These are the seventy-five albums of 2020 that have meant the most to us at Concrete Islands, alongside our archive releases of the year

What can I say about 2020 that hasn’t been said already? At least my year started positively, with a late January trip up to Glasgow (and across to Paisley) for an Optimo night. I had the absolute best time with friends old and new, and realised I was still able to go clubbing (a minor revelation to this forty-something). Not every weekend or anything, but enough so that future plans were hatched. Then things started to go wrong. If the death of Andrew Weatherall wasn’t quite enough to doom those plans, then the way the pandemic ripped through everyone’s lives certainly was. Furloughed from my day job, I initially tried to view it as an opportunity to dedicate more time to Concrete Islands, although it didn’t quite work out that way. With my routine thrown out, anxiety levels all over the place and kids to look after during the day, I soon reverted to writing and editing at night.

Record shops stayed open online though, which along with the promos that kept coming, meant there was a constant flow of new and new-old music in the house. Something overwhelmingly positive to take from the situation was this extra time spent with my kids and the fact that they got to share in my musical explorations on a daily basis. They didn’t dig everything (my eldest certainly wasn’t taken with any jazz that got too free), but ‘daddy disco’ successfully populated the Friday evening slot between Star Wars board game and kids’ TV. At one point as we were listening to what became one of the Concrete Islands albums of the year, my youngest very carefully and thoughtfully said something along the lines of, “They’re protesting, but with music.” That at least filled me with hope. And hope there is, based on the strength of 2020’s musical output. Despite everything, art and culture endure. Music remains as vital as ever, if not more so.

Heartfelt thanks from the Concrete Islands team for the continued support during this toughest of years. We can get through this together and hopefully something on this list helps you just as much as it has helped us.

Everything listed has a link to a review/feature on the site or (if we didn’t write about the album) to Bandcamp or other artist/label related source. Additionally for the top twenty-five, a quote from the review/feature has been extracted (with quotation marks) or a new blurb written (without quotation marks).

Archive releases:

15. Anthony Moore – Out (Drag City)

14. Doug Carn featuring the voice of Jean Carn – Spirit of the New Land (Real Gone)

13. Jon Hassell – Vernal Equinox (Ndeya)

12. Tino Contreras – Musica Infinita (Arc)

11. Gillian Welch – Boots No. 2: The Lost Songs (Acony)

10. Various Artists – Soul Love Now: The Black Fire Records Story (Strut)

9. Various Artists – DJ Kicks: Kemistry & Storm (!K7)

8. Horace Tapscott Quintet – The Giant Is Awakened (Real Gone)

7. Various Artists – Spiritual Jazz Vol. XII: Impulse! (Jazzman)

6. Sharhabil Ahmed – The King of Sudanese Jazz (Habibi Funk)

5. 24-Carat Black – III (Numero)

4. Richard & Linda Thompson – Hard Luck Stories (1972-1982) (UMC)

3. Various Artists – Join the Future: UK Bleep & Bass 1988-91 (Cease & Desist)

2. Oneness of Juju – African Rhythms: 1970-1982 (Strut)

1. Shirley Scott – One for Me (Arc)

Albums of the year:

75. Witch ‘n’ Monk – Witch ‘n’ Monk (Tzadik)

74. Spirit Fest – Mirage Mirage (Morr)

73. Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings – All the Good Times (Acony)

