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theeverlastingshade · 4 years

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Favorite Albums of 2019

2019 proved to be another harrowing year to be alive, but there was plenty of phenomenal music released throughout the year to help distract from the encroaching apocalypse. While there were unfortunately a few artists like Kanye, Chance, and Xiu Xiu that dropped absolute bricks so unlistenable that you’d be forgiven for questioning your fandom in the first place, we were graced with much better than expected returns from the likes of Fennesz and Vampire Weekend, a culmination of a decade’s worth of increasingly realized releases courtesy of (Sandy) Alex G, Sharon Van Etten, and Weyes Blood, a further sharpening of their respective aesthetics from the likes of Tyler, the Creator, Earl Sweatshirt, Kim Gordon, Solange, and Sun O))), and promising first impressions from artists like 100 Gecs and glass beach. Duster ended their almost two-decade long silence, Empty Country rose from the ashes of Cymbals Eat Guitars, the legendary Jai Paul demos finally received a proper release, and plenty of artists like Big Thief, FKA twigs, and Oso Oso that completely leveled up this year and released the best work of their careers to date. No matter what kind of music you’re into, there was plenty to enjoy throughout this year. Here are my favorite albums of 2019.

10. Anima- Thom Yorke

While his work with Radiohead has been consistently great throughout their three plus decades together, Thom Yorke’s solo work has generally left a lot to be desired. That all changed with the release of his third LP, Anima. The record is full of the skittering beats, sinister synths, and general feeling of encroaching dread as the bulk of his work, but the execution has never before landed with such force. Yorke was inspired to tweak his approach to electronic composition after watching some recent Flying Lotus live sets. He began to improvise with loops the way that FlyLo did while performing, and then he sent the files to Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich who parsed the arrangements down to manageable samples for Yorke to work with. The songs on Anima all sound familiar from someone whose been recording electronic music on his own for over a decade, but they’re each far punchier and allow for more space to develop in all their exquisitely rendered texture. Anima is the rare veteran record that leans into the artist’s sweet spot while introducing just enough new wrinkles to an established formula that it allows you to hear them anew.

Anima consists of nine songs that are firmly rooted in the sort of moody, minimal electronic music that splits the difference between experimental bass and minimal techno that he’s always trafficked in to some extent. What’s noteworthy here is how crisp and sharp everything sounds. The songs throughout Anima are minimal but memorable, with instantly recognizable melodies that waft unassumingly from a few synths and a sprinkle of percussion. Whether it’s the strutting bassline propelling “I Am a Very Rude Person” or the unsettling synths juxtaposed against the steady hi-hats and repurposed samples of children cheering from “15 Step” on “Twist”, or the blaring sirens and chimes that give a great deal of dimension to “The Axe”, Anima is a gorgeous listen at every turn. Every song here is produced superbly, with great pacing and a generous use of space that allows plenty of breathing room for every arrangement. Nothing sounds rushed or inconsequential, and the record wouldn’t work nearly as effectively if any single song was omitted. It’s the first release that Yorke and Godrich have put together that doesn’t sound like it exists strictly in the shadow of Radiohead or any specific genres/scenes of electronic music.

The themes of the songs on Anima are the kind of tormented, dystopic nightmares that Yorke has been writing about throughout the vast majority of his career. Nothing else is as explicit as “The Axe”, in which Yorke chastises some unidentified piece of tech for denying him the experience that he sought “Goddamned machinery/Why don’t you speak to me?/One day I am gonna take an axe to you” and in most of the songs on Anima Yorke conveys images with abstract imagery and minimal phrasing. On opener “Traffic” Yorke grapples with an increasingly online world gripped by groupthink and hivemind “Submit/Submerged/No body/No body/It’s not good/It’s not right/A mirror/A sponge/But you’re free” while on “I Am a Very Rude Person” he finds solace in the creative process “I have to destroy to create/I have to be rude to your face/I’m breaking up your turntables/Now I’m gonna watch your party die”. On the record’s most impressive song and centerpiece, “Dawn Chorus”, Yorke looks back on his life and questions whether he would be capable of not repeating the same mistakes if he had a chance to do it all again “In the middle of the vortex/The wind picked up/Shook up the soot/From the chimney pot/Into spiral patterns/Of you, my love”. It’s one of the most quietly devastating songs that Yorke has ever written, and a testament to his unrelenting, unassuming brilliance.

Essentials: “Dawn Chorus”, “Last I Heard (...He was Circling the Drain)”, “The Axe”

9. Basking in the Glow- Oso Oso

Oso Oso became one of the defining contemporary emo bands with their exceptional 2017 sophmore LP, The Yunahon Mixtape, and with their phenomenal third LP, Basking in the Glow, they’ve continued to heighten the very things that landed them rapturous reception with TYM. Frontman Jade Litiri is still penning the most absurdly tuneful melodies I’ve heard on any album that’s come out this year, and his command over songcraft has only gotten tighter in the years since his 2015 debut, Real Stories of True People Who Kind of Looked Like Monsters. BitG is a collection of 11 tracks that blend emo, pop-punk, and straight up indie rock into a concoction of warm guitar pop that’s as immediate as it is accomplished. Nothing on BitG is surprising or unprecedented in any way if you’re familiar with Oso Oso’s prior work, but the band has improved considerably on all fronts, and they’ve never played with such confidence. Few records that I’ve had the pleasure of coming across this year offered such immediate pleasures right out of the gates while letting the intricacies of the music slowly make their way to the surface after repeated listens to the extent that Oso Oso managed with BitG.

Oso Oso did little to alter their approach this time around. They’re still playing ridiculously catchy guitar pop that places a premium on melody above all else, but the songs on BitG are sharper, and more fleshed out than the bulk of their past work. The hooks are massive, and don’t sound like afterthoughts in the way that hooks do in so much music today, and are for the most part the main draw here. The compositions are mostly upbeat, and draw from each of the aforementioned genres seamlessly without ever sounding strictly beholden to one dominant scene or sound. Oso Oso are working within fairly limited parameters which makes the immense range on display all the more impressive. There are immediate pop-punk anthems (“The View”), urgent emo slow-burners (“Priority Change”), acoustic lullabies (“One Sick Plan”) and thematically timeless, immensely cathartic sendoffs (“Charlie”). Nothing on BitG sounds forced, or derivative, or anything less than a tasteful display of staggering growth. Frontman Jade Liltri doesn’t have tremendous range as a vocalist, but few vocalists working today are as consistently expressive as he is, and the melodies that he’s imbued these songs with are richer, and more generous than those on any other album that I’ve heard from this year.

The songs on BitG are accounts from someone losing themselves in the thrall of newfound love. They’re primarily upbeat guitar pop songs that perfectly capture that dizzying sensation of the honeymoon phase when everything is rendered through a warm, euphoric glow. But even the more straightforward sentiments are peppered with self-deprecating jabs that allow you to glean his songwriting from more than just the obvious angles, such as on “The View” when he delivers a phenomenal hook “My eyes lit up when I saw it/A way of lookin for everything I wanted/My eyes lit up when I saw it/The view from where you sit/And apathy, I was in love with it” and the last line completely alters the depiction that he’s initially setting up. “Wake Up Next to God” tackles the struggle to love yourself (“Maybe I’ll figure out what it means/When I mean more to myself”) while the title track deals with navigating complacency “And these days, it feels like all I know is this phase/I hope I’m basking in the glow/Is there something bigger I don’t know?”. Everything comes to a head on the astonishing closer “Charlie” where Jade comes to terms with a breakup and resolves not to let it break him “I know it has to end/We’ll just play pretend, pretend/Yeah, I think that’s fine/’Cause you and I had a very nice time”. Those lines perfectly encapsulate the ethos of Oso Oso, and cap off one of the decade’s most accomplished emo records.

Essentials: “Charlie”, “The View”, “Basking in the Glow”

8. Titanic Rising- Weyes Blood

While every Weyes Blood record preceding Titanic Rising was a perfectly solid release in its own right, few artists managed to improve on all fronts as dramatically as Natalie Mering did this year with Titanic Rising. TR is a lush chamber pop record that finds Mering composing some of the grandest, and most impressive songs of her career to date. With the exception of the instrumental title track and closing track “Nearer to Thee”, the songs on TR are sweeping chamber epics flush with strings, brass, and synths that congeal remarkably well under the weight of her stirring voice. The songs are paced superbly and never verge on overstaying their welcome, but are produced with such rich texture that they allow new details to emerge with each listen. Not unlike acts like The War on Drugs or Amen Dunes, Mering tapes into well-worn forms with immediate comparisons that come to mind right out of the gates, but the music unfolds in a spellbinding haze that renders those points mute. Although her music has never before swelled with such expansive arrangements, she still manages to imbue these compositions with her strongest writing to date. TR sounds like the culmination of a singular voice that she’s been honing throughout the past decade.

TR is a gorgeous sounding record, and there’s nothing here that sounds fussy or overworked. The compositions are dense, but the arrangements move with a sense of grace that magnify Mering’s sentiments without drawing anything away from her stunning voice. Songs like “Wild Time” and “Everyday” contain some of the sharpest melodies that I’ve listened to all year, and the way they emerge patiently beneath heaps of tastefully arranged piano, strings, and brass only serves to maximize their impact. Even on songs like “Picture Me Better” that showcase the closest that TR veers towards minimalism, she’s composing with a deft intuition that keeps the arrangements economical without forsaking a sense of wanderlust. “Andromeda” begins with a lumbering bassline and kick drum rhythm while acoustic guitar softly snakes around her slowly blossoming voice. Shortly afterwards a string section slides into the mix and a massive chorus springs forth from beneath the mix. It’s anthemic but rendered in a dreamy hazy, and it already sounds like a classic. “Everyday” and “Something to Believe” are baroque pop at its most immediate, the former deploying a jaunty kick rhythm, lush strings, and sun-kissed harmonies while the latter is a breather that features terrific interlocking harpsichord/electric guitar leads snaking around her soaring vocals. And on “Movies”, her finest song to date, her effect-laden vocals and warbling synths build to a transcendent peak before transitioning into a spell-binding string-led coda. It’s an incredible sounding coda, and not a moment of it feels unearned.

