Soundcheck

I hadn’t felt that snap from an album in a long time until SBTRKT. Aaron Jerome, masked guy, made this debut that grabbed hold of you. Breakbeats and melodic dubstep and these sparse minimal touches that shouldn’t have worked but did. He’d pulled in Jessie Ware, Little Dragon, Sampha—people who got what he was trying to do. Hold On, Wildfire, Trials Of The Past. The whole thing felt necessary in a way that most albums don’t. Usually you get some good songs and some filler. This one felt like every move mattered.

Aphex Twin operates in a completely different space. Richard D. James makes music because he wants to, not because there’s a market for it, which means he’s free to do whatever comes next. That album of his—intricate, intelligent dance music that’s actually rhythmic enough to move to, packed with these sound design moves that land in your brain and stay there. It demands something from you. You can’t half-listen to Aphex Twin.

Múm’s Sing Along To Songs You Don’t Know came out a few years back, and it’s got this strange nostalgic pull. Not for anything real—more for some dream version of the 60s that probably never existed. All sun and flowers and naive optimism. It’s the kind of album you put on when you want to slide into someone else’s memory, a time that never happened. It does what it’s supposed to do.

Wu-Tang brought something back. Four years between albums, and they came out with Legendary Weapons and suddenly you’re back in the 90s. C.R.E.A.M., all of that mythology and weight. Termanology, Cappadonna, Sean Price in there too—people who knew what they were doing. Sharp lyrics, the kind of rap that makes you feel something physical. It still sounds like home.

Theophilus London’s debut is strange in a good way. Pop and rap and indie and electronic all folded together, and instead of sounding like a mess it just sounds like Theophilus London. It’s the kind of music that works for disappearing. Alone for hours or dancing naked on your balcony at midnight—either way, it covers the loneliness. Doesn’t matter which version you pick.

I spent a stretch going through music without really hearing it, and then I found all these records clustered together and something shifted. I started listening again instead of just putting things on.