72. Karate Boogaloo – Carn the Boogers (College of Knowledge)

71. Textile Ranch – Ombilical (Second Language)

70. Dean & Britta – Quarantine Tapes (Double Feature / People in a Position to Know)

69. Mikal Cronin – Switched-On Seeker (Merge)

68. Rupert Lally – Strange Systems (Third Kind)

67. Cavern of Anti-Matter – In Fabric OST (Duophonic)

66. Tornado Wallace – Midnight Mania (Optimo Music)

65. Rupert Lally – Lost to the Past (Modern Aviation)

64. The Home Current – Cylinder Moses (Lonely Mountain)

63. The Heartwood Institute & Panamint Manse – Parapsychedelia (Castles in Space)

62. Four Tet – Sixteen Oceans (Text)

61. Laurence Pike – Prophecy (The Leaf Label)

60. Kahil El’Zabar – America the Beautiful (Spiritmuse)

59. E – Complications (Silver Rocket / Lokal Rekorc)

58. Rob Mazurek & Exploding Star Orchestra – Dimensional Stardust (International Anthem)

57. Moor Mother – Circuit City (Don Giovanni)

56. Various Artists – Par Avion (Modern Aviation)

55. Arbouretum – Let It All In (Thrill Jockey)

54. Danalogue x Alabaster dePlume – I Was Not Sleeping (Total Refreshment Centre)

53. Polypores – Azure (Castles in Space)

52. Cosmic Vibrations ft. Dwight Trible – Pathways & Passages (Spiritmuse)

51. Burd Ellen – Says the Never Beyond (Self-Released)

50. Heather Leigh – Glory Days (Boomkat Editions)

49. Speaker Music – Black Nationalist Sonic Weaponry (Planet Mu)

48. Gabe Knox – Cosmic Motorik Adventures & Machine Language Music (Polytechnic Youth)

47. Trees Speak – Shadow Forms (Soul Jazz)

46. Moses Boyd – Dark Matter (Exodus)

45. Matthew Halsall – Salute to the Sun (Gondwana)

44. Jon Brooks – How to Get to Spring (Clay Pipe Music)

43. The Dream Syndicate – The Universe Inside (Anti-)

42. Andy Bell – The View from Halfway Down (Sonic Cathedral)

41. Sun Ra Arkestra – Swirling (Strut)

40. Snow Palms – Land Waves (Village Green)

39. Bernard Grancher – Aveugle Etincelle (Castles in Space)

38. Espen Eriksen Trio – End of Summer (Rune Grammofon)

37. Listening Center – Diaphanous Structures (Temporary Tapes)

36. Emma-Jean Thackray – Um Yang (Night Dreamer)

35. Gilroy Mere – Adlestrop (Clay Pipe Music)

34. Belbury Poly – The Gone Away (Ghost Box) 

33. Surprise Chef – All News Is Good News (Mr Bongo)

32. Bergsonist – Middle Ouest (Optimo Music)

31. Angèle David-Guillou – A Question of Angles (Village Green)

30. ONIPA – We No Be Machine (Strut)

29. Jeff Parker – Suite for Max Brown (International Anthem)

28. Enrique Rodríguez & The Negra Chiway Band – Fase Liminal (Soul Jazz)

27. Various Artists – The Isolation Tapes (Castles in Space)

26. Nubya Garcia – Source (Concord Jazz)

25. Plone – Puzzlewood (Ghost Box)

Plone Puzzlewood Ghost Box

“Plone have crafted a series of memorable delights that positively crackle with imagination. For Puzzlewood is a mood lifter and head scratcher, offering inventive electronics to intrigue, excite and unburden.”

24. Isolating – Perennial (4GN3S)

“Isolating is Stephen Hindman, half of The Golden Filter, who is no stranger to shadowy machine music. Isolating’s take on industrial is however particularly dystopian. The sense that nothing lasts emanates from the shifting soundscapes across its eleven tracks, which collectively feel almost preternaturally apt for these times.”

23. Youth Stand Up – Youth Stand United (Autonomous Africa)

Outsider brilliance and sonic righteousness made in collaboration between the Tafi Cultural Centre and Green Door Studio through Optimo Music’s Autonomus Africa imprint. Highlife dreams, Afrobeat magic and weirdo disco from Glasgow and Ghana with love.

22. Cleo Sol – Rose in the Dark (Forever Living Originals)

Cleo Sol’s solo album keeps SAULT co-conspirator Inflo on production duties to bring yet more magic into the world. Here the genre shifts are put aside in favour of an expressive neo soul palette, with more subtleties bubbling to the surface on each successive listen.

