These are the fifty albums of 2022 that have meant the most to us, alongside our compilations & archives of the year
Like Bruce Springsteen paring down sessions material to craft the lean machine Darkness of the Edge of Town, we’ve stripped back our albums of the year to a top 50 for 2022. We previously listed 75, although only a percentage had associated writing. This year we’ve written about everything. Likewise for compilations and archives, which get a text assisted top 20 here. With another really strong year for releases, it was difficult to decide which records made it without losing our minds in the process. But decide we did.
Perhaps 2022 can be considered some sort of new chapter for us all. It was at least the year that I discovered Discworld and realised Terry Pratchett might be the most humane writer I’ve ever read. The world certainly needs more tolerance. Living in London also took on more personal positivity as I got into a clubbing groove with pals. Optimo and Luke Una nights are very much about community and it felt good to forge new connections and be part of something special. The healing power of music in full effect.
Just before we get down to list business, I’d like to take a moment to thank our readers on behalf of the Concrete Islands team. We couldn’t do this without you. DIY forever!
A quote from the review/feature has been extracted or a new blurb written for everything on the list. You will also find a link to the full review/feature on the site or (if we didn’t write about the album already) to Bandcamp or other artist/label resource.
Compilations & archives:
20.
Pulselovers – Circles Within Circles (Subexotic)
Not a straightforwardly brand new conception – though it holds together with a cohesion that suggests that it could be – the LP rounds up a diverse range of tracks previously peppered throughout compilations curated by the A Year in the Country label between 2017 and 2020. (Adrian)
19.
Various Artists – Boom! Italian Jazz Soundtracks at Their Finest (1959-1969) (Cam Sugar)
Think of Italian cinema and immediately you see them: Marcello in his dark suit and shades, cigarette in hand, and Sophia, hair tussled, smiling down the lens. But what do you hear when the mind conjures up these images? Boom! Italian Jazz Soundtracks at Their Finest is as charming as the films themselves and with a range of styles from bebop to bossa nova, these 33 tracks will transport you to 1960s Italy, giving you a sense not only of the style of the era, but the economic boom, the turmoil and the upheaval of a changing society too. Boom! is a delightful compilation that would be of interest not only to fans of Italian cinema, but anyone with an interest in the music of the period. (Chris Bateman)
18.
Various Artists – Mr Bongo Record Club Volume Five (Mr Bongo)
Probably the most fun record I bought this year, the fifth release from Mr Bongo’s Record Club compilation series had a self-proclaimed “less dancefloor driven” vibe, as lockdown forced these master programmers down different musical pathways. It is difficult to fully go along with that sentiment, since tracks such as Mave and Dave’s “You Are Delicious” and “Let’s Be Happy” by Gyedu Blay Ambolley are disco funk movers. There are treats in store for those in pursuit of new music with standout tracks such as Mariah’s Shinzo “No Tobira” (an Optimo classic) having you digging deep in those crates. An absolute joy of a compilation from the best in the business, this is a hard recommend! (Chris Bateman)
17.
Various Artists – Todo Muere SBXV (Sacred Bones)
The premise is thrillingly simple: cover versions of Scared Bones tracks cut by fellow Sacred Bones artists. Of course the label’s songbook is odd and brilliant enough to transform such an idea into a vital compilation. You therefore get Boris toying with SQÜRL like so much roadkill and Dean Hurley chanting out between worlds with a Mort Garson composition. Yet it’s Marissa Nadler’s crawling-under-your-skin-and-into-your-heart take on David Lynch’s “Cold Wind Blowin'” that ultimately steals the show. Nadler does nothing less than harness the stars with her raw country power and slowcore restraint on this magnificent turn. (Stewart Gardiner)
16.
Various Artists – Look to Imber (Modern Aviation)
Conceptually based around label owner Will Salmon’s fascination with the real Wiltshire locale of Imber which was requisitioned and subsequently left abandoned by the British government for military usage as part of Second World War efforts, this multi-artist assortment is both majestically mysterious and inventively inviting. (Adrian)
15.
Idlewild – The Remote Part (Parlophone)
I’ve got a history with Idlewild. I went to primary school with drummer Colin Newton and when he came through to Glasgow from Edinburgh to see The Smashing Pumpkins during first year at uni (back in 1996), he brought a copy of his band’s demo tape. I would subsequently rally the troops to attend early Idlewild Glasgow gigs, but that wasn’t needed for long, as Idlewild’s upward trajectory was as energised as their early output. By 2002’s The Remote Part they were not only beloved by a dedicated fanbase, but had broken through to the other side. It’s a majestic record that pulls together their noise, poetry and pop inclinations up to that point and goes bold with it all. Single “American English” is one for the ages, a shiver-inducing anthem that distils the band’s unique literary outlook into four minutes that feels like forever and never long enough.
A welcome vinyl reissue that also got a lovely special edition by Monorail Music with signed photographs of the band. (Stewart Gardiner)
14.
The Home Current – The Singles 2015-2019 (Woodford Halse)
Combining material previously released on 7” between 2015 and 2019 – via Polytechnic Youth, Static Caravan and Castles in Space – with three contemporaneous unheard recordings, The Singles Collection 2015-2019 simultaneously salutes the standalone moments of inspiration that can be captured on off-piste pieces of plastic and how good they can sound subsequently concertinaed together in one place. A fine foraging trip to the outer rim of Martin Jensen’s copious canon. (Adrian)
13.
