Top 50 Albums 2023
HIP-HOP
5-MIKE - Burning Desire
4-Earl Sweatshirt & The Alchemist - Voir Dire
3-Armand Hammer - We Buy Diabetic Test Strips
2-Danny Brown & JPEG Mafia - Scarin the Hoes
1-Billy Woods & Kenny Segal - Maps
Billy Woods is the most exciting rapper in hip-hop right now in my opinion, & this is possibly his greatest work to date. Kenny Segal’s beats are top notch & are more stylistically diverse than the previous project they did together. Woods is truly an auteur, moving between poetic memoir, deadpan humor, & surrealism in a way that only he can.
JAZZ
6-Chris Potter - Got the Keys to the Kingdom: Live at the Village Vanguard
5-Mette Henriette - Drifting
4-Matthew Halsall - An Ever Changing View
3-Kurt Rosenwinkel - Undercover: Live at the Village Vanguard
2-Jason Moran - From the Dancehalls to the Battlefield
1-Steve Lehman & Orchestre National De Jazz — Ex Machina
Ex Machina consists of compositions by both Lehman and ONJ’s artistic director, Frédéric Maurin, which make frequent use of spectral harmonies that are transformed in real-time by live interactive electronics. Soloists in the ensemble interact with these harmonies, polyrhythms, and computer-driven sound transformations. It’s one of the most ambitious projects for jazz big band that I’ve ever heard & feels like a monumental recording for jazz in the vein of by M-Base & modern composition as a whole.
ELECTRONIC
4-Fever Ray - Radical Romantics
3-Barry Can’t Swim - When Will We Land?
2-Sofia Kourtesis - Madres
1-James Holdon - Imagine This is a High Dimensional Space of All Possibilities
Holden has said about this record, “I wanted this to be my most open record, uncynical, naive, unguarded, the record teenage me wanted to make…I used to balance my clock-radio on a wardrobe to catch the faint pirate FM signals from the nearest city, dreaming of what raves would be like when I could finally escape and become a New Age traveller. So it’s like a dream of rave, a fantasy about a transformative music culture that would make the world better. I guess it’s also a dialogue with that teenage me.” The record’s sample sources are from recordings of his own performances on the modular synth, keyboard, organ, piano as well as drones of his childhood violin, cut-up bass guitar, recorder, percussive trinkets field recording, as well as guest contributions.
METAL:
3-Liturgy - 93696
2-Tomb Mold - The Enduring Spirit
1-The Acacia Strain - Step into the Light
Boston Metal-core band, The Acacia strain released two sister albums, “Step into the Light” & “Failure will Follow”. The later being the sludgier & doomier (consisting of three tracks that are all over 10 minutes), the former being the more Death-core / Metal-core (with ten songs all under 3 minutes). “Step into the Light” is absolutely brutal & sonically incredibly rich.
AMBIENT
5-Kali Malone - Does Spring Hide It’s Joy
(a 3 hour drone piece with Stephen O’Malley of Sun O)))
4-Bill Orcutt - Jump On It
(solo acoustic guitar)
3-M Sage - Paradise Crick
(a “forest-scape” that is composed of synthesized and acoustic sound)
2-Atlas - Laurel Halo
(sound collage blending synthetic ambient textures and acoustic instrumentation)
1-Blue Lakes - Sun Arcs
A dream-like mix of ambient / new age / post-rock & acoustic folk vibes that uses self-built zithers, drones, clarinets, slide guitars and drum machines.
CLASSICAL
3-Vikingur Olafsson - J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations
2-Pablo Sainz-Villegas - The Blue Album
1-Raphael Feuillatre - Visages Baroques
My favorite release from Deutsche Grammophon this year (& the first guitar player they’ve signed in many years). Feuillatre’s translates Baroque works mostly conceived for solo harpsichord (primarily from Bach but also French contemporaries Forqueray, Rameau, Royer and Duphly) for guitar.
MODERN CLASSICAL / CONCERT MUSIC
3-John Luther Adams / Robert Black - Darkness & Scattered Light
2-Brian Baumbusch / JACK Quartet & Nata Swara - Brian Baumbusch: Chemistry for Gamelan and String Quartet
1-Thomas Ades - Dante
I would argue that this is the most important composition of the decade so far & perhaps his greatest piece yet (with 1997’s “Asyla” being the only one that I’d say might surpass it). “Dante’ is a 90 minute ballet - kaleidoscopically weaving from beautiful poetic romanticism, to grotesque disorder, & pounding orgyastic joy. Dante might be his most accessible work yet - due in part to it’s programatic nature, but also a more traditional pallet - with bits of Stravinsky, Berlioz, as well as traditional middle-eastern music, but sounds still uniquely Ades.
