Welcome to the Mid-Term Report. All this week the Herald's entertainment team will be highlighting the very best that 2017 has had to offer so far.
Kendrick Lamar - Damn
Chris Schulz: Let's face it: Damn was always going to be good. All signs, from that angry artwork to fiery first single Humble, pointed towards Kendrick Lamar's fourth album adding to an already impressive legacy. But no one could have predicted just how impressive, how loaded, how absolutely on point Damn was going to be. Even now, months after release, its messages are still being unpacked, Lamar's lyrics are still being analysed, its best moments still sound stunning. Damn? That's damned right.
Siena Yates: Is this list even complete without a bit of Melodrama? Short answer: No, no it's not. Melodrama was one of the most widely anticipated releases of the year and when it finally came out earlier this month it did so to rave reviews, sending Lorde to the top spot on the Billboard chart, making her the first Kiwi to ever get there. Like heartbreak and melodrama, it's never just one thing at a time. It's dance party vibes meets Pure Heroine insight, with breakup songs you can cry, dance and plot your revenge to at the same damn time.
Com Truise - Iteration
Karl Puschmann: On his first LP in six long years producer Com Truise takes us back to the future as he continues his explorations into the sounds of neon-drenched, retro-futurism. While he remains rooted in 80s synth-based electronica, Truise sets himself apart from other synthwave acts by putting those familiar sounds - the squelchy basses, icy synth arpeggios, warm all-encompassing pads and giant reverbed snares - into a more modern context. The result is an album full of sweet nostalgic vibes and gentle robotic grooves that doesn't become a winking irony or a tepid facsimile of everything that came before. In short, it's totally rad.
Siena Yates: There are not enough positive things to say about this album. SZA cracks open life as a 20-something-year-old in 2017 with a refreshing lack of elegance. It's raw, dirty and totally unapologetic and SZA has been praised by women of colour for representing their sexuality in a way that's never been done before. She sings an entire song about p*ssy like only rappers ever have, reclaiming the word and totally switching up the way we think of love, lust and desire. That and her hip hop heavy R&B sound is just plain great to listen to.
Slowdive - Slowdive
Francis Cook: Slowdive, British indie darlings of the 90s, were almost consigned to the annuls of music history after their brief success with Souvlaki in 1993. Yet, just like their shoegaze brethren My Bloody Valentine, they have jumped back into relevance with an amazing new album after almost 20 years of silence. Their eponymous release in May might be better than anything they released in their heyday. Without eschewing their origins, Slowdive have thrust themselves into the future with dreamy walls of sound and a strong sense of pop sensibility. Their first single for the release, Star Roving, could be the track of the year.
Fazerdaze - Morningside
George Fenwick: Fazerdaze's Morningside is a fuzzy guitar-pop album for introverts. The songs themselves are familiar in structure, but frontwoman Amelia Murray's ability to inject every song with a summery, nostalgic warmth enables them to pack a truly bittersweet punch. Songs like Lucky Girl and Take It Slow are postcard-perfect snapshots of hazy, drunk love, with the use of distortion making the songs feel both modern and timeless. Amelia Murray has been turning heads as Fazerdaze for a while, but it was in Morningside that she truly found her footing, and offered one of the best Kiwi albums of the year.
Sampha - Process
Chris Schulz: He spent years toiling away in the background, writing songs, hooks, lyrics and notes for other artists. Drake. Beyonce. Frank Ocean. Solange. The big names kept calling, and he kept answering. Finally, Sampha Sisay has stepped into his own shoes and unveiled this, his stunning debut. The Londonite's unique voice soars all over this, and it's one that delivers equal measures of tenderness, love and pain - especially on centrepiece No One Knows Me (Like the Piano). Warning: it's a weeper.
Teeks - The Grapefruit Skies EP
Siena Yates: Teeks is New Zealand music's new kid on the block, but he's very much an old soul. The 23-year-old has an amazing deep, smooth, soul voice which just kind of fills you up somehow. His debut EP is full of songs about love, loss and longing with lyrics which favour simplicity over pageantry, while maintaining a kind of whimsical romanticism - "When you left you took away some part of me I think I needed... in the wind on my skin, I will find you and we'll never be apart". Teeks has just six songs out at the moment, but they'll definitely leave you wanting more.
George Fenwick: Tei Shi - real name Valerie Teicher - is probably best known for the euphoric wails of her breakout electronica hit, Bassically, which set dancefloors alight the world over. But her debut album Crawl Space is undeniably her best work yet. Whether it was on the thundery punch of Keep Running, the Carly Rae Jepsen-esque triumph of Say You Do or the jazz-infused meditation of Lift Me, Teicher managed to both conquer the indie-electronica sound and flip it completely on its head. Teicher's own rich and intricate production turned each track into a headphone-perfect dreamspace, while her phenomenal voice soared throughout the album with flawless power. A stellar debut.
Lucas Giorgni - A Murder Collection
Karl Puschmann: This creepy, sinister and tension filled album can't help but do incredibly strange things to your brain. That's because French producer Lucas Giorgni has made a soundtrack for an 80s exploitation horror movie that doesn't actually exist... Taking his cues from the great filmmaker and influential electronic composer John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing, They Live) and the synth-based soundtracks of classic 80s horrors like Fright Night and Nightmare on Elm Street, A Murder Collection is the best kind of synth-driven nightmare. It's all stretched out chords, pulsing basslines, minimalist drum machine beats, shocking stabs and swirling spooky melodies. The result is an eerily unsettling, paranoia-inducing exercise in anxiety that has the curious effect of casting the listener in either the role of unsuspecting victim or murderous serial killer. Depending, of course, on your mood or the available lighting...
Murder, politics and... porno? Tune in tomorrow as the mid-term report team looks at the best of the rest of 2017 so far.
