50-31 | 30-11 | 10-1

50. Coevality – Multiple Personalities

[Official site] // [Spotify]

Multiple Personalities — and, well, Coevality in general — came out of nowhere and hit me like a ton of bricks at the beginning of the year. The first release of an otherwise unknown band, Multiple Personalities harnesses big Cynic energy sans robot vocals and with more of the wandering cosmic spirit you see in the album’s artwork. A wholly instrumental experience curated and performed by only the trio comprising Coevality — guitarist Jon Reicher, bassist Derrick Elliott, and drummer Andy Prado — all of whom move boulders in terraforming a composite prog landscape on Multiple Personalities.

While that’s feat enough on its own, it really is worth hammering home just how tactfully interwoven and interlaced Multiple Personalities is without becoming an immemorable headache. In fact, it’s quite the opposite — with theme and melody always blazing the trail and making it a memorable journey that’s easy to recall and revisit. And with so many exciting variations strung along in each piece of the composition, there’s always something new and interesting to uncover on each return trip as the unconscious mind follows the familiar and the conscious digs into sidewinding paths of fretless bass, frenetic drumming, and fascinating guitar. –AtomicWaste

49. CHVRCHES – Screen Violence

[Official site] // [Spotify]

Screen Violence is too damn low on this list. It is, admittedly, the kind of album that insidiously smuggles its hooks into your head over a matter of weeks, embedding certain lines into the walls of your neural pathways via sheer charisma and sugary catchiness (if anyone has tips on how to exorcise Lauren Mayberry’s voice belting “pull me into the screen at the end” from your brain… keep them to yourself, because that shit absolutely slaps). This album just kept creeping up the ranks for me this year, while initially more exciting albums burned bright and faded away. It’s in the subtle way CHVRCHES reclaim their identity without just regressing to the sound of their debut; taking the quieter, fuller textures of 2019’s “Death Stranding” and marrying them to an inspired lyrical theme, the album moves at a moody, patient hum that really does feel like the flicker of a screen on your half-closed, late-night eyelids.

About what’s on that screen. Mayberry’s absolutely phenomenal set of lyrics here realises a theme of using horror movies as a lens to interrogate, basically, life’s real horrors. The use of the final girl trope to let out a decade’s worth of vitriol at an industry full of sexist, misogynist label douchebros and shitty fans (on “Final Girl”) is the disturbing peak, and it’s somehow not the best song here. I’m not sure CHVRCHES have ever sounded better than on “Violent Delights”, a magnum opus of sleep paralysis nightmare fuel that explodes into the single greatest chorus this year. This album will not let you go once its claws are in, all the way from the cathartic explosion of an opener to the muted Jimmy Eat World-type heartbreaker “Better If You Don’t”. Take a shot every time Mayberry finds a way to make you tear up here, and you’ll run out of soju long before the climactic wail rends your heart in two (“and some of them are not our friends, and some of them are still our friends but dead”) — but that’s for the best. Screen Violence is a patient classic, lurking in the background of your mind until it’s time to shake your whole shit up. Best be sober when the accumulated impact hits you like a tidal wave. –Rowan5215

48. Nick Cave and Warren Ellis – Carnage

[Official site] // [Spotify]

Nick Cave has the rare ability as a writer to be many things at once. His recent output has been deeply shaped by the tragedy that changed his life, personal on a level that most artists dare not approach. Carnage is no exception, but there’s a kind of detached distance to it all, as if it’s being observed from afar, seen by the omnipotent in their endless perspective.

Warren Ellis is similarly shrewd in his arrangements, underscoring Cave’s freewheeling poetry in “White Elephant” with just enough tension to exacerbate the political commentary without hamming it up, switching gears into pristine beauty to bring the track home in deft and subtly disquieting glory during one of the more memorable music moments of the year.

