Please note: This list is not culled in any way from the Readers Poll, which is ongoing. If you haven’t yet contributed your favorites of 2015 to that, please do.

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Last year, I did a Song of the Year post, but it wound up having basically a list’s worth of honorable mentions at the bottom, so as we move further into year-end season, it seemed only fair to give more releases their due.

One of the trickier aspects of putting this list together is trying to separate songs from the context of the albums on which they appear. That is, thinking of a given song as a standalone entity, apart from the track before, the track after and whatever else the record on which it appears might have on offer. I did my best to make sure these tracks had enough power and presence within them to be considered on their own as well. I’d expect that much of whether or not you think I was successful in that will depend on how much you agree with the picks. That’s fair enough.

And to that end, as always, please let me know if you think something was omitted here, if there was a song that really stood out to you this year — somebody’s single, or something from a record, whatever it might be — that doesn’t show up on the list. Hell, there are only 10 included. That’s bound to not be everything. Still, these are what hit me especially hard this year:

The Obelisk Presents: The Top 10 Songs of 2015

1. Elder, “Lore”
2. Acid King, “Center of Everywhere”
3. High on Fire, “The Falconist”
4. Death Alley, “Supernatural Predator”
5. Snail, “Thou Art That”
6. All Them Witches, “Open Passageways”
7. Sun Blood Stories, “Witch Wind”
8. The Atomic Bitchwax, “Hey Baby Ice Age”
9. Goatsnake, “Grandpa Jones”
10. Øresund Space Collective, “20 Steps Towards the Invisible Door”

Honorable Mention

A few honorable mentions: Kings Destroy‘s “Mr. O” remains a sentimental favorite and a song I go back to on many occasions when I need a boot to the ass. Clutch‘s “X-Ray Visions” efficiently reaffirmed the righteousness of their direction since Earth Rocker, while Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats‘ “Melody Lane” did likewise for that UK outfit’s malevolent grit-pop.

It was buried under a morass of riffs, but Windhand‘s “Kingfisher” was a standout, while Kadavar‘s “See the World with Your Own Eyes” skillfully walked a fine line between inspirational and cornball without any concern for sliding from one to the next, and so didn’t. If this list went to 11, Graveyard‘s “Too Much is Not Enough” would’ve been my next pick for the unabashed soulfulness pervading its melancholy atmosphere.

Notes

What was to be done with Elder‘s “Lore?” In the end, I’m not sure any other single track showed the kind of scope, the emotive presence, the poise, the progression and, pivotally, the groove it did. In its three stages, the 16-minute album centerpiece and title-track underlined the sheer mastery Elder put on display across their third full-length’s span. Wait a few years and you will find bands coming out who sound like this.

I had a hard time picking a song from Acid King‘s Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everywhere. “Coming Down from Outer Space” has that mega-hook. “Red River” rolls so fluidly. In the end, “Center of Everywhere combines all those aspects with the atmospheric breadth that played such a huge role in making the album so special. It simply would not be denied. Similarly, High on Fire‘s “The Falconist” from 2015’s Luminiferous is arguably that trio’s most melodic, progressive work to-date. Infectious, heavy and emotionally resonant in a way that a lot of their material actively works against being, to my ears it’s the boldest thing they’ve done.

Scope was a big part of the appeal of Death Alley‘s “Supernatural Predator,” the Dutch band running between Motörhead and Hawkwind in one song and bringing in former The Devil’s Blood vocals Farida Lemouchi to help them do it. At nearly 13 minutes long, its hypnosis feels like it could push even further if it wanted to, and that’s one of my favorite aspects of it. Also over 10 minutes long, Snail‘s “Thou Art That” was for me the defining moment of their excellent Feral album, a whopper of a riff marking a place within a brooding psychedelic landscape that even just three years ago I’m not sure they would have been able to conjure in the same way. One of those tracks that eats like an album.

