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2023 Best of Cont...

Dancy/Electronic

Electronic music can get a bad rap, usually because of the bros it attracts but I can’t judge my taste based on other’s behavior. If that was the case I wouldn’t still be a Laker and Dodger fan but my fandom is truly selfish, I grew up with them and I am going to like them no matter what.  The Róisín Murphy’s Hit Parade kind of falls into this category. She said some insensitive opinions on transgender kid’s rights which I don’t agree with and I could go into a diatribe on separating art from artist and in this case, I definitely can separate the art from the opinion. This art is too good to ignore. If she wouldn’t have said what she said I know this album would be in most critics top 5’s.  DJ Koze and Murphy are a perfect team and this album has everything I love from this genre. What I love about this type of music is that it mixes familiar music I grew up with and the mysterious new sounds people are creating with technology. Avalon Emerson’s & The Charm is album that exhibits this quality more than any other this year.  Indie meets Electronic can basically describe all of these albums. Romy made a great dance record based on 90’s dance music but still feels current.  Tour-Maubourg Spaces of Silence was the last album I fell in love with this year but since I was first introduced to it by Antony’s year end list it has been on repeat. The beats put me in the right headspace every time I put it on.  James Blake’s Playing Robots into Heaven rounds out the list with his throwback to his roots.  I fell in love with this type Electronic music in the  2010’s thanks mainly to James Blake and it was nice to hear him return to form.

Five that Have to be Included

Deeper’s Careful! is the best postpunk album I have heard in long time. The Cure meets Television is how I’d describe it.  Bar Italia put out two albums with The Twits being the stronger of the two but Tracey Denim is also worth your time especially for Punkt.  They make good art rock like if Jesus Mary Chain met with of XX’s less electronic songs.  Jangle used to be a word I would use to describe the guitar tone I feel most at home with. I still love a good jangle tone see Duck Ltd. Latest single The Main Thing for a current good jangle. Shimmering is the new word to describe my ideal comfort music sound this year.  Sampha’s Lahai is shimmering and skittering in all the right ways, throw in Sampha’s angelic voice and you have one of my favorite albums of the year.  I always have to have a singer song writer in my year end lists, something about a person and their guitar/piano and introspective lyrics will always speak to me.  My favorite female singer songwriter of the year is Helena Deland’s Goodnight Summerland.  Beautiful piano folky female whisper vocals about the passing of time is something I’ll dive into every time and you should too.  Most underrated album of the year is Greg Mendez’s self-titled album.  All you need to know is if you like Elliott Smith, you should give this one a try. Gritty lyrics to tender ballads are the juxtaposition I need and this one comes in spades.   

Give them Their Flowers

The first playlist of 2023 I made was songs comprised of primarily female singers. I announced in January and am pronouncing 12 months later that the ladies led the way in 2023.

Mistiki, Boygenius, Kara Jackson, Sofia Kourtesis, and Margo Cilker are all worth your time. If you haven’t listened to Boygenius you are living under a rock and I can’t help you. Their EP is equally as good as the LP. I’ve never really bought into the Mistiki hype previously, I had her on a mix here and there but never dove in and shame on me for that, her latest album brought me in and I’m a huge fan now. My Love Mine All Mine is top five songs of the year.  Kara Jackson’s Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love was a revelation.  I wasn’t expecting to be floored the way I was with this album. She refers to it as Guitar ass music and I buy that.  A folksier SZA with just as poetic, if not more, lyrics. The closest to country on this list is Margo Cilker’s Valley of Heart’s Delight.  For any fans of Lucinda Williams this one is for you. Sofia Kourteis’s Madres should have been in the electronic section but honestly, I forgot about it for a second while I Was doing that part and just listened to it again tonight on New Years and it beat out Squirrel Flower for this place. In the same style as Tour-Marbourg this electronic album can set any night on the right track!