Ride – Nowhere (Wichita)
This is a formative record for me. If memory serves, a school friend lent me her cassette of Nowhere around 1990/1991 and I made a copy which got listened to an awful lot. Years later I worked at the same company as Ride bassist Steve Queralt and he gave me a reissue on CD. I’m grateful to both parties, but unfortunately neither copy made it with me through the intervening years. Let’s just say I wanted to finally own Nowhere on vinyl, but wasn’t prepared to pay the aftermarket prices. So thank you Wichita for the 2022 reissue. My journey with with this record can now continue. (Stewart Gardiner)
12.
Various Artists – Saturno 2000 – La Rebajada de Los Sonideros 1962-1983 (Analog Africa)
The alchemy of playing a record at the wrong speed where something new and wondrous is created is all too rare. Astonishingly then, Saturno 2000 documents an entire Mexican soundsystem scene of slowed down cumbria known as rebajada. Giving new meaning to downtempo, this is a sound that makes the very air feel different, that transmutes simple movements into ritualistic behaviour. (Stewart Gardiner)
11.
Taras Bulba – Venier Le Temps (Stroom)
Belgian label Stroom pulled together little known German duo Taras Bulba’s EBM-does-new-age trance tracks from the 1990s and sent them out to make new friends as Venier Le Temps. Its odd cadences and rudimentary sounds are disconcertingly appealing, so those friends turned out to be the right kind of weirdos. Prep your own mind for transformation by imagining Praga Khan collaborating with Jon Hassell and then wait for someone to get the peyote buttons in. (Stewart Gardiner)
10.
Prolapse – Pointless Walks to Dismal Places (Optic Nerve)
In addition to some high-grade curation of their 1994 and 1997 Peel Sessions on Precious Recordings of London, as two double-7″ EPs, Optic Nerve opulently delivered an expanded vinyl edition of Prolapse’s long-unavailable first studio album. Rejuvenating the onetime Leicester band’s original blueprints for their “soundtrack music for arguments” – with the incorporation of two embryonic EPs and copious sleeve essays – this 2 LP bundle proved to be a revelatory archival assemblage. (Adrian)
9.
Felt – CD reissues (Cherry Red)
Although there has been some Discogs-based disquiet about latter-day Felt back catalogue resurrections undergoing some excessive tinkering by founder Lawrence, Cherry Red Records should nevertheless be commended for keeping such a curiously compelling long-player catalogue physically available in its entirety. (Adrian)
8.
Various Artists – Under the Bridge (Skep Wax)
Bringing together creative characters historically connected to the extended Sarah Records family, in assorted old and new guises, Under the Bridge packed in top-quality contributions from The Luxembourg Signal, Even As We Speak, The Orchids, Boyracer, The Catenary Wives, The Wake and others. Covering a rich gamut of gauzy shoegaze, Gallic exotica, art-rock, indie-pop classicism and more, this triumphantly turned out to be one of the most consistently listenable multi-artist compilations of 2022. (Adrian)
7.
Various Artists – Folk Funk & Trippy Troubadours Volume One (RE:WARM)
Paul Hillery’s carefully crafted compilation for RE:WARM joins the dots between 1960s psychedelic rock, hallucinogenic Americana, Terry Callier soul folk and under-the-stars Balearica. Folk Funk & Trippy Troubadours is an invitingly evocative title and Hillery successfully defines the sound across these four sides without ever boxing it in. Current personal favourites, “Blue Sunny Sky” by Wendy Grose, “I Wonder” by Scott Seskind and “Space Out” by Duncan Pryce Kirk may sit nicely in your DJ record box alongside Rubber Soul, Scott Walker and “The Weight”. Subsequent listens will mean new favourites forging fresh connections, because this is a collection of music from yesterday that will keep taking shape tomorrow. (Stewart Gardiner)
6.
Heavenly – Heavenly vs Satan (Skep Wax)
Billed as the group’s attempt ‘to make a pure pop record’, the dozen gathered recordings feel even fresher and more melody-rich with age. De-shambling the sounds of a stereotypical C86 band through crisp production values, pushing guitarist Peter Momtchiloff’s nimble twangling and Fletcher’s airy multi-tiered tones to the fore, and packing in gripping songs fuelled by a Johnny Marr-meets-60s girl group agility, there’s much to love anew here as well as with some misty-eyed nostalgia. (Adrian)
5.
Various Artists – Luke Una presents É Soul Cultura (Mr Bongo)
Luke Una’s 5 hour shows on Worldwide FM shows are a wonder of sonic evangelism. Even the way he talks about the music is electrifying – this writer certainly gets a buzz from his impassioned descriptions. “Soul music made by humans with machines” is a particular favourite, an evocative statement which Luke Una delivers and expands upon with his É Soul Cultura compilation for Mr Bongo. He’s never been one to squirrel rarities away from the light of day (or at least 5am post-club zones), but wants to share the transcendental power of records from across the spectrum of sounds, dismantling geographic and social boundaries along the way. É Soul Cultura is a gift, from Luke Una to you, and you would do well to accept it with open arms. (Stewart Gardiner)
4.
