I was surprised to see that this is my 12th year of doing this list. But it’s a good way to sift through the year’s best music and keeps me largely out of trouble, so why not? It goes without saying that it’s been another great year for music, it always is. A couple of notable returns feature here, and tons of new stuff.
As companions to this list, I’ve made a bunch of themed mixes highlighting the year’s best electronic, noise, indie, psych, country etc. etc. You can find all of these here https://www.mixcloud.com/MagoDave/.
And here’s one of my favourites.
So, on with the list. Remember, if you like any of this stuff please consider buying it and supporting the artists. Enjoy!
1. Dummy – Free Energy
Dummy proudly wears their Stereolab influences, but on this, their second album, they develop their sound so far that they truly emerge as a unique beast. ‘Soonish’ is a knowing banger whose title nods to its My Bloody Valentine ancestor. So, there’s shoegaze, dream pop, post-punk and a few other genres mashed up and used to service these excellent songs. This is a massive step up, and one of the year’s very best albums.
2. somesurprises – Perseids
The opening track of this sublime album, ‘Be Reasonable,’ sets the tone, imploring the listener to be reasonable, like that’s all anyone needs to do. It makes you believe it. The band’s sound lies somewhere in that dreamy zone that Mazzy Star and Cocteau Twins touched on. This doesn’t mean they’re derivative, though. They have crafted a unique and alluring sound that anyone with a sense of wonder and adventure should sample.
3. Jack White – No Name
Honestly, I’d forgotten how much I missed Jack White and how brilliant the White Stripes were. But, at last, he’s come back with something right up there with his best work by ditching all the fancy stuff and going back to making cracking rock songs with whip-smart lyrics and killer riffs. You can tell he’s having a ball here as he raves like a hellfire preacher, sympathizes with rats, and generally does absolutely whatever he feels like. A joyous return and the year’s best rock album.
4. Oranssi Pazuzu – Muuntautuja
This marvellous Finnish band have raised the bar again by bringing elements of hip-hop, shoegaze, and who knows what else into their already eclectic sound palette. You can’t really even call this black metal anymore, even though it’s brutally fierce in parts. Instead, it’s an album that moves only according to its baffling but ultimately rewarding inner logic. This is cutting-edge experimental music.
5. D’eon – Leviathan
This gem of an album sounds like nothing else I’ve heard, which is quite a thing. It’s full of mannered but playful quasi-classical electronics. Imagine chamber music for the court of some future AI king ,and you’re in the right area.
6. Cindy Lee – Diamond Jubilee
This 37-track self-released tour-de-force slowly gathered attention as people realised just how singular and brilliant it is. Cindy Lee is the alter-ego of Canadian musician Patrick Flege, and she inhabits a peculiar imagined world of heartbreak and loss somewhere between the 1920’s and 2020’s. The simple but otherworldly production gives everything a kind of David Lynchy, sepia tone feel that perfectly fits these affecting songs.
7. Chanel Beads – Your Day Will Come
‘Unifying Thought’ is less than two minutes long, but it’s total genius, with its singalong, almost childish refrain, and a hyper-produced metallic sheen. Elsewhere, we have ambient drifts, classical moments, and a few more conventionally structured songs. It’s classy and unique.
8. RosaLi – Bite Down
A brilliant indie-alt-country album full of earworms like ‘On Tonight’ and ‘My Kind.’ RosaLi has the perfect voice for this material and is supported by a group of talented musicians. Great stuff.
9. Bryan’s Magic Tears – Smoke & Mirrors
My jury’s still out on the band name, but make no mistake, this French band of poppy psych-rockers are onto something here. Imagine the baggy beats of the Stone Roses or Happy Mondays hitched up to the free-floating psychedelia of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, with just the right amount of shoegaze scree, all with a strong ear for a head-nodding banger. So much fun that I had it on repeat for ages.
10. Arushi Jain – Delight
It sounds suspiciously like analogue synth expert Arushi Jain is in love. Whether it’s with a person or just the world in general doesn’t matter, as the open-eyed wonder of this ethereal and ecstatic album transports you. Traditional Indian sounds are given a modern flavour, and adding a pulsing beat to the final track, ‘You Are Irresistible,’ makes for a great finish and an intriguing promise of things to come.