21. Keiron Phelan & Peace Signs – Hobby Jingo (Gard Du Nord)

“Tales of faked moon landings and Eurovision set in sumptuous Caribbean cocktail bar settings with nods to Scott Walker and Burt Bacharach; soaring harmony-rich Prefab Sprouted pieces with food-based romantic allegories; languid twanging Hawaiian-tinged balladry; and strangely contagious Paul McCartney & Wings-goes-barroom-reggae stomping.”

20. Keeley Forsyth – Debris (The Leaf Label)

Keeley Forsyth Debris

“Even though it’s wracked with much personal confusion, what you take from Forsyth’s debut isn’t the darkness. Debris might be born of a crumbling mind, but it feels truly alive with rugged beauty.”

19. Róisín Murphy – Róisín Machine (Skint)

Róisín Murphy’s DJ Parrot-produced set of disco chuggers is infused with soul, house, art and sex. In the absence of dancefloors, experiencing Róisín Machine with the soundsystem up and the lights down low might be the closest you’ll get to dancing in a sweaty basement club. Something for the virtual weekend then.

18. The Twilite Tone – The Clearing (Stones Throw)

The Twilite Tone - The Clearing

“Genre slips are navigated beautifully and The Clearing maintains its instrumental hip-hop heart throughout while joining musical dots. The Twilite Tone’s wide-eyed MPC explorations are very much a palette-cleansing joy to experience.”

17. Polypores – Tempus (Woodford Halse)

“Although there might be some question marks about just how long Stephen James Buckley can sustain such quantity and quality musical questing, the prospects look decidedly strong.”

16. Vanessa Worm – Vanessa 77 (Optimo Music)

“The occupation of different musical zones – existing along the electronic/punk continuum – is here an invitation to explore these areas together, finding new worlds of possibilities in the process. Vanessa 77 is a set of boundary-less yet sharply focussed experimental dancefloor excursions.”

15. Irreversible Entanglements – Who Sent You? (International Anthem)

Released two months before the unlawful killing of George Floyd, the second album from this US collective is a volatile fusion of futurist jazz and cryptic poetry. Less about a return to some utopian homeland; more a sense of the marginalised taking control. (Gareth Thompson)

14. Andrew Wasylyk – Fugitive Light and Themes of Consolation (Athens of the North)

Andrew Wasylyk Fugitive Light and Themes of Consolation

“Consider the somnambulist passages of Vertigo where Jimmy Stewart follows Kim Novak through the streets of San Francisco to Bernard Herrmann’s mesmerising score. There’s room to dream within those scenes, just as there is in Wasylyk’s music.”

13. Various Artists – Avenue with Trees (Second Language)

Avenue with Trees has the peculiar effect of invoking a longing for summer’s end, with some shorter days and fallen leaves to bolster its ambience. In all, this is undoubtedly one of 2020’s most exquisite and rich cultural ventures.”

12. Aquiles Navarro & Tcheser Holmes – Heritage of the Invisible II (International Anthem)

New York drummer Tcheser Holmes is a modern maestro, who began percussing aged four. Here he meets longtime comrade and trumpeter Aquiles Navarro for an intense engagement with Pan-American rhythms and boisterous brass melodies. Truly a spirit of the age recording. (Gareth Thompson)

11. Sauce and Dogs – Sauce and Dogs (Chops)

A November drop out of nowhere that has rocketed into our albums of the year, this is thrilling no wave jazz-not-jazz from mystery outfit Sauce and Dogs. Edge of the seat, spirited DIY with South American flavours and shades of Liquid Liquid.

10. Sven Wunder – Wabi Sabi (Piano Piano)

Sven Wunder Wabi Sabi

“Each of the miniature worlds explored on Wabi Sabi feels newly discovered, as if David Axelrod had gone to town on Jon Hassell and buried the resulting magic, only for it to be dug up in 2020 by some enterprising crate digger.”

9. David Boulter – Yarmouth (Clay Pipe Music)

Yarmouth reconfirms and expands upon Boulter’s reliable pedigree for being an Englishman enthralled by evocative European and amorphous American sounds. This cohesive collection invokes and recolours faded memories of seaside characters, coastal walks, vintage ballrooms, funfairs, cafés, piers and the simple pleasures of solitary sandcastle sculpting.”

