So few people share our eclectic music taste that every year we anticipate the modern symphony of artists who make up Matt Packman’s (Catholic Gaydar) annual favourite list.
Matt loves synth mastery, dreamy lady vocals and experimental sounds that take you on a journey. 2015 was a good year to take this kind of trip. Once and awhile he can’t decide between two albums so there are some extras tossed in for your listening pleasure. Here are Catholic Gaydar’s top 15 (+5):
15
JIM O’ROURKE
Simple Songs
Sounds like: 70’s singer-songwriters, Van Dyke Parks, baroque chamber pop, avant-folk, Bill Callahan, Randy Newman, Lambchop, Harry Nilsson, art rock, orchestral
Listen to: “Friends With Benefits” / “Half Life Crisis” / “End of the Road”
“I am friends with so many / Of the dead
Who already / Take a lot of space / In my head
I hear from them / Every morning
About all of their moaning / Must be tired by now / Of where they are”
– “Friends With Benefits”
NATALIE PRASS
Natalie Prass
Sounds like: Nashville fairytales, baroque pop, Tori Amos, Sharon Van Etten, Dusty Springfield, Dolly Parton, Van Dyke Parks
Listen to: “My Baby Don’t Understand Me” / “Why Don’t You Believe In Me” / “Your Fool”
“When our love was young / We could make the whole world crumble
Oh, but with one word / He could turn it all the way around / Our love is a long goodbye” – “My Baby Don’t Understand Me”
14
JOANNA NEWSOM
Divers
Sounds like: folk pop, classical, Kate Bush, Scott Walker, Bjork, Fiona Apple
Listen to: “A Pin-Light Bent” / “Divers” / “Leaving the City”
“And in an infinite regress / Tell me why is the pain of birth / Lighter borne than the pain of death?
I can’t claim that I loved you first / But I loved you best“ – “Divers”
JESSICA PRATT
Sounds like: Angel Olsen, Vashti Bunyan, Kate Bush, Laura Marling, spectral British folk, singer-songwriter
Listen to: “Wrong Hand” / “Moon Dude” / “Back, Baby”
“You’re on the outside, you’re looking in / To the escalators humming
They are pulling you from nothing / But your loneliness
My true geranium blue / They are looking for you there / With rotations in the air” – Moon Dude
13
BJÖRK
Vulnicura
Sounds like: modern fairytales, break-up songs songs, Arca, The Haxan Cloak, Jenny Hval, The Knife, Lars von Trier
Listen to: “Stonemilker” / “Black Lake” / “Lionsong”
“Every single fuck we had together / Is in a wondrous time lapse
With us here at this moment” – “History of Touches”
12
BEACH HOUSE
Depression Cherry
Listen to: “Sparks” / “Days of Candy” / “Space Song”
“Like tracing figure eights / On ice in skates oh well
And if this ice should break / It would be my mistake
Between the cities / Between the thrills
There’s something inside you / It doesn’t sleep well“ – “PPP”
Thank Your Lucky Stars
Listen to : “Elegy to the Void” / “One Thing” / “Somewhere Tonight”
Sounds like: Beach House, Cocteau Twins, Mazzy Star, Magnetic Fields, Grizzly Bear, Codeine, narcotic drone-pop
“Remarkable / When a likeness comes / You’re always out of reach
The faces in the secondhand / A little fuck off kiss“ – “One Thing”
11
COURTNEY BARNETT
Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit
Listen to: “Pedestrian at Best” / “Dead Fox” / “Nobody Really Cares if You Don’t Go to the Party”
Sounds like: comfort indie rock, grunge, slacker pop-rawk, Kurt Vile, Nirvana, The Triffids, early The Beatles
“Then I see the handrail in the shower, a collection of those canisters for coffee tea and flour
And a photo of a young man in a van in Vietnam
And I can’t think of floorboards anymore, whether the front room faces south or north
And I wonder what she bought it for” – “Depreston”
10
LOWER DENS
Escape from Evil
Listen to: “Ondine” / “Company” / “Société Anonyme”
Sounds like: your favorite song, pop, torch song, kraut-rock, new wave, Beach House, Future Islands, Twin Shadow, John Maus
“Oh look it’s Pendergast and his associates / They’ll know just what to do
In fact I think they’ve seen this kind of thing before
Don’t worry, relax, you’ll be fine / Just lie back and stop squirming” – “Company”
MAJICAL CLOUDZ
Are You Alone?