The Leaf Library – Library Music: Volume One (Where It’s at Is Where You Are)
Rounding up sundry but far from scrappy one-off singles, digital bonus tracks and compilation cuts that have built up since 2008, we are presented with one super satisfying sixteen-track double-LP set. So stuffed with an embarrassment of rediscovered riches, it’s hard to know where to start discussing its highlights. Yet if forced to do so, then primarily it’s impossible not to be charmed by acres of material that find main vocalist Kate Gibson gliding her gorgeous Meriel Barham-like tones atop Matt Ashton and co.’s eclectic sonic blends. This finds us moving through motorik-pop (“Agnes in the Square”, “Walking Backwards” and “Tranquillity Bass”), honeycombed shoegaze (“Goodbye Four Walls” and “The Greater Good”), sumptuous echoes of Sam Prekop’s first solo album (“Soundings”), kosmische ambience (ISAN’s remix of “Losing Places”) and spectral detours (“Architect of the Moon” and “Tired Ghost”). (Adrian)
3.
The Pastels / Maher Shalal Hash Baz / Lightships – vinyl reissues + mix CD (Geographic)
My introduction to Geographic was in 2003, probably with The Pastels’ The Last Great Wilderness soundtrack. The following year I joined Plan B magazine as a section editor and moved back up to Glasgow. Back then the label seemed to be releasing an outsider classic every other month and those records really spoke to me. That time and those records continue to be an influence, so it was great to hear that Geographic were revisiting their catalogue and bringing Maher Shalal Hash Baz’s Blues Du Jour, Lightship’s Electric Cables and The Last Great Wilderness back to vinyl. Initial copies from Monorail and Domino include an exclusive mix CD, You Are Trying to Make Me Remember You, which joins the dots between Geographic artists, Jan & Dean’s “Like a Summer Rain”, European cinema and more. (Stewart Gardiner)
2.
The Beatles – Revolver (Super Deluxe) (Apple)
My realisation of the genius of The Beatles goes back to “Eleanor Rigby”. Hearing it as a kid, I was wowed by the way it told a story in a song. It does more in two minutes than most novels can manage given hundreds of pages, and all without losing the mysteriousness that lies between the lines. DJing In the 1990s, I would play “Tomorrow Never Knows”, that high watermark of psychedelia that still sounds like the future made today. That these are only two moments of unbeatable brilliance on Revolver speaks to the record’s power. There’s an argument to be made for Revolver as an album of albums that is uniquely pliable to seasons of your life, while also documenting the changing world of 1966. It’s a record that always feels alive despite its masterpiece status. The super deluxe vinyl set brings a little bit more of that life to the table and owning it becomes a necessary extravagance.
Giles Martin’s new stereo mix improves upon the original stereo version for headphones on the move, although it’s the mono mix that remains the go-to option for home listening (so the inclusion of that is much appreciated). Digging into the double LP of outtakes is a rewarding experience, albeit one that takes patience to get the most out of. These aren’t fully realised alternative cuts whose lack of inclusion can be argued about for years to come, but are instead steps towards the iconic final versions. There’s an instrumental take of “Paperback Writer” b-side “Rain” before it was slowed down, that surprises because you realise just how much that simple act of manipulation created the classic drug chug jangle of the original. It’s all about the careful process of creation, which is hard work rather than magic, although The Beatles had plenty of that too. (Stewart Gardiner)
1.
Various Artists – Polyphonic Cosmos: Sonic Innovations in Japan (1980-1986) (Cease & Desist)
Polyphonic Cosmos: Sonic Innovations in Japan (1980-1986) has Optimo’s JD Twitch further the outsider musical connections between Glasgow and Japan with an essential compilation put together from years of digging in Japanese record shops. These 14 tracks travel unique and often revelatory paths, from the delicate to the propulsive, staking out left of field 1980s territory that you really want to inhabit.
World Standard’s “ばら二曲 (Fellini & Rota)” invites the listener into the world of Polyphonic Cosmos with an evocation of pastoral cityscapes that also, as the title suggests, echoes the collaboration between Federico Fellini and Nino Rota with a Japanese take on 1960s European cinema, conjuring quiet and colourful magic realism. Things take a machine learning synth-pop turn with “M-U-S-I-C” by Normal Brain, where some relative of HAL 9000 repeatedly spells out the word ‘music’ as if attempting to understand its intangible magic. Strip away the quiet spoken word and piano, and Yasuaki Shimizu’s “Crow” sounds rather like a precursor to Angelo Badalamenti’s Fire Walk With Me score, its moonless night ritualistic jazz, elastic Red Room bass and dark drum interruptions the sonic equivalent of stepping through a door within a painting on the wall. These artists were obviously not bound by genre, only by the reach of their imaginations. It’s an idea that speaks volumes about this beautifully curated collection of forward-thinking sounds. (Stewart Gardiner)
Albums of the year:
50.
Amanda Whiting – Lost in Abstraction (Jazzman)
Welsh harpist Whiting arouses jazzy plaudits here, taking a spacious and spiritual approach. Lauded flautist Chip Wickham co-stars. (Gareth Thompson)
49.
Koma West – Koma Saxo with Sofia Jernberg (We Jazz)
Imagine György Ligeti working alongside Edda Dell’Orso on a future jazz album for Mo’ Wax in an alternate 2022 where the erstwhile label is still going strong. (Stewart Gardiner)
48.
