With Broncho, Parker Millsap, Horse Thief, and John Fullbright all buzzing around on the national radar, the spotlight on their home state hasn’t shone this brightly in decades. It’ll be up to a new batch of talent, though, to make sure that light doesn’t stray elsewhere and maybe — just maybe — see to it that it stands permanently affixed here.
To their credit, the less-heralded (in some cases) Oklahoma acts are stepping up in a big way to do just that. Midway through this year, the quality releases already outnumber those that came out in the entirety of 2014 or 2013. Here, Oxford Karma has gathered what we deem to be the best Oklahoma albums of 2015 (so far).
Cherry Death
Flowers for Jesus
Tim Buchanan is one of Oklahoma’s finest utility players, elevating every band he’s in (Glow God and Sex Snobs among them). But the solo project he founded (now with a steady backing lineup) may well be blooming into the brightest one of all, and Flowers for Jesus — the follow-up to 2014’s vastly underrated Brain Into Blue Skies — is the evidence for that claim. Crunchy, lo-fi noise pop with a fetish for ’90s college indie radio, Cherry Death’s sophomore LP only ups the ante from the debut. Buchanan’s grown more comfortable in the spotlight, nailing a roll call of tried-and-true guitar solos to a bed of lush, reverb-heavy melodies that are viscerally pleasingly and creatively engaging.
Deerpeople
There’s Still Time for Us to Die
Stillwater’s finest export since Colourmusic sure took its time in getting its full-length debut out there for us to enjoy. But at least they made good on that drawn-out promise, issuing an album that translates all the energy from their notorious live shows while evoking some of their most striking songwriting. Frequently unpredictable and punctuated with all manners of question marks and exclamation points, There’s Still Time for Us to Die is a roaring journey through the orchestral indie-pop waters they’ve been rafting through all along, making all the splashes we’ve come to expect in studied, sunny indie jams “Impala Abdul” and “Funbar.”
Deus
Home
Like Earl Sweatshirt and Joey Bada$$, Deus raps openly about his youthful frustrations and post-teen angst, but he comes across as more of a wise, old soul than a naive kid. The vintage Bed-Stuy-inspired production of collaborator Shawny C obviously has a little something to do with that, but Deus, as an emcee, is flamboyantly charismatic and cautiously guarded in the same way that many of the ’80s and ’90s greats were. In fact, he’s armed and ready to jump from club jams (“LuvMe4ever”) to headphone protests (“Close 2 Doob”). All that comes together in heady party banger “Eyes,” arguably the single best hip-hop track Oklahoma has produced in its still relatively young — but fast-growing — legacy.
Gentle Ghost
Second Arrow
Gentle Ghost has always loved that interplay between soft and loud, the teardown and buildup. In Second Arrow, the scales are tipped heavily in favor of that noisier, more bristled side, and they sound like more of a realized band because of it. Frontman Seth McCarroll relishes the opportunity to sneer and howl through a blanketed barrage of thunder, punctuated with emo-centric guitar riffs of artillery-fire percussion that make the emptied-out recesses in these unrelenting compositions that much more resounding.
Husbands
Golden Year
For the longest time, OKC-meets-D.C. duo Husbands were a singles band, mostly out of necessity. Each one-off song release carried a different flavor of engaging indie pop, taking on different degrees of afrobeat, surf rock, garage, and electronic psych — an expected (but always good) result from the piecemeal, detached collaborative process that brought them to life. Golden Year is the first batch of songs conceived as a full LP. Suitably, it’s the most cohesive body of work Wil Norton and Danny Davis have come up with yet, breezily bundling up a collection of beach guitar ballads that are equal parts chilled with longing and warmed with romantic nostalgia.
JD McPherson
Let the Good Times Roll
With Let the Good Times Roll, Broken Arrow-bred JD McPherson quit being a good incarnation of yesteryear’s greats and instead became the best version of himself. Devilishly pooling all the greased-back, wholesome ’50s-guitar riffs that fueled Signs & Signifiers, he lights that formula on fire with splashes of spindly post-punk, swampy gospel dirges, and some of his most searing hooks to date. Executed with an infectious smirk, the wheel-burnin’ shift into drive keeps his rock ‘n’ roll revivalism burning hot instead of out.
John Moreland
High on Tulsa Heat
Tulsa singer-songwriter John Moreland makes no qualms about his proclivity to write sad songs. Hell, titles like “Heart’s Too Heavy,” “Sad Baptist Rain,” and “Losing Sleep Tonight” all but wear that fact like a badge. But, like Sufjan Stevens did with this year’s Carrie & Lowell, Moreland — creating his finest, most stirring songs to date — is reassuring in his anguish. He sheds tears with you, allowing listener and singer alike to feel better, not worse, for having sat down for a good cry.
