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Renee Willoughby – 33 (Irrational Tentent, Feb 10)

This is the third time I’ve written about this tape, yet I’m discovering that I doubt I’ll ever run out of praise for it. You can read the text from my mid-year list or the original review for the usual pontificating. The bottom line is that 33 feels like an answer to a question you’ve always had. Not some painful epiphany but more of a reminder, a hazy window to the other side as a gentle hand guides you back to ours. Willoughby makes a strong case for this new, powerful form of music-making as invocation with a performance that must have been transcendent to witness in person, and that we all our lucky enough to be able to hear again and again.

Northwoods Baseball Sleep Radio – Northwoods Sleep Baseball (Worried Songs, Oct 27)

Ever want to hear the soothing sounds of a baseball game over the radio without the commitment or stakes of a real-life matchup? Enter Northwoods Baseball Sleep Radio, a free podcast that provides this exact service, complete with made-up teams, players, and ad spots for nonexistent products and services. UK label Worried Songs were such big fans of the idea that they released Northwoods Sleep Baseball, a double-cassette set housed in a handsome wooden box that comprises a single game played by the Tomah Tigers against the Big Rapid Timbers. As music this is a thoroughly enjoyable piece of “focused ennui,” the commentator chatter and muffled roar of the crowd blending into bliss.

Met Glas – Crooked Like a Dogs’ Hind Legs (Pube Provisional Society, May 7)

Something that I end up having to explain rather frequently is that while it’s not hard to make harsh noise, it is very hard to make good harsh noise. There’s so much more intent and skill involved than most would expect, and while you don’t necessarily need the latest top-of-the-line gear, a certain amount of technical knowledge and experience is also required. Canadian newcomer Met Glas is a project that takes the tradition seriously, but not too seriously, and of the several excellent tapes he’s put out this year (Moody Brooding, Out and Out and in Favor of Anythiing with THRTDSPLY, Speed Museum), Crooked Like a Dogs’ Hind Legs has ended up the clear favorite. Get a hold of a physical copy if you can, or at least listen through speakers.

Áine O’Dwyer – Turning in Space (Blank Forms, Nov 10)

For anyone who’s been listening to O’Dwyer since Church Cleaners, it’s clear that Turning in Space, her most developed and ambitious release to date, has been a long time coming. The nearly two-hour triptych set (composed of sections titled Motorwave, Playing Place, and Slipstream) marks a new breakthrough in her ongoing research into soundscapes and their strata, each of the many individual pieces a sketch of swirling colors and boundaries, either restless with tension or warmed by light, always fluid and free. This is one that seems like it would be easier heard piecemeal, but I recommend taking the time to listen front to back.

T. Jervell – A Love Letter to Coco (Take It Easy Policy, Nov 18)

Jervell first caught my attention earlier this year with the short but sweet 2nd Two, one of many excellent entries in a busy year of output. But his most recent,  A Love Letter to Coco, is a real step up, something truly special. The tape’s loose, abstract concept/narrative serves as a stage for the Norwegian artist’s assimilative blend of ambient, glitch, and concrète approaches to ascend to new emotional heights. Though still knotted with digital cracks and shudders, there is breathtaking beauty to behold here; “The Warmth of Your Hand as it Brushes Against Mine” alone is one of the most gorgeous pieces of abstract music I have ever heard.

Luigi Bilodo (Vacancy, Aug 8)

“Low-stakes sound art” is a phrase I’ve found myself using more and more to describe a form of experimental music that consistently interests me. This debut tape from the elusive Luigi Bilodo is a perfect example; the approach is both artistic and scientific and the results are delightfully inconsequential. One side offers the hypnotizing percussive texture of rain hitting the top of a cardboard pizza box, the other the rich yawn of a lawnmower trundling across a green, sun-drenched scene—and, together, both are a hastily but lovingly scrawled love letter to backyard shenanigans, the joy of just listening. Original review

Puddle – The Gift That Keeps on Giving (Minimal Impact, Aug 9)

As was hopefully implied by its presence on my Favorite Labels list, Brisbane’s Minimal Impact had a particularly strong 2023. I would’ve had several answers to the question of which was my favorite tape of theirs throughout the year, but the one that seems to have stuck around most is The Gift That Keeps on Giving, the first release by Brisbane project puddle. Advertised as “[taking] influence from the glut of contemporary Americanoise, citing Worth’s Blinder LP as as well as classic Japanoise such as C.C.C.C.,” it follows through on its promise, delivering a lush bout of dynamic harsh with a fury that burns through the six feet of grave soil it’s buried beneath.