Kathryn Joseph – for you who are the wronged (Rock Action)
Kathryn Joseph’s third album, for you who are the wronged, may be her best yet. A record driven by the raw, coarse pain and anger of the wronged, it’s stunningly beautiful and powerfully delivered, albeit with soft keys and the melodic synths of Lomond Campbell. On tracks such as “the burning of us all”, the raw devastation of domestic abuse is laid out, but with it a promise of revenge. Her fragile voice is the sound of one who has suffered but is here to not only tell the tale but to give those who have been wronged a voice and a hand to hold. (Chris Bateman)
47.
Brian Jackson – This Is Brian Jackson (BBE)
Gil Scott-Heron’s creative partner Brian Jackson emerges from the shadows of the past with his first solo LP proper in twenty years. It’s a vital collection of flute-led fusion (“C’est Cette Comète”) and forward-thinking soul (“All Talk”) that also boasts dancefloor igniting Afrobeat (“Mami Wata”) and spoken word commentary on nothing less than the history of the blues and black music (“Path to Macondo / Those Kind of Blues”). (Stewart Gardiner)
46.
Spoon – Lucifer on the Sofa (Matador)
Following somewhat belatedly on from 2017’s more sonically thickened Hot Thoughts, Britt Daniel and co. stripped things back with the more angular and leaner Lucifer on the Sofa. Through revisiting the slimmer song structures of A Series of Sneaks and Kill the Moonlight, as well as making renewed cross-references to the late-70s career phases of The Rolling Stones and Elvis Costello, came a healthy supply of strong melodies and agile grooves to remind us that Spoon are almost incapable of making a bad album. (Adrian)
45.
Hieroglyphic Being – There Is No Acid in This House (Soul Jazz)
Heavy duty basement business with a science fiction slant from Chicago’s Hieroglyphic Being. Stripped down, wires exposed, these are dancefloor-ready machine soul odysseys perfectly attuned to altered states. (Stewart Gardiner)
44.
Modern Studies – We Are There (Fire Records)
Once again relying heavily of the foursome’s formidable multi-instrumentalist and vocals skills but leaning more on guest string players rather than synths this time around, this is a record that is both sumptuous and soulful. The ten gathered songs offer solace and comfort but also subtle grit and gravitas. (Adrian)
43.
Cameron Deyell & Laurence Pike – Isola (Endless Recordings)
Pike’s work is about mazy volatility, restraint and invention. Deyell is similar, in that he lends breathing space to his melodic lines. The duo cites jazz futurism as an influence on Isola, but it’s a version adapted more from the land of Kroner than Kraut. (Gareth Thompson)
42.
The Advisory Circle – Full Circle (Ghost Box)
Today’s synthscape is densely populated with retro futurism, yet The Advisory Circle’s sound remains a distinct world unto itself. This is apparent on Full Circle, where Cate Brooks dispenses with the overt trappings of the genre and boils the electronics down to more purely emotive forms. She delicately balances joy/sadness, darkness/light and future/past like a tightrope walker navigating the Barbican’s concrete skyline. At the end of the day, it’s the eyes wide shut hopefulness of Full Circle that elevates it far above the brittle architecture of nostalgia. (Stewart Gardiner)
41.
D Rothon & O Cherer – Estuary English (Clay Pipe)
Inspired in part by the physical geography of the Severn Estuary, which the latter artist grew up next to, as well as feeding off the remotely-exchanged instrumental interplay between the twosome, this is an album that you can just surrender the senses to and be warmly washed by its transcendental tides. (Adrian)
40.
Geir Sundstøl – The Studio Intim Sessions Vol. 1 (Hubro)
Oslo guitar great Sundstøl invites spicy rhythms and ragas into this beguiling set, inspired by the global records his seafaring uncle collected. (Gareth Thompson)
39.
Mark Peters – Red Sunset Dreams (Sonic Cathedral)
Extending his fascination with the landscapes of North West England into broader American vistas and simultaneously surveying weighty themes surrounding isolation, freedom and dementia, this is a wider screen sequel to 2018’s Innerland. The net result is an album with a larger sonic scope but an even deeper emotional core. (Adrian)
38.
Confidence Man – Tilt (Heavenly)
Confidence Man weren’t even in my orbit until I picked up Heavenly’s Andrew Weatherall remix sets early in the year. In the summer, I watched their Glastonbury performance on iPlayer and could hardly believe how irresistible they were – the afternoon MDMA rush from the small screen was palpable. Tilt leans heavily into 1990s piano house and even makes trance work on anthem “Holiday”. Confidence Man render commercial sounds as outsider dance music and theirs is the brightest of off-piste pop futures. (Stewart Gardiner)
37.
Burd Ellen – A Tarot of the Green Wood (Mavis Recordings)
Burd Ellen resurface with possibly their most authoritative statement to date in the shape of A Tarot of the Green Wood. Once more the creation of Debbie Armour and Gayle Brogan (assisted by a handful of guests) this latest collection transports more antiquarian folk songs – as well as one from the Alasdair Roberts catalogue – into earthy yet otherworldly realms. (Adrian)
36.
A Happy Return – Drashel (Spillage Fete)
Mathew Fowle, Aimée Henderson and daughter Agnes Bell’s second record as A Happy Return is another delightful collection of uniquely realised miniature sound worlds. It sits somewhere along a winding path connecting Directorsound, Oliver Postgate and European avant-garde stop-motion. The pieces at first seem intangible, but gradually take shape as if they were made out of card (cut and folded with care) and brought to life by the animating presence of the listener’s imagination. (Stewart Gardiner)
35.
