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recommendedlisten · 5 years

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The extended play has always been one of the more interesting formats to take a deeper dig into at year's end, as those releases can predict new sounds to watch out for in the future as well as giving us a little more of what we've come to thoroughly enjoy from those already established. This year, though, there was a blurring of the definition in what constitued an EP versus what qualified as an album, and you can blame the "rules" set by streaming overlords for that confusion. Generally, though, Recommended Listen has always adhered to the guideline that an EP contains a minimum of four tracks and maximum of six tracks, meaning anything Kanye West produced this year wasn't eligible, and despite his best efforts to convince us it was an LP for charting purposes, Trent Reznor found himself concluding his multi-year trilogy project right where it initially began. Other than that, this year's best marked a continuation of stories we already heard started playing out last year as well as the very exciting first chapters of others. Here are the 10 Best EPs of 2018...

10. Jouska - From Elson to Emmet [Tiny Engines]

After exchanging suburban scenery for Albany before transplanting to West Philly, Jouska’s recordings have evolved to reflect greater transitions at play on their EP From Elson to Emmett. The effort does so without completely abandoning the band’s roots, with the characters and suburban malaise of past work continuing to permeate the narratives of frontman Doug Dulgarian’s songwriting even as the structural dynamics of their knotty, experimental indie rock has a considerably more ornate audacity to it. Their sound is a weird one – a hybrid-headed monster with Dulderian and John Mongonia’s guitars doubling as limbs, and a core made from drummer Jevan Dollard and bassist Eric Lloyd’s gutted rhythms cranking in mechanical fashion much like their peer oddities Built to Spill and WOMEN -- but with vaguely introspective claw marks hooked into melody that makes them emo by default. Four tracks in total may initially expect brevity from the listen, but at 25 minutes in length with each one sharing equal exposure, they’re lofty fresh impressions with a heavy-lifting requirement from its spectators.

9. Ratboys - GL [Topshelf Records]

2017 was a breakout year for Ratboys, the Chicago country-tinged indie rock band who exhibited fascinated storytelling on their sophomore effort GN in a way that weaved their music into your memories, be it through wistfulness or a rustic roar. Just as understated as they made their presence felt on the scene, they’ve done so again on GL, short for “good luck” and a companion piece of sorts to its predecessor featuring four tracks that continue on in narrative, tone and texture, but starting a different chapter in singer Julia Steiner’s confessional narratives (as they succinctly put it, “about losing faith in your friends & telling the truth.”) It does what Ratboys does so well in balancing Steiner’s introverted grumbles with a chipper energy flowing through rollicking guitars along with a mid-tempo rumble of percussion, getting playful with life’s messiness. It’s hard to find where the light has been shut out, because she and bandmate Dave Sagan have covered up their tracks with another fair helping of positive jams.

8. Russian Baths - Penance [Good Eye Records]

The post-punk supply chain never seems to be in any short supply, but in the burrows of NYC is brooding something way less concrete. Russian Baths differ from the rest of the discordant abyss with how the quartet have bent light through the spectrum beyond surface level on their debut EP Penance. Four tracks makes the most of an intriguing experiment in short order by exploring hidden worlds where bleakness is uncovered in varying degrees of darkness through the shared vocals of guitarists Luke Koz and Jess Rees, with the former oft anchoring disciplined aggression and occasional loss of control, while the latter ascends danger through a dreamy stasis. When their paths collide, Russian Bath’s black matter explodes in slasher riffs and pummeling rhythm ripping through dense layers of shoegaze, hardcore and metal at once. Fitting, considering Penance’s themes highlight the evils lurking beneath the surface of humankind, and it’s only when Russian Baths tear into its skin where all is revealed.

7. Converge - Beautiful Ruin [Deathwish Inc. / Epitaph Records]

The Dusk In Us, last year’s ninth studio effort from Converge, was just more evidence to pile onto the rest of it that the Massachusetts metal and hardcore-melding pioneers are one of the scene’s consistently powerful forces in innovating heavy music. Their music throttles with purpose, and every word Jacob Bannon hurls into the mic is just as much of a raw, existential thought on our human experience. No matter the shape of their sound or the world we live in, the veteran band are fully conscious of the moment. Guitarist and producer Kurt Ballou mentioned there was more of it left on the cutting board, and that rings loudly on Beautiful Ruin, a four song listen that exudes the aggressive energy that has never let up once throughout the band’s sound these past three decades. It’s a brief listen that’s over in just 7 very intense minutes, but serves as an intimidating reminder of how their roots – entwined firmly into the soil – are just as impactful in these boiled down injections as any of their goliath anthems.