8. Venus Volcanism – Rizitiko (Weaponise Your Sound)

Rena Rasouli has recast ritualistic songs from where she grew up on Crete as a series of immersive electronic compositions. Think Jocelyn Pook’s pieces for Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut with the vibrational bliss of late-period Alice Coltrane.

7. Jim Becker & Lama Lobsang Palden – Compassion (Drag City)

Lama Lobsang Palden & Jim Becker Compassion

“This album is anything but a stylised Buddhism for temple tourists. For sure the message gets revamped through an exchange of artistry, but the essential sacred therapy is untainted. Like balm for a disturbed soul, Compassion is made of clarity, wisdom and kindness.”

6. Tobin Sprout – Empty Horses (Fire)

“For the bulk of its ten largely short tracks, Empty Horses envisions David Crosby and Neil Young leaving their egos in the studio car park to cut a cluster of lovelorn laments and matured reflections. It’s a beautifully modest affair with absolutely nothing to be modest about.”

5. Trees Speak – Ohms (Soul Jazz)

Deep kosmische music out of Tucson, Arizona. Trees Speak play psych rock like post-punk, with Carpenter-esque synths in the mix, and Ohms is a darkly cinematic, inner-cosmos journey.

4. Surprise Chef – Daylight Savings (Mr Bongo)

“The Chef are assuredly mapping out their own unique sonic journey through soul, funk and jazz. This is particularly apparent on Daylight Savings, the even more dope follow-up to All News Is Good News, which shakes off any anxiety of influence. It’s a deeper, more confident record that loses none of the warmth or charm of its predecessor.”

3. Bless the Mad – Bless the Mad (Stay the Course)

“Sometimes a group arrives out of the blue with an album that perfectly aligns with where you’re at musically. Bless the Mad are one such group and their self-titled debut is an organic update of 90s hip-hop that brings foundational jazz and soul material to the surface in unique, contemporary ways. There’s a fearlessness in how the Chicago duo pull ancestral threads together to create their own sound, making an offering to those that came before while forging a path into the future. Rather like ancestors Tribe, Dilla, Madlib, DJ Premier, Alice Coltrane or Sun Ra then.”

2. SAULT – Untitled (Rise) (Forever Living Originals)

An unexpected follow-up to Untitled (Black Is), arriving only three months later, Untitled (Rise) is another conceptually brilliant and musically astonishing double set. Soul, breaks, African rhythms, post-punk and even Herrmann-esque strings all come together and take inspirational form. Untitled (Rise) is protest music for the day after the dark night of the soul, when the fight begins in earnest. In any other year this would be number one, but…

1. SAULT – Untitled (Black Is) (Forever Living Originals)

The most vital album of 2020 is a masterpiece for these times and beyond.

SAULT lean further into their soul and hip-hop roots on Untitled (Black Is), yet also continue to draw from across their deep musical DNA in intriguing ways, while utilising spoken word segments to provide incisive commentary on the state of the world. Take “Hard Life” with its dope drums and the way producer Inflo teases – until the sky-is-opening release – what sounds like a classic soul sample, but is presumably a fresh studio recording of singer Cleo Sol. It thus makes use of hip-hop’s storied sampling history, but upends traditional lines of thinking. Or the emotionally-wrenching call to arms that is “Wildfires”, with Sol’s declaration that “we will never show fear / Even in my eyes / I will always rise” and synthesiser that echoes “Streets of Philadelphia”.

Untitled (Black Is) was born of a world reeling from / waking up to systemic racism as it was being ravaged by a pandemic and SAULT chart these experiences to devastating effect. It’s angry and beautiful and provoking and life-affirming. Listening to it feels necessary, offering spiritual nutrition where you might have been feeling emotionally hollowed out. It’s a record that inspires, that has the absolute power to move. The world needs the forward-thinking, pulse-taking music that SAULT are making and Untitled (Black Is) is an album as important as Blue Lines. This is nothing less than the future of soul music now.

Stewart Gardiner
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