Morbid times, times of joy, of peace, of loneliness, moments that make the whole damned slog worthwhile are all acknowledged as they pass in Carnage, but never bent into shape to fit any kind of naive, didactic narrative. The parts make up the whole. The carnage effects the ordinary, the ordinary could not exist without the carnage. Few can pull off such wry observation without veering into mundanity. It’s no surprise that Cave and Ellis slink past this trap with little fanfare, laying out their strengths with the earnestness of true veterans, creating a work with an appeal so self-evident that words almost aren’t necessary. –MiloRuggles

47. Iron Maiden – Senjutsu

[Official site] // [Spotify]

Few artists in rock history have left such an important footprint as British legends Iron Maiden, both visually and musically. Their first seven studio albums, and the colossal Live After Death, catapulted heavy metal to stratospheric heights while simultaneously redefining a musical genre that was going through its most exciting life cycle. And although the Brits have lost relevance since Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, each new release has been surrounded by strong enthusiasm, not so much for its creative substance or novelty, but for its symbolic character that rekindles the flame of the past for new and old tribes. By this point, Maiden belongs to the category of myth, in which brand transcends music and casual fans become devoted followers. The 82-minute double album Senjutsu is thus some sort of calling that celebrates both the band’s longevity and their faithful supporters, much like a seasonal bonding ritual. The formula remains essentially consistent with the more recent past, relying on a galloping mid-paced triple-guitar assault that orbits one of the best and most distinctive rhythm sections the genre has ever produced. Yet there is a different breeze enveloping Senjutsu that gives it a special look and feel. “Days of Future Past”, the ritualistic title track, and the 12-minute epic “The Parchment” are the most visible faces of this peculiar aura, with the former arguably being one of the best songs the band have recorded in the last twenty years. Steve Harris is not only more inspired this time around (as seen in “Lost in a Lost World”, “The Parchment”, and “Hell on Earth”), the whole team seems more focused and revitalized. I would go as far as saying Senjutsu is Maiden’s most interesting album since Brave New World, which places it in an honorable spot among the band’s portfolio. And even if it (predictably) doesn’t reach the same heights as the timeless classics, we should all rejoice, for the greatest heavy metal band of all time is still alive and kicking. UP THE IRONS! –Fernando Alves

46. Little Simz – Sometimes I Might Be Introvert

[Official site] // [Spotify]

Before Sometimes I Might be Introvert, I was convinced that Little Simz was at her best when she was suppressing her penchant for narrative contrivance. With its release, though, the London rapper reminds us of what made her so impressive in the first place. As did her 2015 debut, SIMBI marries Simz’ conceptual ambition with her effortless knack for producing hard-hitting, steady-handed rap bangers. Unlike Stillness in Wonderland, which leant too heavily on the former, or GREY Area on the latter, SIMBI strikes an impressive balance. The album is packed with lushly produced interludes, many narrated by The Crown‘s Emma Corrin. And while these interludes do disrupt the flow of the album, they do so in a way that feels purposeful – that helps bookmark the album’s various gear shifts and excursions (the most exciting of which, the bass-y, frenetic journey to Nigeria on late-album highlights “Point and Kill” and “Fear No Man”). They also help aggrandise what is an otherwise sprawling but ultimately very small, personal album at its core; an album of hard lessons learned, and considerable personal development. Made cinematic and grand and catchy and exciting because, well, Simbi doesn’t mince words; she wants your kids to hear this. At the year’s end, it’s feeling like years down the line they just might. –BlushfulHippocrene

45. The Exit Bags – Tower of Quiet

[Bandcamp] // [Spotify]

Does it matter if the music you’re listening to is made by a stand-up guy? Does it matter that you consider him a colleague, maybe even a friend? If anything, it’s a negative when someone you know asks you to check out their project because there’s that nagging pressure of hoping you like it. “Please don’t suck. Please don’t suck. Please don’t suck,” rings through my head over and over as I queue up the first listen. But with our dear staff writer Jots and his project, The Exit Bags, that worry is unfounded because Tower of Quiet is great. It hits that sweet spot somewhere in between The Microphones and Have a Nice Life with its booming drums that sound like they’re a mile away but still rattle in your head. It’s got a dreamy, melancholic atmosphere that’s perfectly punctuated by catchy guitar arpeggios and surprisingly wonderful use of a ukulele. But again, you might ask, does it matter that I’m acquainted with the artist? Sorry, I’m too busy to answer your question — I’m having an out-of-body experience while listening to Tower of Quiet for the tenth time. –Trebor.