Aaron Dilloway – Bhoot Ghar: Sounds of the Kathmandu Horror House (Hanson, Jun 2)

Dilloway’s visits to Nepal have generated several great field recording series over the years, but Bhoot Ghar, which documents a family trip to the eponymous haunted house in Kathmandu Fun Park, has to be the best yet. Though not overbearingly so, the tape is structured so as to allow the listener to join in on the journey, from the entrance and surprisingly scary (and physically hazardous) halls of the attraction itself to other environments in the park like the bumper cars and Ferris wheel. The Hanson honcho has a knack for making his appreciation for the sounds he captures clear without it getting in the way, and thus Bhoot Ghar is an account of a memorable experience than is memorable in itself.

Tupperware – Summer Tour Tape ’23 (self-released, Jul 18)

Though physical copies were only available on the actual tour and somehow there was not a single date in any NYC borough—so I’m still in the market for one… hint hint—this list would be amiss without the latest recordings from the most tape-bound band in hardcore right now. As fast, minimal, and punishing as always, this new round of seven songs are some of the trio’s most rough-edged and unpredictable yet, from the breakneck blowout of “Intro” to the equally whiplash- and headbob-inducing tempo changes of “Memo.” Still holding out hope to see them play someday, which will no doubt leave my eardrums as maxed-out as the machine these tunes were tracked to.

John Collins McCormick – Healthy Alternative to Thinking (Eh?, May 9)

Tactility is the name of the game in McCormick’s work. No matter how concrete or abstract the sources he happens to be utilizing are, there’s always a distinct sensation of one’s head being massaged by physical actions. Healthy Alternative to Thinking is one of the more literal manifestations of this that the Detroit-based artist has released; after a diverse set of four tapes on his new self-publishing arm Garbage Strike, here he returns to the familiar basics of trivial object interactions, this time driven by agitated surfaces (by way of stand-mounted subwoofers) rather than direct manipulation.

Heat Signature – Wired for Intrusion (Head Meat, April)

This eminent US-based duo is well known for their technical and thrillingly fast-paced live approach to direct-action harsh noise, but Wired for Intrusion sees Tandy and Griggs experimenting a bit more on the studio side, wrangling source material contributions from scrap metal maestro Ahlzagailzehguh on A-side cut “Packed with Plastique” and stitching together the loose collage of B’s “Blown to Hell.” None of the usual intensity is sacrificed, however; both tracks have an unrelenting momentum to them that holds up throughout the intricate layers of detail and distortion.

Ezio Piermattei – Rosume (Joy de Vivre, Mar 29)

Piermattei has developed a distinct and singular sonic language with his past few releases, and Rosume feels like a culmination of it in a lot of ways (though I’m sure I’ll be saying the same thing, with even more enthusiasm, about whatever he does next). Since Gran trotto the textures have grown more anxious and the environments more claustrophobic, and here we descend into dream territory with tape-based arrangements that give a semi-intelligible voice to lost trinkets and dark empty spaces. With Piermattei, any given sound—no matter how ephemeral or bizarre—is always leading into another, and the resultant narratives are filled with shadow, suspense, and a strange sort of sense.

There are no narratives so loud and encompassing as decline, negativity, doom… which is why Noise Not Music is resolutely concerned with currents flowing in the opposite direction. While I never aim to ignore or neglect that which is undesirable but no less real, I always hope to spotlight progress and promise rather than downturn or failure. I always hope that those who come here for support leave feeling supported. I always hope to be more amplifier than noise.

Here are the active initiatives that deserve our support, the noises whose amplification is well-earned.

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[Majazz Project] مشروع مجاز (Palestine / UK)

It is difficult to focus on much at all, let alone art, when a genocide is being carried out. We should all be spending every possible moment doing what we can to spread awareness of and stop the zionist entity’s active extermination of the Palestinian people. But one need only look to the voices of Gaza and the West Bank to see that art, and specifically music, is one of many ways those so far removed from the suffering can enter into universal solidarity with those experiencing it. Mo’min Swaitat founded Majazz Project, also known as the Palestinian Sound Archive, not only to share the sounds of his nation with the world but also to preserve a history that is under direct threat of being intentionally erased. Reverently curated to preserve a culture determined to resist but not solely defined by such, the Archive makes available archival material that ranges from protest music of the First Intifada (Al-Fajer Group, Riad Awwad) to recordings of wedding band performances (Atef & Qassem, Ahmed Al-Kelani) and spoken word poetry.

Buried in slag and debris. (Nova Scotia)

In addition to regularly publishing handsome cassette and LP editions of work by sound artists based in Canada and beyond, Buried in slag and debris. is also behind the (relatively) widely read Untitled zine, a semiannual full-size periodical that collects essays, interviews, and reviews by a revolving cast of contributors both familiar and new. Even in a world where pundits have been declaring the death of print for decades now, the noise community unsurprisingly retains its fair share of physical publications, with new ones seeming to pop up left and right. But Untitled fills a gap that Rocker (which just saw its first issue out via the hard work of the No Rent team) and A Wall of Text (edited and produced by Sven Kay, wall noise aficionado and Absent Erratum operator) don’t in that it’s less personal and more anthological, providing a neutral, composite platform where bubbles are broken and ideas are shared. That’s not to say the zine overshadows BISAD’s musical arm, because both are formidable; 2023 alone saw a total of twelve new releases, no two of which sound alike.

