This year's top LP will join the following Fat Roland Albums of the Year:
2021 Koreless | 2020 DJ Python | 2019 Plaid | 2018 Rezzett | 2017 Clark & Jlin | 2016 Bwana | 2015 Blanck Mass | 2014 Aphex Twin | 2013 Jon Hopkins | 2012 Andy Stott & Lone | 2011 Rustie | 2010 Mount Kimbie | 2009 Clark | 2008 Hot Chip |
Real Lies: Lad Ash (Unreal)
In some ways, I detest my annual album countdown. How can all the rich complexities of music fandom be contained in a list? My rundown is always far too blokey, and my fickle tastes spin like a weathercock in a washing machine. That said…
Phwoar. I bloomin’ love Lad Ash. A brilliant album at the top of a brilliant countdown! No matter how hard I yanked my tombola handle to shuffle my options for favourite album of the year, time after time these London lads’ second album kept popping out. It’s an impressive musical summary of this entire countdown in a way: the light-footed beats of Bonobo, the accessible melodies of Moderat, the laddishness of Working Men’s Club, the electronic emotion of μ-Ziq. It spins through a rolodex of dance music influences, from 90s house to two-step to ambience and generally excellent boogie music.
The bedtime-muttered vocals are oh-so yearning. “I wish I could do better, burn money like the KLF.” “I'm trying to come of age, can we change the subject?” “I felt like I was part of something.” Aside from the personal narration that sounds like Mike Skinner’s moody brother, the almost-choral use of vocals is a delight, thanks in no small part to vocalist Zoee.
The sultry attitude isn't enough, though, and it needs instrumentation to back it up. Oh boy. We get hissing synths on Dream On, urgent snares on Dolphin Junction, widescreen ambience extending the trippy vocals on Since I, a washed-out Born Slippy stomp on Your Guiding Hand. So. Many. Tunes.
Following their 2015 debut ‘Real Life’, the band talked about Lad Ash’s songs being a “farewell to something”. They had scrapped an earlier version of this second album and were newly pared down to a duo, so it was indeed borne of creative loss.
But the loss they evoke here is deeper. There's talk of “wide-eyed teenhood” and “suburban dust”, the sound of two guys hurtling through life and trying, helplessly, to grasp onto the past. Maybe that’s why I connected so hard. I started this blog in my early 30s, and next year I’ll be 50. I’m not the same person I was, and every so often I have to correct my vision of myself. Lad Ash nails that spinning carousel of life in its lyrics and in its rose-tinted/tainted musical glasses.
As it says on An Oral History Of My First Kiss:
“There's an awkward gap between childhood and being properly teenage. A peripheral shadowland of not quite being enough.”
Same for us middle-agers. Nothing’s never quite enough. I never achieve enough. I never blog enough. This countdown is not enough. You've not read enough words on this page: I'm pretty sure you skipped a couple earlier on.
But, and this is the important bit, this is all we have. It will do, and we'll be happy with it. Congratulations, Real Lies, you are my favourite electronic music album of 2022.
Curious track: The breezy breakbeat on Dream On feels like something you could actually ride, like a car made of audio or something. Seriously. A journalist for 31 years and I come up with this.
Album feels: Wanting to be young again, but definitely not wanting to be young again.
Cover art: Statue snogging. Absolutely disgusting.
A final word: Firstly, an honourable mention for Ceephax Acid Crew, who released an album on Christmas Day, which is far too late to be absorbed for this countdown. Also, apologies to the 92 million album producers I forgot to include. Secondly, thanks to everyone for reading my blog in 2022. I warn you now: 2023 is going to be IMMENSE.
From another website: On Lad Ash, Real Lies are alchemists – making music that is in equal part for the head, the heart and the gut. (Narc.)
This is part of a series of the Best Electronic Music Albums of 2022. Read it all here.
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