6. Miserable - Loverboy / Dog Days [Sargent House]

Kristina Esfandiari’s dark craft is dangerously versatile. Best known for her work as the fronthuman of her metal band King Woman, she wields the heaviest of doom through thunder clouds and supernatural lore, but with her solo outfit Miserable, there are layers upon layers to be discovered beneath her creative skin. This year’s double EP is an introduction to all of this, as it features new songs collected on its A-side under the title Loverboy alongside the reissue of her early 2015 EP Dog Days. It’s a testament to the project’s shape-shifting sound in gauzy experimentation. Light, texture and emotional weight are indulged in and repressed, yet it never fully exits the shadows throughout her latest work, where as those coming into this as a point of entry obtain a fuller familiarization with her sonic depths in seeing its B-side as an early document in Miserable’s songwriting journey from bare bones to fully fleshed. showing how far her growth has stretched itself over these fast past three years,

5. Sudan Archives - Sink [Stones Throw]

Sink is the second EP from rising Los Angeles-by-way-of Cincinnati experimental singer-songwriter Brittany Parks who, through her moniker Sudan Archives, is reshaping the sound of avant R&B by channeling it through electronic waves, subtle hip-hop booms, and pop undercurrents bowing through folky nylons strings. The listen makes for a hypnotic introspection in its sway, but beyond these glimmering facets on its surface skin, the soul and bones of Sink is an exploration into Parks’ evolving identity, be it as a young black woman in a frayed American landscape, or in how she embraces her cultural roots by utilizing her self-taught ancient West African violin tutelage to the fullest. It’s a promising early leg in the 23-year-old artist’s journey as she continues carving out a lane all her own from from the underground up, and build new worlds for listeners to travel in the process.

4. Hatchie - Sugar & Spice [Double Double Whammy]

Aside from the unavoidable flurry of buzz surrounding Hatchie leading up to her breakout EP, something that stands out in glaring fashion of Brisbane musician Harriette Pilbeam’s dream-pop confections is the uncomplicated clarity in its concept. Glassy layers of synths and an effervescent coolness even as she sings of emotional entanglements is not a path that we haven’t heard tread several times over since the style’s star burst during the ‘80s, but perhaps Hatchie’s version of it is surmised by the title of her EP Sugar & Spice – Especially in the former of those two tastes. Instead of pushing her muse beneath the surface of the clouds, Pilbeam pushes the sweet and sour of your everyday tales of love onto her music’s surface level, making their basic nature sound more awe-striking when adorned in textures that swirl and sparkle. If it’s a simple kind of love you’re looking for to no resolve, Sugar & Spice does its best to sort those feelings out for you.

3. boygenius - boygenius [Matador Records]

boygenius blend harmony and storytelling together so naturally that you’d might think its three members had already done so with one other at some point. Featuring the emotive superpowers of Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers as well as the steadfast narratives of Lucy Dacus, that would be easy to believe seeing all three songwriters have had their respective breakouts over the past year, garnering praise and recognition as the faces on the new Mount Rushmore of indie rock’s latest golden age. boygenius’ songwriting clinic of a self-titled EP is evidence that when three artists of their creative intuition are together, their talents only grow not only in degree of perfection, but in heart-bleeding passion as well. It’s as if their unique, already-impressive craft for drawing together melodies is embossed by each other’s presence, and while lyrically, the Venn diagram of all three largely overlaps on tales of broken relationships and self-doubts, their company in one another makes these songs that might otherwise sound burdened by loneliness if left to their own solo voices find strength instead with each other at their backs.

2. Nine Inch Nails - Bad Witch [The Null Corporation]

Since their return in 2013, Nine Inch Nails has been in a state of evolutionary flux. The latest interpretation of the band inside the studio is now dwindled down to just Trent Reznor and his fellow film scoremaker Atticus Ross, and over these last two years, the duo has been in constant motion with a three EP project that finishes on its strongest note, Bad Witch. What’s exciting on this go round is that unlike the familiar dystopian cinema gaze of 2015’s Not the Actual Events and 2017’s familiar turbulence ADD VIOLENCE, Bad Witch is an exploration in experimental industrial soundmaking that we’ve only heard Reznor test the waters with in the far out past. Its production is smattered with a messy granular texture that feels more raw than anything NIN have produced in quite some time, and coupled with a few surprises in Reznor’s sonic arsenal (such as reuniting with his long abandoned sax skills across freaky avant jazz-noise instrumentals “Play the Goddamned Part” and “I’m Not From this World”,) it can be viewed as a restart in the band’s next life as one of the alternative’s last true provocateurs standing.

1. Channel Tres - Channel Tres [Godmode Music]

Compton rhymer and producer Channel Tres was already on his way before he linked up with Godmode Music’s electronic auteur of a producer Nick Sylvester, having worked with fellow Los Angeles rapper DUCKWRTH and R&B futurist Kehlani in the past. The team-up between Channel Tres’ charismatic flow and Sylvester’s studio pro hand succeed in formally introducing the artist to the stage with an instantaneously distinct flavor on his eponymous self-titled EP. Over the course of five listens, we’re entranced by a warm, kinetic aura of energy built on bars of confidence and braggadocious swagger, yet also chilled by steely industrial shimmers, like casting a dark overnight rave into the hazy sunlight where goth kids dance alongside hot couture house enthusiasts in the same shared space. Its production – a blinkering of hot bulbs off a mirror room and a laser rays burning through their surface – is safely bay, allowing Tres to maneuver through the danger zone flawlessly. It’s a lasting first impression for an artist’s promising first where Channel Tres doubles down on making sure you know he’s here, even if his stealth “Jet Black” moves and smooth gliding with the “Topdown” slip by with an effortless cool.

#best of 2018 #jouska #rat boy #russian baths #miserable #sudan archives #hatchie #boygenius #nine inch nails #channel tres

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