Even at the album’s most indulgent, (as on “Movies” which is also unsurprisingly TR at its best) the music still still brilliantly serves the narratives at hand. TR consists of 10 songs that examine the highs and lows of love through a distinctly contemporary lens. “Andromeda” begins with a reluctance to allow love into her life “Stop calling/I think it’s time to let me be/If you think you can save me/I’d dare you to try” before Natalie eventually succumbs to the temptation to not close herself off completely “Love is calling/It’s time to give to you/Something you can hold on to/I dare you to try”. “Everyday” finds Natalie lamenting the state of modern dating “True love is making a comeback/For only half of us, the rest just feel bad/Doomed to wander in the world’s first rodeo” while “Mirror Time” examines a periodic love without boundaries that plays out in short burst from time to time “Got a feeling our romance doesn’t stand a chance/Stand a chance to last/You threw me out of the garden of eden/Lift me up just to let me fall hard/Can’t stand being your second best”. On “Movies” Natalie is offering her ode to the films that she loved growing up that have helped shape the person that she is. She longs for her life to have the same sort of neat dependability as she’s come to expect from movies, lamenting the mundane realities that defines actual human life “Some people feel what some people don’t/Some people watch until they explode/The meaning of life doesn’t seem to shine like the screen”. Like the rest of TR it’s an unabashedly intimate yet grand sounding song that exemplifies the multitudes of Mering’s songwriting, and it’s as human as music gets.

Essentials: “Movies”, “Andromeda”, “Wild Time”

7. Purple Mountains- Purple Mountains

After over a decade since the last Silver Jews record, Dave Berman returned to music earlier this year and released a self-titled album under the moniker Purple Mountains. Purple Mountains detailed Berman’s struggles with depression in the years following the dissipation of Silver Jews, and a few weeks after the record came out he took his life. The music on PM is unrelentingly bleak on its own terms, but when viewed through the context of its aftermath it achieves an unbearable melancholy that makes it difficult to revisit. Berman has spent his music career as the mastermind behind Silver Jews penning sharp songs that use humor and wit to navigate the inner turmoil that’s plagued him throughout his whole life. Although PM isn’t a particularly easy record to digest from a thematic standpoint, I can still hear quite a bit of humor and hope embedded within the music that runs counter to the narrative. There isn’t a single Silver Jews record that’s anything less than good, but on PM Berman’s songwriting hit a new peak that showcased his singular voice in a newly refined, mature temperament with all the effortless irreverence that he’s provided in spades throughout all these years held perfectly intact.

PM is a jangly indie rock record that sounds like a perfectly natural extension of the music that Berman was making in Silver Jews, but it’s disarming to hear just how straight up tuneful this record is. Immediacy is not the first thing that comes to mind when describing Berman’s work, but the songs on PM are some of the tightest that Berman has ever penned, and many of them contain his finest melodies to date. “All My Happiness Is Gone” is a dead ringer for any kind of conceivable anthem for 2019, and when Berman sings those lines throughout the chorus against a stirring string section, rollicking drums, and a jaunty acoustic guitar lead it sounds far more like a triumphant admission of apathy than the sort of shrugged off platitude the words themselves alone might suggest. The following song “Darkness and Cold” slows down the tempo, but works in tandem with what came right before it as an anthemic melody swells up while he describes the experience of watching his ex-wife begin to go on dates again “Love of my life going out tonight/Without a flicker of regret”. The juxtaposition between the music and lyrics animates the record from start to finish, and helps offset some of the particularly devastating moments.

There’s no way around the fact that the record was written in the wake of the dissolution of his marriage. The struggles with depression and substance abuse penned throughout the record are commonplace themes in all of Berman’s work, but the collapse of his marriage happened in the years following the last Silver Jews record, and every song here feels tethered firmly to the end of that relationship. “She’s Making Friends, I’m Turning Stranger” finds Berman coming to terms with his innate introversion “She’s making friends, I’m turning stranger/The people on her end couldn’t make it plainer/Sometimes I wish we’d never came here/Seeing as I’m held in such disdain here” while closer “Maybe I’m the Only One for Me” suggests that Berman is able to find contentment in the admission that perhaps he simply wasn’t meant to be in a lasting relationship “If no one’s fond of fucking me/Then maybe no one’s fucking fond of me/Yea, maybe I’m the only one for me”. At its core, PM details the sort of weary acceptance of life in all of its difficulties that Berman has resigned himself to. There are moments of profound beauty sprinkled throughout his deadpan sentiments that hint at something beyond the veil of frustration and apathy.

Although things panned out tragically in the wake of PM, there’s a rush of catharsis that his vulnerability allows for that elevates the sentiments throughout the record to dimensions beyond the sort of gloomy, one-note rock of which it runs parallel to the pantheon of. Berman has always written with an unflinchingly honest gaze at himself and the world around him, and while not necessarily portraying himself in the best light he’s always grounded in his genuine beliefs. Thankfully, he hadn’t lost an ounce of his wit or wisdom in the years following Silver Jews, and his penchant for the absurd is kept well in check throughout PM. This is particularly evident on the album highpoint “Margaritas at the Mall” which finds humor by poking through the holes of the hollow capitalist complex “We’re just drinking margarita’s at the mall/This happy hour’s got us by the balls”. On “Storyline Fever” Berman examines the way we’re swept up by the narratives that we construct to examine life more neatly “You got storyline fever, storyline flu/Apparently impairing your point of view/It’s making horseshit sound true to you” and even on the bleak state-of-affairs- recap opener “That’s Just the Way That I Feel” Berman slips in some amusing imagery in-between his morose depictions of his inner torment “I nearly lost my genitalia/To an anthill in Des Moines/I was so far gone in Fargo/South Dakota got annoyed”. No matter the tone that he struck, Berman was always resolute in his openness, and thankfully his parting gift to us remains steeped in that conviction.

Essentials: “Magiritas at the Mall”, “All My Happiness Is Gone”, “Darkness and Cold”

6. Magdalene- FKA twigs

It’s been five years since Tahlia Barnett’s last full-length LP as FKA twigs, and in the time since she’s released the exceptional EP M3ll155X, directed several music videos, and acted in the film Honeyboy as the rest of the musical landscape slowly began to catch up to her warped approach to avant-garde pop. M3LL155X suggested a more maximal, mutated take on club music, and it now seems like a sly feint within the greater scope of her artistry in light of Magdalene. The songs on Magdalene rarely utilize more than strings, keys, drums, bass, and Barnett’s heavenly falsetto, with very little generally happening at any point in time. The vast spaces allow for her highly expressive vocals to emote more heavily than we’ve ever heard from her, the instrumentation is rich and varied despite the tight parameters, and she’s managed to make the most of the eclectic roster of collaborators that worked on the album. The album was inspired by the story of Mary Magdalene from the Old Testament, and in examining how Mary was maligned by her peers Barnett draws a clear through line from the cruelty women suffered as a result of conservative ideology from then up to the present day. The result is a deeply moving record about her experiences within a continuum of marginalization. It feels urgent but far from self-important, and cautiously hopeful without any tangible sense of real optimism. Magdalene has stronger writing, singing, and production more adventurous than the vast majority of records that I’ve listened to this year. It’s the most compelling and expressive release in her short but singular career.

Magdalene sounds like a perfectly natural extension of LP1. It’s more minimal, and sways with a more forlorn baroque undercurrent that propels her skittering electronics into warmer abstract shapes. Arca, Oneohtrix Point Never, Nicolas Jaar, Hudson Mohawke, Future, Sounwave, Skrillex, Cashmere Cat, and Kenny Beats are among the people who are featured or produced songs on Magdalene, but despite the myriad of people that contributed it’s still an incredibly cohesive record perfectly suited for Barnett’s voice. “Thousand Eyes” opens the record to a chorus of pitched vocals set against swelling strings pouring down from the heavens. The record gradually grows more pensive and moody as it progresses, allowing the Future collaboration “Holy Terrain” to sound like the most fitting pairing imaginable by the time we reach track four. Their chemistry is undeniable, and it’s a perfect bridge between the corrosive piano ballad “Sad Day” and the sleek synth rhythms of the record’s centerpiece “Mary Magdalene”. Unsurprisingly, the Jaar contributions and the OPN contribution rank as some of standouts here. Daniel Lopatin’s touch is all evident all over “Daybed” as a lone violin plays in the distance while a kick drum and synths collide softly. It’s the ideal ambience over which Barnett’s voice urgently sings of her experiences with depression. And the skittering keys coupled with the drum and bass assault that propels Barnett’s massive hook on “Fallen Alien” make for some of the most powerful and compelling music of her career to date.

Magdalene opens with “Thousand Eyes” which is the sound of the wall of voices signaling the disintegration of a relationship, presumably the one between her and ex-fiance Robert Patterson “If I walk out the door, it stars our last goodbye/If you don’t pull me back, it wakes a thousand eyes”. Magdalene primarily delves into the aftermath of her relationship with Patterson, with songs like “Cellophane” and “Sad Day” that touch on not being enough for someone “They’re hating/They’re waiting/And hoping/I’m not enough” and taking the chance on being hurt again “Taste the fruit of me/Make love to all you see” respectively. In addition to the songs that focus on heartbreak Magdalene also touches on the ways that women have been maligned throughout history on the album’s centerpiece “Mary Magdalene”. Here she touches on how women have had their achievements erased from the history books “A woman’s war/Unoccupied history/True nature won’t search to destroy/If it doesn’t make sense” and pays tribute to Mary by acknowledging her as someone who was maligned as a whore due to a misreading, instead of an equal to Jesus. And on “Daybed”, one of Tahliah’s most impressive songs to date, she lays out in stark terms her struggles with depression “Tired of my resistence/Smothered is my distance, yeah/Careful are my footsteps/Possessive is my daybed” over eerie synths and strings courtesy of OPN.

Despite the thematic ambition on display throughout all of Magdalene, it never comes across like an oppressive slog. It’s all too common for records with such weighty concerns to collapse under the weight of their subject matter, but Magdalene is never anything less than an immensely engaging record. The production is gorgeous from start to finish, and the restraint that Tahliah opts for allows the impact of her outre leaning sound design to land that much more powerfully. With nine songs across 38 minutes every moment feels like it’s purposefully building towards something transcendent. She continues to fuse r&b, baroque pop, synth-pop, experimental bass, trap, and avant-garde electronica into something only recognizable as hers. The pacing is superb and while the obvious peaks like “Fallen Angel” and “Cellophane” provide a great deal of momentum, the transitional breathers like “Mirrored Heart” are just as exquisitely rendered and deeply felt as anything else she’s ever done. Magdalene sounds at once both very much of this current cultural climate and completely out of step with everything but her own sensibilities. Tahliah has been in a class of her own since LP1 dropped, but Magdalene makes a much stronger case that she’s one of the most compelling musicians of our time.