Listen to: “Easier Said Than Done” / “Change” / “Downtown”
Sounds like: ambient pop, crystalline synth pop, Beach House, Blue Nile, Radiohead, Leonard Cohen, David Byrne deadpan, sad songs
“I want to move really slow / And while I dance can I tell you about control
Of my body in the eyes of my soul” – “Control”
09
HOLLY HERNDON
Platform
Listen to: “Morning Sun” / “Locker Leak” / “Interference”
Sounds like: Arca, Laurie Andersen, Aphex Twin, Laurel Halo, Bjork, Autechre, FM synthesis, Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, experimental electro-pop, avant-garde futurism, TV carnage
“Be the first of your friends to like Greek yogurt this summer / Cosplay sadness in Forever 21 / Add it to your bucket list / And I’ll miss you like the deserts miss the rain”
08
DEERHUNTER
Fading Frontier
Sounds like: classic indie rawk, synth pop, dream pop, kraut-futuristic, funk, R.E.M., Tom Petty, INXS, Tears For Fears
Listen to: “Breaker” / “Living My Life” / “Ad Astra”
“My friend’s dad got bored / Changed his sex and had no more
No more wife, no more kids / Nothing left to live with / To exist
You should take your handicaps / Channel them and feed them back
Until they become your strength / Hollowed out / It’s all the same” – “All the Same”
KURT VILE
b’lieve I’m goin down
Sounds like: The War on Drugs, Neil Young, Dinosaur Jr., Bob Dylan, Americana, folk, slacker rock, classic indie rock
Listen to: “That’s life, tho (almost hate to say)” / “Lost My Head There” / “Life Like This”
“Some bow down a hundred times a day or more / To find a way, to get back down to the temple one day
Find the temple, to bask in the glory of / Roll around on a floor of furry carpet then / Sleep soundly for the first time in forever and / Breathing deep inside“ – “Wheelhouse”
07
JULIA HOLTER
Have You In My Wilderness
Sounds like: Tori Amos, Jane Siberry, Laurel Halo, Joni Mitchell, Robert Wyatt, Cocteau Twins, Nico, Julianna Barwick, Enya, Kate Bush, modernist poetry, ornately sculpted folk-pop gems
Listen to: “Feel You” / “Betsy on the Roof” / “Sea Calls Me Home”
“All these perfumes / In this parking lot
Thousands of people pass through / On this festival day / Playing their saxophones
I see a flashing light / I’m blinded by it / The possibility“ – “Feel You”
06
TAME IMPALA
Currents
Listen to: “Eventually” / “Yes I’m Changing” / “The Moment”
Sounds like: psych-pop, luxury synth pop, Air, Ariel Pink, Daft Punk – Random Access Memories, John Lennon, M83, Tears for Fears, late-era Genesis
“I saw it different, I must admit / I caught a glimpse, I’m going after it
They say people never change, but that’s bullshit, they do” – “Yes I’m Changing”
05
ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER
Garden of Delete
Listen to: “No Good” / “Sticky Drama” / “Mutant Standard”
Sounds like: Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Ford & Lopatin, DJ Screw, Yeezus, Terminator 2 OST, Trent Reznor, 3AM channel surf, movement in a static space, romantic synth wizardry, grinding vaporwave, “cyberkinetic rock,” “hypergrunge,” teenage aliens working at the mall
“You sit in your throne / You decide / “Off with his head”
She kneels at your feet / She feels cold; “Something more to eat?” / Queen dies in her sleep / There’s no time / King must not weep
We look at our phone / Every morning / Battery is dead” – “Animals”
04
JAMIE xx
In Color
Sounds like: rave-pop, ambient gorgeousness, technicolor electro pop, modern pop echo chamber, The xx, The Avalanches, The Field,
Listen to: “Gosh” / “The Rest is Noise” / “Seesaw (ft. Romy)”
“You go to loud places to find someone who / Will take you higher than I took you
Didn’t I take you to higher places you can’t reach without me? / I feel music in your eyes / I have never reached such heights” – “Loud Places (feat. Romy)”
03
SUFJAN STEVENS
Carrie & Lowell
Sounds like: prayer folk, Sufjan Stevens, Nick Drake, confessional hymns, life, pain, beauty
Listen to: “Fourth of July” / “Should Have Known Better” / “Death With Dignity”
“The hospital asked should the body be cast / Before I say goodbye, my star in the sky
Such a funny thought to wrap you up in cloth / Do you find it all right, my dragonfly?” – “Fourth of July”
02
PANDA BEAR
Panda Bear vs. The Grim Reaper
Sounds like: Animal Collective, Sonic Boom, Ariel Pink, zen tranquility, day-glo grime, cosmic dub-pop
Listen to: “Boys Latin” / “Crosswords” / “Tropic of Cancer”
“So close / As gentle as a sleeping baby boy
To break what’s in the DNA / You should lead them to a new place
Cocoon a space to say so simply / Fool these ugly thoughts what are they” – “Principe Real
01
GRIMES
Art Angels
Sounds like: Art pop, K-pop, effortlessly gorgeous synth pop, PC Music, Charlift, Dolly Parton, M.I.A., Madonna – Ray of Light, Bran Van 3000 – Glee, Bjork – Post, all that is good and exciting about pop music
Listen to: “ALL” / “OF” / “THEM” (“Kill v. Maim” / “Butterfly” / “REALiTi”)
“When we were young, we used to get so close to it and you were scared and you were beautiful / I wanna peer over the edge and see in death if we are always the same” – “REALiTi”