11. Project Gemini – Colours & Light
This is a cracker of a modern psychedelic funk rock album. There’s a nice folk-horror slant to it all, with a healthy dose of classic British electronica, so it’s no surprise tracks have names like ‘Lost in The Woods (Paranoia).’ Project Gemini’s ambitious fusion of all kinds of styles, from Turkish psych to funk and even chanson, makes for a rich, layered, and unique listen.
12. Wand – Vertigo
Wand are in dark territory on their first album since ‘Laughing Matter,’ my album of the year in 2019. They’re still great, of course, but this intense ride is, deliberately, a moodier, more monochrome thing. Guitars buzz and tension builds until everything comes to a head on the wonderful, desperate ‘High Time.’ Quite a ride.
13. Immersion – Nanocluster Vol. 2 EP1/EP2
Colin Newman and Malka Spiegel hit form again, continuing their collaborative ‘Nanocluster’ project, this time working with Thor Harris of Swans and producer Cubzoa. Elegant, explorative eloctronica.
14. The Soundcarriers – Through Other Reflections
The Soundcarriers are back in fine form, offering another entry in their impressive catalogue of vintage psych-pop. The male/female vocal harmonies are perfect, and the whole thing breezes by like a sunny summer afternoon.
15. The Jesus Lizard – Rack
After so many disappointing returns, I approached this surprise release by the mighty Jesus Lizard with some trepidation. ‘It’s better to burn out than fade away,’ and all that. I should have had more confidence in noise rock’s arch stylists because this is a rip-roaring return to the powerful menace they exuded around the time of ‘Down’ and ‘Liar.’ The David Yow howl is intact, and the musicianship is as clinically tight yet funky as ever. This is how to come back.
16. Jane Weaver – Love in Constant Spectacle
This masterpiece of catchy psych-pop is yet another victory for one of England’s most undersung musical talents. It’s her best album since The Magic Globe. Great songs and unusual arrangements (see the marvellous ‘Is Metal’ with a faltering, stop-start riff that shouldn’t work but does) make this a standout in her impressive discography.
17. Tess Parks – Pomegranate
Tess Parks has always had a marvellous voice, and her songwriting has improved dramatically. This chilled and rewarding album stands up well to repeated listening. ‘Bagpipe Blues sets the tone, with a sluggish, opiated groove underpinning her smoky voice.
18. Jon Hopkins – RITUAL
It’s an audacious ploy in this age of limited concentration spans to demand that listeners hear an entire album to appreciate it. However, Jon Hopkins’s production clout and experience mean he effortlessly makes it a worthwhile proposition. A slow build over the first few tracks is necessary to appreciate the payoff and ultimate release later. This is a brilliant suite of deep-listening headphone electronica.
19. Kim Deal – Nobody Loves You More
Well, hello Kim! While her previous band continues, ad nauseam, to show the world how much they miss her talents, old Kim has knocked out a corker of a first(!) solo album. These delightful, primarily delicate songs are object lessons in how to use time and space to create an impact. And nobody has ever done that better than her.
20. Waxahatchee – Tigers Blood
This gifted singer-songwriter, with an excellent back catalogue I’ve really enjoyed discovering, delivers more alt-country bliss. Her emotive voice carries the show and becomes transcendent when married with vocal harmonies on tracks like ‘Right Back To It.’
21. Water Damage – In E
Four Tracks, each about 20 minutes long. Riffs that repeat and repeat and repeat unremittingly. Changes, but only subtle changes as the tracks evolve. Ecstatic or horrific, you decide. You know what I think.
22. Ariel Kalma – The Closest Thing to Silence
Ariel Kalma is a veteran New Age musician. Here, he works with Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Horner, the makers of the brilliant ‘Tales From the Aaland Islands’. The result is airy ambient music of rare and delicate beauty.
23. Craven Faults – Bounds
Craven Faults continues to mine the rich seams of connection between the English landscape and its industrial heritage. On tracks like ‘Groups Hollows’, a beat throbs under the hypnotic electronics, bringing everything to life.
24. Pye Corner Audio – The Endless Echo
This is a characteristically dark, shadowy collection from this veteran producer. The tracks range from moody, throbbing stuff like ‘Unnatural Span’ to more upbeat (but still downbeat) tracks like ‘Deeptime.’ It’s assured stuff that maintains atmosphere and quality throughout.