Essentials: “Fallen Alien”, “Daybed”, “Mary Magdalene”

5. Agora-Fennesz

The music that Christian Fennesz conjures as Fennesz has always taken on a larger than life quality far greater than the sum of its parts. Through a combination of heavily processed guitar, manipulated samples, and droning synths Fennesz has managed to carve out a singular lane within ambient music that began in earnest with his 2001 masterwork, Endless Summer, and can still be felt deeply on this year’s Agora. Agora consists of four massive ambient compositions within the span of forty-seven minutes. The music is darker, and flickers with a discernable sense of dread that’s most reminiscent of his stellar 2008 record Black Sea. But tone aside, Agora is a singular record unto itself, and quite possibly the best thing that Fennesz has done since ES. There’s a sweeping sense of scale present in these compositions that’s notably grander than we’re accustomed to hearing from Fennesz. This is still unabashedly ambient music, but there’s a weight to these songs that lends them a more dramatic and unnerving disposition than the genre typically allows for. Plenty of compelling ambient producers have emerged this decade and have helped push the genre forward to thrilling new heights, but with Agora Fennesz proves that he’s still in a class of his own.

There are few producers throughout this century, working within the parameters of ambient or otherwise, that have consistently crafted such vibrant soundscapes that flow so effortlessly with texture, space, and undeniable melodic intuition. Despite not a single song clocking in under ten minutes they each justify their length through exceptional pacing, sublime sound design, and a palpable sense of discovery lurking around every corner. Each song on Agora is constantly in a state of building towards or coming down from some massive peak, and there isn’t a moment that doesn’t feel earned or purposeful. Fennesz gives himself just as much time as he needs to really flesh out each of the compositions, and we’re better served for his patience. Each composition consists of droning synths, loops of guitars caked in distortion colliding alongside each other, and the occasional reverb-drenched vocal sample. The tone of these songs are uniform in their remote temperaments, but the dynamics of contrasting textures that animate each are in a constant state of flex and offer plenty to unpack throughout the course of multiple listens. Like most of Fennesz’s work, there’s a warmth to Agora that’s unusual for ambient music, and even at Agora’s darkest it still sounds positively radiant. The sound design and mixing of Agora is the main real draw, and there’s a strong case to be made that it’s the best produced album of 2019.

Right from the moment that the droning synths begin to flare up on “In My Room” it becomes clear that this is going to a far more ambitious outing than one could have reasonably expected from Fennesz this far into his career. Much like the two great 2019 Sunn O))) records, Agora exemplifies the greatest qualities of the musician making the record on a grander scale than we’ve ever heard prior. “In My Room” gradually builds up volume and additional texture as it progresses, slowly blossoming into a massive wall of sound that seems to slyly live up the grandiose production of the group whose name likely informed the song’s title. “In My Room” builds steadily throughout the course of its runtime culminating with an enormous eruption that trickles out organically, while the following song “Rainfall” builds to a blistering peak of guitar distortion early on and simmers in a vat of field recordings smeared in reverb, and soft-swelling synth melodies peaking out beneath the rumbling of the samples. His careful restraint is felt throughout all of “Rainfall” as he teases another eruption that never quite arrives. The title track then follows suit, and continues in the vein of slow-burning, doom-laced ambience that sifts through a multitude of texture while it simmers eerily yet gorgeously for several minutes before transitioning into closer, “We Trigger the Sun”.

As “We Trigger the Sun” slowly drifts towards its majestic conclusion it ends Agora with the slightest hint of uplift, courtesy of calamitous, droning synths that envelop the mix in a bright haze. Agora doesn’t end too differently from where it began, and it’s remarkable to hear how Fennesz managed to wring such potent emotion out of such a narrow set of parameters. No two songs on Agora sound alike, but the pacing of each individual song, and the sequencing of the record on the whole, renders it a spectacularly cohesive listen. For nearly two decades now Fennesz has proven himself to be one of ambient’s greatest contemporary practitioners, and with Agora he’s continued to lean into his intuition for melody, atmosphere, texture, and tone, while trimming down his compositions so that, despite being unabashedly maximal, they still adhere to a purposeful sense of economy. Like most ambient music Agora necessitates your patience, and it doesn’t offer any immediate entry points to give a quick summation of what you’re getting into. But if you allow Agora to let its spectacular sound design wash over you, you’ll find that it's a pleasure to continuously lose yourself in its spellbinding current.

Essentials: “In My Room”, “We Trigger the Sun”

4. Remind Me Tomorrow- Sharon Van Etten

Sharon Van Etten has been releasing increasingly well-realized, intimate folk rock records for a full decade now, and with her fifth LP Remind Me Tomorrow she’s released what may very well go down as her magnum opus. Eschewing the narrow sonic parameters of all her prior records, RMT is a pristine, synth-pop record that’s brighter and bolder than anything that she’s released prior. The shift towards synths being the most prominent instrument in these compositions doesn’t fundamentally shift her songwriting the way that those sort of observations tend to posit. There’s still a hushed intimacy at the heart of her compositions, and the arrangements on RMT offer more texture and atmosphere than we’re used to hearing from her guitar-led compositions, but her approach to structure and songwriting remains recognizable to that of everything that she’s done prior. RMT is elevated, simply, by stronger songwriting and a heightened level of experimentation that Sharon has never really indulged in prior. There’s nothing that will rewrite your perception of her artistry, but it’s the most consistent and comprehensive testament to her greatness as musician to date.

What’s particularly impressive is how cohesive a listen RMT is despite such a heightened range on display throughout the entire record. All of her past LPs are cohesive, but they all work within incredibly narrow parameters. The album was produced by John Congleton, and therefore has an unsurprisingly massive sound that allows torch-bearing epics like “Seventeen” and “Hands” to tremble with an immense fervor that she’s never quite summoned beforehand. On RMT the downtempo, industrial-lite noir ballad “Jupiter 4” emerges right on the heels of the the synth-fuzz swagger of the record’s first single “Comeback Kid”, but nothing about it sounds contrived or forced. It’s easy to get the sense that Congleton may have encouraged her to step further out of her comfort zone than ever before, but regardless of the impetus the sheer audacity behind some of what she attempts here would be impressive even if they didn’t quite land with the impact that they do. The pacing is masterful, with comedown waltzes like “Malibu” and “Memorial” popping up after heavyweights like “Seventeen” and “No One’s Easy to Love” respectively. “You Shadow” and “Hands” emerge towards the end of RMT and each slowly continue to build up one final, cathartic peak before the serene closer, “Stay”. Sharon was well ahead of the pack of introspective singer-songwriters well before RMT dropped, but the vast gulf between her artistry and the bulk of her contemporaries has widened immensely as a result of this record’s eclecticism alone.

RMT is her first album in almost five years, and in that time Sharon has acted in the OA and Twin Peaks, she’s obtained a degree in psychology, she’s gotten married, and she’s had her first child. The album on the whole isn’t explicitly about motherhood, and the bulk of the songs actually focus on her relationship with her now husband, but that monumental transition animates every moment of the album with a renewed sense of focus and clarity. There are straightforward love songs like “Malibu” that revel in small details “I walked in the door/The Black Crowes playing as you cleaned the floor/I thought I couldn’t love him anymore” and some that are sonically more abstract like “Jupiter 4” that succinctly hone in on her emotional headspace “I’ve been waiting, waiting, waiting my whole life/For someone like you/It’s true that everyone would like to have met/A love so real” even as the songs threatens to collapse in on itself at any given moment. RMT’s first single “Comeback Kid” was the first indication of her sharp sonic overhaul while also hinting at the emotional stakes she was grappling with in her private life “Don’t let me slip away, I’m not a runaway/It just feels that way”.

“Hands” is a slow-burning, sludgy synth-pop song about getting over the small things in relationships that really don’t matter “Put your hands on your love/I’ve got my hands up/Mean no harm to one another” while “No One’s Easy to Love” illuminates Sharon’s reluctance to enter into another relationship with the ghosts of past ones continuing to haunt her “The resistance to feeling something that you put down before/But keep quiet of it as you could not face it anymore”. One of the record’s most powerful sentiments arrives on the last song “Stay”, with Sharon expressing how the love between a parent and child is a bond that will last a lifetime “You won’t let me go astray/You will let me find my way/You, you love me either way/You stay”. Her voice is calm but firm, and confident in the uncertainty about how the relationship between her and her child will progress outside of the love that she’ll always feel. It's one of the most tender and vulnerable moments in a discography with songs brimming with those descriptors, and it ties the rest of RMT together as a snapshot of what her life looked like as she transitioned into motherhood.

The highlights on RMT are immense, and every song here is worth talking about, but the song that's impossible to ignore, which happens to be the greatest song that she’s ever written, is “Seventeen”. An epic of grand proportions in the lineage of Springsteen epics of grand proportions, “Seventeen” slowly builds and builds and builds while quaking with a level of urgency I’ve only heard a few other times this decade. “Seventeen” is propelled by a motorik rhythm that underpins a delicate piano melody and a procession of blaring synths while Sharon’s voice increasingly swells with fervor. The song is about Sharon talking to her seventeen-year old self and trying to provide a sense of reassurance that things will turn out alright despite what she’s going through in the moment “I see you so uncomfortably alone/I wish I could show you how much you’ve grown”. As the centerpiece of RMT, it serves to reinforce how far Sharon has progressed as a musician throughout the decade, and RMT on the whole hints at a myriad of other compelling directions that she may take her sound moving forward.