There was a video of All Them Witches playing “Open Passageways” at a radio station in Nashville that was out before the song had a title, and since I first saw that earlier this year, I’d hoped it would make its way onto their third album, Dying Surfer Meets His Maker. It did, and the arrangement was stunning from the propulsive drum work and sustained consonants of the vocals to the weeping violin. It was between “Witch Wind” and “West the Sun” from Sun Blood Stories‘ Twilight Midnight Morning, but the former was the hook that first caught my ear and made me dig deeper into the Boise natives’ 2015 offering, and I couldn’t discount that factor. A release that continues to deliver every time I put it on.

I remain a sucker for The Atomic Bitchwax, and while their Gravitron album was harder hitting overall than anything they’ve done in a while, “Hey Baby Ice Age” balanced that with a bit of their penchant for a poppier hook, and the result nestled into my mental jukebox, where it remains in high rotation to this day. Goatsnake‘s “Grandpa Jones” had a similar effect, its megagroove and ultra-catchy chorus continue to be stuck in my head more often than not. If I had any desire to escape from either whatsoever, it might be a problem.

Rounding out the list of 10 and worthy of special note is Øresund Space Collective‘s “20 Steps Towards the Invisible Door” from their recently-issued Different Creatures album. I think it’s the most recent release on this list, but I had to get the song in somewhere. It’s a sprawling 45-minute jam that could just as easily have been put out as its own full-length, but closes out the 140-minute double-CD gorgeously by pushing the listener farther and farther out to the very limits of the reaches of space rock. Progressive improvisation is no easy feat, but “20 Steps Towards the Invisible Door” left the band with no option but to include every second of its extended span. It’s all essential.

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These are just my picks. If you agree, disagree, have more to add, I’d love to know about it in the comments. Thanks for reading.

Øresund Space Collective are among psychedelia’s most open and most stringent of bands. Now active for more than a decade, the Danish collective are fiercely committed to a single idea — it just happens to be that single idea is being open to all things at all times. To wit, the prolific, prone-to-documentation Danish/Swedish outfit led by synth-player and bandleader Scott “Dr. Space” Heller have maintained their ethic of being entirely improvisational and amorphous in their lineup, and that has resulted in an expansive catalog of live and studio recordings of some of the world’s most expansive space and kosmiche rock.

Their latest pair of offerings through Space Rock Productions, released within a month of each other, together stand as a solid compendium of some — not all — of their scope. Released last month, Out into Space, is a 3CD live offering captured in Feb. 2015 at their 10th anniversary show at Loppen in Christiania, playing to support 2014’s Music for Pogonologists (review here) though obviously not actually playing anything from the record since it’s all improvised, and the even-newer Different Creatures is a 2CD/3LP studio album. Both are completely different lineups apart from Heller — in fact, in the case of Out into Space, it’s no fewer than three different incarnations of the band playing a single show. It suddenly makes sense why Øresund Space Collective would have the recorder running as often as they do. How else to keep track of what they’re doing at any given point?

The concept for Out into Space is an exception to start with, though. Their 10th anniversary gig was more than the average show. They played three sets, again, each with a different lineup, in an attempt to capture the beginning, middle and current eras of the band — or at least give them some representation. As a result, each set has its own specific feel, whether it’s the way the band seem to rally around the guitar in “The Last Glide” on disc one or how “Stargate 7431” on disc two has its own progressive edge. Heller speaks to the assembled crowd between jams, informing them of what’s happening and introducing each band, and though at over three and a half hours of material, one could hardly call Out into Space anything other than comprehensive, it’s worth noting that it’s not complete. The third set, the recorder gave out. They literally out-jammed the recording equipment. That’s the scale of jams we’re talking about here.