The Hardy Tree – Common Grounds (Clay Pipe)
Inspired by solo walks of discovery through deserted London streets, which in turn led to local history research, Frances Castle conceives a meditative multi-epoch map of long since departed people and places in her neighbourhood. A reliably subtle yet sophisticated selection all told, that any discerning Clay Pipe Music connoisseur would be totally lost without in their collection. (Adrian)
34.
Freakons – Freakons (Fluff & Gravy)
The product of a Transatlantic Americana-folk-country supergroup gathering, featuring members of the Louisville/Chicago-reared Freakwater and onetime Leeds exports The Mekons bolstered by various accomplices, the album translates the on-paper-restrictions of coal-mining-themed originals and covers into engaging wide-open reveries and up-close rustic reflections. This is a collection that has real artisanship baked into its anthracite-coated tales of fearless union organising, scorned-upon picket-line-crossings, fatal disasters, bereaved loved ones and economic/environmental wreckage. (Adrian)
33.
Moving Statues – You Look Like You’ve Seen a Ghost (Rusted Rail)
Serves up a diverse DIY feast. Following on from two preceding still-fresh digital-only EPs – key parts of which are reprised within – You Look Like You’ve Seen a Ghost mixes up sideways songcraft and instrumental detours with contagious self-confidence. (Adrian)
32.
Nu Genea – Bar Mediterraneo (NG)
Nu Genea producers Massimo Di Lena and Lucio Aquilina intended their new LP, Bar Mediterraneo, to speak for their home Napoli as a place built from competing languages, musics and cultures. Cultural markers are thus apparent in songs sung by guests in Neapolitan and French, whereas the synthesisers (presumably kept at slightly too warm Mediterranean room temperature) pull deeply from both the south of Italy and Tunisia, making for an easy-going suite of open to the moment pop and outsider disco. Bar Mediterraneo is decidedly Balearic without ever trying too hard. It has its own kind of magic. (Stewart Gardiner)
31.
Andrew Tuttle – Fleeting Adventure (Basin Rock)
More mythic reveries from the Brisbane banjo maestro, soaked in pedal steel and reverb. (Gareth Thompson)
30.
Bruce Springsteen – Only the Strong Survive (Columbia)
Certain songs distinctly echo Springsteen’s own language of storytelling. “I Wish It Would Rain” (The Temptations) delivers an earlier version of the “let it rain” refrain of “Mary’s Place” from The Rising and “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” (Jimmy Ruffin) similarly reflects “The Brokenhearted” from the Darkness on the Edge of Town sessions. These feel like quotations being highlighted, literary road signs for the constant listener to pick up on. Consider them phrases, meanings and fragments of the American dream scattered along the highways of twentieth century American music. Impervious to the anxiety of influence, Bruce Springsteen continues to map out his remarkable journey with Only the Strong Survive. (Stewart Gardiner)
29.
Szun Waves – Earth Patterns (The Leaf Label)
The ultracool fusion trio offers a pensive soundtrack to their earthly eco concerns. Godly and ghostly by turns. (Gareth Thompson)
28.
Taylor Swift – Midnights (Republic)
Taylor Swift is popular in our house. My daughter has been leading the charge for some time now, but it wasn’t until this year that I gave Folklore and Evermore my full attention and subsequently fell for them. Midnights pulls on threads from those two records while also returning to the cool synthesiser moves of 1989. This makes for a sophisticated pop album, with Swift confidently drawing upon different periods of her career to create a summation of where she is now. Highlight “Snow on the Beach”, her collaboration with Lana Del Rey, travels an appropriately unique path. Swift and Del Rey co-wrote the track, but rather than exchanging verses, Swift takes the lead and Del Rey backs her up on the chorus. Ego has been abandoned in the pursuit of their art and it’s a beautiful thing. (Stewart Gardiner)
27.
Bret McKenzie – Songs Without Jokes (Sub Pop)
In a year when many people needed cheering-up more than ever, having just fifty per cent of Flight of the Conchords return with a new record was more than welcome. Although being songs without Jermaine as well as without jokes, Bret McKenzie’s debut solo album turned out to be a delightful diversion. Cut with crack Californian session player veterans and recalling Steely Dan, Harry Nilsson, Fleetwood Mac, Randy Newman and Bruce Springsteen in their prime, Songs Without Jokes arrived satisfyingly stuffed with uplifting hooks and pockets of pathos. (Adrian)
26.
S.O.L.L. – Mind Reader (White Label)
Mind Reader makes for a decidedly meditative experience. The trance-like percussion and concentric rhythms create a series of almost locked grooves, with the sound gradually escaping towards enlightenment like Theseus finding his way out of the labyrinth. Think Steve Reid, Miles Davis’s In a Silent Way and echoes of The Beatles’ studio manipulations. (Stewart Gardiner)
25.
Kayla Painter – Infinite You (Castles in Space)
Drawing on a penchant for cinematic sci-fi (particularly the Alien saga) and the mind-blowing reality-based physics of interstellar expanses, Infinite You melds electronics with organic elements, inside an edge-pushing and blissful cosmic bubble. Compelling in its highly crafted yet unlaboured conceptualism, Infinite You feels like both a culmination of a story so far and a new beginning for Kayla Painter. (Adrian)
24.