Krim Kram (Cork)

After staking out a sizable slice of the underground landscape with one of the stronger inaugural batches in recent memory, Krim Kram has kept things consistent with each drop since. This year saw three rounds, and each continues to be more eclectic yet inspired than the last: first Cyess Afxzs, Rick Potts, and LDNS & Yakkida in May; then Ted Byrnes and Maggiore & Speers in August; and finally (with a jump from KK-11 to KK-15, a sign that another tripartite drop is in the works) an impressive swan song from UK outsider mainstays Usurper in the form of a colorful six-panel digipak CD earlier this month. The forces behind the already venerable label clearly have a love for abstract music that is not just deep, but holistic, and there’s a tremendous amount of care put in to faithfully representing drastically different approaches and spheres of the global avant-garde zeitgeist, to honoring longtime legends while simultaneously giving new blood a leg up.

Minimal Impact (Brisbane)

Fiercely committed to immortalizing the diverse, often hazardous transmissions burbling up from the Brisbane scene, Minimal Impact is also of a final bastion of tape labels with a radically DIY ethos and aesthetic. When utilized effectively, low fidelity is not a gimmick but a governing principle; the psychoactive aura of tapes like Gypsobelum’s Chitinous and CC & Tiles’ Subaru Is Somehow Related to the Pleiades is only catalyzed by the layers of dust and grime that swathe them. There’s definitely a unifying focus on noise and its various mutations, luckily for me often tending toward shit-fi harsh (Puddle’s The Gift That Keeps on Giving is one of the best recent examples I have encountered, and the collaboratively produced Enjoy Our Last Century on Earth / Armenia split forges ties with like-minded imprints in Ecuador/US and elsewhere in Australia) or no-fi motheaten scuzz worship (S27E152’s A.D.T.F.), but MI also keeps things interesting with lighter, melodic digressions such as Cristian Usai’s Lily’s Memories.

Black Editions (Los Angeles)

One part of a threefold partnership along with Thin Wrist Recordings and VDSQ under the Black Editions umbrella, Black Editions oversees some of today’s most exciting and important archival music projects. Thin Wrist initially caught my attention with their devotional remaster treatment of Surface of the Earth’s debut last year, but BE really stepped it up in 2023, concretizing avant-garde history in both the US and Japanese scenes with posthumous documents from Milford Graves, Shizuka, and Masayuki Takayanagi.

Party Perfect!!! (Chicago / Queens)

Getting their start in the final month of 2022 with a superb four-way split, Party Perfect!!! really hit stride this year with releases that exemplify their focus on radical computer music. Technical Reserve’s Personal Watercraft presents the winning combination of TJ Borden and Other Plastics, Envelope Demon / For David Stockard digs deep into the conceptual side of things, Stoppages Vol. 1 [∞] makes process composition fun for the whole family.

Everyday Samething (UK)

An excellent rule for a label is to not release anything that follows the rules. Everyday Samething, along with its artists (Garden Path, Perrier and Rigg, Positive Paranoia, and some who are not even named) are dedicated to subversion; their flagship website is a noninteractive static page, their choices of physical format are often deliberately inaccessible, and the music they peddle is like nothing anyone has heard or will ever hear. Heroes.

pan y rosas discos (Chicago)

Even if they didn’t put out material as fascinating as they do, Chicago’s pan y rosas discos get plenty of points in my book for maintaining an independent distribution platform for digital music free of both price and formal copyright for over a decade now. Over three hundred releases later they’re still going strong, spicing up the scene with unruly works ranging from duo free improvisation (Crossings, Wasserläufer) and outsider electroacoustic (Fifty-One Aural Selfies // Real Time) to sensory-overload samplefuck (Psionic Youth).

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Jackie-O Motherfucker – Manual of the Bayonet (Feeding Tube, Feb 24)

Of all the artists and acts either directly or tangentially related to the “New Weird America” movement, Jackie-O Motherfucker has always seemed the most “American” to me (less in the sense of some nationalistic allegiance to the empty signifier of the country itself and more relating to the wealth of culture and tradition that happens to have occurred here). Listening to JOMF’s music is like taking a delirious stumble through history while at the same time hearing something distinctly new. Manual of the Bayonet, an unreleased album from the band’s golden age of 1999–2001, is no different; here are the same currents of forgotten folk and mystic spirituals filtered through a ramshackle improvised framework, generating such magic as the hallucinatory plod of “Breakdown” and the electric revel of “Red Slipper Ritual.” Original review

