FP28
Top 15 Albums of the Year (2023)
I’m too lazy for a “let’s contextualize the past year through a critical/personal lens” intro, so let’s jump right into why you’re here: my favorite releases of 2023. Hope you hear something you like.
Oh, and Merry Christmas!
Honorable Mentions
Goat - Joy in Fear (totalism/math-rock)
Destiny Bond - Be My Vengeance (punk)
Flaty - Intuitive Word (ambient)
Joseph Allred - What Strange Flowers Grow in the Shade (ambient-folk)
15. Theodore Cale Schafer - Our Blood for .S
Modern classical drones for when you need a reprieve in the worst way. Stay with them a while, and they’ll untangle your thoughts. One at a time, their weight sinks, swells and ultimately drifts into the ether.
A reminder to exhale, I suppose.
14. Edsel Axle - Variable Happiness
Rosali hits pause on her Americana to offer us a less song-oriented but more transportive trip: 44 minutes of solo electric guitar.
Striking a middle ground between Scout Niblett’s rough edges and Loren Connors’ lyrical bent, this six-track psychedelic detour lets the sun trickle in the longer you sit with it. Soak it in.
13. SANAM - Aykathani Malakon
By infusing their Arabic folk with krautrock’s propulsion and post-rock’s theatricality, Beirut-based group SANAM don’t merely decry the ills that surround them. They tackle them head on in an attempt to root out the light at the end of the tunnel.
We’re moving forward.
12. EXWHITE - This Is Future
Armed with the requisite howls and riotous guitars, German punk outfit EXWHITE stick a bulldozer inside a china shop to chase any whiff of complacency out of our system. Not a band-aid in sight. If we’re going to start anew, we need to tear it down and build from the ground up.
From the garage.
11. Joanne Robertson - Blue Car
Robertson appears well-versed in those days when you’d rather hide under the blanket than brave anything beyond it. Her ghostly folk songs are content to nuzzle up against us, never attempting to offer solutions. Only solace.
Bedroom melancholia of the highest order.
10. Ricardo Dias Gomes - Muito Sol
With a name like Muito Sol (“lots of sun”), you might expect another cozy chapter in MPB’s ongoing renaissance.
Instead, Gomes sets the genre’s delicate sheen against drone’s underbelly to carve out bays we couldn’t fathom beforehand. Those dimmer colors nibble away at the corners of the frame to impart a timeless lesson: This—all of this—flies by so fast. Embrace the glow while it’s around.
9. Enji - Ulaan
Vocal jazz often runs into put-on pitfalls, but Enji’s Mongolian folk roots bring an air of vulnerability to the table. She leans further into her heritage and quietly broadens her sonic palette on the follow-up to 2021’s Ursgal, coming out of her shell to reveal her true colors.
There are moments in which she’s simply soaring.
8. McKinley Dixon - Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!?
Dixon has emerged as one of jazz-rap’s leading figures, and Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? finds him at his hungriest and most confident yet. The MC’s razor-sharp delivery slices through sepia-toned arrangements to spread his gospel far and wide. Not a single breath is wasted.
Believe the hype.
7. Arthur Russell - Picture of Bunny Rabbit
Previously unreleased material from the World of Echo vault. Not quite in the same ballpark, of course, but his cavernous and hummable left-field pop remains a marvel to this day. That cello tone is as alien as it is unmistakably human.
A legend for a reason.
6. Maroulita de Kol - Anásana
Where did this come from? De Kol’s marriage of ambient currents, dream pop’s shimmer and Hellenic folk’s gravity casts a spell on listeners to point us in the right direction. A voice that could part the deepest seas delivers her wisdom from on high.
There’s some ancient magic at play here.
5. Polobi & The Gwo Ka Masters - Abri Cyclonique
Polobi’s Creole incantations are amplified by Black Ark-style effects, producing a dubby, downtempo ode to connection. Instead of closing himself off, he finds shelter from the storm within it. He’s tapped into the source—the ebbs, the flows and everything in between.
A proper mind-bender out of Guadeloupe.
4. DJ Danifox - Ansiedade
Batida powerhouse Príncipe dropped a few genre-defying records this year, but none can match Ansiedade’s focus. Despite blurring boundaries and expanding DJ Danifox’s bag of tricks, these inventive beats don’t take their hands off the wheel for even an instant.
Their eyes are fixed squarely on the prize.
3. Mark - So You Betrayed the Creative Arts for Your Own Personal Ends
Jazzy DNB-inflected percussion runs for its life on these two long-form cuts. The problem? It’s pitch black, so we can’t spot the exits. We can hear the final-boss footsteps, though. As we blindly inch forward, ever-mutating chirps, rattles and wraiths threaten to pull us into the void.
A tour de force in suspenseful sound design.
2. Steve Lehman & Orchestre National de Jazz - Ex Machina
Saxophonist Steve Lehman’s first project in four years is a collaboration that bubbles over with big band curiosity, spectral live electronics and voracious polyrhythms. One of those rare instances where a group can discover its flow and reach for the heavens all at once.
Always stirring, always changing, always learning.
1. Big Blood - First Aid Kit
Folk weirdos Big Blood add post-punk swagger to their girl-group rhapsody, harnessing that drive to hurl impossible questions into infinite space.
No one picks up.
However, hope is not lost. From its cosmic grooves and spine-tingling ballads to the entirely improvised lyrics, First Aid Kit brims with spirit and yearning and heart. Dewy-eyed wonder in the face of our grim reality. Maybe the answers we seek aren’t the kindnesses we need. Those tend to be much sillier.