The Smile – A Light for Attracting Attention (XL)
Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood found new musical expression teaming up with Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner as The Smile. Rhythmically adventurous, the trio’s debut LP refuses to settle upon a formula for its duration. The pendulum instead swings back and forth between angular/confrontational and still/quiet, taking in prog-rock, post-punk and even baroque pop (as on highlight “Free in the Knowledge”) along the way. A sideways step into different dimensionality rather than just a side project then. (Stewart Gardiner)
23.
Polypores – Infinite Interiors (Woodford Halse)
At a point where the music is pretty much pouring out of him beyond his control, Stephen Buckley is continuing to be the synth-toting psychic cousin of Kristin Hersh, channelling compositions rather than consciously conceiving them. The somewhat ‘bigger-on-the-inside’ Infinite Interiors is a profound and diverse dive into this mindset. (Adrian)
22.
Sara Dziri – Close to Home (Optimo Music)
Sara Dziri’s Close to Home has a parallel work in China Miéville’s The City & the City, his weird fiction SF noir that takes place in a location where two cities (Besźel and Ul Qoma) share the same geographical space. Dziri describes Close to Home as “a musical exploration of living in the in-between, with a need for belonging. Having shaped my identity between two very different cultures (European and North-African/Arab/Berber), I often had to deal with feelings of not belonging versus feelings of belonging.” She could indeed be wandering the crosshatched streets of Besźel and Ul Qoma. Dziri’s music navigates potentially contradictory cultures and styles, resulting in a free form of techno unhindered by preconceptions. (Stewart Gardiner)
21.
Espen Eriksen Trio featuring Andy Sheppard – In the Mountains (Rune Grammofon)
Pitched somewhere between dread and contemplation, a gripping live album from Nordic keyboard ace Eriksen, with sax legend Sheppard in tow. (Gareth Thompson)
20.
SAULT – AIR (Forever Living Originals)
We already knew that SAULT were here to celebrate, drive forward and champion the experience of black music and culture, but Air took things to a another level. Largely instrumental, these orchestral tracks featuring choral arrangements feel like the soundtrack to a science fiction film that never was. The album is imbued with a sense of hope and wonder that gazing out at the stars and the future can inspire – all strings, horns and choirs elevating the sense of optimism. Whereas previous SAULT experiences left us angry and dismayed by the turmoil and brutality which led to the BLM movement, AIR feels different. Still aware, still elegantly, articulately concerned with the black experience, but this time bringing joy and love. (Chris Bateman)
19.
Marisa Anderson – Still, Here (Thrill Jockey)
Even though the self-played configurations of various unplugged/plugged guitars and piano might seem a tad ascetic on paper, the eight gathered instrumental pieces are loaded with tenderness and imagination. At just 34 minutes in all, perhaps the only thing that Still, Here lacks is length, as many of its finest moments could easily have been stretched out to even more evocative extents. (Adrian)
18.
Romance & Dean Hurley – In Every Dream Home a Heartache (Ecstatic)
Like his previous employer David Lynch, Dean Hurley is expert at crafting disconcerting suburban soundscapes and his collaboration with the illusive Romance (who’s identity remains a secret) would appear to be a match made in degraded VHS heaven. In Every Dream Home a Heartache samples daytime soaps sourced from YouTube (for that extra lack of fidelity) and wraps them in walls of drone, making for an experience equal parts sinister and cloyingly sentimental. These tracks ultimately feel like transmissions from the Black Lodge, sent out by some lonely denizen stuck on a hell loop watching Invitation to Love. (Stewart Gardiner)
17.
Sam Prekop & John McEntire – Sons Of (Thrill Jockey)
No strangers to collaboration within The Sea and Cake and the Thrill Jockey family as a whole, in some ways it’s perhaps surprising that Sam Prekop and John McEntire have taken this long in their overlapping careers to record a duo album, which they finally dispense now as Sons Of. Whilst it does take some time to properly fall for its covert charms, even the slightly indignant looking cats photographed for its front cover should find the rewards tucked inside this side-hustle collection. (Adrian)
16.
Keiron Phelan & Peace Signs – Bubblegum Boogie (Gare du Nord)
Bubblegum Boogie takes things into deeper emotional terrain, with some life experiences directly and indirectly transposed into some weightier and more melancholic material. Yet, Phelan’s melodic magpie musicality is sustained and expanded upon throughout, whilst plenty of lighter moments are deftly deployed in strategic places to offset the heavier lifting elsewhere. (Adrian)
15.
Sloan – Steady (Yep Roc)
With their latest full-length for Yep Roc – the aptly-anointed Steady – appears another dozen sturdy pieces which sustain a remarkable career run that still combines consistency with diversity, belying the quartet’s collective age and outside commitments. (Adrian)
14.
Andrew Wasylyk – Hearing the Water Before Seeing the Falls (Clay Pipe)
Andrew Wasylyk’s fourth LP in as many years is a commissioned response to landscape photographer Thomas Joshua Cooper’s The World’s Edge exhibition. Far from an academic exercise, these emotive instrumental suites conjure remote locations and archipelago dreams, as if Bill Wells had scored Michael Powell’s 1937 picture The Edge of the World, which was filmed in Shetland. Album opener “Dreamt in the Current of Leafless Winter” takes its time leaning into the most meditative outsider jazz and might just be Wasylyk’s most immersive piece yet. (Stewart Gardiner)
13.