25. Kiasmos – II
Warm and playful electronic music that is too lively for ambience and too chilled for the dancefloor. Perfect for my headphones, then. Ólafur Arnalds and Janus Rasmussen, from Iceland, and the Faroe Islands respectively, bring a liveliness and sense of adventure that’s often missing from this kind of thing, and these tracks fly by in a gleeful rush.
26. Jon McKiel – Hex
Jon McKiel makes deceptively simple guitar and voice-based music that lulls you in hypnotically with repeated phrases and patterns. Amen Dunes is a good point of reference. The quality of the songwriting is high, and everything creeps up and takes you over in a very good way.
27. Jessica Pratt – Here in the Pitch
This is quite a find since I’d never heard Jessica Pratt before, and it’s a bit like finding a new genre of music. These songs feel like they’ve materialised from an alternate universe where it’s still the 1940’s. I still can’t figure out how she injects so much otherness into such a simple palette, but I’m happy that she does.
28. La Luz – News of the Universe
Super-cool sixties-referencing psych-pop from this all-female Seattle group. Airy vocals and brief pop nuggets make this a light but filling confection.
29. Vegyn – The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions
This is a varied and involving set from this enigmatic UK DJ and producer. Tracks travel through a range of different genres from the mellow trip-hoppery of ‘The Path Less Travelled’ to the conventional house of ‘Makeshift Tourniquet’, but it’s outliers like the spoken word ‘In The Front’ that reveal the breadth of his invention.
30. Bloody Head – Perpetual Eden
Excellent angry, messy, noise rock from this Leeds lot. ‘There is no authority but yourself… and everyone else’ reveals the dark, almost hopeless humour that underpins it all.
31. Astrid Sonne – Great Doubt
Danish artist Astrid Sonne reveals masterful arrangement skills in these smart, spare songs of existential uncertainty. ‘Do you wanna’ is a killer tune that showcases her skills perfectly.
32. Greg Foat – The Rituals of Infinity️
It gets to the stage where you just stand in awe at the volume and quality of Greg Foat’s output. He’s released, I think, four albums this year, and it’s a sign of his quality that his live work sounds as good as the stuff mere mortals make in the studio. This studio album, though, shows him as the consummate modern Jazz explorer, fusing the electronic and organic to make truly cosmic future music.
33. Hermanos Gutierrez – Sonido Cósmico
A lovely find here from me old mucker Mark Broadbent. It’s delightfully sun-blistered desert country, but from South of the border, so there’s plenty of South and Central American influence on these glorious guitar meditations.
34. Belong – Realistic IX
Belong’s one previous album, ‘October Language,’ was recorded in 2004, so they’re hardly prolific. But quality, not quantity, eh? And this is a delightful return. It’s shoegaze, I guess, but more in how they tame and mould raw noise into rather lovely songs. The wild guitar distortion never entirely escapes the tunes; half the thrill is in this struggle.
35. The Cosmic Tones Research Trio – All is Sound
Sparse, delicate spiritual jazz of weightless beauty.
36. The Cure – Songs of a Lost World
Another potentially disappointing return is executed with a world-weary aplomb. The Cure’s first album since the end of the dinosaurs is an elegantly stately, mournful affair, deeply concerned with mortality. But hang in there because the songs are really good, and hey, they were never exactly comedians in the first place, were they? There’s plenty of variety, but ‘And Nothing is Forever’ is my highlight.
37. The Future Sound of London – Presents Pulse Five
OK, let’s say it. Brian Dougans and Garry Cobain are the greatest electronic music creators of all time. Their output as Future Sound of London and a trillion different aliases is staggering in quantity and unerring in quality. This is the fifth in a series of albums where they have fun with some of their pseudonyms, like Indo Tribe, Yage, and Mental Cube. So, you get peerless acid squelch, sci-fi electro, jungly rumblings, and more. All of it is a joy.
38. Seahawks – Time Enough For Love
I like Seahawks ambient stuff, but secretly want them to keep making Balearic classics like 2012’s Aquadisco. This collection gets part way there. It’s super-mellow but a bit more filled out than their recent stuff, so beats drift in and out. This is delightfully dreamy chill-out goodness.
