12. Jay Som & Japanese Breakfast

It may be unfair to the talent of these Asian-American women, but Melina Duterte and Michelle Zauner were paired together in The D Man's 2017 listening habits.  Both artists recorded superb indie-rock affairs that would be comfortable in multiple decades; from the early-'90s to the mid-'00s to today, their records as Jay Som and Japanese Breakfast jump off the soundboard with a timeless alternative feel.

Unpretentious and affectionate, 22 year-old Duterte produced a better debut record than anyone in her age group, to say nothing of artists twice her age.  Her songcraft and style feels downright effortless.  Everybody Works is confident, guitar-driven dream-pop, held seamlessly together by a cozy bedroom aesthetic, as if Duterte is just turning out tracks in between college classes and late-night shifts.  (Indeed, she recorded the surprisingly glossy album in her bedroom).  The pace is relaxed and the tone is inviting; a sort of pretty haze hangs over the mesmerizing 36-minute record.

"The Bus Song" starts with simple acoustic strums and Duterte's lonely voice - the alienation of public transportation(?) - and then it channels chimey guitar builds and swelling trumpets as our destination arrives.  "Remain" coos with shadowy romance, as her breathy vocals overwrite slinky guitars lifted from the Cutting Crew or the Cocteau Twins.  "One More Time, Please" snakes into one of the best guitar solos of the year, a spaced-out moonshot that flies right out her upstairs window.  "Baybee" is funky and slick with sinewy bass/synth lines cascading over each other until her sweetheart finally listens.

Zauner creates an emotional kaleidoscope on her aptly-titled sophomore record Soft Sounds from Another Planet.  Dabbling in shoegaze, electro-pop, ambience, and straight-ahead guitar rock, she moves in and out of styles without hesitation, leaving listeners bewildered and beguiled in the best of ways, as her pliable voice congeals her wandering muses together.  Forceful and raw one moment and almost tender the next, Zauner wrestles with feminism, trauma, and disintegration, reeling underneath the twinkling stars that circle her heaviest metaphors.  Bodies, machines, blades, women, death, it's all here for the po-mo post-mortem.

The planetary krautrock on "Diving Woman" is expansive, as Zauner's pillowy vocals run across driving guitars and ambient noise, opening up the album's spacey motif.  "Machinist" is sparkling, auto-tuned electronica, almost a club jam from a future Blade Runner joint; when the saxophone appears, you know you're in the right place.  The title track is a forlorn little love ballad while "Jimmy Fallon Big!" surges with weary resignation.  "Till Death" is the album's most straight-ahead cut and as a result may be its most touching, as Zauner strains under the weight of life's cruelties and disappointments.