In just a few days, 2016 will be a thing of the past but I don't think that this year will be easily forgotten. With that, I'm not even talking about the general news, the terror attacks, Donald Trump or other political unnecessaries. No, I'm merely talking about the wonderful world of music and the legends it lost. Bowie, Lemmy, Prince, Rick Parfitt, George Michael and so many others have been booked for the big festival in heaven. 

Yet, 2016 was also a year of musical highlights, both live and on heaps of releases. Perhaps it's the fact that I work for this website but to me, the music inudsitry has never been so varied and so overloaded with albums before. That's why compiling this list is not a rewarding task. I've been writing lists for weeks now. I've been re-listening to albums and I've been re-reading my reviews to the brink of insanity. But here it is, my massive 2016 list

Once again, I'll make it easier for myself by dividing the music industry into three major categories. In 'Breeze', I'll list the calm ones like ambient, dark ambient, jazz and classical music. On 'Wind' we go a bit heavier with post rock, alternative rock and such. Finally, 'Storm' handles the world of metal and other heavy genres. I've based my list mainly on the albums that make the day-to-day playlist, because those are the one that stick. Right, ready?

Although it was a fierce battle for "breeze album of the year", one thing is certain, 2016 was the year of the Belgian drone lords. With CHVE, Dirk Serries, Daghraven and Syndrome, our little country clearly wins. 

2016 was a great year for post-rock, but somehow Lord Kesseli & The Drums delivered us the most played and most satisfying album of the year. Why? I don't know, this is just an awesome album, and so are the other nine...

Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard - Y Proffwyd Dwyll
​Soon - Vol. 1
Slomatics - Future Echo Returns
​Coldborn - Lingering Voidwards​
​Phantom Winter - Sundown Pleasures​
Bismuth - Unavailing ​
​Hyponic - 前行者
Riti Occulti – Tetragrammaton
​Dö - Tuho
​Rorcal - Creon

A lot of doom in the 'Storm' section, but that has one simple reason: it's the genre I listen to the most. Even more so, I haven't been paying a lot of attention to many other metal releases this year. I'll leave those up to my colleagues.

Even though I don't think I've seen that many concerts in 2016, I've apparently seen more than enough bands to make a top 10. 

Telepathy (Antwerp Music City)
Spoiwo (Dunk! Festival)
Sunnata (Antwerp Music City)
Bliksem (Rocktoberfest)
Alkerdeel (Desertfest)
​
The Cure (Sportpaleis)
Russian Circles (Dunk! Festival)
Black Swarm (Desertfest)
Izegrim (Rocktoberfest)
Wolvennest (Desertfest)

And finally, let's throw some nice mentions. Not that we really hand out awards to people but sometimes it's nice to get a big compliment, and as you know, we are nice people here at Merchants Of Air. Hell, we are so nice that I already feel guilty about having to exclude so many great releases in the lists above. 
Oh well, nevermind that. Let's just go over some of the 'Of The Year' Awards.

Festival Of The Year : DesertFest Belgium
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This was another tough decision to make because Dunk! Festival was awesome again and I really enjoyed both Rocktoberfest and Rodeo Fest. However, since the good people from Desertfest somehow managed to turn all my last year's little wrongs into rights, they succeeded in creating a blast of a festival, never to be forgotten. You can read all about that here. 

Venue Of The Year: Antwerp Music City

A very small venue in Antwerp, which has given me some incredible moments in 2016. With Telepathy and Sunnata they managed to deliver two of the best gigs of 2016, but those were merely the headliners. Their support acts, including Lambs and Hungry Like Rakovitz blasted with tremendous energy through the speakers. It's pretty much always nice in the Music City so this award is truly deserved.

Merchant Of The Year: Wagner

Of course I'm extremely happy with all Merchants Of Air writers and I'm glad that a talented writer like Michiel joined our ranks, but it's Wagner that has had the most influence on the evolution of Merchants Of Air into the webzine we are today. He revived the 'A Small Neat Journal' section with movie reviews, social studies, biographies and much more and his albums reviews are always a pleasure to publish. So yes, Wagner deserves this title...

Bandshirt Of The Year: Duel

Puchased at Desertfest, right before a nice chat with guitarist Jeff Henson, this shirt definitely is the Shirt Of The Year. The interview is still to be published by the way, along with some other nice conversations at that very festival. They're still in the pipeline, due to severe illness immediately after the event. Nonetheless, I adore this old school horror shirt.

