Monolith Cocktail Blog

Monolith Cocktail X Kalporz/Words: Editorial Team

The last piece of synergy between the Monolith Cocktail and our partners at Kalporz in 2021 relays the Italian site’s recent top twenty placed albums of the year feature. Look out for future collaborations in 2022.

We can discuss the musical quality of a year, but there is little to say about the quantity of 2021: all the artists who had perhaps hesitated to release their works in 2020, due to clashes with the novelty of the pandemic that made it evident that it would not have been possible to go on tour, they published what they had to, understanding that – unfortunately – the ‘newnormal’ was not only the motto of the Primavera Sound a few years ago but also the slogan of a new normal made up of fragmented, contingent, postponed live dates , made for the broken cap while escaping the next looming wave. So we found ourselves faced with a gargantuan production, which, is the law of large numbers, for some albums has also materialised into truly beautiful works.

As always since the streaming era has existed there cannot be a single star, but this time there was an award-winning album: the artist who made almost everyone agree was Little Simz , first for Popmatters , Albumism , BBC Radio 6 Music , NBHAP , Exclaim! , Dutch OOR , The Skinny and second for NME . And if according to “social sensations” Black Country should have depopulated , New Road , in reality only first for Loud And Quiet even if present in more than one list in places of honour, a disc not as simple as that of Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra instead “won” for Mojo , Paste Magazine , TIME and The Vinyl Factory , while less generalised choices were those of Pitchfork ( Jazmine Sullivan , shared by Entertainment Weekly and NPR Music ), of Consequence of Sound ( Tyler, the Creator ) and Crack Magazine ( John Glacier ).

All these discs, however (ALERT SPOILER), are also contained in our list, while choices that you will not find here on Kalporz are those of The Quietus The Bug (to which we have dedicated the cover of September), of Uncut with The Weather Station , Far Out Magazine with Dry Cleaning and NME which instead awarded Sam Fender .

And for us at Kalporz? We let you “shake” below, telling you that for the second time in our more than twenty years of life a band wins after having already won the Kalporz Awards in the past: it had already happened for Radiohead, reached this year by a special band.
But we have already talked too much: off to the rankings.

20. DAMON ALBARN, “The Nearer The Mountain, More Pure The Stream Flows”

Maybe we should all do like Albarn, especially in these times: go to Iceland and look at the snow and volcanoes from a window in our house. But we are here, and at least we can listen to this second solo album of his that got inspired in that intimate way with nature.

19. FLOATING POINTS, PHAROAH SANDERS & THE LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, “Promises”

The electronic jazz path of Floating Points has been going on for years now, managing to churn out interesting results such as the excellent debut Aelenia in 2015. On this release he manages to collaborate with a music giant like Pharoah Sanders, and without distorting himself they give an LP which will probably continue to play in our systems for some time yet.

18. TIRZAH, “Colourgrade”

Since her debut, this English author has been one of the Kalporz editorial team’s favourite voices. If Devotion had already raised various eyebrows for the maturity and the goodness of the compositions present, then with Colourgrade the artist has surpassed themselves. Applause for Tirzah’s class.

17. SNAIL MAIL, “Valentine”

With Valentine, the sophomore album by Snail Mail, Lindsey Jordan‘s maturation is total: her talent as a composer is evident everywhere, from the lacerating electric shocks of the song that gives the title to the album to the stealthy ‘Ben Franklin’, From the poetic romanticism of ‘Light Blue’ and ‘Mia’ to the liberating rock of ‘Madonna’ and ‘Automate‘. It is a record that talks about broken hearts and does it with determination and anger.

16. GENESIS OWUSU, “Smiling with No Teeth”

The debut album, among the funniest LPs of the year, for the twenty-three-year-old Ghanaian based in Canberra bewildered Kofi Owusu-Ansah (aka Genesis Owusu), Smiling With No Teeth entered without awe into the immortal funk / R & B trend that it took far too long to have a name of his own even in the ineffable Australia of the new century.

15. SUFJAN STEVENS & ANGELO DE AUGUSTINE, “A Beginner’s Mind”

Sufjan‘s delicacy is able to recreate itself in all its crystalline beauty with this Angelo De Augustine collaboration; becoming even lighter : not difficult personal themes but the musical representation of filmic snapshots. A conscious escape.

14. FOR THOSE I LOVE, “For Those I Love”

For Those I Love is the project of the Dubliner David Balfe, who on the debut of the same name deals with themes of love and loss (that of Paul Curran of Burnt Out, his best friend and poet like him, already honoured by Murder Capital) on an electronic and hip-hop basis, with samples of Smokey Robinson, Barbara Mason and Sampha. Deep like Automatic For The People, danceable like Original Pirate Material by The Streets.

13. ALTIN ​​GÜN, “Yol”

At the time of the first album (On from 2018) the formula still had some very slight forcing. Moreover, already with the second album, the surprise effect – although not exhausted – was certainly reduced. But the new album travels surprisingly well. It pushes even further down the road of the Turkish wedding between a gleaming disco lady and a rather rough folkish gentleman. Yol is made up of coherence, emotional tension and the enhancement of a priceless heritage – the Turkish and Mediterranean one – which never seems to end.