Essentials: “Seventeen”, “Jupiter 4”, “Hands”, “No One’s Easy to Love”

3. Leak 04-13 (Bait Ones)- Jai Paul

Before June of this year I thought there was a very strong chance that I would never get to hear Jai Paul’s exceptional debut LP. After it leaked in early April 2013 all traces of it vanished from the face of the internet and Jai went dormant. “BTSTU Demo” and “Jasmine Demo” were the only songs that he actually released from the album, and those two alone suggested that Jai was onto something truly idiosyncratic. They teased a remarkably well-realized fusion of Prince, Neon Indian, and J Dilla with a lighter, more malleable touch. After Bait Ones leaked Jai went reclusive, but as the decade progressed you could hear the influence of those irresistible leaks trickling down into the entire landscape of pop music, particularly when sampled by de-facto gatekeepers like Drake and Beyonce. By early 2019 it should have been evident to anyone that heard those leaks that pop music throughout the second half of the decade had come to resemble a post-JP world despite there being only two songs officially released to his name. On June 1st of this year Jai released the leaks in their demo forms, sequenced the way that the leak was initially. Six years on from that leak, the demos not only validate the hype, but present something of a wunderkind who was years ahead of his time.

After an unassuming ten second interlude “Str8 Outta Mumbai” kicks off the record proper, and it becomes immediately clear that Bait Ones is a very different kind of pop album. Constructed from sleigh-bells, lazer synths, a propulsive low-end, samples of Ravi Shankar’s soundtrack to the film Meera, and Jai’s infectious, understated falsetto “Str8 Outta Mumbai” is remarkable for striking a simultaneous balance between sounding like a timeless classic and the future of pop music. Everything is layered superbly, nothing dominates the mix, and it’s difficult to fathom anyone arranging music quite like this save for Jai. “Str8 Outta Mumbai” is the best song that he’s released to date, and is well worth the price of admission alone, but it’s just the beginning. Following right afterwards is “Zion Wolf Theme Unfinished”, and it sustains the momentum of the former while continuing to showcase Jai’s intuitive sense of melody and rhythm and providing some meta-commentary on his elusive nature “Can I make you fall in love with me?”. The percussion is warm and jittery, and there’s the constant thrill of discovery at every moment as some new instrument enters the fold without disrupting the sense of flow. All of the songs on Bait Ones are beats that stretch the confines of pop music through the incorporation of eclectic styles, disparate genres, and the pervasive sensation of of borders eroding between different sounds and cultures. Nevertheless, Bait Ones has the feel of a plunderphonics record, with the sequencing in particular giving the impression that it was constructed from a patchwork of influences he plucked from in accordance to his whims alone.

The songs on Bait Ones all split the difference between art pop, synth pop, and r&b to seamless effect. Some songs are built around samples, but for the most part these are compositions that Jai recorded from the ground up himself. Aside from the intro interlude and the “Good Time” interlude, “Str8 Outta Mumbai” is the only song here that isn’t a demo. The official release of Bait Ones is very similar to the version that was leaked, with overall fidelity improvement and the removal of unlicensed samples being the primary differences. Bait Ones is sequenced the same way, but it’s clear that the overall mix on the vast majority of these songs isn’t quite finished yet. Nevertheless, the songs on this album are examples of pop music at its finest. The smooth bass and synth strut coupled with Jai’s sensuous vocal delivery on “Jasmine Demo”, the back and forth harmonies over flickering hi-hats and bright synth lines on “Genevieve Unfinished”, the gorgeous multi-tracked harmonies that close “100,000 Unfinished”, the short-lived, but satisfying clipped harmonies and stomping percussion on the “Baby Beat Unfinished” interlude, and the slow, synth-fuzz creep and overall superb arranging alongside Jai infectious vocal line on the “BTSTU Demo” are just a few of the many exceptional moments on Bait Ones where it sounds clear that Jai is just as intuitive and inventive, if not more so, as most of his peers. Bait Ones is a sharp example of pop at its most omnivorous, inviting, and curious. With just a little bit of tweaking, Bait Ones could have been a serious contender for AOTD.

Most of the songs on Bait Ones seem to touch on a missed connection and the struggle to remain present. On “Str8 Outta Mumbai” Jai struggles to strike up a conversation with a love interest “Want to talk to you, but you don’t know what to say/And you don’t know what to do” but makes a resolution that he’s in it for the long haul “Grinding, this ain’t no quick ting/I wanna last/It’s gonna take time”. “Jasmine Demo” and “Genevieve Unfinished” are tender pleas for connection, the former draped in funky basslines and soft synths swells while the latter is up-tempo synth-pop propelled by cow-bells, frantic kick drums, and bright synth arpeggios. On the other end of the spectrum there’s “Crush Unfinished”, which finds Jai taking things as they come and not rushing into anything serious “It’s just a little crush/Not like I faint every time we touch”. The rough vocal mixing actually heightens the sentiments that Jai expresses throughout the course of Bait Ones. Jai’s first song, “BTSTU Demo”, in a strange feat of prescience features the hook “I’ve been gone a long time/But I’m back and I want what’s mine”, which makes it a perfect fit for the album’s closer. There’s an undercurrent of weariness that runs throughout Bait Ones, a sense of trying to make up for lost time. By the time we reach “BTSTU demo” Jai sounds comparatively renewed, and unwilling to be taken advantage of any longer.

Along with the release of Bait Ones Jai released two one off singles titled “Do You Love Her Now” and “He” respectively that were recorded during the same sessions but weren’t leaked. Both “Do You Love Her Now” and “He” are great singles that rank up there with the rest of Bait Ones and confirm Jai as among pop’s true auteurs of the moment. It’s surreal to have the demos still in the same form as when they were leaked, as well as the prospect of new music from Jai supposedly on the horizon. Whether or not he ever decides to follow-up this masterful collection of demos seems uncertain, but it’s nothing short of miraculous that Jai saw fit to revisit the pain of having his work compromised for the sake of sharing it with the world this far after the leak. Few pop albums from this decade seemed to so fuse such disparate genres so seamlessly and inventively with such striking, undeniable melodic intuition. Bait Ones already sounds like a future benchmark of pop craftsmanship, the kind of record that still probably wouldn’t have gained a tremendous amount of traction had it been released through conventional channels, but one whose influence would still continue to ripple for years to come through the underground and mainstream alike regardless.

Essentials: “Str8 Outta Mumbai”, “BTSTU Demo”, “Zion Wolf Theme Unfinished”

2. U.F.O.F.- Big Thief

There are few musicians that have developed as remarkably this year as Big Thief. Their first two records, 2016’s Masterpiece and 2017’s Capacity, are both solid records that demonstrate a song command of songcraft and a striking, singular voice in songwriter and vocalist Adrianne Lenker, but with U.F.O.F. and then again later this year with Two Hands, Big Thief have become one of the best bands active period. U.F.O.F., the first of these two phenomenal records, is one of the most beautifully realized folk albums that I’ve had the pleasure of listening to all decade. The music is delicate, but sturdy, intricate and well-constructed but never showy despite the band’s considerable chops. The arrangements are economical and tight, and the band have superb chemistry with one another that allow the album’s naturalistic compositions to feel that much more organic than they would otherwise. Each of these songs unfolds with a natural sense of grace and patience that plays down how intricately they’re each composed. No other album this year achieved such a well-realized aesthetic, and for that alone U.F.O.F. is an impressive record. But the dreamy compositions coupled with Lenker’s wise-beyond-her-years voice touching on loss, nostalgia, growing old, and questioning who she is elevates U.F.O.F. to the state of one of the decade’s understated greats.

Big Thief is a four piece that, in addition to Adrianne Lenker, consists of guitarist Buck Meek, bassist Max Oleartchik, and drummer James Krivchenia. Each member of the band contributes equally to these recordings, and it’s unlikely that these songs would work with anyone else filling in for one or more of these roles. With the exception of the solo acoustic guitar and vocal interplay of “Orange” each of these songs is fleshed out considerably by the remaining members of the band, and the tight interplay between the members on U.F.O.F. is more pronounced than on the vast majority of records that I’ve heard this year. In a decade dominated by bedroom auteurs and laptops, the notion of a four-piece band playing dreamy folk songs skews downright subversive. But whereas Capacity found a hungry band that sounded unlike anyone else on the precipice of greatness, U.F.O.F. is the sound of that band mastering their voice and claiming a sound for themselves. Electric and acoustic guitars snake around each other nimbly, the rhythms unfurl patiently, and Lenker’s delivery is soothing and eerie simultaneously. Their music conjures all manner of nature, but through a surreal gaze that could only exist within your subconscious. Both “From” and “Terminal Paradise” originally appeared on Lenker’s solid 2018 debut solo LP Abysskiss, and while they were among the highlights of that record, when fleshed out with the rest of the band and rendered through the same production as the rest of U.F.O.F. their potency spikes dramatically. On U.F.O.F. Big Thief claim this sound for themselves alone.

As a lyricist and vocalist, Lenker has continued to develop immensely from record to record. The sentiments on U.F.O.F. are wise, touching, and ultimately profoundly human. She remains an astute observer and masterful impressionist, painting vivid scenes with the barest of words “Vacant angel, crimson light/Darkened eyelash, darkened eye/The white light of the living room/Leaking through the crack in the door/There was never need for more/Things we’re meant to understand/Crawling closer to your hand” as on the first verse of “Open Dessert”. The title track finds Lenker nostalgic for her home state of Minnesota “Going back home to the Great Lakes/Where the cattail sways/With the lonesome loon/Riding that train in late June” while “Contact” finds Lenker confronting her habitual state of feeling numb to everything around her “Wrap me in silk/I want to drink your milk/You hold the key/You know I’m barely, barely”. On “Strange” she’s contemplating the nature of mortality and the beauty that will outlive us “You have wings of gold/You will never grow old/And turquoise lungs/You have never been young” while “Century” seems to find Lenker contemplating power dynamics in a relationship “No resolution, no circling dove/Still caught in the jaw of confusion/Don’t know what I’d do for love/But stay another hour”. And on the stunning closer “Magic Dealer” Lenker looks back on her life so far with a resolution to remain more present moving forward “Starve, magic mirror/I thought the crumbs of your life wouldn’t dry/It hurts to see clearer/Falling like needles, the passage of time”.