LoneMoon
Amaranth
Oklahoma City producer LoneMoon gets mightily ambitious in his debut LP, Amaranth, straddling that rickety bridge between heady, world-building electronica and club-ready dance music. He strides over it with ease, though, becoming Oklahoma’s answer to Porter Robinson as he bounds between bouncy, 8-bit jams (“Hop & Skip”), artful dubstep (“Chronicle”), and richly tooled heartstring-pullers (“Always”) with deftness and persistence.
Militant Mindz
Parallel$
Parallel$ would have felt as at home in 1995 as it does in 2015. That speaks to a frustrating stagnation, if not regression, in America’s race relations, as the five minds behind Oklahoma City hip-hop collective Militant Mindz stand bloodied but defiant in a socially conscious collection of 13 tracks. These songs open eyes and minds with their messages clutched and championed, pleading for change. Ears perk up too, with the production tendencies the crew so willfully embraces through heavy nods to A Tribe Called Quest, Gang Starr, and Digable Planets. Parallel$ hearkens back to the golden era of hip-hop that might just be dawning again.
Native Lights
Native Lights
Tulsa’s Johnathon Ford and Bryce Chambers squeeze every ounce of experience from their years spent leading Unwed Sailor and Ester Drang, respectively, into their long-awaited (and long in the works) debut LP together as Native Lights. Those creative instincts, sharpened over two-plus decades of full-time music careers, guide the dark, towering eight-song record that is every bit up to the task of matching the bands (Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine) the two were inspired by. Never breathless no matter how high it climbs, the only thing more powerful than the crashing guitar crests are the enveloping emotions that swell in right behind them.
Power Pyramid
The Horror of Trespass
As devout followers of the church of MBV, Power Pyramid has always put out pulverizing shoegaze records with the very best of them. The Horror of Trespass feels a little different, though. The flanging chords and fuzz still waft around, but there’s lightning darting below with electro-charged punk riffs that tear through the wall cloud to take a storm that has always sounded foreboding toward something downright dangerous.
Rachel Brashear
Songs from a Cave
The piano might be Rachel Brashear’s best friend. It’s not that her early, more guitar-centered work wasn’t solid, but man, do those searing lyrics burn that much deeper when the lines are ushered out from behind a cascade of white and black keys instead of six-strings. Marrying her jazz-era vocals with a baby grand and just enough offbeat sensibilities, the resulting debut LP is timeless, evocative, and touching.
Sardashhh
ok.keys
Fresh from his acclaimed sophomore “beat tape,” Vol. 2, Oklahoma City producer Sardashhh’s third full-length release is every bit the well-suited, introspective counterpart to that whirring, intoxicating record. Built primarily on stripped-down piano samples, it takes the time to sit and reflect on the world that came rushing by in Vol. 2. Somber, yes, but also incessantly soulful, the quiet pluck of “Pryz,” the discombobulating spin of “New Block,” and the whizzy bump of “Bushiki” echo the same summertime sentiments he’s come to be known for. But this time, it’s through a stormy, late-winter haze.
Sex Snobs
Pop Songs and Other Ways to Die
The title of Sex Snobs’ sophomore LP is as apt a descriptor for the Oklahoma City four-piece as they come. Maybe it was hard to hear through all the stabbing screeches and bleeding feedback, but the band is making the catchiest rock songs Oklahoma has to offer at this point. Not that Pop Songs is cleaned up; they still fly by like a dirty ashtray destined to shatter against the living room wall. But the hooks at the center of an “Ignorant” or “Farewell to the Sun” give the mosh pit a rhythm to anchor its violent body flailing around.
Sun Riah
Firefly Night Light
Sun Riah’s closest points of reference — Julia Holter, Juliana Barwick — are musicians pushing the boundaries of what music is and can be, and ones who never lose the little, vulnerable heartbeat trembling at its center, drawing you into these freeform compositions through unbridled vulnerability. The brainchild of songwriter and harpist M. Bailey Stephenson, Sun Riah doubles down on the potential of her debut, …, the Musical, with her most affecting material to date. This stirring collection of songs wills you toward tears with vintage music box ballads and darkly pointed lullabies, embracing Stephenson’s raw vocals and the opulent sounds of her harp and whisking you to a kingdom far, far away.
