Other than the review of a Kim Deal concert, I didn't do any music writing this year for the first time in a good long while, so it was harder than usual to keep up with new releases, even though I'm still on several mailing lists--and I didn't keep up with any reissues or collections at all.
To that end, respect to RVNG Intl. and 12XU for releasing some of my favorite albums this year, and a fond adieu to Trouble in Mind. Every year, I used to look forward to their new releases. It's a Herculean task to keep an independent act or label going in the post-millennial era, especially once the pandemic hit, so here's to all those who have.
Respect also to John Whitson, the founder of Holy Mountain Records, and a social media associate with whom I shared many friends. I regret that I never got to meet him in person. This year we also lost music writers Kaleb Horton and Charles Cross, completely unexpected passings of gentlemen with a lot left to say--in Cross's case, he was just getting started on a memoir. We'll not see the likes of any of these three again; each their own, unmistakable, much-missed individual.
1. Lucrecia Dalt - A Danger to Ourselves (RVNG Intl.)
2. Idles - Caught Stealing (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Partisan/Columbia)
3. Young Fathers - 28 Years Later (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Milan)
4. Marie Davidson - City of Clowns (DEEWEE/Because Music)
5. Little Simz - Lotus (AWAL Recordings)
6. Anika - Abyss (Sacred Bones)
7. Cate Le Bon - Michelangelo Dying (Mexican Summer)
8. The Hard Quartet - The Hard Quartet (Matador)
9. Ty Segall - Possession (Drag City)
10. Decius - Decius Vol. II (Splendour & Obedience) (The Leaf Label)
Runners-up
11. Taba - Satomimagae (RVNG Intl.)
12. Wet Leg - Moisturizer (Domino)
13. Stereolab - Instant Holograms on Metal Film
(Duophonic UHF Disks/Warp)
14. Lily Allen - West End Girl (BMG)
15. Horse Lords & Arnold Dreyblatt FRKWYS Vol. 18:
Extended Field (RVNG Intl.)
16. Horsegirl - Phonetics On and On (Matador)
17. Alice Cohen - Archaelogy (Crinoline)
18. L'eclair - Cloud Drifter (Innovative Leisure)
19. Clipse - Let God Sort Them Out (ROC Nation Distribution)
20. The Cords - The Cords (Slumberland)
Note: Call me crazy, but I'd rather watch Austin Butler run through the streets of New York City than Timothée Chalamet. To each their own, I guess, but Caught Stealing is also a great cat movie with a truly great cat in veteran performer Tonic, who plays Butler's "Bud."
21. Go Kurosawa - soft shakes (Guruguru Brain)
22. Sault - 10 (Forever Living Originals)
23. Pulp - More (Rough Trade)
24. Water Damage - Instruments (12XU)
25. Natural Information Society - Meditation (New Soil Limited)
26. Natural Information Society - Manifestation (New Soil Limited)
27. Ichiko Aoba - Luminescent Creatures (Psychic Hotline)
28. Ed Kuepper & Jim White - After the Flood (12XU)
29. Tyler, the Creator - Don't Tap the Glass (Columbia)
30. Erika de Casier - Lifetime (Independent Jeep Music)
Top songs
1. Kate Nash - "Germ" (Kill Rock Stars)
2. Christine & the Queens ft. Cerrone - "Catching Feelings"
(Malligator Préférence / Because Music)
3. Danger Mouse, Black Thought and Rag'n'Bone Man - "Up" (BMG)
4. Jamie xx ft. Erykah Badu - "F.U." (Young)
5. L'eclair ft. Gelli Haha - "Run" (Innovative Leisure)
6. supermodel - "I Used to Live in England" (f***ing whatever)
7. Go Kurosawa - "Autowalk" (Guruguru Brain)
8. Lord Huron ft. Kristin Stewart - "Who Laughs Last" (Mercury)
9. Sampa the Great ft. Mwanjé - "Can't Hold Us" (Loma Vista)
10. Little Simz - "Free" and "Young" (AWAL Recordings)
Note: I couldn't choose between "Free" and "Young," so I decided to list them both.
Notable concerts (unranked): Ty Segall (solo acoustic) with King Tuff at the Neptune, Kim Deal with Morgan Nagler at the Neptune, Branford Marsalis live score for silent Armstrong biopic Louis at the Paramount, and Wet Leg with Mary in the Junkyard at the Paramount.
Images from Christoph Winkler (Lucrecia Dalt) and Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music (Charles R. Cross).
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