Nothing on U.F.O.F. underwhelms or sounds out of place, but the best of what’s here makes a strong case that Big Thief have grown into one of the defining bands of their generation. Album opener “Contact” sets the tone with delicate fingerpicked guitar, jangly electric guitar, and a lumbering tom rhythm that lays a nice foundation, but by the time the chorus hits Lenker delivers a goose-bump inducing vocal melody that propels their cozy arrangements into anthemic territory. The singles “U.F.O.F.” and “Cattails” are both delightfully knotty compositions that sustain the wanderlust temperament through faint traces of droning bass, the aforementioned intertwining guitars, and sparse percussion. “Century” provides a nice mid-point breather with a jaunty rhythm and some of Lenker’s sharpest and most restrained melodies, while “Strange” chugs along with a comparatively quick rhythm and steadily builds into, what might have been a piercing guitar solo on Two Hands, but is instead a cathartic wall of Lenker’s multi-tracked voice that soars triumphantly over a rollicking bass solo. And on career highlight “Jenni” Big Thief come the closest that they’ve ever come to straight up shoegaze as the band chug along at a crawl while thoroughly enveloped by distortion. The pacing is immaculate, and when the chorus of “Jenni’s in my room” hits, it lands like one of the most awe-inducing moments that I’ve listened to on a song all year. It’s the sound of Big Thief fearlessly pushing past their acknowledged parameters, and into the unknown.

By the time we reach “Magic Dealer”, Big Thief have completely grown into themselves as a band “. They play with a sweeping serenity that feels timeless, but somewhat far removed from the current musical climate. There’s something profoundly human that the four members of Big Thief are able to tap into with their playing that imbues their compositions with a heightened sense of catharsis. Adrianne Lenker is able to articulate what’s ultimately so sacred about human life, her voice aching and tender but with firm conviction. Their intensity and earnestness sound genuine and well-earned, and there’s no pretense of self-righteousness or self-seriousness. Two Hands is a remarkable record in its own right, and cements their position as one of the most compelling bands currently active, but it’s U.F.O.F. that stands as their magnum opus to date. Their progression into the sublime, singular indie folk band that they are today is genuinely inspiring, and their 2019 records provide a compelling example of a band breathing new life into well-worn forms of music. U.F.O.F. and Two Hands provide an engrossing dichotomy of the band’s sound, and regardless of where they decide to take their sound moving forward, it’s clear that right now Big Thief simply cannot miss. Contrary to what one of the decade’s most relentless myths would lead you to believe, bands like Big Thief have helped ensure that guitar music is in a great place at the moment.

Essentials: “Jenni”, “Strange”, “Contact”

1. House of Sugar- (Sandy) Alex G

Very few artists have released a body of work this decade that’s as rich and rewarding as that of Alex Giannascoli’s. After having released several great records on bandcamp he signed to Domino starting with his great 2015 grab-bag Beach Music, followed by his terrific, eclectic 2017 record Rocket, and this year he dropped his magnum opus and eighth LP House of Sugar. On HoS Alex marries his strongest proclivities, those being off-kilter, supremely melodic guitar pop songs with warped production and a plethora of pitch-shifted vocals that tastefully imbue his vignettes with direction and distinction. Most of the songs consist of Alex’s vocals, acoustic guitar, drums, piano, and bass, with a variety of synths that provide welcome texture all throughout. He’s also supported by a variety of musicians that he tours with, in addition to the vocals and violin of Molly Germer and vocals of Emily Yacina. The songs are richer, and generally more unpredictable than we’re used to from Alex, but they perfectly exemplify his gift for songcraft through strong melodies, engrossing narratives around gluttony and deceit, and spectacular production. It’s not quite as immediate as 2012’s Trick or 2014’s DSU, and it doesn’t have the kind of range that 2017’s Rocket does, but on the whole HoS is the most well-realized record that Alex has released to date. It caps off a strong decade of experimentation from one of the most exciting voices in music at this moment.

Like the rest of his records, HoS was written and recorded primarily by Alex, but contains plenty of tasteful contributions from members of his touring band that also helped flesh out Rocket including Samuel Acchione, Colin Acchione, John Heywood, and David Allen Scoli, Molly Germer, and Emily Yacina. The music on HoS still retains the intimate, bedroom pop glow that’s marked all of his records despite the heightened fidelity. HoS is the richest, most beautifully produced record in his catalogue to date. More so than on any of his prior records HoS finds Alex seamlessly weaving analog and electronic instrumentation to infectious effect. Opener “Walk Away” begins with slurred pitched shifted vocals over warm acoustic guitar and within short order a lumbering drum beat, droning violins, and harmonized chants emerge alongside Alex’s low-pitched croon. “Walk Away” could have easily collapsed under the weight of how packed this mix is, but the pacing is sublime, and by the time a lone jangly violin begins to ripple down the mix it sounds like euphoria. The next few songs lean into Alex’s sweet-spot for infectious guitar pop, but by the time we hit career highlight “Gretel” HoS begins to shift back towards more abstract compositions. And a song like “Gretel” is just impossible to simply gloss over. Opening to chip-tune chants, a decayed synth melody, and a boom-bap drum beat “Gretel” erupts into sinister, distortion-laced guitar pop and quickly introduces one of the most anthemic melodies that he’s ever penned. Like Sharon Van Etten’s “Seventeen”, “Gretel” sounds like a victory lap, the culmination of sorts after an incredibly impressive decade as an artist despite in this case being a meditation on greed that twists the story of Hansel and Gretel into one where after leaving Hansel to die, Gretel can only think about returning for more candy “I don’t wanna go back/Nobody’s gonna push me off track/I see what they do/Good people got something to lose”. “Gretel” perfectly balances the dichotomy between sweet and sinister, and contains some of Alex’s best production to date.

Although the opening suite of songs on HoS consist of the singles, and therefore by default some of the record’s most buzzed about songs, the abstract, electronic-influenced (particularly what sounds like the influence of Oneohtrix Point Never) middle section of HoS accounts for some of the most compelling production of Alex’s career to date. “Taking” unfolds slowly as the acoustic guitar that opens the song begins to make way for what sounds like warped sitar drones, a barrage of chip-tune vocal melodies, and subdued synths. The repetitious, Panda Bear-esque vocal dirge “Near” provides some of his most thrilling, and unpredictable synth arranging to date while the following song “Project 2” is propelled by an erratic hi-hat/kick rhythm and radiates the new-age sheen of early decade vaporwave. The bad trip nightmare-fueled rush of “Sugar” bleeds otherworldly pitch-shifted vocals, violin arpeggios, and a sinister synth melody while providing a sublime transition between the jaunty, country-influenced swing of “Bad Man” to the acoustic ballad “In My Arms”. By this point Alex has gotten all of the overt electronic experimentation out of his system, and ends HoS with two more gorgeous acoustic ballads, “Cow” and “Crime” respectively, and the surprising, but welcome Springsteen-esque live cut of “Sugarhouse” (which doesn’t yet have a studio recording). HoS is paced superbly, and despite having more range than all of his records that aren’t Rocket, it remains a remarkably cohesive listen through even the most overt sonic shifts. While it’s understandable that many longtime fans of Alex G may have found some of the experiments on Rocket a little too gimmicky, on HoS it’s hard to deny that he completely commits to the warped-americana meets electronic guitar pop aesthetic, rendering the atmosphere rich and engrossing from start to finish.

The lyrics on HoS aren’t particularly direct for the most part, which shouldn’t have come as a surprise to any fans of his, but they do a nice job of framing his depraved vignettes which each fixate on characters succumbing to their gluttony. “Taking”, “Hope”, and “SugarHouse Live” hone in on drug dependency, with the narrator of “Taking” succumbing to it “That’s how she found me this morning/Buried my head in her arms/Lifted my spoonful of sugar/Taking”, “Hope” providing a harrowing look at the havoc that opioids have wreaked in Alex’s community from a survivor’s perspective “Yeah, Fetanyl took a few lives from our life/Alright” and “SugarHouse Live” using gambling as a metaphor for drug addiction “You never really met me/I don’t think anyone has/But we could still be players together/Let SugarHouse pick up the tab”. “Near” depicts its narrator in a state of unrelenting lust “I said no/Hold my hair/I’m not there/Black feather/Come big boy/Tear me up/Draw my blood/No fucking” while “Crime” finds its narrator sidestepping his comeuppance for an unidentified misdeed “They killed him for the crime/But I know that they’re mistaken/It was me the whole time”. Throughout HoS Alex does a superb job of blending reality and fiction to deliriously blurry effect, with aspects of both informing one another and making it increasingly difficult to hone in on the distinction.

HoS doesn’t have too many songs with the kind of immediacy that many of his past LPs have, but the highs on HoS are without question the best songs that he’s ever written. “Hope” opens with unbearable devastation “He was a good friend of mine/He died/Why write about it now?/Gotta honor him somehow” and finds Alex singing about the opioid crises in Philidelphia, “You can write a check in my name/Eddie take the money and run” over some of the sharpest guitar arrangements of his yet. On “Southern Sky” Alex, along with the harmonies of Emily Yacina and Molly Germer, provides one of the most gorgeous vocal melodies of his to date over jangly acoustic guitar, violin, and a lumbering rhythm. The warped collage breakdown “Sugar” is one of the most fascinating songs that he’s recorded to date, and is perpetually on the verge of breaking down as guitar drones, violin arpeggios, and the unsettling, borderline-incomprehensible vocals “You will be a bird/All of my life/Whirl in the air/Speck in the sky” collide violently with one another. The tender deep-cut “Cow” ranks as among Alex’s most beautiful songs, even more so for obfuscating the object of his affection “You big old Cow/You draw me out/Lie on the ground/Kiss on the mouth”. Most of HoS takes multiple listens before the pleasures of each song begin to emerge, but few records I’ve heard this year struck such a fine balance between immediacy and abstraction.

From Race through HoS it’s hard to deny that Alex G has had a remarkably fruitful decade of releases. With HoS he’s cemented his status as one of the most compelling artists in not just indie rock, but music in general. His surreal storytelling, sharp melodic instincts, and relentless tinkering have propelled his rich catalogue of lo-fi DIY releases onto a level, alongside Car Seat Headrest’s Will Toledo, that’s far beyond the bulk of his peers. HoS, alongside Rocket before it, has further expanded the parameters of Alex’s sound, and teases a multitude of future directions that he could pursue that are far beyond anything that records like Race or Winner could have ever suggested. That sense of unpredictability and adventurous spirit are traits of his music that are just as compelling as the singular voice and immense sense of intimacy that all of his music is imbued with, and with each release from DSU onward those traits of his have been paying some serious dividends. Regardless of what his next record sounds like (I’m really hoping for some freak-folk or straight up ambient) it’s impossible for me to not to just give him the benefit of the doubt at this point. As long as Alex is following the direction of his whims alone, the results will likely remain captivating for many years to come.

