The description above sounds intriguing though.

Yeah, this is pretty decent - Lenny Kravitz is certainly a good shout-out for similarities, but I also heard hints of Stevie Wonder and Prince in there. R&B isn't generally my sort of thing, but this is done really well - I feel The Guardian is somewhat exaggerating with its "decidedly psychedelic aromas" (particularly compared with Nick Hakim) but there's all sorts in there without it feeling like a mess. It's an impressive offering which I enjoyed considerably more than I was expecting - he also easily takes the award for the least unpleasant album cover of the round.

Wikipedia tells us it's his fourth album and it has "political undertones, because that’s what life feels like right now", which feels like a nicely understated way of putting things. He's got some impressive guest artists on here including Travis Scott, Rick Ross, Kali Uchis and J. Cole - most of whom I generally have no time for, but Miguel keeps them nicely under control here. Critically it was well received (although our old mate Robert Christgau wasn't so keen) and commercially, we have some proper chart action here with it reaching the dizzy heights of #92 - but it did slightly better in the US, getting to #9.

discogs.com tells us you can spend three quid on the CD or £20 on the Record Store Day double vinyl release from '18. Which I am, of course, not going to do, but I'm quite surprised he's not better known over here because this is a very decent album - and it's rare for me to say that for an R&B offering.

An interesting round then because they were all obviously well done - Juana's album was easily the one that was most up my street, but I actually think I'd be most likely to listen to Miguel's album again because it would fit nicely in with a sunny barbeque afternoon/evening. So, to my complete surprise, he takes the round - but the other two are well worth listening to if you think you might enjoy/admire them.

#38-36 - One of the finds of the year for me