Andy Bell – Flicker (Sonic Cathedral)
Adroitly weaving together pretty much every outfit in Bell’s sonic wardrobe to date, inside lushly-layered yet not over-polished studio settings, Flicker very much sustains the spirit of great double-length sets from The Beatles’ White Album and Hüsker Dü’s Zen Arcade to Yo La Tengo’s I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One and 2021’s Since Grazed by Eleventh Dream Day. (Adrian)
12.
Pneumatic Tubes – A Letter from Treetops (Ghost Box)
Ghost Box Records, with its yen for narratives linked by mystery and loss, is a perfect fit for Dave Chandler, who records under the name Pneumatic Tubes. (He also plays keys and flutes for Midlake and Mercury Rev). A Letter from TreeTops feels less about romantic or falsified assumptions of the past, and more about memory as a sensory store. To achieve this, Chandler has used the soulful glow of vintage keyboards and mixed in the mythic resonance of woodwind. His melodies rise like incense through fresh mountain air, or float contentedly upstream. Sorrow and euphoria fill the verdant dreams of each passing scene. (Gareth Thompson)
11.
Pleasure Pool – Love Without Illusion (Optimo Music)
Pleasure Pool are so good they might be bad for you. The brilliantly titled second track on their debut album for Optimo Music says it all really: “Lick the Bag”. Because Finn O’Hare (synths, production) and Andrew Robertson (vocals) are taking the party beyond the afters, with their peculiar concoction of disco not disco, drug chug and weirdo anthems. Glasgow outsider club culture at its most addictive. (Stewart Gardiner)
10.
Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer – Recordings from the Åland Islands (International Anthem)
Born out of a trip to the titular archipelago between Finland and Sweden, Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer have created a mesmerising and invigorating suite that feels so close to nature, evoking that sense of remoteness that we as humans experience when caught up in the unmediated pull of the natural world. There’s nevertheless a pastoral warmth throughout – more Virginia Astley than Ingmar Bergman then. (Stewart Gardiner)
9.
Loner Deluxe – Hinterlands (Rusted Rail)
Recorded largely at a rural recording residency in Ballycastle, Ireland, Hinterlands picks up where last year’s smorgasbord-like Field Recordings left-off, finding ringleader Keith Wallace continuing to mainline and remould ideas from his nineties-to-noughties-heavy record collection to great effect. The reference points are less immediately identifiable than its on predecessor however, with an immersive reach that proves to be richer and more seamless, especially when Cecilia Danell’s vocals are fused closely next to those of Wallace, amidst fuzzy seams of guitars, banjo, bass, assorted synths and related oddments. (Adrian)
8.
CS + Kreme – Orange (The Trilogy Tapes)
CS + Kreme’s debut album Snoopy was one of those records that fell between the gaps of album of the year lists for me, but that hardly matters for it went on to become one of my favourite records of recent times. Following Snoopy up was never going to be an easy task and if Orange doesn’t quite live up to its predecessor’s lightning in a bottle of absinthe narcotic dirge, then it is still a resounding experimental success. It really is about sinking into the depths with CS + Kreme, falling down the rabbit hole in drugged out slow motion. Beats splinter and basslines roll in the darkness, with cut and processed voices untrustworthy as Sirens in navigating these labyrinthine passages. The journey may be a dangerous one, but it’s desirable nonetheless. Orange is a dream machine of a record that demands your full attention. (Stewart Gardiner)
7.
Poor Performer – Like Yer Wounds Too / In Appropriate Attire (Tiny Global Productions)
As a creative by-product of multiple external and internal life events, the resultant Like Yer Wounds Too and the crucially appended In Appropriate Attire EP – unveiled as a vinyl album and CD EP bundle by Tiny Global Productions – is one of the finest double helpings from Simon Rivers to date. Packing songs with laden humour and pathos into settings that mix together various strong shades of The Kinks, Dexys Midnight Runners and mid-to-late-period Leonard Cohen as well as mariachi, northern soul and vaudeville vibes, the eighteen gathered tracks demand devoted repeat airings. (Adrian)
6.
Rupert Lally – Wanderweg (Modern Aviation)
Taking direct inspiration from walks along the scenic public footpath routes in the Germanic corner of Switzerland, where he currently resides, Wanderweg is one of Lally’s warmest and most exquisite explorations to date. Whilst a mainstay mixture of synths, sampled strings, mellotron, field recordings and percolating programmed percussion is primarily used in light-touch textural fashion, this time around gorgeous layers of electric and lap-steel guitars take on a prominent defining role. Consequently, there’s a balmy gracefulness and a soothing intimacy that flows throughout proceedings. (Adrian)
5.
Isa Gordon – For You Only (Optimo Music)
Isa Gordon’s collaborative project Resili released their digital album Cups on Optimo Music back in early 2020. Its quietly subversive electronic beatscapes went rather under the radar in a year that shifted horribly underneath our feet, but JD Twitch’s belief in Glasgow based producer Gordon paid off with her stunningly original solo debut LP For You Only. Delivering 12 tracks in around 35 minutes, Gordon inhabits distinct musical universes that add up to much more than the complex mathematics of their parts. Her sound? Think distressed electronics, ceilidhs run by Spiral Tribe, the delightful darkness of The Pastels’ Last Great Wilderness and progressive house rebuilt by Beatrice Dillon. For Isa Gordon not only accommodates a multitude of ideas under a unifying vision, but has an enviable command of the language of outsider club culture and advanced home listening. (Stewart Gardiner)
4.