44. Kayo Dot – Moss Grew on the Swords and Plowshares Alike

[Official site] // [Spotify]

We expect a certain level of excess with each new Kayo Dot album. Acceptable levels are nebulous and ill-defined, so it’s hard to say why albums like Blue Lambency Downward don’t work as well as something like Coffins on IO. Luckily, the stars have aligned and Moss Grew on the Swords and Plowshares Alike is the perfect level of excess; a winding fantasy adventure of metal, post-punk, and Kayo Dot-styled experimentalism. It’s an amalgam of the band’s modern era, and unlike previous albums, it works all the better because of it.

The maudlin of the Well lineup injects a level of heaviness not felt since Hubardo, offering some of the band’s darkest and most intense material to date. It’s still wholly-modern Kayo Dot, as Toby Driver’s insistent need for artistic growth ensures it doesn’t revisit the past, or in his words, “successful artistic statements.” Instead, it’s a bold reminder that Kayo Dot — under the shifting classifications and altering identities — is a force of boundless creativity. There is nothing like Moss Grew on the Swords and Plowshares Alike; nothing as audacious, unwieldy, or abjectly bizarre.

It’s an album only the excesses of Kayo Dot could create. –Xenophanes

43. Hiatus Kaiyote – Mood Valiant

[Official site] // [Spotify]

Like MF DOOM listing-not-rapping the manifold pleasures of the “Bistro” in which Madvillainy evidently takes place, or like The Avalanches cockily sticking a “Welcome to paradise!” sample smack in the intro to the lush “Since I Left You”, Hiatus Kaiyote’s third album is sexy and it knows it. Somehow, through the density and sparkle of its neo-soul/psych-jazz curlicues, Mood Valiant is able to provide that bizarrely theatrical and yet super-edifying sense that we listeners are watching a mural be unveiled, a room opened, an outfit revealed, that makes us feel a movie-protagonist-like sense of slack-jawed wonder — and that’s every goddamn time a new song starts! The revelations become less and less so toward album’s end, and I think it’s the songs playing against their strengths — Nai Palm’s powerful yet slippery vocal tone, intense, rimshot-heavy percussion, energy energy energy — moreso than the grammar of revelation itself wearing off. So treated and fussed over that haters will say it’s fake, Mood Valiant extends to you an invite to Hiatus Kaiyote’s sophisticated neo-noir waterfront lounge party and all I gotta say is that if “Chivalry Is Not Dead” and its absurd slap bass doesn’t get your head banging, then I guess you’re uninvited to the party. –robertsona

42. Emily Scott Robinson – American Siren

[Official site] // [Spotify]

There’s a simplicity to Emily Scott Robinson’s American Siren. A simplicity, but not a lack of depth. Amazingly, watching Robinson talk about these songs — explain their “meaning” away — has the effect not of reducing them to vignettes inspired by the artist’s far more complex inter-/intrapersonal affairs, but of affirming their life beyond Robinson, who appears less like a mastermind than some disinterested third party, just another member of the audience. The way she talks about “Let ‘Em Burn”, in particular, it’s less like she concocted the song than discovered it floating somewhere in the musical ether, ready to be wrangled onto record. Like much of American Siren, the song speaks to faith, womanhood, and the pressure to conform. Unlike the rest of the album’s songs — made up, primarily, of acoustic country jams, containing only the odd instrumental surprise; a banjo here, a strummed cello there — “Let ‘Em Burn” is a sparse piano ballad; the album’s sparsest. And yet, despite its instrumental and conceptual simplicity, the song feels nonetheless heady and profound — as though capturing, in its hyper-specificity, something shockingly universal. Something about lost hope, dashed dreams, the shackles of tradition. Whatever it is, Robinson, with all her talent, adopts on American Siren a role that is exceedingly unassuming, even self-effacing; and, in doing so, has crafted an album whose accessibility belies something truly special. –BlushfulHippocrene

