The Video Playlist: December 2013

 

FEATURING Artists from The Albums of 2013:

Fuck Buttons

Benjamin Power and Andrew Hung’s third record saw them ascend to the very top of Space Mountain.

Steve Mason

With his sails filled by a zeitgeist wind of change, Steve Mason’s follow-up to 2010's Boys Outside saw the ex-Beta Band frontman bare and sharpen his iconoclastic edge, calling out complacency and corruption and encouraging others to do the same.

Factory Floor

During the making of Factory Floor, the band lived, worked, performed and recorded together, taking hundreds of hours of recorded performance and then stripping it back into the gleaming, polished walls of noise, techno, disco and post-punk that make up their angular, minimalist debut on DFA Records.

The National

The National have always been a band of subtle revelations, with each new release a refinement of the last rather than a sudden shift in gears.

CHVRCHES

That the synth trio have managed to carve out a reputation as one of the most thrilling live acts on the circuit is commendable enough but the bed rock of that good will is the continuing quality of their recorded output. 

Hookworms

The aftermath of Pearl Mystic has been one of change and decisions for Hookworms' vocalist MJ.

Frightened Rabbit

“When you make a record that connects with people in such a strong way, it’s really difficult thereafter to find a place where you can write songs and produce albums that resonate in the same way,” says frontman Scott Hutchison of Organ Fight’s looming shadow. “So it’s really nice to feel like we’ve done that.”

Boards of Canada

For an elusive duo who once proclaimed ‘music is math,’ the cryptic, numerical-led announcement of Boards of Canada’s fourth album was surely the most apt of marketing campaigns.

Future of the Left

How to Stop Your Brain in an Accident, Future of the Left’s game-upping fourth album, is quite eminently reasonable – reasonably indignant, reasonably righteous and, very reasonably, loud as fuck.

Run the Jewels

Swimming against the ego-obsessed current of mainstream hip-hop with scientific lyrical beatdowns and heavy electronic boom-bap beats, Killer Mike and El-P delivered this year's finest rap album as Run The Jewels.