Essentials: “Gretel” ft. Molly Germer, “Cow”, “Southern Sky”, “Sugar” ft. Molly Germer, “Hope” ft. Molly Germer & Emily Yacina

#alex g #big thief #Jai Paul #Sharon Van Etten #fennesz #fka twigs #purple mountains #weyes blood #oso oso #Thom Yorke

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whatdoyouexpectthistime · 4 years

Text

Blood Spatter - Part 6

Part 1 : Part 2 : Part 3 : Part 4: Part 5

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Eyes turned to focus on them as Kiril urged Miho away from the table to where there was enough room to dance. This fictitious crowd bowed their heads respectfully, curtsied, before Kiril twirled Miho around.

“There have been many balls such a this,” he told her, their faces close.

“How are you controlling all of this in such detail and yet still able to form sentences?” Miho blinked, still preoccupied by their surroundings to pay too much notice to Kiril’s touch,

“You think women are the only ones able to multi-task?” he huffed, squeezing her body a little tighter against him. “The blood of a true vampire is very potent… among other things.”

At this, Miho sputtered out a laugh and accidentally trod on his toes, and their slight stumble saw them slide directly through a passing couple.

“I’m sorry,” she chuckled stepping back into the rhythm of their graceful path around the glittering space. “But that…”

“I wonder what potent thing you are imagining, Sparrow,” he grinned, knowing full well the innuendo he’d made.

“What’s with the nickname?” she asked on a different tangent, but it had been something she’d thought about on and off.

“Sparrows are small and delicate,” he replied easily, spinning her with the dramatic flourish of intangible cloth.

“Delicate? Me?” she snorted, somewhat proving her point.

“And you have this furtive awareness, always looking for danger,” he added.

“Ah, can you blame me?” she laughed, gasping a little when he leaned her back draped over one arm.

“No, I cannot,” he conceded, staring down at her with suddenly greater focus.

From her eyes, to her lips, his gaze then travelled to the extension of her neck, and as she noted this, Miho’s muscles tensed.

“You look hungry,” she exhaled quietly, her fingers clenching tighter against his jacket. “Should I be sensing danger?”

“Do not doubt I want to taste what Alex stole,” Kiril admitted, the hand not holding her reclined touching lightly to the line of her jaw before trailing slowly downward. “His trespass was unforgivable.”

“Because he attacked me without provocation and that was wrong, or because the alpha male in you thinks my hunter blood should only be for you?” she breathed, but her eyes had narrowed sharply.

Slowly, maintaining eye-contact, he brought her upright, so close the tips of their noses were touching.

“Yes,” he told her quietly, and Miho was so transfixed, so consumed by the lush gleam of his eyes, that it took her several seconds to notice the orchestral music had ceased, as had the movement of bodies around them.

“I should kick your ass for that response,” she told him flatly, but he saw the continuation of her statement twitching on her lips.

“But?” he prompted.

“But I’d rather you kissed me,” she admitted, but Kiril still did not look especially moved.

“Why then, do you not kiss me?” he offered, challenge smeared across the slight upward tweak of his mouth.

Glowering, Miho lifted herself a little onto her toes and leaned forward, pressing against him with her lower body while her lips drew closer to him; then she smugly pulled back, just before their mouths made contact – she made a point of showing him he was not the only one capable of playing games.

At this he was not pleased.

“Frustrating, isn’t i…” Miho began, but the air was crushed from her as he tightened one arm, and with the other slid his hand into her hair and brought her face to his.

It’s a ravenous kiss so fierce I think I might disappear inside him completely, sparking a fire almost beyond my control. Every inch of my skin is suddenly singing a heavenly choir of rapture – and it’s terrifying just how ready I feel to face the apocalypse, if only to prolong this a little more. As my fingers dig into the taut muscles of his upper arms I can feel just how much he wants me too; I’m doing more than flirting with danger now, but whatever spell he’s got me under I don’t think I can resist it for much longer.

Even at the nip of his teeth against my lower lip, I’m still so caught up in the desire to taste his skin I ignore the potential of him biting down just a little too hard. Oh God, my head is spinning because I can’t remember the last time I took a breath – and I don’t care.

My gasp echoes around the hall, now empty but for Kiril and I, my panting a stark contrast to his complete composure. But his eyes are devouring me so indecently I cannot bring myself to move my face any further than I absolutely need to ensure I don’t pass out.

“See?” I grin in dizzy triumph. “You’re not the only one who always gets what he wants.”

“Is that all you want?” he enquires, the seriousness of the question dropping the floor from under my feet.

What he wants is obvious, and I simply cannot deny I want it too – trying to convince myself otherwise is now futile.

“Aren’t my thoughts loud enough for you now?” I volley, brushing my fingertips beneath the collar of his shirt.

“You told me not to intrude, Sparrow,” he points out, teasingly pecking at my cheeks. “So you are just going to have to be explicit.”

“Oh, explicit is exactly what I’m thinking,” I reply breathily, chasing his lips until he allows me to warm them with my own once more. “Distract me from this insufferable waiting, Kiril.”

“Is that what I am? A distraction?” he frowns, but the way he’s tugging me against his body by the waist tells me right now it’s highly unlikely he cares about anything other than getting me naked.

“Distraaaaaact me,” I hiss against his throat, before kissing up under his chin.

His reaction startles me at first, giving me a shove away, but his sharp bark at the pair of attendants to clean up precedes the equally as sharp snatch of my hand and the swift jerk of my body toward the exit.

There is a faint sense of travel, but the distance between the castle and my hotel is little more than a blur, pouring like molten liquid into the moment Kiril and I burst into my suite. The push and pull of emotions I’ve experienced since meeting him is full throttle forward – pull his jacket away, pull his shirt buttons free, pull his bare chest against mine.

The air rushes loudly from my lungs as I’m slammed against the door, and my legs wrap naturally around his waist; his tongue, cool and moist against the inflame of my skin, slithers maddeningly down my throat, across my collarbone and across my chest until his lips suck my left nipple into his mouth.

“Gaaaah,” I hiss as his teeth pinch, and a thrill of fear shakes magnitude 10 down my spine. “Kiril… wait…"

“Rrrrwhaaat?” he growls, lifting his head with a face full of fierce. “Do not tell me to stop.”

“No… not that,” I pant, helplessly drowning in his eyes, raking my fingers through his hair as I struggle to find more words. “No biting.”

“Are you afraid, Sparrow?” he whispers against my cheek, though his unflinching gaze doesn’t break contact.

A denial is derailed before I can voice it, the promising strain of his desire pressing between my legs.

“Yes,” I admit, a word frighteningly loud as even the sound of our heavy breathing vanishes.

“Good,” he praises, his wolfish grin at first suggesting a twisted satisfaction in my alarm, but then I see in the sudden stillness that’s gripped our bodies, it’s my honesty that has garnered his approval. “Trust me.”

“Take me,” I shudder out, and throw the last of my caution to the whirlwind that envelopes us both.

Thought gives way to pure sensation: the tearing of fabric refusing to give; the swimming intoxication of breath held far too long; the slick of perspiration and persistence.

Trembling in desperate anticipation, I welcome the weight of his body, frantic to smooth my palms over the sculpture of his muscles, aching for him to touch more than just the surface.

Begging like I have never felt lust before.

Teased from toe-tip to top to the very limit of my frustration, until he can see the wildness, the agonising fracture lines of my libido chasing every caress.

And begging like I have never felt lust before – or perhaps once – I had the taste of him in my mouth and the heaving delight of him within; even though it wasn’t him, even when it was no more than the craft of my imagination and a warm substitute.

Now there is no need, but need for him, and had I sense of anything other than that, my pride might protest. But he is every bit as hungry as I am.

Ravenous, he drags me up, a puppet sobbing feverishly for him to end my suffering. My body curls, back arches as he reaches around to dance his fingers against the throb of my suffering, and I can’t hold out any longer.

It doesn’t sound like my voice, but somehow it’s the most natural utterance I’ve ever made - a choking moan without meaning to be a word, just the pure expression of my body’s inability to comprehend anything other than the pleasure of Kiril tipping me over the edge.

The way he pulls back on my hair, the gratification of his teeth grazing my shoulder, that he is unrelenting even as I convulse, is finally punctuated by the surprisingly slow ease of him inside me. This delicious pressure from within, slow, measured strokes, causes my muscles to contract so tightly I may never unwind.

Who cares?

I’m a tense ball of yearning wanting more, rocking myself against him forcefully until I’m rewarded by his voice mingling with mine in incoherent harmony.

“Sparrow,” he grates out through his teeth, my earlobe bearing the brunt of his next assault in a stinging bite that draws close to breaking his word, but doesn’t.

“Don’t stop,” I breathe giddily, grasping for enough air to fill my lungs but light-headed regardless as another storm breaks over me.

Thunder rumbling at my very centre.

Lightning searing every nerve ending.

There is no way to distinguish between sweat and tears of ecstasy, but neither he or I care.

In a slight moment of terrible respite, my back hits the bedsheets and I peer up at Kiril looming over me with an ardent restraint I both hate and admire.

“What?” I swallow heavily, unable to keep from squirming as he poises at my entrance but moves no more.

“I want to burn that face you are making, into my memory,” he declares, and it’s now, now that he’s hovering above looking down at me I see his teeth, his fangs, the touch of his tongue tapping one point.

My chest stops moving; I am mesmerized.

“No,” he whispers, leaning slowly forward to frame my face with large hands, lying against me with a tenderness I do not associate with monsters, “not that face,” he continues, brushing my lower lip with one thumb before burying himself inside me again.

With his head nuzzling into the crook of my neck, his hands slithering up my arms to grip my wrists and hold them firmly down, I know there is nothing I can do to fight him – if he’s going to kill me, I’ll die.

It’s not death that’s bubbling in my veins though, not death tingling through every fibre of my body, nor are the screams Kiril smothers with his tongue cries for help – it’s a star gone supernova consuming everything in its path.