41. Lil Ugly Mane – Volcanic Bird Enemy and the Voiced Concern

[Bandcamp] // [Spotify]

“Who are you?“

is how Volcanic Enemy opens; a vital question, a philosophical nub, one he’s demanding of himself. This is less Mista Thug Isolation than it is Lil Ugly Mane in 2021. Answers are proving elusive, as he grapples with himself, urgency increasing — “time’s lost every time I sleep” he frets on “Benadryl Submarine”, a desperation in his voice. The drugs will distort time, clearly, but they won’t provide more of it. This isn’t the first time a flagrant existential crisis has been rendered unto an explicitly beseeching album, but LUM’s habit of recalibrating his sound with each release raised eyebrows this time — it’s not so much a modulation as a complete retooling, prioritising indie rock, shoegaze and melodic psychedelia. He even sings!. It’s been a long time between drinks and the once-youthful LUM is abstemious now, ordering tonic water, eating asparagus rolls, sober-driving — imagining the warmth of a drink or a drug as it trickles down his throat so acutely he almost heaves.

I recommended this to a friend and he said it reminded him of Blink 182’s s/t and, I mean shit, why not: “anhedonia and doubt yield pop-punk masterpiece(?)” the headlines might have read. Or shall we construe this as a pop album? There’s warmth, hooks, brainworm instrumentals, giddy samples, ebullient moods, euphonious samples, lush trip-hop textures. Or do we conceive of it as an album borne of trauma and addiction? The electronic squeal that begins the second chorus of “VPN” is hair-raising; it functions as a scream in one’s ear. The silence at the end of “Clapping Seal” seems like a ritualistic “minute of-“, a contemplation of a shared grief. Elsewhere, the moon looks “like it’s abused”. Mountains “look like hostages.”

The overwhelming effect is that of sublime pop nous barely masking a fragile psyche close to cracking completely. In “Porcelain Slightly” he “waits for panic to subside” — disquietingly, one wonders what would happen if it didn’t. The facets here are nuanced while an authorial consistency pervades: a perfectly functional pop album with discomfiting layers. However. There’s another motif: a preoccupation with stagnation. LUM allegedly rots in his rotten home behind a rotten VPN, meat spoiling in the fridge until it “smells like alcohol,” garbage not taken out (the anhedonic self-loathing of “I have a tendency to promise shit / I cannot accomplish / like the energy to take out the garbage” bypass bone and hit marrow). He needn’t worry — regarding stagnation the album is anything but, and as to the question of creative vision? It isn’t just still extant, but matured and transmogrified into something confronting, complex and beautiful. I hope LUM finds a comfort in that. –Winesburgohio

40. Corbin – Ghost with Skin

[Official site] // [Spotify]

Retrospective pessimism requires some mental space (time spent, really) as a buffer. As I type this, a couple days before its due date, I acknowledge that it’s been over a year since I’ve written about music. On one hand, it means I can look back with some clarity: for me, music-writing has always been an exercise in self-indulgence and little more. On the other hand, the more time that passes, the more likely it is that a latent embitterment makes it hard to appreciate the contributions that now-defunct hobbies and interests have made to my personal development, however big or small. I’m comfortable with cutting ties with past iterations of myself, including the people tangential to them — acquaintances, friends, even family, whoever. The longer I wait, the easier it gets.

The reason for my first questionably-relevant personal paragraph is: Corbin Smidzik’s music succeeds in accompanying a profound ache, maybe existing in equilibrium with it. After 2017’s Mourn and prior to Ghost with Skin, Corbin hadn’t released much, with the exception of a few intermittent singles. Of course, this doesn’t mean that he was taking an extended artistic break: he just consciously didn’t release anything major. Since Corbin is a bit reclusive and doesn’t guide his own narratives with much insistence, it gives us as listeners a bit of freedom to assess (correctly or incorrectly). I think Corbin is indifferent to conventional album promotional cycles, and is fine with leaving his ideas buried at the bottom of the closet if that’s where they belong. The thing is, that humble outlook seems to jinx his releases-proper, like a counter-hype defence mechanism. I mean, Google “Corbin Ghost with Skin” and one of the first few results is a Sputnikmusic review.