Various Artists – The NID Tapes: Electronic Music from India 1969​–1972 (The state51 Conspiracy, Oct 6)

In some cases, documents like these are mere historical curiosities rather than engaging collections of music in their own right. This is not one of those cases. Featuring newly unearthed work by S. C. Sharma, Atul Desai, Gita Sarabhai, Jinraj Joshipura, and I. S. Mathur along with a piece by renowned composer David Tudor (who also facilitated the formation of the electronic music studio itself), The NID Tapes immortalizes a brief but fertile period of creativity and experimentation, the enthusiasm behind it bubbling out in every short track. Most of the individuals involved produced both full-fledged compositions and exploratory sketches (e.g., Sharma’s “After the War” and “Electronic Sounds Created on Moog,” respectively).

Blackout – Lost in the Underground Pt. 1 (Trill Hill / Snubnoze, Aug 19)

Memphis hip-hop, in the classic sense, is timeless. Not only do countless heads across the world still listen to tapes that are more than thirty years old now, but the scene and coextensive genre continues to assert its influence in modern trap, lending practices and aesthetics even beyond the now-ubiquitous triplet flows it pioneered.  Blackout is a figure standing with one foot in the past and one in the present, exemplified by his frequent archival projects (don’t forget about the fantastic Dreamworld sequel released last year) and his still-frequent production credits. Lost in the Underground Pt. 1 collects some of his most compelling beats paired with bars by usual suspects Lil Slim, Lil E, and Terror, documenting how high of a level Blackout was operating at as early as ’93. Though there has been no explicit promise of more material in this vein,  the inclusion of “Pt. 1” gives me hope. Original review

Joel Stern – Glasgow 2001 (scatterArchive, Mar 20)

It’s only through retrospection that certain individuals stand out amidst the bustling improvised music renaissance that was the early 2000s, and by now there’s no doubt that Joel Stern is one of these. From his sublime duo collaborations with Anthony Guerra to the eternal impact of Sunshine Has Blown, few artists juggled technical innovation and emotional resonance with the same ease or intensity. Glasgow 2001 captures a rare solo performance with an approach drawn from Stern’s interest in both field recordings as a compositional ingredient and gestural tabletop improvisation, humbly facilitated using minidiscs and binaural microphones.

David Gilden – Texas Pillbox (Fusty, Jul 18)

First released in a limited edition as a set of sixteen cassettes housed in a steel ammunition box, more copies of this sprawling discography treatment of one of US noise’s most significant voices will reach eager ears next year in 18xCD form. Spanning the years between Gilden’s first solo recordings and those with Richard Ramirez as The Siamese Model to his final opus Depress / Regress, Texas Pillbox comprises the most complete and definitive collection of the Texas Chainsaw Dopefiend’s influential body of work thus far—and likely ever.

Yellow Swans – Left Behind (self-released, Nov 17)

What’s more surprising news in 2023, the release of previously-unheard Yellow Swans material or a semi-coherent promise of upcoming brand-new Yellow Swans material? I’d have to say the latter, but the former is still something special. The aptly titled Left Behind presents roughly half an hour’s worth of the classic late-period palette of euphoric harmonies and resolutions buried beneath suffocating layers of hulking, distorted psychedelia, with some pensive guitar noodling woven in for good measure. “For JR” is a new favorite track of mine and proof that even the castoffs of the band’s discography are still a head and shoulders above other projects’ best work.

Milford Graves – Children of the Forest (Black Editions, May 19)

Seeing Fundamental Frequency, a posthumous exhibition of the work of Milford Graves at Artists Space in downtown New York, is one of my most treasured experiences of the past few years of my life. An artist in every sense of the word, Graves was and is a fixture of the very soul of contemporary jazz and improvised music, a fact exemplified by these incendiary 1976 sessions with Arthur Doyle and Hugh Glover. Comprising recordings from three dates (the first with both Doyle and Glover, the second with only Glover, and the third solo), Children of the Forest and its revelatory percussive lifeblood could never be mistaken as having been produced by any other hands than Graves’.

Ali Farka Touré – Voyageur (World Circuit, Mar 10)

Even close to two decades after his death, the music of Ali Farka Touré remains distinct and eternal. Infused with both Songhai tradition and the soulful grit of Western blues, the Malian legend’s virtuosic yet understated guitarwork is rendered in enthralling clarity on Voyageur, a compilation of both full-fledged songs and impromptu jams recorded between 1991 and 2004. The tracks featuring Wassoulou phenom Oumou Sangaré are especially mesmerizing, from the hypnotic pentatonic vamp of “Bandolobourou” to the horn-led “Sadjona.”