Heller announces it’s 1AM as that third set kicks off with the 34-minute “A Long Night Amongst Friends” — he says, “Time to go to another planet” as the ultra-fluid track gets underway with a soft jazzy roll on the drums and yet another foundational bassline, the low end seeming to be the factor that holds the material together no matter who’s playing it at any given time — Jocke first, Thomas second, Jiri third — and it’s around the solid groove that the molten jamming happens in extended earlier pieces like the krautrocking “Has Anyone Seen Nick?” from the first or the particularly spacey “Chocolate Orange Candle” in the second set. While each has its own personality, I’m not inclined to pick a favorite from among the three lineups. It seems against the concept of Out into Space entirely, which was so clearly to bring these different personae together as one cohesive (if constantly shifting) whole, rather than to drive them apart. While it can be overwhelming in a single sitting — it is an afternoon long, after all — Out into Space provides years’ worth of psychedelic fodder to dig into.

So naturally they let it breathe for about a month before dishing out a follow-up. That’s not a criticism. In the tradition of the best of space rock, Øresund Space Collective do not stop to examine, do not stop to bask. They continue to move forward and on to the next thing, letting history sort it all out in their wake. The next thing? Different Creatures, which was recorded over a period of three days, Oct. 24-26, 2014, and found the band working as an eight-piece with Heller on synth as ever, plus Alex on drums and percussion, guitarists Jonathan (also violin, Theremin, electric mandolin and Hammond), Mattias (also pedal steel and shaker) and Mats (also bass on “Juggle the Juice,” “Digestive Raga” and “Bon Voyage”), bassist Hasse, key specialist Jonas and sitarist/synth-player KG. This lineup tears into over two and a quarter hours’ worth of material, showcasing distinct and differing vibes on the half-hour “Digestive Raga” and “The Man from Wales” while universally impressing with the chemistry at the heart of their improvisations. “Digestive Raga” — which, presumably, was performed after lunch — or the penultimate “Raga for Jerry G.” would be highlight candidates were it not for the sheer immersiveness of closer “20 Steps Towards the Invisible Door,” which is an album unto itself at 45:14 and emphasizes not only the beauty at heart in Øresund Space Collective‘s creative process — getting to the very core of group performance that brings individuals together working toward a common purpose — but also the beauty in the result of that process.

Hypnotic from its launch stages through to the strings and synth at its gradual comedown, it lives up to the promise of album-opener “The Ride to Valhalla” and speaks in its entirety to what makes Øresund Space Collective such a special project to begin with. To compare it to Music for Pogonologists seems moot since it’s different players throughout, but it wouldn’t matter anyway. “20 Steps Towards the Invisible Door” and Different Creatures as a whole have their own persona, and in capturing that special moment in time, unfiltered, unrestrained, gorgeously mixed, Øresund Space Collective once again affirm their position as the foremost jammers in the known cosmos. There are others who jam, and others who improvise their work along similar lines, but nobody who seeks to turnover their lineup with such regularity and still maintain such a consistent quality of output. Even within the vast realm of space rock and heavy psychedelia, Øresund Space Collective remain one of a kind.

Øresund Space Collective, Out into Space (2015)

Øresund Space Collective, Different Creatures (2015)

Øresund Space Collective on Thee Facebooks

Øresund Space Collective website

Øresund Space Collective on Bandcamp

Øresund Space Collective at the Internet Archive

Like the best space rock in this universe, it’s damn near impossible to keep up with Øresund Space Collective. Between their amorphous lineup of players coming and going, constantly updated catalog of bootleg live recordings on archive.org, extended live albums, fest appearances, guest spots, etc., you’d pretty much have to be in the band to be able to have an handle on all of it, and even then it seems like that handle would be tenuous at best. That, of course, is the whole idea. I very much dug last year’s Music for Pogonologists 2CD full-length, and just as I’ve started to dig into a new three-disc (!) live album, issued just a couple weeks back and suitably titled Out into Space, along comes a new studio full-length, Different Creatures, set to release next month. It is a staggering, overwhelming amount of music, and when you get down to the fact that most of what Øresund Space Collective does is improvised on the spot, their output seems even more encompassing. They’ve got jams for light-years.