I don’t feel like critically assessing Ghost with Skin. That isn’t the point of these year-end lists; and, we have a review up for it already. Plus, in the same amount of time it might take you to read this, you could just sporadically stream portions of the album and catch the gist. I’d like to imagine that my purpose in this role is to boil down an album to its psychological essence, and try to convince you that it meant something to me. Ghost with Skin doesn’t have the ostensible grit of Mourn, or the precocious charm of Black Silk, or the hazy grief-bliss of Leaving. Yet, to me, it somehow means more. With someone like Corbin, part of you suspects that each new project could be the last, if the time gaps between them continue to grow larger. It’s like maintaining obligatory contact with estranged family or friends. You stop calling each other on a regular basis. Eventually, you stop calling each other on birthdays. Then, you stop calling each other on the holidays. –Jots

39. Japanese Breakfast – Jubilee

[Official site] // [Spotify]

Picking out a record to anchor year’s worth of emotional gravity would usually be a frustrating and likely groundless task, but Jubilee fits the brief like a glove. Delicately devastating and generously comforting in turn, bandleader Michelle Zauner makes joyous work of subject matter that tends stubbornly towards the despondent end of the spectrum: while she packs a number of brighter moments, her most rewarding cuts delve into loneliness (“Kokomo, IN”), loss (“In Hell”), and self-extraction from a sour relationship (“Tactics”). Such tracks frequently verge on downer territory, but even at her most fragile, there’s such a dignified sense of focus to Zauner’s writing that they play out more as artful reflections on trying times; the imagination, strength and stoicism guiding these pieces are too heartwarming for their draining qualities to spread their frost.

Closer “Posing For Cars” takes an alternative approach, opening as an idyllic love song before voicing its emotional subtext in a climactic instrumental finale. It’s beautiful, pure, and utterly exhausting, an emotional flush that clearly stems from deep-rooted, reciprocated(!) romantic yearning, but plays out like a final scene tearjerker. The lesson here underpins the whole record: it hurts to be genuine, but certain things demand to be unpacked, lived and folded into our hearts precisely because of how much of our personal realities they contain. Throughout Jubilee, Zauner explores this process with such willingness and vitality, such evocative frankness and expressive arrangements, such a refined sensibility for splashing out vivid colours without the blowback of collateral kitsch, that she delivers a gorgeously valuable source of solace. Call it one of the highlights of the year if you will, but this record’s warmth, candour, and sage self-navigation are too bright, too vital to belong in superimposition over an elapsed timeframe. Jubilee is no milestone-thing-that-happened; it’s a still-welcoming, still-open conversation — and a lovely one at that, too. –JohnnyoftheWell

38. Black Country, New Road – For the first time

[Bandcamp] // [Spotify]

Along with Turnstile’s Glow On, Black Country, New Road’s mesmerising debut proves how far-reaching and unpredictable rock music in 2021 may be. Both bands revel in exciting genre mash-ups. But, while Turnstile turn their trademark post-hardcore sound inside out — embellishing it with infectious choruses and pop sensibilities — Black Country, New Road mix post-punk with notable jazz and klezmer folk influences. It’s astonishing how skillfully this young band manage to make this amalgamation of seemingly disparate genres work. The brass instruments add plenty of colour and texture, yet it’s the oddball time signatures and constantly pulsating rhythms that make their sound so distinctive. Singer Isaac Wood accompanies it with eccentric melodeclamations that couldn’t possibly be more fitting. Overall, though, For the first time bursts with youthful energy, superb songwriting and virtuosic musicianship echoing King Crimson. It is a meticulously constructed album that’s unabashedly experimental and oddly catchy at the same time. Black Country, New Road certainly have a bright future ahead of them. –Greg.