The Real Tuesday Weld – Dreams / Late Flowering Reveries (Antique Beat)
The net results within Dreams are some of the most transcendent recordings released to date by The Real Tuesday Weld. Starting spellbindingly with “The Young Ones”, Stephen Coates taps vocally into his inner-Wayne Coyne and sonically into Richard Wright’s most prominent parts within Dark Side of the Moon, with some wistful wide-eyedness. The rest of proceedings keep up the quality control after such a sturdy opener, as Coates dispenses material openly inspired in varying degrees by his own remembered nocturnal subconscious imaginings. Taken as a pair, Dreams and companion Late Flowering Reveries capture The Real Tuesday Weld in peak condition. (Adrian)
3.
Gloria de Oliveira & Dean Hurley – Oceans of Time (Sacred Bones)
Dean Hurley has worked with David Lynch on various sound design and production projects over a span of years and mediums, and therefore isn’t merely Lynchian but is the real damn thing. His output has been consistently strange and beautiful – granted, often more strange than beautiful. This collaboration flips that, making things wild at heart without having to keep it weird on top. German-Brazilian artist Gloria de Oliveira’s wearied, questions-in-a-world-of-noir vocals subtly recall those of Lana Del Rey, albeit aesthetically closer to This Mortal Coil. She navigates Hurley to the edges beyond the shadows.
Slow-motion gothic pop is the order of the night on Oceans of Time. Dean Hurley’s signature otherworldly tones and unsettling drones do emerge, but periodically, like smoke in the corners of a room. Rather than being the signs of a fire that would overwhelm Gloria de Oliveira’s voice, they add very particular atmospheres. The dream (pop) team of de Oliveira and Hurley is probably the closest thing we’ll get to a David Lynch / Lana Del Rey collaboration, but considering how intoxicating Oceans of Time is, that’s more than enough. Any dreamier and we’d never wake up. (Stewart Gardiner)
2.
Makaya McCraven – In These Times (XL / International Anthem / Nonesuch)
This one has been years in the making. Since his International Anthem debut in 2015, Makaya McCraven has pushed the development of his sound at a rapid pace, yet his forward momentum also had a shadow-self in the slow, careful construction of In These Times. Even if we weren’t the ones waiting, it was certainly worth it. Herein McCraven, with a little help from a dozen or so collaborators (including Jeff Parker on guitar and IARC’s Brandee Younger on harp), fuses his future/past organic beat music with expansive orchestral arrangements and in so doing perfectly balances new jazz urgency with cinematic mood-making.
The almost impossibly lush “Lullaby” is a case in point. It displays the mysterious inquisitiveness of Bernard Herrmann against controlled orchestral passion reminiscent of the sort of large scale European prestige pictures they just don’t make any more. There’s also a beautiful sense of narrative advancement, with other themes wandering in and out of scene to create the illusion of a living world within the song – these aren’t film cues, but fully realised hybrid works. Elsewhere, “The Calling” hints at Herrmann’s Taxi Driver score, even as McCraven channels the grand despair of Jerry Goldsmith’s 1970s-does-1930s California noir. Just don’t make the mistake of considering these backwards-looking pieces – future-proofed beats and new direction jazz moves constantly sculpt the works into something other that what they might have been elsewhere. It’s not only the ambition of this record that is startling, but also how on point the realisation of it all is. With In These Times, it feels as if Makaya McCraven is attempting to craft a new form and he has made something really special in the process. (Stewart Gardiner)
1.
Jeff Parker ETA IVtet – Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy (Eremite/Aguirre)
Jeff Parker’s time is well and truly here. He has of course been operating in the spaces between post-rock, jazz and experimental for more than 30 years as a member of Tortoise, Isotope 217 and more. His recent work as a solo artist and bandleader (The New Breed) for International Anthem has further joined the dots between scenes and brought him increased attention. Last year’s Forfolks set was a marvel of Americana made by one man, a guitar and pedals. To say that Jeff Parker is on fire would be the understatement of our times.
Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy presents four sides of long-form live composition in the shape of dream generating guitar-led jazz and electronic beatscapes. These recordings were sourced from the Monday night residency of Jeff Parker’s ETA IVtet – Parker on electric guitar and pedals, Josh Johnson on alto saxophone and pedals, Anna Butterss on bass, and Jay Bellerose on drums and percussion. The location is a Los Angeles bar known as the ETA (Enfield Tennis Academy) which takes its name from David Foster Wallace’s experimental doorstopper of a novel, Infinite Jest. This lends Parker’s record narrative agency that the music more than lives up to. For Jeff Parker is a mood-maker extraordinaire and Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy doesn’t just capture what must have been an immensely immersive live experience, but transports us to an ever-changing place beyond that room. New worlds unravel before the listener, like a creation scroll being penned in real time by some beat-making jazz musician in the sky.
The IVtet not only conjure and sustain mood, but close listening becomes a beautifully drawn out getting into the groove. This is ritualistic, mysterious music that feels increasingly accessible without ever giving up its secrets. Jeff Parker is not only open to the moment, but the moment is his to understand and translate. We’re lucky to live in a time where he’s doing so. (Stewart Gardiner)
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