And if he stops now without filling me to the brim?

Perhaps that is death.

“That is the face,” he groans, and I open my eyes to see his - wild and shameless - trying to fix me in his focus as I watch him come undone.

Kiril’s voice drifts softly to where I lie comfortably beneath the bed covers. Blearily, I try to blink away the tattered remnants of sleep and listen in.

“… control freak,” Kiril sniffs, standing by the window with the bright of morning cutting a black silhouette out of the day. “Give me more time.”

There he pauses. I cannot hear who he’s talking to, but he doesn’t seem irritated or in any way put out.

Typical Kiril.

Though I make no attempt to hide my interest in his conversation, sitting up, my interest moves from his lips to the bare of his chest. There are no marks on his skin where last night my fingernails broke the surface in my ardour.

Our ardour.

Slowly, my eyes widen, because beneath the sheets I’m a mess, and I’m a mess because…

“Oh shit,” I gasp, suddenly scrambling to free myself of the tangle.

“Just do it, Narumi,” Kiril huffs, turning to fix me in his gaze. “I have to go.”

The hand holding his phone drops to his side, and I become motionless.

A naked, vulnerable example of intimacy without protection.

“I’m ahh… I’m going to…” I mutter.

“You look like death,” he smirks, amused as he makes absolutely no effort to hide his appreciation of my figure.

“Kiril… we… I’m…”

“Yes, a frightful reminder of the things I would very much like to repeat,” he grins, approaching.

“You need to tell me right now,” I demand in a fluster, pointing at him almost in accusation. “Can you get me pregnant?”

Kiril blinks, but his surprise is feigned.

“We could try I suppose,” he offers, spreading his hands and approaching with clear intent.

“This isn’t funny, Kiril, can a vampire get a human pregnant? Because I don’t want some needle-teeth horror chewing its way out of my body.”

“Then it is lucky I do not sparkle in the sunlight,” he smiles, but I shuffle back before he can touch me.

“I am not joking!” I cry in agitated frustration, only to find myself swiftly backed up against the wall.

“And I am not laughing,” he hisses against my lips, our noses point to point. “Do I seem a man who longs for the complication of a child?”

“Just tell me you can’t get me pregnant,” I sigh, shivering as his fingers brush my bare hip.

“You and I, cannot have children,” he assures me gently, but his grin is teasing.

“And other things? Oh god, where was my head when I just…” I rush on, thinking about all the diseases one might catch from unprotected sex.

“I am not sure where yours was, but mine,” he chuckles, smoothing hair over my ear as he breathes against my cheek, “was somewhere deep, and dark, warm and beautiful.”

“I bet you say that to all the vaginas,” I stammer out, my fingers tensing against his sides, hankering to dig in.

“Those conversations do not usually last very long,” he admits, kissing one cheek lightly then moving to the other, “but I would definitely like to resume the discussion I began with yours last night.”

“Now you’re just being vulgar,” I snort, but a smile tugs my lips upwards as he lightly kisses them again.

What I’m doing – other than the obvious – I don’t know. What I do know, is being touched by Kiril is unlike anything else, and it’s utterly stupid how much I want him to never stop.

After running the water cold with activities other than cleaning, Miho dressed and sat on her suite’s balcony in the mid-morning sun. She’d been staring at her phone for some time before inhaling deeply and calling a number she had not hesitated to dial in the past.

It rang only once before Sebastian answered, and the image of him crouched over it, glaring, waiting for it to ring flashed in Miho’s mind’s eye.

“Have you any idea how worried I’ve been?” were the first words he said, and Miho rubbed her brow where a frown instantly formed.

If his concern for her was indeed so fierce, why had he not told her about the vampire in their midst? Why had he been so cryptic about his warnings to stay away from Kiril when he had to have known she would push back when not provided with a valid reason.

“Would you have accepted the real reason if he’d told you?” she wondered silently, finally responding loud. “I’m pleased to hear from you too, Sebastian.”

“Really? You know, if that were true, you might have responded to the fifty message I’ve left for you already,” he snapped.

“I’ve been running all over Prague looking for my missing best friend,” she volleyed curtly, her mood quick to darken. “Imagine Selina went AWOL,” she continued, leaning forward in her seat, “because that is how I feel right now, how I’ve been feeling, so I’m sorry if I’ve gone deaf to all your warning-warning danger Will Robinson over Kiril Lambert.”

A short silence ensued, during which time Miho sucked in a deep breath and flopped back; she hadn’t meant to be quite so savage.

“Uh, I’m sorry,” she sighed, rolling her eyes across the city. “I’m really exhausted, and Jazz’s trail’s gone cold.”

Why she was especially tired, she did not say.

“I don’t mean to badger you, Miho,” he responded, his voice also tempered by apology, “but that family are just so dangerous. I don’t want you to get hurt anymore.”

“Then tell me everything at Pale is fine,” she replied, trying to muster up some positivity. “I hope you’ll manage to give Selina some of your time.”

“You know she loves the club,” Sebastian conceded, letting the matter of the Lamberts go – or the moment. “I actually think she was happier helping Mieke and I out than she would have been having boring old dinner with her boring old brother.”

It wasn’t the first time Selina Ross had visited and spent time at Pale, and though she was several years younger, Miho quite liked the girl. There was an infectious optimism about her that made being grumpy almost impossible, and patrons at the club found that incredibly magnetic.

Having her around was good for business.

“I doubt very much she travelled all that way to see the club,” Miho chuckled. “Boring old or not, kid sisters and big brothers have special relationships.”

As she spoke those last few words, Kiril stepped out onto the balcony behind her.

“Maybe,” Sebastian grunted, and there was another pause before he spoke again, during which time Kiril made it clear he wasn’t going to give Miho space to finish her call in privacy. “So, I meant Mieke and I can handle things here but, if there’s nothing…”

“I’m not coming home without her,” Miho stated flatly, staring up at Kiril whose lips began to part as if he meant to speak.

In warning, Miho sharply raised a finger and her stare became a glower. The last thing she needed was for Sebastian to recognise Kiril’s voice. Teasingly, he leaned closer.

“I know you love her,” Sebastian said somberly, “just, promise me you won’t destroy yourself in this search.”

“I’m a big gi…” Miho began, but Sebastian cut her off, his tone of voice absolutely serious.

“Promise me,” he insisted, and hearing him, Kiril’s eyebrows twitched downward.

“You know I don’t like making promises,” Miho answered carefully, “especially ones I may not be able to keep, but… I promise I will keep my eyes open and my wits about me.”

A heavy exhale signalled Sebastian’s surrender.

“Okay, well, you know how to reach me if you need anything, so call me,” he added.

“I will,” Miho affirmed. “Say hi to Selina for me.”

“Will do.”

That ended the conversation, and Miho dropped her phone into her lap, chewing the inside of her cheek for a few seconds until Kiril’s shadow across her caused the bloom of a shiver.

“Mr. Ross seems very invested in your wellbeing,” he noted, and it might have sounded casual but for the slight scowl he was wearing.

“Friends usually are,” Miho shrugged, trying not to play into his looming broodiness.

“You and he…”

“Don’t finish that sentence, or question or thought,” she huffed, rocking to her feet and standing, but Kiril caught her wrist before she could slip back inside.

“Which question would that be?” he queried. “Whether you are in a relationship with him? Sleeping with him? I suppose that would go some way to explaining his unusually high level of hostility toward me.”

“Yes,” Miho replied ambiguously.

Kiril’s touch was warm – generally it was not, and it reminded her of the first time he’d warmed his skin for her.

“That, and I imagine in large part because he doesn’t like the idea of a vampire making a meal out of his boss,” Miho added.

“Mmm, just his boss. Doubtful,” he asserted, walking his fingers up my other arm in a gesture Miho thought was absurdly cute – so much so she couldn’t help but laugh. “What?”

“And what if Sebastian and I are a thing?” she posed, teasingly, and Kiril’s expression became serious.

“One more reason to kill him,” he answered flatly, pulling her against him and trapping her in his arms with her back to his chest.

“Don’t you dare!” she hissed, struggling as he nudged her closer the balustrade and lowered one hand to the front of her pants.

“Or what, little Sparrow?” he smiled against the shell of her ear, his fingers burrowing into her underwear.

“Fuck you, Kiril,” Miho growled, squirming as he rubbed against her, but her declaration sounded less fierce as his name twisted into a moan.

“It is kind of you to be so explicit in your invitation,” he hummed against her throat, grinding against her even as she squinted at the street.

“Someone is going to see us,” she grumbled, fighting a losing battle with her self-restraint. “Damnit, why does this feel so good?”

“I have had a lot of practice,” he responded, delving into her with slow strokes – one, two, three fingers - until the volume of her encouragements grew conspicuous. “Sing louder, Sparrow,” he groaned into her hair. “Let all of Prague know how I make you feel.”

Clenching her teeth, Miho resisted that urge, trapping cries in her chest even as Kiril began to work free the buttons of her blouse.

Then his phone rang.

“Ignore it,” he snapped quickly, withdrawing from her so he could tend to his own pants, but this afforded Miho a moment of clarity.

“Kiril, answer it,” she panted. “What if it’s Arno?”

“Grrr,” Kiril snarled, standing straight and digging out the phone, barking into it the moment he answered. “What?”

With a hand on her chest, heart beating wildly beneath her palm, Miho stumbled into a seat. And her heart wasn’t the only thing pulsing – she was sure if there was any more friction, even if she just crossed her legs, she was going to lose it.

Instead, she tried to focus on what Kiril was saying. His expression had sobered, but his body was still tensed… everywhere.

“We made our agreement, and I will keep it if your information turns out to be accurate,” he said curtly shifting over to Miho, whose hand reached up to him without prompting. “We will head there now,” he continued, his lips pinching when Miho traced her fingers lightly around the front of his pants. “Mhm, ensure your people do not alert them.”

Grinding his teeth, he listened to his caller’s response while Miho palmed him, grinning up cheekily.

“Fine,” he grunted, then without bidding his caller farewell, he hung up and tossed his phone aside before grabbing Miho’s hand.

“Sparrow, you are asking for trouble,” he warned, dragging her back to her feet. “Here I have the location of our fugitives, but all I want is to tear your clothes off.”