12. JAZMINE SULLIVAN, “Heaux Tales”

In a genre like R&B it seems really impossible to come up with something new. But when there is the voice, texts that do not leave indifference and a quality of compositions then it can still be amazing. The Heaux Tales marks the great and surprising return of Jazmine Sullivan. Hit after hit and that’ not hyperbole.

11. JOHN GLACIER, “Shiloh. Lost for Words”

The twenty-six year old London rapper of Jamaican origins but raised in one of the “places to be” of artists and creatives – Hackney – on Shiloh. Lost For Words manages to condense the best sounds of the English underground into foggy tracks: between grime and R&B.

10. TURNSTILE, “GLOW ON”

It almost seems to be back to the crossover epic of the late 80s / early 90s, if it weren’t for the fact that GLOW ON has a contemporary language, the son of a melodic hardcore but which is highlighted in a lightning-fast pop, at the same time devastating and aesthetically flawless.

9. SEGA BODEGA, “Romeo”

With his work for Shygirl, the house producer NUXXE has defined one of the most powerful sounds heard in recent years, while his solo project presented a hybrid of songwriting, constantly evolving and convincing. Romeo, for this very reason, is a decisive step in the career of one of the most talented musicians of these times.

8. TYLER, THE CREATOR, “CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST”

Tyler offers a compendium of sounds and suggestions that differ more than ever, from gangsta-rap to trap, from contemporary R&B to nu-jazz in a sequence of at least ten potential singles that make CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST a mature work cohesive in its innumerable sound angles. Ideas, flows, compositions at the service of an innate talent that never ceases to amaze ten years on.

7. HELADO NEGRO, “Far In”

It was not easy to follow up on the excellent This Is How You Smile, released in 2019, but Far In is a victory. Roberto Carlos Lange packs a record that, taking up the themes and sounds of his predecessor, makes his own creative experience like a collective ritual. Through warm, familiar sounds and prominent collaborations, Lange invites us to look within ourselves to try to understand more of the world around us.

6. THE NOTWIST, “Vertigo Days”

As evidence of its intrinsic strength, Vertigo Days compiles a set of songs that follow one another as a single entity, and the lyrics, like poems on the problems of the world, our daily struggles and the cancellation of distance. Seven years of waiting have not been in vain.

5. L’RAIN, “Fatigue”

There was a time when all the most original and hard to label releases were Made in Brooklyn. We didn’t realize it, but a decade has already passed and thanks to artists like Taja Cheek that golden age seems to us a less remote past: psychedelic pop, soul, jazzy incursions and a very contemporary taste.

4. SHAME, “Drunk Tank Pink”

The second work of the London quintet, produced by James Ford (Arctic Monkeys), photographs youth alienation and depression at the time of the pandemic with greater ardor and angularity than on “Songs Of Praise”: highlights ‘Born In Luton’, punk-funk at the service nightmare, and ‘Snow Day’ with a vocal interpretation of Charlie Steen amidst jarring guitars to take your breath away.

3. BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD, “For The First Time”

Before the album they won the title of “best band in the world” with little more than one song according to the English web-magazine The Quietus. With For The First Time Black Country, New Road prove to be a band that still has a lot to play, but which, for the first time, is capable of giving life to a new sound worthy of its influences. 2021 belongs to them.

2. LITTLE SIMZ, “Sometimes I Might Be Introvert”

It is a variegated and engaging disc, whose long duration allows, to those who do not yet know Little Simz, to fathom with a careful eye the art of the young rapper in almost every aspect: from the sources of inspiration to the virtuosity of the lyrics, from his magnetic voice to engaging and hypnotic rhythms.

1. LOW, “HEY WHAT”

An ambitious and sparkling work: with barely hinted guitar whispers, sudden roars, uncertain rhythms and lunar landscapes Low have always tried to give a shape to the void. An album aware of the fact that what is created can only be fragile, fragmented and limping.

KALPORZ AWARDS HISTORY (ex Musikàl Awards) :
Kalporz Awards 2020 (Yves Tumor)
Kalporz Awards 2019 (Tyler, The Creator)
Kalporz Awards 2018 (Idles)
Kalporz Awards 2017 (Kendrick Lamar)
Kalporz Awards 2016 (David Bowie)
Kalporz Awards 2015 (Sufjan Stevens)
Kalporz Awards 2014 (The War On Drugs)
Kalporz Awards 2013 (Kurt Vile)
Kalporz Awards 2012 (Tame Impala)
Kalporz Awards 2011  (Fleet Foxes)
Kalporz Awards 2010  (Arcade Fire)
Kalporz Awards 2009  (The Flaming Lips)
Kalporz Awards 2008  (Portishead)
Kalporz Awards 2007  (Radiohead)
Kalporz Awards 2006  (The Lemonheads)
Kalporz Awards 2005  (Low)
Kalporz Awards 2004  (Blonde Redhead, Divine Comedy, Franz Ferdinand, Wilco)
Kalporz Awards 2003  (Radiohead)
Kalporz Awards 2002  (Oneida)
Kalporz Awards 2001  ( Ed Harcourt)

You can catch the Monolith Cocktail’s choice albums of 2021 lists here:

Part One (A-K)

Part Two (L-Y)