2013: tracks of the year

Hannah Read & Charlie Van Kirk – Kids

This is a sucker punch:  one of my favorite voices, one of my favorite producers / good friends, and a song that’s nothing but memories.  With that said, the entire EP is objectively gorgeous as well as subjectively gorgeous.

Alex Jang – Bartered Dreams

My man Mr. Jang is going to be annoyed that I picked the most conventionally ‘pretty’ of his output…but hot damn, those chords.

Danny Kaye & Louis Armstrong – Oh When The Saints

Via Alex Richards, a dash of pure, overacted glee. (More seriously:  Listen to Kaye’s imitation, his scat, the canon that they pull out, Armstrong’s straight-man face, his harmony, and so on.)

Honorable mentions of the highest order to:  Kim Shepherd’s Fields, T.H.E.M. doing Waterbound, Hollas Longton’s insane contact-mic Machaut covers, Holden’s Renata, Clara Moto’s cover of Wicked Games, Jacques Greene’s Ciara remixes, CHRVCHES’s Gun, and Ikonika /Jessy Lanza’s Beach Mode.