INTERNATIONAL:
7-WITCH - Zango
(Zambian psychedelic rock)
6-Gabriel da Rosa - E o que a casa oferece
(tranquil bossa nova from Stones Throw)
5-Lankum - False Lankum
(Irish folk music with layers of noise / drone)
4-Tinariwen - Amatssou
(African desert blues)
3-Bombino - Sahel
(Mali guitar player / singer)
2-Shakti - This Moment
(Indian “World Music” collective from bandleader John McLaughlin (guitar, guitar synth) with Zackir Hussain (tabla), vocalist Shankar Mahadevan, violinist Ganesh Rajagopalan, and percussionist Selvaganesh Vinayakram)
1-Kayhan Kalhor & Toumani Diabate - The Sky is the Same Colour Everywhere
The Sky Is the Same Colour Everywhere is continuous piece of music, largely improved and best listened to in one sitting. Kayhan Kalhor, from Iran, is the leading player of the kamancheh, the Persian spike fiddle. Toumani Diabaté, from Mali, is the leading player of the West African kora, a 21-string harp-lute. It’s a spiritual meditation based on Persian and Malian repertoires / themes that is sublimely beautiful.
POP / ROCK
12-Sufjan Stevens - Javelin
11-SZA - SOS
10-Joanna Steinberg - I’ve Got Me
9-feeble little horse - Girl with Fish
8-100 Gecs - 10,000 Gecs
7-Nourished by Time - Erotic Probiotic
6-Kelela - Raven
5-Sprain - The Lamb as Effigy
4-Sampha - Lahai
3-Lonnie Holly - Oh Me Oh My
2-Model / Actriz - Dogsbody
1-Anohini - My Back was a Bridge for You to Cross
Anohini’s personal & political “My Back Was a Bridge For You to Cross” is her greatest so far. Her vocal technique has developed considerably since 2016’s “Hopelessness” - and her performances incredibly unique and emotive. Anohini says about this record, “I've been thinking a lot about Marvin Gaye's What's Going On…A couple of these songs are almost a response to the call of What's Going On…They are a kind of an echo from the future to that album from 50 years ago.” It is sonically smooth but making profound social points with lyrically that are direct and piercing about the her experience and the targeting of the trans community as a whole.
BEST SURROUND / 5.1 RECORDING
This year 5.1 became much more integrated into many’s listening experience as AppleMusic began streaming in 5.1. I likened the experience to what I imagined people must have felt when they started buying records in stereo. For me personally, classical music has worked best in this new format - with instrument sections being more isolated spatially. This being one of my favorite compositions is the recording I dug into most in this way. Colin Currie is a great & experienced interpreter of Reich’s music (having previously recorded “Drumming”, “Mallet Quartet” & others) - & this is one of my favorite performances of this piece to date.
BEST ARCHIVE RECORDING
Laraaji - Segue to Infinity
This four record set is a compilation of new-age artist Laraaji’s earliest works, his 1978 debut Celestial Vibration and six additional previously unreleased side-long studio sessions.
BUDS / LOCAL SHOUTOUTS
Harpoons - Tuber
Dead Gods are the New Gods - String of Omens
Honorable Mentions:
Mivos Quartet - Steve Reich: the String Quartets
Nico Muhly - David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away)
Nia Archives - Sunrise Bang Ur Head Against Tha Wall (EP)
MIKE, Wiki & The Alchemist - Faith as a Rock
Tim Hecker - No Highs
Kurt Rosenwinkel & Geri Allen - A Lovesome Thing
Cecile McLorin Salvant - Melusine
Brad Mehldau - Your Mother Should Know
Nas - Magic 2 & Magic 3
Squid - O Monolith
Maxo - Even God has a Sense of Humor
Yo La Tengo - This Stupid World
Slowdive - everything is alive
Meshell Ndegeocello - The Omnichord Real Book
Deerhoof - Miracle-Level
Colin Stetson - When We Were That What Wept For the Sea
Kurt Elling & Charlie Hunter - SuperBlue: The Iridescent Spree
Lil Yachty - Let’s Start Here.
Ryucihi Sakamoto - 12
Raginald Mobley & Baptiste Trotigon - Because
Pat Metheny - Dream Box
Pangaea - Changing Channels
Overmono - Good Lies
Open Mike Eagle - another triumph of ghetto engineering
Onipa - Off the Grid
John Scofield - Uncle John’s Band
Oneohtrix Point Never - Again
Kara Jackson - Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love
Westide Gunn - & Then You Pray for Me
Water From Your Eyes - Everyone’s Crushed
Steve Gunn & David Moore - Let the Moon be a Planet
Spiritbox - The Fear of Fear (EP)
Matmos - Return to Archive
SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE - i’m so lucky (EP)
Bonnie “Prince Billy” - Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You
Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily - Love in Exile
Aphex Twin - Blackbox Life Recorder 21f / In a Room7 F760 (EP)
Boy Genius - The Record
Wednesday - Rat Saw God
DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ - Destiny