39. Dale Crover – Glossolalia
Right from the start, where this Melvin’s stalwart and only-Tom-Bloody-Waits define the album title, you know you’re in for a lot of fun. Crover drafts in alt-rock luminaries like Kim Thayill and Ty Segall to help him try his hand at whatever he fancies. It’s loose, inventive, and a very pleasant surprise.
40. Ezra Feinberg – Soft Power
This is a warm and elegant bubbler of an album. Largely acoustic and drawing in mighty talents like harpist Mary Lattimore, this calming music is too playful to stay calm.
Look, if you’ve had a crappy day, bang this on, you’ll feel better.
41. Aja – Ajasphere Vol. II
More calmness, this time of a digital variety. Aja is a French musician who produces a dreamy ambience that builds on elegant synth chords and delicate harmonies.
42. Bibi Club – Feu De Garde
Bibi Club make an alluring type of old-school indie pop, packed with good tunes and an elegant Gallic reserve. ‘L’Ile au Bluets’ is one of the tracks of the year, and there are earworms aplenty.
43. µ-ziq – Grush
Good old Mike Paradinas shows no signs of losing his touch here, with a more (break)beat driven work than his calmer recent output. This is superbly detailed modern sound production, but if that sounds a bit techie and stuffy, fear not, since there’s always a characteristic warmth within the glitchiness of µ-ziq’s music.
44. Ganavya – Like The Sky I’ve Been Too Quiet/Daughter of a Temple
Ganavya Doraiswamy makes hazy ambient jazz, drawing on her powerful and emotive vocal phrasing to create exotic and haunting soundscapes. ‘Like the sky…’ is an excellent introduction to her sound, while on ‘Daughter of a Temple,’ she reimagines classics from the likes of John and Alice Coltrane.
45. Iglooghost – Tidal Memory Exo
This intricate album builds a launch pad from agile beatwork and blasts spacewards. The vocals mutter odd refrains, ramping up the tension created by the otherworldly sounds that swirl around them. Now and again, the BPM drops on edgily alluring tracks like Spawn01, only to ratchet up again. Iglooghost has crafted a singular sound world.
46. Danny Scott Lane – Shower
A smoother-than-smooth collection of slinky instrumental ambient jazz from this New York-based artist.
47. Beautify Junkyards – Nova
It’s perfectly appropriate that Spain’s Beautify Junkyards are now on UK label Ghost Box, long home to the weirdly electronic, pastoral, and downright spooky. Their fragile, dreamy songs are elegantly timeless; ‘Somersault’ is a great example.
48. Meatbodies – Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom
This is a rollicking good time for guitar lovers. Meatbodies is an American psych-rock band in thrall to a great psychedelic rock tradition going back decades, but their music still sounds fresh and essential. It’s full of ideas and well worth your time.
49. Sote – Ministry of Tale Tales
Sote is a versatile German/Iranian musician who here recreates traditional Persian instrument sounds electronically. It makes for a weird and unsettling listen, which is the plan since the album is a rumination on the general fucked-upness of world politics.
50. Lord Spikeheart – The Adept
If you want to blow away the cobwebs, bang this baby on at 11. Kenyan artist Martin Kanja forges ahead after his epic Duma project with this powerful fusion of hip-hop, blast beats and grimy noise. Initially daunting, perhaps, but contagious, wildly original, and essential.
51. Delving – All Paths Diverge
Can’t say I’m much of a prog man, but there’s always an exception, and this instrumental cracker from Nick DiSalvo of Elder is it. Long-form guitar-led tracks with plenty of electronics sweep out epicly.
52. Dean McPhee – Astral Gold
Given that this evocative album makes you imagine you’re in the middle of the Mojave desert at night, lying on your back, starring at the Milky Way, it is a shock to discover that Dean McPhee comes from Bradford. That’s immaterial, though, since this excellent album reveals him to be a guitar virtuoso with a theatrical gift for giving voice to the unknown.
53. Sahra Halgan – Hiddo dhawr
Sahra Halgan is a Somalian musician and social artist whose powerful and passionate voice is gloriously displayed on this excellent collection of slightly modernised Somalian folk songs.