37. Angels and Airwaves – Lifeforms

[Official site] // [Spotify]

If you’d told me at any point that Tom DeLonge would write one of the defining songs re: living through a global pandemic, I’d probably have thrown my copy of Dude Ranch at your head with significant force. Here we are, though, absolutely no wiser or better for what we’ve all been through, and “Losing My Mind” remains the definitive lockdown banger. It helps that it’s an absolute fucking tune, perfectly placed in the middle of the album, propelled by some magical harmonies from Ilan Rubin and the flawless addition of former Taking Back Sunday heavy Matt Rubano on bass. But “Losing My Mind” would be magical in any context, I think. DeLonge’s typically clumsy lyrics work like gangbusters at a time when all of us are relearning how to functionally exist in society, where “I’ll put us back at ease cos we need some complacence – we’re all gonna die” is the absolute best shit to belt at the top of your lungs, where “I’m stayin’ in bed to watch the cities ignite” isn’t a vaguely political pop-punk line but an actual description of what we all do every morning. This is “Anthem Part Three” in everything but name, the logical conclusion when we can’t direct our fury at the adults who mucked everything up for the kids, because everyone at any age is just screaming their rage into the void.

But hey — there are other songs on Lifeforms! Most of them are good! “Euphoria” rides a nasty riff with the best guitar tone since the passing of Jerry Finn to what surely counts by default as DeLonge’s most progressive take on gender politics ever. “Spellbound” is a genuinely sexy jam that Rubin single-handedly carries with a propulsive beat and a killer electronic breakdown in the bridge. You’ve got a genuinely introspective (and lyrically… pretty good?) DeLonge getting real on the lovely “A Fire in a Nameless Town”, only to default right back to some brilliant gibberish for the ripping “Kiss & Tell”. And if some of these songs brazenly reuse old melodies, or the synth sound from “Tom Sawyer”, that’s part of the deal you make in choosing to listen to something by Tom DeLonge. It’s corny and silly, full of holes by any objective metric, but there’s no-one else in the genre pumping out so many catchy melodies or procuring such fantastic bandmates with an unerring eye to be as entertaining as possible for 35 sweet minutes. –Rowan5125

36. Empyrium – Über den Sternen

[Bandcamp] // [Spotify]

I’ve never considered myself a big fan of Empyrium. Though well aware of their influence on dark folk music, their sound failed to effectively capture me. Über den Sternen changed that with a vengeance during a recent snowy night. I’ve been so transfixed with the atmosphere on their sixth LP that I’m having to reevaluate any previous notions about the German nature-dwellers. Channeling influence from fantasy, wildlife — and even the cosmos — Über den Sternen is a stirring, magnetic force. From the carefully plucked guitars to the commanding and vibrant flutes that have long been a trademark of their sound, this is highly effective escapism. It sounds like Empyrium, admittedly, but there’s a refinement here that works incredibly in the duo’s favor. Everything here feels ancient and focused in the most authentic sense. Ominous clean chants hover over a midnight campfire; the jolting snarls occasionally rush in with the wind. Though their last effort The Turn of the Tides found them returning from a lengthy hiatus, Über den Sternen feels like their true, commanding comeback. Nearly twenty years after the acclaimed Weiland, it’s a reminder for many of what made them so special in the first place. For others, like myself, it’s the perfect time to jump on board. –Atari

35. Genesis Owusu – Smiling with No Teeth

[Official site] // [Spotify]

Smiling With No Teeth absolutely dominated my listening in 2021 while resolutely refusing to define or summarise anything about it. I’d say it’s one of the best albums of the year, but that feels like putting the album into a context it’s not made for: Smiling With No Teeth is slippery and complex, almost timeless-feeling, like it could have come out any time between now and 1997 without being tied to any particular sound from those years. This is my favourite kind of album, which demands that you meet it on its own terms and not yours: go into it looking for a couple of bangers to cherrypick and make your Spotify Wrapped look more diverse, come out grappling with an absolutely fascinating album that seems to shift form every time you get a clear look at it.