I didn’t do one of these last year because at the time I was trying to navigate how to continue NNM under the new submission policy. That’s still true—I’m sure you’ve noticed I don’t post nearly as often as I once did—but everyone has been really great about supporting me and the site with some truly amazing submissions. Though still in early stages, digital hosting alternatives like Artcore and Formaviva are promising next steps.

Anyway, here’s everything I’ve loved from the past six months. Love y’all.

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Jeromes Dream – The Gray in Between (Iodine Recordings, May 5)

It hardly ever happens that I have a somewhat definitive pick for my album of the year so far, but it also hardly ever happens that an album like The Gray in Between drops. “Conversations in Time, on Mute” is such a ridiculously good opener (seriously, words are not sufficient to describe how amazing this song is) that every other track could be mediocre and I’d probably still listen to it the same amount as I have been, but that’s obviously not the case. This record is a masterclass in embracing a specific sound and exploring it to its fullest extent, and proves that “comeback” is becoming more and more of an irrelevant label.

Ezio Piermattei – Rosume (Joy de Vivre, Mar 29)

At this point it’s a given that I’ll at least really like anything Bologna’s Ezio Piermattei puts out, both because he has been exploring a consistently fascinating aesthetic since his 2018 masterpiece Gran trotto and because he seems determined to make his music better—and stranger—with each successive release. Rosume at once expands the surreal audio-travelogue factor and returns to some of the crevice-dwelling darkness of Turismo dentale, the human voice acting as an agent of familiarity, confusion, and uncanniness in turn.

Aya Metwalli & Calamita – Al Saher (Zehra, May 19)

Al Saher is one of those rare but memorable occasions in which a collaboration between two artists benefits from their similarities and their disparities. Metwalli’s tense, tremulous intonation and volatile vocal processing is both the missing link and a mischievous wrench in the works for Calamita’s stripped-down duo jam format, all three performers constantly pushing each other to new heights and lengths. The fact that these shadowy, labyrinthine improvisations stemmed from the songs of Oum Kalthoum is a testament to the versatility of both the musicians and Arabic music as a whole. Original review

John Collins McCormick – Healthy Alternative to Thinking (Eh?, May 9)

Close to six years ago now, I met venerable multimedia guru John Collins McCormick at a show in Columbus, OH, and he recommended I check out another artist named Rie Nakajima. Needless to say, one of the best tips I’ve ever received, and it is also relevant when discussing Healthy Alternative to Thinking (McCormick’s fifth tape this year! Check out the others on Garbage Strike) which is very much in line with Nakajima’s motor-based object soundscapes, but in a richly colorful, ragtag way that no one else could pull off. This is the kind of raw sound that is both intense and beautiful in its simplicity.

Rucci – Notorious (self-released, Mar 24)

One of the (admittedly many) ways to my heart is good adlibs, and those, among other things, are in endless supply on this Bank Roll Got It–produced full-length from Rucci: mean ones on summer bangers “On a Mission” and “Shoulder Lock”; funny ones on “We Like Pussy”; poignant(??) ones on “Ryder,” a beautiful and tender tribute to the Inglewood MC’s son. Both breezy and heavy-hitting—and compulsively replayable—Notorious proves why Rucci is one of the best in the LA County scene at the moment. So “shut the fuck up and listen to his album.”

Ellen Phan – Free Thinker (Nada, Jun 16)

Sound artist and therapist Ellen Phan (though the work she does makes that “and” too much of a division) always outdoes herself with new releases, each time delivering a musical object that asks, and answers, questions that others don’t. The “object” part is even more relevant in the case of Free Thinker, the physical edition of which is a handsome cardboard box set containing a cassette, a small pouch of Jin Xuan oolong, and a “clearing spray” custom-made from lavender and sage oils. As with Visual Squash, Phan’s deeply abstract digital contortions are not a diagnostic dissection of the mind and body, but a deconstructed way to heal them.

Telos – Delude (Nothing to Harvest, Mar 18)

As pitch-dark, menacing, and soul-crushing as all great sludge should be (considering the band is an offshoot of Hexis, that should come as no surprise), the debut full-length from Copenhagen’s Telos is an obsidian gem in the rough of so much forgettable metallic hardcore, evoking the meaty heft of Swarm of the Lotus, the bloodsoaked teeth of Gaza, and the blackened atmosphere of Noise Trail Immersion with a single, addictive sound. Each of the eight tracks earns its place on the filler-less list, but the heaviest has to be “Throne”—those riffs, christ.