“God, I can’t believe I want you to,” Miho shuddered, wrapping her arms around his neck. “But Jazz? They really found her?”

“According to Arno,” Kiril confirmed, his forehead lowered to hers. “But right now I do not want to leave this suite.”

“You deliver Jazz to me, and I’ll do whatever you ask,” Miho exhaled breathily, tapping her fingers against the swell in is pants for extra emphasis. “And I’ll even enjoy it.”

“Get your coat,” he dropped, before clicking his tongue and forcing himself to turn away from her.

In a flurry, Miho did as she was bid, the burning in her loins distracted by the prospect of finally seeing Jazz again. Kiril hadn’t said whether Arno described her physical state, but Miho assumed Kiril would extend the courtesy of preparing her for the worst if… if what they’d found was a corpse in a ditch somewhere.

In the cab she couldn’t keep still, fidgeting and twisting in her seat. Though Kiril sat beside her watching, her mind was elsewhere – what she would say to Jazz, how relieved she would feel, how to hold her tears back so she could yell at her for just up and disappearing.

“This waiting is unbearable,” she muttered, wringing her fingers until her knuckles cracked, until Kiril closed much larger hands around hers.

Immediately she sat up a little straighter, the touch of his flesh against hers like an aphrodisiac that made her thighs quiver.

“According to Arno’s people, both Konstantin and Jazz are located on the outskirts of Prague in a cute little cottage… playing house,” he explained, sounding exasperated.

“Playing house,” Miho repeated quietly to herself, gnawing on her lower lip before leaning back and looking up into Kiril’s face. “With a vampire? Is that even possible?”

Immediately Miho could tell Kiril had heard her thoughts, but he said nothing.

Miho considered her feelings for Kiril more seriously now. If Jazz had run away to be with Konstantin…

“You were talking to Narumi earlier,” Miho stated out of the blue. “Is something going on?”

“Hmmm,” Kiril hummed thoughtfully. “Konrad is wondering where his favourite son has disappeared to, and doesn’t have his least favourite son to take it out on.”

“What does that mean?” Miho frowned. “Is he going to send an army to march on Prague and extract you?”

At this Kiril emitted a pithy laugh.

“For Konstantin, perhaps, but not for the like of me,” he expounded. “If his golden child does not return soon, he may indeed send agents in search of him. Better that he goes back of his own accord.”

“And is Narumi on your side, or your father’s?” Miho pressed, trying to distract herself with backstory.

This caused Kiril to chuckle.

“Konrad is a tyrant,” he asserted. “No one is truly on his side, at least not out of choice. Fear maybe.”

“Is he really that much of a monster?” Miho scowled, then continued. “So, if he found out I was a hunter?”

“That in and of itself is not enough to condemn you,” he explained, but lifted a hand to her cheek. “But treaties are tenuous things, Sparrow. It is best you tell no one about yourself, not even Jazz.”

This caused Miho to frown.

“Jazz and I don’t keep secrets from one another,” she declared, her lips quivering as Kiril’s thumb approached them.

“We both know that is not true,” he smiles slowly. “Or she would not have disappeared without your knowledge.”

“You’re assuming Konstantin didn’t force her,” she scowled, her stomach churning. “Kiril, if she is with him, if she has been with him all this time… could he… would he turn her?”

There was silence but for the rhythmic sound of the car.

“It is a possibility,” Kiril answered eventually watching her reaction closely.

“What will that mean?” she exhaled, leaning into his hand until her head slipped to his shoulder.

“Complications,” he replied, idly stroking Miho’s hair, “but nothing I cannot handle.”

“Complications how?” Miho persisted.

“My father has no love for the turned vampire,” Kiril explained, disdain thick in his voice. “In the hierarchy of influence, they are even less than humans; the turned are a bastardised form of pure vampire blood, stains he refuses to acknowledge as of worth to his domain.”

Miho pondered this, but the brush of his fingers against her scalp made it difficult to think.

“If Konstantin has turned your friend,” Kiril continued. “If they fled together and Konrad finds out they are involved, he will kill her.”

“He’ll have to go through me,” Miho snarled, straightening, and Kiril pinched the back of her neck.

“He will kill you too, Sparrow,” he pointed out. “Especially you.”

“Narumi,” Miho scowled. “Whose side is she on?”

“Hmph,” Kiril snorted, his fingers slackening. “Narumi Is in the unenviable position of being caught between her place in the aristocracy and Konrad’s law-keeper, and what she believes is right.”

“So if she finds out I’m a hunter?” Miho prompted.

“It would be a terrible shame if I had to kill her,” Kiril mused. “I actually like her.”

“You’d kill her?” Miho frowned, shifting her body a little sideways so she could look into his face. “For me?”

“Let us not dwell too much on hypotheticals,” he responded, leaving the question unanswered. “Soon we shall have the information we require to move forward, and prevent Konrad from becoming more of problem for anyone.”

Soon the city gave way to green countryside, and in the hills to the south of Stradonice, the car came to a stop at the entrance to a dirt road where a man stood waiting.

Fiercely biting into her lower lip, Miho approached him with Kiril at her side, watching and listening as the pair spoke in Czech. Impatiently she scraped her toe through the gravel, until the man turned to his own car.

“There is a cottage half a kilometre up this track,” Kiril reported, taking Miho’s hand and pulling her into motion. “According to our friend, Konstantin and Jazz are both inside.”

“How the hell did they find them out here?” she whispered, as much to herself as to him.

“I imagine Arno really wanted to avoid the consequences of not locating them,” Kiril answered, and continued. “When we reach the house, allow me to approach first.”

She didn’t question why. If they had gone to such lengths to disappear, then they may not be all that happy about being discovered. Still, Miho couldn’t imagine Jazz ever doing her harm, vampire or not.

At the sight of the cottage, Miho found herself barely able to breathe, and Kiril gave her hand a squeeze.

“Wait here,” he instructed, and after releasing her he pushed through the picket gate and began up the path to the front door.

“Wait here,” Miho sigh, resuming her lower lip attack until she couldn’t stand it anymore.

Kiril pulled back the tattered fly-screen door and knocked three times against the chipped paint of the wooden door beneath. He could sense Miho at his back, knew she wouldn’t listen, but focused his hearing on any sounds of movement.

Then he was gone, one blink and he had dashed away, leaving Miho blinking at the space where he’d stood. She could only think he’d hear something and rushed off to intercept it.

“Jazz!” she shouted, shouted with all the energy she had, and after stomping up onto the porch she turned the front door knob.

Beneath her palm it turned, and steeling herself, she moved into the dim interior of the cottage.

“Jazz?” she called again, this time a little more discreetly, but her answer came not in the form of her best friend’s voice, but in a loud crash and the sound of splintering wood.

There was little time to wonder at how her reflex was to run toward the sound rather than away from it – before rational thought blossomed, Miho had sprinted through the unfamiliar house and burst out the back door.

“Do not run,” Kiril warned, pointing at where Konstantin was struggling from the hole in the side of the cottage he’d made with his body’s impact. “For the chosen son you are a real pain in the ass.”

“Jazz,” Miho dropped in a breathy whisper, and the blonde woman’s head snapped in her best friend’s direction.

“Miho?” she mouthed, barely a sound at all – just enough for Miho to hear, enough to break the dam that held back the tears.

But Jazz’s expression was a conflicted twist of joy and angst, and her eyes darted between the two brothers before returning to Miho.

“My life has nothing to do with you Kiril,” Konstantin growled, brushing off his shoulders.

“Do you have any idea…?” Miho wept.

“Konrad has tasked Narumi to find you…” Kiril volleyed.

“I didn’t want to hurt you…” Jazz murmured, taking a hesitant step toward her friend.

“No, Jazz!” Konstantin called out urgently. “If Konrad’s looking for us we need to get even further away.”

“Who do you think our father is exactly?” Kiril rumbled, stalking toward his brother again. “There is no place you can hide he will not find you.”

“I thought you were dead,” Miho sobbed, peering up from where she’d sunken to the ground, Jazz’s figure wavering through tears like a ghost. “Are you dead?”

“I’m…” Jazz began, but her sentence faltered.

As Kiril and Konstantin physically clashed once more, Jazz crouched down before Miho and lightly placed her hands on Miho’s knees.

“… it’s complicated now,” she finished, Miho’s raw pain cutting her deeply; but she knew she deserved it and more.

“Why couldn’t you tell me about this? About him?” Miho choked out, taking hold of Jazz’s hands tightly, wrapping warm fingers around cold.

So cold that her eyes widened.

“You… He…” she stammered, blinking furiously to clear her vision. “Did he force this on you?”

Miho stopped listening despite having asked a question. The answer had already formed in her mind – this vampire who had taken her best friend away, turned her into this thing against her will… she would kill him, and it was written all over her face as she rose.

“No, Miho!” Jazz exclaimed. “It isn’t like that.”

“Really?” Miho balked, swiping away Jazz’s attempt to place a gentle hand on her shoulder. “So he sat you down and asked you politely and you said, oh sure son of a vampire king who’ll kill us both for it, make me a vampire!”

“We… not exactly,” Jazz admitted, fixing her grip around one of Miho’s wrists and holding her back easily.

“I don’t care who he is!” Miho shrieked, fighting against Jazz tooth and nail, but both women were nearly bowled over when Kiril came tumbling toward them.

“You of all people should understand the desire for freedom, Kiril,” Konstantin glowered, his voice suddenly so much lower, his body inexplicably growing until his clothing strained and threatened to tear.

“Konstantin don’t!” Jazz shouted, as she jerked Miho back against her chest and folded both arms around her. “Just calm down, we need to, to talk to them!”

Kiril was picking himself up, his expensive clothing streaked with mud and grass, while Miho struggled, and he cut a glance to her and paused when Jazz lifted her head a little toward her friend’s neck.

“Miho, we need to talk,” Jazz said thickly, and the taller woman fell still, just a moment, before wriggling around in Jazz’s hold to hug her tightly. “Inside,” Jazz prompted, looking around Miho at the two brothers briefly, before sliding her hand into Miho’s and guiding her back toward the cottage.

Part 7

#miho fujiwara #jazz mann #kiril lambert #konstantin lambert #vampire #vampire fiction #romance #sexy time #OC #original story #finally getting some #Blood Spatter

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