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2023 Best Of

Old Head Favorites

Damien Jurado came out with three albums this year but my favorite by far is Motorcycle Madness. It might be one of my favorites all time by him. It is hard to describe but it has a real jazz noir feel to it, yet it is warm and inviting like getting dropped into the recording sessions with the musicians. I can’t recommend it enough but it might take a few listens to truly appreciate. The National came out with two albums this year and I loved both of them but Laugh Track is the better of the two. Not as monochromatic as Frankenstein. Yo La Tengo’s This Stupid World was the first album I fell in love with this year. I describe albums like this as comfort food but this one is your favorite sweater album, warm, familiar and comfortable.  Aselestine is gorgeous.  Cate Le Bon reinvigorated Wilco with some studio weirdness that they’ve been lacking since A Ghost is Born. That is not to say I haven’t loved other albums since but it is refreshing to see an opener like Infinite Surprise. Cousin has a bite to it. A reinvigorated Blur is great too. The Ballad of Darren is my go album to when I don’t know what I want to listen to. It is consistent all the way through and its great to have them back.

Rap

Rap did not have a giant release that hit this year. I am more than fine with that.  I’ve been digging the underground for years and there is not a better underground rapper the past ten years then Billy Woods! The man is poet and sage. His rhymes are so dense and rich with double and triple meanings that it takes many, many listens to unpack but his flow and cadence is always instant so every listen including the first are very rewarding. Kenny Segal is an amazing producer and he and the Alchemist are the two best in the game right now. Segal mixes up the production from Acid Jazz Frenzies to drone loops and Woods handles each curveball deftly and confidently. His other album We Buy Diabetic Test Strips with his partner Elucid as Armand Hammer also deserves your time as well as features like the opener on my next favorite rap album of the year, The Aux by Blockhead. If you want to know how strong Rap is right now just listen to this album. It is a who’s who of the underground rap scene. With Woods, Aesop Rock, Navy Blue, Danny Brown, Bruiser Wolf, Open Mike Eagle you can’t go wrong on a single track. The production is incredible and if I said Segal and Alchemist are tops, Blockhead is not far behind if not behind at all (as I write this I am convincing myself that this album is on those two’s level production wise). Speaking of The Alchemist his hidden album with Earl Sweatshirt was finally revealed and it lives up the hype and exceeds it.  Earl is in his bag on this album and he is lively and warm, fatherhood has done him well! I love short Rap albums that play like punk rock albums and this one is the best of them this year 2-3-minute songs, 11 songs under 30 minutes is my jam. Vin Skully is one my favorite songs of the year. Black Thought continues his reign as the most consistently solid emcee of my generation.  With every output he cements himself as a top 5 rapper of all time, this time teaming up with the amazing El Michels Affair. This pairing is perfect and feeds my need for the rap I grew up on while also sounding current and vital. Navy Blue rounds of the top five with Ways of Knowing. I have loved watching Navy grow with each release and this is his best to date. The live instrumentation adds a warmth to his reflections on family and life.  I love the positivity and gratitude weaved throughout this one.

Jazz Hybrids

I am getting more and more into jazz with every trip around the sun. I know I’m getting old when I crave hot dogs, McDonalds cheeseburgers and can watch almost every Dodger game from start to finish, now throw in Jazz and I’m almost officially retired.  However, these are not Jazz albums in the purest sense they are rap, electronic, blues hybrid that meet jazz in an abstract way.  McKinley Dixon’s Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? is another under 30-minute rap meets jazz album that I absolutely love. Conscious hip hop meets jazz almost in the vein of Guru’s Jazzmatazz records but this one has more of a theme centered around three novels by Toni Morrison. The album is concise and dense and being under 30 minutes leaves listener wanting more. Sparkle Division’s Foxy was a very welcome surprise this year. Jazz meets electronica. Apparently, this album is about a hangover post a debauched Hollywood evening but I don’t get that in fact I would welcome hangovers if they felt like this. Astral wanderings are how I’d describe it, getting lost in introspection and losing track of time and space. A great jogging album.  If you liked the instrumentation on To Pimp a Butterfly but wish it was even jazzier and out there then Kassa Overall’s Animals might be for you. Now I’m not saying this album is on that level but it is in that vein. Danny Brown featuring on Clock Ticking is a top ten song this year. Another cosmic adventure in this jazz hybrid feature is Spirits’ The Circling Sun. Piano, Bass and drums are the backbones of this album but the flutes, keyboards and other instrumentation provide the fuel this album uses to take you on a lovely trip.  Finally, we have Lonnie Holley who blends jazz, blues, spoken word poetry to create a lush history lesson.  It is important to never forget this country horrific past in regards to slavery, racism, and oppression. Oh Me, Oh My is a beautiful reminder of that struggle that offers hope and beauty, and how art is our way to reconciliation. Art and beauty connect our humanity and if we focus on that, there are many bridges that can be repaired.