Renee Willoughby – 33 (Irrational Tentent, Feb 10)

Death is unthinkable, and only more so when it claims a loved one. “Her shape is light” is the spiritual rallying cry behind Renee Willoughby’s spellbinding 33, a one-of-a-kind tape that celebrates the beauty and color of the paranormal even as it delves deep into the raw void of loss. Willoughby’s musical approach is manifold, her spectral electronics and impassioned vocal performance invoking a cosmic energy that spreads far beyond the stage, the communal fire of life dancing with the singular vacuum of death. Original review

R. Pierre – Extractions (Black Artifact, Jun 30)

Both R. Pierre (Jungle Gym co-founder Caleb Dravier) and Black Artifact make strong cases against the equation of prolificacy with a lack of quality. Even with such consistency, every once in a while something remarkable happens, and in this case it happens at the intersection of two new but already extensive oeuvres. Extractions is a mesmerizing study of the earth’s shifting crust. These pieces have a calm, scientific detachment, a wall-like pace, and the faintest traces of ambient warmth… magic.

Fatoumata Diawara – London Ko (Montuno, May 12)

One of modern wassoulou’s brightest and farthest-reaching voices, Fatoumata Diawara already brought the enduring Mali musical tradition to new ears with last year’s Maliba, but London Ko ups the ante with globetrotting guest contributions from Damon Albarn, M.anifest, Angie Stone, Roberto Fonseca, and more. Overall it’s Diawara’s most straightforward pop record so far, and yet one only need hear songs like “Mossayua” and “Tolon” to be reassured that the influence of legends like Nahawa and Oumou is alive and well.

Much like last year, I don’t have much to say as far as profound introductions or reflections go. I guess I just want to thank everyone for bearing with me the last twelve—well, mainly the last nine—months as I figure out how to maintain the site post-Bandcamp. My posting frequency dropped dramatically (even the writeups below are shorter than usual, which is why I’ve classified this as a list rather than a feature), and yet the views and clicks did not follow suit, a testament to all of your wonderfulness. The schedule will likely continue to fluctuate as I navigate life changes and other hurdles, but as I reminded everyone in the open letter back in March, I fully intend to still be reviewing as I disintegrate on my deathbed. The time between now and then will be a long, slow, limping stumble. And I can’t wait to take you all down with me every time I fall.

(Note: the honorable mentions will probably look weird on mobile. I’ve given up on trying to fix that.)

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Mamaleek – Diner Coffee (The Flenser, Sep 30)

Everything Mamaleek have ever recorded has been leading up to this. Diner Coffee is a sublime culmination of the enigmatic project-turned-collective’s singular genrefuck, plucking the best elements from previous releases and seamlessly integrating them into a dark, surreal amalgam of jazz-rock, avant-sludge, and brooding, sinister ambience. The atmospheres are enthralling, the lyrics are captivatingly cryptic, and the vibes are immaculate. Never fails to make me crave a cup of coffee.

T.E.F. – Wrought (Dada Drumming, Oct 10)

Every time T.E.F. puts out a new full length, it’s a big deal. That’s nothing new. But it’s been quite a long time since he, or anyone, has created something this masterful. Wrought is both a love letter to harsh noise as a genre and a new, unmatched standard that I have no doubt will serve as a beacon for other artists to strive toward. Novak renders every basic technique—loops, feedback, cutup, etc.—as a fully composite musical language, one that produces the loudest and most intense noise I’ve ever heard. Seriously. The first time it kicks in on “77” is nothing less than a spiritual experience. As Tim Riggins said, “Texas [noise] forever.”

Barn Sour – One Trick Pony (Staighre, Mar 11)

2023 will see the final performances and general end of Barn Sour, a project headed by Winnipeg’s inimitable Pat Klassen. It’s a testament to how incredible the music was (and is) that such a radically bizarre, subversive effort reached so many appreciative ears across all sectors of the underground. One Trick Pony is the last release comprising entirely new material (One Trick Pony, a supercut suite featuring both self-sampling and previously unheard additions, is set to release on CD later this month) and I couldn’t imagine a better manifestation. Nine months later “Peace, Be Still (Mane Mix)” still scares the shit out of me, and it probably always will. Original review

Jérôme Noetinger – Sur quelques mondes étranges (Gagarin, Sep 2)

Jérôme Noetinger has been one of the most interesting and consistent voices in contemporary improvisation since the turn of the century (and before that too), and yet he’s only released two full-length solo albums during that time—2018’s dR CD on PiedNu and now Sur quelques mondes étranges. After decades of finetuning his craft, Noetinger “plays” the Revox with more skill and panache than I or most other musicians play conventional instruments. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to call this his best work, a masterclass in EAI-via-concrète that I’ll still be listening to years on.

Astéréotypie – Aucun mec ne ressemble à Brad Pitt dans la Drôme (La Belle Brute, Jun 1)

Besides having what is likely the best album title of the year, Aucun mec ne ressemble à Brad Pitt dans la Drôme is a step up for multifarious French collaboration Astéréotypie in virtually every way. While first-wave post-rock flavors were apparent on the past two records, the influence is full-throttle here, with blazing krautrock stampedes and searing, textural guitar work providing the backing for the band’s most verbose lyrical rants yet. With an opener like “Le Pacha” the rest of the tracks could be mediocre and I’d barely notice, but every single cut on here earns its place and then some (yes, even the iPhone skit).