54. Sex Swing – Golden Triangle
I guess all my annual lists have to feature a Butthole Surfers surrogate, and Sex Swing is this year’s model. Their brand of dirty noise is as warped and psychedelic as that of the masters, jumping gleefully from doomy atmospherics to shouty noise to filthy rockabilly in the first three tracks alone. You’ll dig this wild ride if you’re into that sort of thing.
55. MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks
M.J. Lenderman is a rising alt-country troubadour with a penchant for wryly humourous lyrical flourishes like, ‘You can put your clothes back on; she’s leaving you.’ He writes catchy tunes and has a great band. The lad deserves to go far.
56. Bnny – One Million Love Songs
This American indie band have produced a moving meditation on loss. The brief songs are good examples of saying enough but not too much and moving on. Jessica Viscius’ breathy vocals carry the tone perfectly.
57. Lao – Chapultepec
Chapultepec is Mexico City’s largest park, and this bright tribute to it is full of bubbling arpeggios, jungle and ravey influences, and plenty of those infectious Latin American beats.
58. Shabaka – Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace
Shabaka Hutching’s sound is usually a bit busier than this, but here, on his first solo album, he picks up a flute and unleashes his calmer side to create a billowing treat of spiritual and transportive ambient jazz.
59. The Bug – Machine
Kevin Richard Martin has had another prolific year, with his moving reimagining of Amy Winehouse’s ‘Black’ and his excellent collaboration with Kenyan ambient artist KMRU. But here, he is most uniquely himself, crafting a moody collection of deep, dubby, dystopian low-end crawlers.
60. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – Challengers [MIXED] by Boys Noize
I liked the Challengers soundtrack, but this remix highlights how far into dance music the Nine Inch Nails pair have leaned on this assignment. It’s a pulsing, club-friendly collection of surprisingly warm-sounding techno bangers.
61. Lara Sarkissian – Remnants
This American artist and record label head peppers this album with Armenian vocals and instrumentation over a moody electronic frame that veers between foreboding and rattletrap excitement to create an exotic near-future dystopia.
62. Onra – Nosthaigia
Well, this is fun. Onra’s M.O. is chopping up and sampling classic Asian tracks, in this case from ’60s/’70s Thai music, and dropping them in and amongst loose, chilled beats to conjure up a peaceful, wistful past that never was. The missus remembers most of the originals, so she liked it too.
63. Moin – You Never End
Moin is the duo behind Raime and Valentina Magaletti, the most prolific percussionist in independent music. You can bet anything she’s involved in (Tomaga, Vanishing Twin and many more) will be novel and excellent. This certainly is. It’s muddy, highly experimental post-punk with murmured vocals, shifting song structures and an overall air of unease.
64. Shellac – To All Trains
I can’t write about this without mentioning this year’s untimely loss of band leader, genius, contrarian, and overall musical titan Steve Albini. His band, Big Black, was an absolute foundation stone of my love for music, and he produced some of the greatest albums in music history. I’m gutted he’s gone.
Now, to his last album. What to say? It’s Shellac. Noise rock that’s so precise and angular that it’s no longer noise rock, coupled with characteristic acerbic lyrics from the master. Dude, incredible.
65. Charli XCX – BRAT
Yes, really. Can’t say I love everything on this, but it is superbly produced, and the bangers (Looking at Von Dutch in particular here) are quite brilliant.
66. Nala Sinephro – Endlessness
This spiritual jazzer has stripped her sound away to gossamer here to create a warm fusion of airy synths and lush but sparse instrumentation. Beautiful stuff.
67. Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds – Wild God
Old Nick’s back with a far more cheerful but slightly less impactful set of songs than his last album. Perhaps a lack of cohesion is the good thing about this album since he seems to be picking from different phases of his career at will. So there’s lots of sage storytelling and epic, swirling orchestration.
68. Crystabell & David Lynch – Cellophane Memories
OK, so this sounds just like you’d expect, given that the mighty David Lynch is involved. It’s a collection of mournful, slightly wonky ballads with a sultry-voiced chanteuse at the helm. What’s not to like?
69. British Murder Boys – Active Agents & House Boys
Tough as you like stripped-back techno, with muddy, muttered vocals and a heavy Adrian Sherwood vibe. Evil fun.
70. Juniore – Trois, Deux, Un
Another belter from this effortlessly cool French psych-pop group. A strong European movie soundtrack influence adds a nice veneer to this vintage pop.