Info on the new one follows, as sent along the PR wire:

Øresund Space Collective- Different Creatures

Space Rock Productions SRP030

Release date: Nov 2015
Triple Gatefold Vinyl
200 on black vinyl
300 on coloured vinyl
1000 2CD in a 4 panel digipack with 24 panel fold out poster

The Øresund Space Collective is a super group made up of members from various Scandinavian rock groups. These include the Carpet Knights (SE), Mantric Muse (DK), Bland Bladen (SE), Gas Giant (DK), Hooffoot (SE), First band from Outer Space (SE), Siena Root (SE), My Brother the Wind (SE), The Univerzals (DK) and others. The band has played numerous festivals around Europe including the Roskilde Festival (2015), Copenhagen Jazz Festival (2010), Kildemose Festival, Roadburn Festival (Holland 2010), Space Rock Odyssey (Sweden 2008), Slotsskogen goes Progressive (Sweden 2008), Space Force 1 (Finland 2009), Psychedelic Network (Germany 2009, 2013), Occultrance Festival (2011) in Belgium and Burg Herzberg, DE (2014). By 2015, the band had played about 90 concerts in 10 different countries! The band first started releasing music in 2006 on the Transubstans Label in Sweden and has over the first 5 years released many albums on several different labels.

This marks the 20th Øresund Space Collective release. The music presented on the deluxe 3LP gatefold or double CD was recorded by a very special group of musicians from Sweden and Norway (plus Dr SpaceDenmark) at the Black Tornado studio in Copenhagen. The members are from a wide variety of bands including Tangle Edge, Agusa, Camper Van Beethoven, My brother the Wind, Gösta Berlings Saga and Ex-Siena Root. The mixture of pedal steel, sitar, violin, mandolin, and theremin, presents a new and exciting sound and energy ranging from high energy space rock like Ride to Valhalla to very laid back country space blues with Jam for Jerry G and Indian space trance of the Digestive Raga. We created an unknown tribute to the Welsh band, Man, on the track, Man from Wales. There were some interesting sound experiments included as well to bridge the sides. Finally, the massive 45min, 20 steps towards the invisible Door.. Wow.. what a piece of music..

Enjoy….

Recorded at the Black Tornado Studio, Copenhagen Oct 2014. Engineer Lars Lundholm. Mixed by Jonathan Segel with spiritual guidance from Hasse. Artwork by Mårdøn Smet. CD and LP Layouts by David Graham. Photos by Sabine Pottien.

LP1 (CD1)
Side A
Ride to Valhalla 19:37.65
Juggle 3:49.05

Side B
Digestive Raga 20:55.33
Extended version on CD only (30:03)

LP2
Side C (CD1)
Man from Wales 13:23.36
Bon Voyage 6:11.33

Side D (CD2)
Raga for Jerry 20:16.13

LP3 (CD2)

Side E
20 Steps Towards the Invisible Door Part 1 25:18.11

Side F
20 Steps Towards the Invisible Door Part 2 20:01.05
(track is combined into one 45:19 min track on the CD)

The band on this release was the following:
(in alphabetical order)
Alex – Drums and Percussion
Dr Space – Analog Synthesizers
Hasse – Bass, DounDouns
Jonas – Hammond, Synthesizer, Electric Piano, Guitar*
Jonathan – Guitar, Violin, Theremin, Hammond*, Electric Mandolin
KG – Sitar and Analog Synths
Mattias – Guitar, Pedal Steel, Shaker
Mats – Guitar, Bass**

*on The Man From Wales
**on Juggle the Juice, Digestive Raga, Bon Voyage

http://www.oresundspacecollective.com
http://oresundspacecollective.bandcamp.com
http://www.sapphirerecords.de

Øresund Space Collective, Out into Space (2015)