They Hate Change – Finally, New (Jagjaguwar, May 13)

Finally, New is aptly named, at least for me; I’ve been waiting for a new They Hate Change full-length since the very first time I heard their Maneuvers EP. The Florida duo’s sound is always changing, and yet it’s also always unmistakable—who else but the Bedroom Rap All-Stars would make a hip-hop LP almost entirely driven by drum and bass instrumentals? “Stuntro” showcases both MCs’ chops for the uninitiated, and the bar only continues to rise, the deceptively complex bars and breathless pace storming through destined classics like “Blatant Localism” and “X-Ray Spex.”

Negation – 1988 Mitsubishi Montero Sport (WAY, Feb 19)

New York’s most technical cutup surgeon has once again concisely outdone himself with 1988 Mitsubishi Montero Sport, a two-track CD-R “dedicated to one specific and inoperable vehicle.” It’s hard to describe Negation’s approach to the unenlightened, besides the indisputable fact that nothing else sounds like it, but rest assured you will find yourself eviscerated by the high-octane title track and hypnotized by the sutured web of “Switchstop.” It’s gone just as quickly as it started—better listen again.

RXM Reality – Sick for You (Hausu Mountain, Mar 25)

I don’t keep up with the Chicago-based Hausu Moutain as actively as I should, but based on what I have heard I’m not sure there’s a better or more comprehensive illustration of the label’s aesthetic than RXM Reality’s newest. Sick for You both expands upon and streamlines the dizzying flashcore spasms and intricate deconstructed club anti-rhythms while adding new tinctures of digital hardcore that crank the already overwhelming style formula up to eleven. I usually don’t make comparisons like this, but… if you’ve ever wondered what being inside a washing machine with acid as detergent and adrenaline as softener is like, look no further.

Defeat – Teared Up (Gut Form, May 7)

Outsider music has slowly but steadily evolved from an ascribed descriptor into a genre in itself. You’d think that might dull the intrigue that made it something worth pointing out in the first place, but most of the time that isn’t the case. Take the work of Josh Hogan for example, the most recent of which comes in the form of this sprawling two-disc debut by Defeat. Focused and purposeful even as it loosely stitches together everything under the sun, field recordings and folk ditties and barn-attic electronics, the nearly two hours of Teared Up never fail to provide a musical journey of both epic and humble proportions.

Dolphins of Venice – Mutuals (Mahorka, Jan 27)

Taking cues from such monumental statements as Since I Left You and Person Pitch, the Dolphins of Venice make their biggest splash yet with Mutuals. All fifty minutes of the album are saturated with verdant steam and swampy wetness, shrouding simple yet infectious bass lines and overlapping samples in a glorious organic glow. My favorite moment of the whole thing might be the “FT Rogman” remix, a dreamy repurposing of the instantly recognizable piano chords of Swell Maps’ “A Raincoat’s Room,” but as a whole it’s one of the most replayable records I’ve heard in a long time.

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The Rest

A new round of fresh picks. Variously.

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Fertile Grounds (ODMOWA, November)

Released alongside the self-titled Humectant Interruption tape mentioned in the last list, Fertile Grounds rounds out a hearty 2022 for the soon-to-be-Miami-based ODMOWA imprint—call 917-456-9133 for catalog. Scattered self-help audio extracts escort ears through a packed tracklist featuring newly established label staples HI and Smell & Quim (whose Spermathlon got the reissue treatment earlier this year) alongside names both familiar and unfamiliar: John Duncan, Knurl, Anal Character, Kapotte Muziek. Ridiculously eclectic and thoroughly bizarre at every turn.

Music from Saharan WhatsApp (Sahel Sounds, Jul 6)

Already renowned for curating digital-age approaches to African traditional and pop music with releases from the Wau Wau Collectif and Tidiane Thiame, Sahel Sounds has put out what might be their best material yet with Music from Saharan WhatsApp, a sublime compilation cobbled together from cellphone-recorded jams and performances initially exchanged via the titular network and released in individual volumes. Every track is fantastic, but few pieces of music have affected me as deeply as Andal Sukabe’s intimate “Hay Malale.”

Singing in the Summer Sky (Small Mercies, October)

Much like last year’s Year of the Rat, Small Mercies’ most recent compilation gathers the lion’s share of the label’s usual suspects for a diverse yet consistent collection of abstract sound pieces. The project I know the least about, Movers, kicks things off with a well-chosen sample leading into a seething slab of analog harsh. From there the extremity ranges from Plague Mother’s trademark incendiary blasts to subdued, droning dark ambience from Scant and No Dreams. Though I haven’t been able to get into their work in the past, it’s Mistletoe that contributes what is probably my favorite track.