What’s actually going on here? Most of it comes down to the intensely charismatic and chameleonic performance by Owusu. You never know if he’s gonna backmask his vocal to create an unforgettable hook (“Centrefold”), sing a disarmingly sincere ballad about fishing as a metaphor for life (“A Song About Fishing”), or just drop it all and spit some head-dizzying bars that can go up against anything else rapped this year (“Gold Chains”). His band are like a breathing machine, totally in tune with wherever Owusu’s whims will take the song next: for a debut album, the amount of chemistry between the vocals and live instruments is something to be envious of.

All this meandering off the map is structured and beautifully organised by a recurring motif that sees Owusu face off against his own personal demon, a suave and terrifying Black Dog. This is no one-dimensional portrait of depression: the Black Dog growls and spits, seductively purrs in the ear, convinces with dark logic that staying in bed all day and doing nothing is the right move (“the alarm can’t disturb you in an eternal slumber, baby”). It’s an astonishing performance, made all the more powerful when Genesis punctures it. The stunning “No Looking Back” has no easy answers or pat platitudes for the listener: it’s simply a story of one man finding some grace out of the darkness, realising how to “finally see myself when I try thinking of love”. If the album doesn’t end here, but rather with the atonal, aggressively ambiguous “Bye Bye”, well, that’s Genesis Owusu for you. Smiling With No Teeth may be telling a story that’s beautifully realised, but it’s ultimately just as interested in running circles around the listener with a wicked smile plastered on its face. –Rowan5215

34. Grouper – Shade

[Bandcamp] // [Spotify]

Grouper might have been overdue for a victory lap. Since the auspicious 2008 breakthrough Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill, the solo project by Liz Harris has become one of our generation’s significant ambient artists, building an impressive oeuvre notable for its versatility and surprising abundancy. Despite the sparsity of the components, centered around passages of acoustic guitar or piano (and the haunting, spectral beauty of her vocals), much has been mined from the variations in that design, flung from the plainest strung folk music to the depths of the murkiest drone. The last few releases including 2014’s Ruins and 2018’s Grid of Points marked a more drastic ebbing of some signature density, highlighting compositions as sparse as the instruments that shaped them. Since the earliest recordings, these facets often felt condensed into the era they were pressed, referencing past iterations through her signature recording styles. Collected from the archives over fifteen years of recording, Shade is the strongest sampling to date of these contrasts, each track representative of some era that unearthed it. Fans of her earlier recordings will find much to love here through texture alone, as Shade favors the psychedelic poolings of fraught strings and dusty atmospherics. It is the embrace of her own discography’s versatility that makes Shade an immediate standout of the same, a retrospective that most overtly threads these attributes into a singular whole. Were that enough, I think we would still champion this release as another small miracle from a special songwriter. But Shade is a year-end list contender because for all its production tics and distancing effects, it is a delicately spun yarn of rich pop songwriting: each song represents not only an era, but its ideal. –plane

33. Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine – A Beginner’s Mind

[Bandcamp] // [Spotify]

A collaboration — an alignment of stars — so obvious it ought not to have surprised anyone and which — shock — did very little to surprise anyone. If you’ve ever listened to Sufjan Stevens or Angelo De Augustine — individually or respectively as part of an ‘Infinite Acoustic’/’Your Favourite Coffeehouse’ type playlist — you know exactly how this goes. And that’s not a bad thing. Like either artist on their own, A Beginner’s Mind is very good. A thoughtful, gentle album. An occasionally moving practice in empathy and delicacy. Undoubtedly, one of the year’s brightest, prettiest, most comforting. Like fluffy socks in the winter, whose patterns now and then you find yourself absorbed in just that little bit too long. –BlushfulHippocrene

32. JPEGMAFIA – LP! (offline) (online)

[Official site] // [Spotify]

LP! is JPEGMAFIA’s third consecutive album of straight fire, yet another expansive mural of noisy drum sounds and restless synth hooks that bespeaks anxiety as much as, but also as part of, its delightful approach to songwriting and sonics. Several of the songs have beats that are frankly insane: “DIRTY!”, “WHAT KIND OF RAPPIN’ IS THIS?”, “ARE U HAPPY?”, the ‘(Offline)’ exclusive “HAZARD DUTY PAY!”, and the EP! single “BALD!” all slam and are interesting and funny and weird and infinitely replayable. As the opener “TRUST!” has it, “Everything’s great! Everything’s cool!” (but then, as ever: “I can’t believe that shit! I don’t believe that bitch!”)