Shoegaze adjacent

I don’t know what Shoegaze is anymore but I do know if it is a descriptor I’ll give it a try.  Wall of sound, crashing and sweeping distorted guitars, propulsive rhythms are all things I like and these albums have different elements of shoegaze but are probably not all shoegaze by purists’ standards.  Slowdive’s everything is alive might be the album I listened to most this year. I have always loved this band and it amazing that they keep getting better 32 years since they first started and with a 22-year break before it second to last album. This album shimmers and shines with joy and peace.  It is the sound of how I want to age with grace and some new surprises that keep things fresh.  Prayer Remembered is a top ten song of the year. Speaking of coming back from a long hiatus Drop Nineteen return with their first album in thirty years. Full transparency I had never heard of this band prior to this year but I’m glad I was introduced to them this year. I know nostalgia can be a dirty word but this album is the best sense of the word. Hard Light intertwines Shoegaze elements while the lyrics celebrate past glories with a current sound invoking a sense of longing and reflection but grounded in the present and embracing it.  Hotline TNT’s Cartwheel and Dogears’ Blockbuster bring a more poppier sound to this group, like emo meets shoegaze. My friend Antony described Blockbuster as Clarity meets 100 broken windows and that was all I needed to dive in and I’ve been swimming with it since August. Hotline TNT is like No Joy or Clairo meets Siamese Dream. Dreamy atmospheres, textured guitars and introspective lyrics. Speaking of Dreamy atmospheres Parannoul’s After the Magic is as dreamy as it gets.  I’ve been a big fan of Parannoul’s shoegaze bliss since I first heard To See the Next Part of the Dream. His new album, although still very shoegazy, adds more melody and bedroom pop into the mix.  The lyrics are entirely in Korean and like Sigur Ros I have no idea what he is singing about and I really like that aspect of this album, the vocals are just another instrument.

Experimental (I Guess)

Experimental is a very loose term to describe these albums, but I don’t know how else to label them.  Avant-Garde might be a better term as they take traditional genres and push and stretch them into new directions. Los Angeles by Jackknife Lee, Lol Tolhurst (The Cure Drummer), and Budgie (Siouxsie and the Creatures drummer) is a great collaborative album. Many guest singers including James Murphy, Isaac Brock, The Edge and Lonnie Holley provide variety to the percussion, electronic grooves of this album.  My friend Aaron described it as LCD meets Fugazi meets Blur or U2.  If that is your jam check this one out, it does not disappoint.  Young Fathers’ Heavy Heavy combine elements of indie, rap, funk and soul to create a great groove album. I put this album on every time I want to be put in a good mood, I can’t help to dance when this one is on. Algiers’ Shook like Los Angeles is collaborative effort. This album reminds me of a patchwork quilt with different pieces yielding to one overarching blanket, every guest adds some different textures but it is still Algiers dark yet hopeful view of the current and the future. Green Iris is a top ten song of the year. Yves Tumor, like Prince before them is genre unto themselves. For this album they tackle their own Gospel with some Shoegaze and elements of soul and glam. It really is something you have to hear to understand and decided if it is for you.  It is fascinating to me and plus they put on an incredible live show. The final album in this Category is Maria BC’s Spike Field. This is an avant-garde folk album in the same style as Grouper. The out of tune piano is featured in most songs and the lyrics are brooding contemplative.  I have fallen asleep to this album more then any other this year and it always yields strange dreams.