Non-musical entertainment highlight of the year: FWF Wrestling Matinee

Wrestling is a life-long fascination of mine and 2016 was the year I finally got to see it live (although, according to my mother, that's not really true. Apparently, I obsessively observed a wrestling event while on vacation when I was a little kid). In 2016, I got to see two events. First, the WWE Wrestlemania Revenge Tour, which was somewhat disappointing. Second, this FWF Wrestling Matinee which was fun from start to finish. Read all about that here.

And why not end with some own-horn-tooting. After all, I've been pretty busy myself. Throughout 2016 I've been working on a number of projects. There were some new Misantronics albums and a video with writer Tamara Williams which I'm quite proud of. I'm also proud of some of my writings for this website, plus the shirt designs. Yet, one topped it off for me, and that was The Metal Deck, a card & quartets game. They're still available if you like one. You can purchase it in our shop.

The world of dance music has been stealing (or 'borrowing') from the pop and rock scene for ages. Just think about some of those horrible, soulless dance versions of songs like 'Sweet Child O'Mine' (by Milk Inc), 'Billy Jean' (by Crew 7) or Britney's mind numbing adaptation of 'I Love Rock 'n Roll' which was already a cover to begin with. Well, rockers and metalheads sure know a thing or two about remaking old songs as well, often with quite interesting results. Here are fifteen electronic songs, turned into rock and metal anthems. 

We kick things off with a band that has dedicated two entire albums covering eighties new wave and electro songs. Out of these 'Werk 80' albums, we picked Visage's 'Fade To Grey', initially a dreamy electronic pop song, now turned into an absolute dark dancefloor filler. Once starting out as a death metal band, Atrocity has been going to a lot of changes throughout the years, this cover project being just one of the many incarnations, but a damn good one if you ask me.

Suicide, the duo of Alan Vega and Martin Rev recorded this song way back in 1977 with primitive electronics and drum machines. This, and other songs, made them responsible for an entire wave of industrial and noise music. Enter industrial metal horde Bloodstar, who recorded a harsh cover version for their album 'Anytime Anywhere' on a compilation by Roadrunner Records. It's actually this song, that started my fascination for metal covers.

Good ol' Rammstein and their shenanigans. The first song I heard them cover was one by the Ramones, and I remember thinking "I hope they never do that again". But, Rammstein never listens to me so they went on covering other stuff, including this awesome version of Kraftwerk's 'Das Modell'. Speaking about dancefloor fillers... By the way, don't mind the video, it's not the official one. In fact, YouTube muted the music on the official video. Weird asses...

Hah, you were expecting fifteen metal songs, weren't you? But I never said that, and besides, I can't go through this list without paying my respects to "the man in black".  His greatest cover of all time was probably Nine Inch Nails' 'Hurt' but since that's not really an electronic song, I decided to go with 'Personal Jesus' from Depeche Mode. To be honest, I think Cash made an absolute classic of this one, one I like more than the original.

Of course, we have to include this ugly dude in this article. Although Marilyn Manson has never been very high on my favorites list, this song is a smasher. Originally recorded and performed by Eurythmics, 'Sweet Dreams' has been getting a lot of people on their feet, regardless of the genre they usually listen to. Well, perhaps some people still prefer the original version over Manson's creepy, somewhat over-the-top performance.

A friend sent me this one, a metalcore version of The Prodigy's 'Omen'. Although I prefer the original, it isn't hard to see why a metal band would cover this hit. After all, it is already a pretty damn heavy tune, perfectly suited to throw in some distorted guitars . A little research brought me to Polish band Messa, who play "rock 'n core". All fine by me since this is quite a nice cover version.

Nadja's cover album is an amazing piece of work which includes some of the greatest covers I've ever heard. My favorite one on that album is Slayer's (Dead Skin Mask' but for this list I have to go with the megahit by Norwegian synthpop act A-Ha. Aidan Baker  and Leah Buckareff surely turned this song into an immersive whirlpool of drones, much like we're used to form Nadja.