“HAZARD DUTY PAY!”, which JPEGMAFIA keeps trying to upload to Spotify under fake artist names only to have his shit shut down, is amazing and you have to make sure to download it if you only listen to music on Spotify. I mean, my God: consider, if you will, the way (as in, I dunno, “Money Trees”?) you can feel the rub between the yearning sample and the added synth bass tone that presides over micro-level changes in mood between the first two times that sample plays, that tone first entering on a bright B-flat over the opening C-minor chord (at 0:34 on the highly recommended, aesthetically disintegrated YouTube video) before reentering on the more natural C (0:42). It’s a masterclass, a perfect example of how and when and to what extent to treat a sample so that its original melody distends just a little bit, so that you can successfully teach someone how to, in a Harold Bloom-ian Anxiety of Influence sense, “mishear” a song the same way you once did. And if you don’t dig what I’m putting down, then how about the way JPEGMAFIA makes “DIRTY!” sound and feel like the night sky, even with the conspicuous clang of its pots-and-pans percussion? Or zoom way in and take note of that first snare after the entrance of some dude named DATPIFFMAFIA on “REBOUND!”, how it pops, how its intensity leads to an inimitable feeling of having gone deeper into something. And then, as a treat, think back for a second on how the thing you’ve gone deeper into before you went deeper into it was JPEGMAFIA, in classic doth-protest-too-much fashion, yelping to his ex, “I’m fuckin’ somebody better! You… just fuckin’ whoever!”

While Peggy’s overriding me-vs.-the-world lyrical personality has become more bothersome to me than when I threw a 5 on All My Heroes are Cornballs, and while I think this album is less consistently interesting than that one, it’s still, especially at its best, an absolutely delicious piece of Internet-addled sonic experimentation, cementing him not just as a spark of creative energy within the contemporary rap scene but also as one of the greatest producers ever. And while it only goes backward, ever is a mighty long time — pride of place on a list like this only seems fair to offer in exchange for the ceaseless flow of manna, yeah? –robertsona

31. Claire Rousay – it was always worth it / ilysm

[Official site] // [Spotify]

What does it mean to be in a relationship? I don’t just mean strictly romantic relationships, although those clearly fit the bill. I mean any close interpersonal connection. Claire Rousay explores this through her excellent pieces “it was always worth it” and “ilysm”. Paired with gorgeous ambient pads, strings, and field recordings of squeaking, birdsong, and cooking sounds, much of the project’s narrative comes from literal narrative, spoken word explaining exactly how much someone (presumably Claire) loves and appreciates someone else, even through what feels like the end of their interactions.

“Thank you. Thank you for a love. Thank you for a home. Thank you for making me feel truly appreciated and cared for. I had never really had that. It is like a dream come true.”

Interspersed among the dialogue is faint talking, inaudible but present. The way this dialogue acts as a form of ambient noise is brilliant — for a piece on relationships, there’s nothing more key than conversation. It (along with other noises, like the filling of a cup and the pulling away of a car) helps define this as, unlike most ambient, about people, not their absence. it was always worth it / ilysm really feels and sounds alive in a way few other records do. Near the end of the twenty minute “it was always worth it”, the original melody returns and the narration returns with a beautiful message on love, which I won’t spoil for new listeners. I’ll just say it’s made me cry more than once. And midway through “ilysm”, someone describes their relationships with their grandparents. It’s all more touching than you can imagine based off my mere uncontextualized words — it only makes sense in context, just like our links with other people. So hold on tight to all those you love, and take every opportunity you can to be with them and to make new connections. After all, what good is life without relationships? –granitenotebook

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