Another one of my favorite covers comes from American "dead pop" band Orgy who added their industrial metal over New Order's megahit 'Blue Monday'. This cover version too had been a constant at parties, at least the parties I went to and dj'ed at over the years. It's actually still one of my all time favorite covers.

English extremists Cradle Of Filth have been no strangers to covers, but when this appeared on their 'Thornography' album, I looked at my speakers in sheer disbelief. Not only because the original is a simple synthpop song, but mostly because Dani and co turned it into something filthy, nasty and quite sexy. I never liked the original and I'm not going to say that this is my favorite Cradle Of Filth track but still worth mentioning here.

Of course, the punk rock scene has been barking out cover versions ever since pop songs became silly enough to make punk rock covers of them. Hell, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes thrive on that sort of things but this blasting gem by punk heroes Offspring shouldn't go unnoticed in this list. Not that is a prime example of musical ingenuity but hey, I prefer an Offspring moshpit over an Aqua dancefloor anytime.

Belgian metal act Manic Movement recorded this blasting version of Anne Clark's 'Our Darkness' for their 2001 album 'Future Dreaming Self'. I didn't know that before I saw them at Graspop a year later but I did know and love the original. So when it started slamming through the speakers, I was ecstatic and it kept going heavier and heavier. Maybe you can even see me in the audience on this video. I had long hair and wore a black t-shirt, shouldn't be that hard to spot me, right?

This English band seems to promote themselves as a "wedding-band" but they also play parties and festivals. On their YouTube channel, they published all kinds of cover songs, mostly with a tongue-in-cheek folk rock atmosphere or, in this case, tuning the whole thing in a joyful reggae tune. If Mister Kanish proves anything, it's the fact that cover bands can be original and entertaining enough to become something that people want to see. If they're touring and coming over to Belgium, there's a big chance I go see them. It'll be fun.

"Death in Rome is a Neofolk Group covering pop songs", that's pretty much all there is to say about these guys. Mind you, Neofolk usually isn't really overloaded with humor so this one is a bit of a surprise. In my research for this article, I've searched far and wide to find somewhat decent versions of old techno tunes. Apart from a bunch of metal, punk and grindcore songs, there wasn't that much original to find, except for Death In Rome. The bandname is a composition of the bands Death In June and Rome, and why not claim that the 'In' stands for Sol Invictus? Anyway, this is a brilliant cover and they have many more if you're willing to listen.

Several years ago, at a festival in Belgium, I was strolling around the terrain which brought me near the stage where The Dillinger Escape Plan were performing. I didn't really care about the band as I've never really been a fan of math core or whatever it is that these guys play(ed). However, suddenly they kicked of this bloody intense Aphex Twin cover. I was amazed, since I thought it was physically impossible to drum this thing. But look, here it is.

'Der Mussolini' by German electro act DAF is one of the best electronic songs to turn into a pounding metal song, as also proved by Atrocity. Yet, Swiss thrash metallers Coroner beat them to it and released this moshpit inducing piece of music in 1995 on their penultimate album 'Coroner'.  It still is one of my favorite cover versions, although I prefer Coroner's own songs. Still, I secretly hope I get to watch them doing this song live.

Got some more? Comment below!

Well, this is it.  My 3x top-10 of the year.  I was planning to publish this later but to be honest, I want to be rid of it.  Over the past few weeks, I've been scrolling up and down the entire Merchants Of Air website, reading many reviews again.  I've been reorganising my CD collection because I wanted to check the albums which ended up in those packed drawers. 

Oh, how I wanted to list the ten best albums but oh, how impossible it was.  I guess that's the downside of owning a website which allows many genres.  Last year, yes, last year it was easier because we were only active since September so we didn't have so many albums to review.  But this year, hundreds, if not over a thousand album have been checked by me.  Most of them were good.

Nadja, Dasha Rush, Velvet Six, Stoned Jesus, Dirk Serries, Ummagma, The Silverblack,.. The list goes on and on. Dozens of albums have been appearing and finally disappearing in this list. So I had to make a decision about who finally ended up here.  With that in mind, 2015 was an amazing musical year.

I decided to make three top-10 lists.  'Breeze' features the gentle, soothing and slow albums, including ambient, jazz and post-rock.  'Wnd' issues heavier sounds, like doom, post-rock, drones and martial industrial.  Finally, 'Storm' shows the extremes, 'metaaaaaaaaaal', so to speak. Again, these were so hard to make...

This list is mainly based on the music that we play here on pleasant evenings.  It's a blend of dark jazz, (dark) ambient and post-rock.  Again, there are more albums we often play (alongside mastodons like The Cure, Pink Floyd and Slowdive) but these ten were actually played the most.

I often wrote 'this album will accompany me often when I do my household tasks".  Like in the previous category, these ten appeared the most on our audio-set.  ​

Deutsch Nepal - Alcohology
A Swarm Of The Sun - The Rifts
Bathsheba ‎– The Sleepless Gods
Barchan - Soliton
Alice In The Cities - Of The Lines
Karjalan Sissit - ...Want You Dead
Arditi - Imposing Elitism
Throneless - Throneless
​Un - The Tomb of All Things
Snail - Feral

And finally, time for some serious headbanging.  These are the best and/or most surprising metal albums of 2015.  

Serge

It's time for the end-year lists, things that give reviewers sleepless nights and panic attacks. They don't want to leave any band out but there's always more bands deserving to be on an end-year list than there are spots.  Another thing that seems strange, is that by the end of the year some albums or concerts which we reviewed as mega-fantastic seem to got lost in time while others, which at first listen seemed ok but not more, suddenly reappear as one of the highlights of that year.

Nothing is certain in a reviewer's life, except the December-stress...

We at Merchants Of Air refuse to force our writers into making these lists because these people are busy enough as it is.  They know it's time for those lists and if they make one, we publish it. Life at Merchants Of Air is quite simple really.

In the next few weeks, we will publish a number of lists about whatever we feel like, musically speaking.  We kick off with the live performances (mainly because we don't plan to see any more bands this month).

​

Without a shadow of a doubt, Dunk!Festival wins this.  With an impeccable organisation, loads of brilliant bands and an amazing audience, this festival skyrocketed.  
Perfect sound, awe-inspiring light show, free coffee (important!) and people so nice and friendly you want to marry them all. That's what Dunk!Festival stands for.   
Read our review
Read an interview with Wout from Dunk!

Time can alter the perception of a concert.  I've probably seen hundreds of bands in 2015 and apart from a few support acts, none of them were bad.  Yet, over the course of a year, some gigs seem to have gained importance and others softly fade away in my memory.  Here are the ten most memorable I've seen in 2015.

1. Barchan (Incubate) 
Oh man, that was drone-jazz from such a massive level that I was watching James and Tomas with my mind open in full amazement.  

2. Bathsheba (DesertFest)
Belgian occult doom band with some extremely experienced musicians and probably the best front-woman in doom history.  I saw them twice this year, should do that more often.

3. Radare (Incubate)
Almost forgotten but forever remembered and thè discovery at Incubate this year.  These dark jazz youngsters enchanted me and delivered the most played album of 2015.

4. Alice In The Cities (Dunk!Festival)
We've seen Alice In The Cities twice before, both times performing decent concerts.  Yet, because of the professionality of Dunk!Festival these guys blasted into my all-time top-50.

5. The End Of The Ocean (Dunk!Festival)
As much as Radare was the discovery at Incuibate, The End Of The Ocean was that on Dunk!Festival.  I couldn't help buying two albums and requesting them to be autographed.

6. Cecilia::Eyes (Dunk!Festival)
Cecilia::Eyes was one of thè bands for Merchants Of Air in 2014 and 2015 was no different.  A brilliant set at Dunk!Festival and an album that plays often here.  They belong on this list.

7. Thisquietarmy (forest gig at DunkFestival)
I've seen Eric perform before and I like it each time but this was different.  There he was, kneeling down over his guitar in front of a tree, rolling his drones through the forest.  It was almost a pagan ritual.

8. Dead Neanderthals (Incubate)
Intensity, power, noise, Dead Neanderthals came out as another huge discovery at Incubate.  I can't wait to see them again soon.

9. Ufomammut (DesertFest)
Speaking about intensity.  This is probably the biggest name on this list and with good reason too.  These guys deliver live, that's for damn sure.

10. Vandal X (Desertfest)
Many bands were awesome on stage this year, and it was tough to chose number ten because I didn't want to leave anyone out.  Yet, Vandal X gave me an amazing throwback into my time in my former city and I loved every second of it.


Serge