Morning Sketches Vol. II (Hamilton Tapes, Jun 23)

Nathan Ivanco’s aptly named Hamilton Tapes has an established aesthetic that pretty much every release embodies, but I don’t think I’ve heard one that does it as comprehensively as Morning Sketches Vol. II. 16 artists, projects, and aliases of nebulous identity fill both sides of a C80 with dust-smothered tape music that tends toward the humbly sublime. The names I do know represent a patchy who’s who of Canadian DIY lo-fi sound art, so needless to say, Korean Undok Group fans will find lots to love here.

PP-01 (Party Perfect!!!, Dec 2)

We may have lost the great Peter Rehberg last year, but radical computer music is nonetheless alive and well, evidenced by exciting new collectives and labels like Party Perfect!!!. Their first release presents four albums in a single connected unit, but despite the lengthy runtime each volume tends to lead in to the next, and before you know it you’ve listened to the whole thing. Stefan Maier’s 2018 performance work The Arranger, powered by a machine learning algorithm, is some of the best glitch music I’ve heard in a long time, but everything here has plenty to offer. Original review

River of Revenge: Brazilian Country Music 1929–1961 (Death Is Not the End, Nov 25)

An initiative that has quickly established itself as a leading source for quality archival material, Death Is Not the End is notable not just for the quality of the curation itself but also for the wide variety of styles and traditions they highlight. River of Revenge documents the earliest origins of Brazil’s sertaneja genre, a counterpoint of sorts to American country music, and anyone interested in the former will find plenty to love here too. At first swathed in dust and marred by crackle, the recordings progress chronologically toward more contemporary formations, making the full experience—as with many DINtE releases—not just a musical experience, but an educational one as well.

Pool Position (Second Sleep, Nov 30)

Loosely guided by the spectro-visceral aesthetics of sound artists Alice Kemp and Rudolf Eb.er (who both contribute a solo track as well as a collaboration), the more diverse of the two new V/A releases from Italy’s Second Sleep offers a skeletal potpourri of drone, collage, field recording, conceptual art, and more. Renato Grieco hangs a bit of a left turn with “The Most Intense Light Experience This Voice Has Ever Had,” an unusual spoken word tract that reminds me of Hardworking Families’ “Hindered Soul”; Charmaine Lee pitches in with her virtuosic vocal improvisation technique for “小心肉,” perhaps the noisiest cut of the bunch; and Canti Magnetici alum Aniello wraps up with a ponderous pool of tape ambient.

Irida Records: Hybrid Musics from Texas and Beyond, 1979–1986 (Blank Forms, Oct 7)

Another collection whose premise and purview are concerned with the history of the music in addition to the music itself, Blank Forms’ massive seven-volume anthology of forgotten material from the fleeting Canton-based imprint Irida covers a staggering amount of ground. The work of owner-operator Jerry Hunt features prominently, joining several other composers for an array of avant-garde classical and electronic music that feels just as exciting now as it must have been four decades ago. For fans of Dockstader, Stockhausen, Oliveros, etc.

The Blorp Esette Gazette Vols. 3 & 4 (Gilgongo, Nov 11)

Few vestiges of the early American avant-garde have survived and thrived more than the Los Angeles Free Music Society, a once location-based collective that has expanded both geographically and stylistically over the past few decades. Across two discs, eminent founding figure Ace Farren Ford and new-generation voice John Wiese stand shoulder to shoulder with a vast quantity of names old and new, known and unknown (to me at least): {An EeL}, Million Brazilians, Control Unit, etc. The sprawling set is the first issuing in the Gazette series since 2013, and it hopefully won’t be the last.

Mensajes del agua: Nuevos sonidos desde Perú Vol. 1 (Buh, Feb 2)

Compiled by Buh Records honcho Luis Alvarado, Mensajes del agua is accompanied by a lived-in account of the state of the contemporary experimental music scene in Peru, the vibrancy of which Alvarado states is “most apparent in the emergence of collectives to promote new music made by young people, such as Dehumanización or Retama, as well as in the development of a new strand of electroacoustic composition connected with circuits of the musical underground.” Unsurprisingly, the tracks run the gamut of subversive approaches, from field recording assemblage to formal modern classical arrangements.

A truly great year for this category, especially with regard to noise, African music, and jazz. These picks pull from both those and many other areas: records I’ve loved rising again alongside ones I’d never heard of before, catchalls from bands I’ve followed in the past together with reverent discography treatments completely new to my ears. They all have at least one thing in common though, clearly.

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Sunshine Has Blown remastered LP+CD (Pentiments, Dec 4)

There’s not much to say about the sole release by Joel Stern and Adam Park’s short-lived collective that hasn’t already been said, even just by Christoph J. Harris for this deluxe edition’s liner notes printed on the bonus CD sleeve. The spacious remaster by Jos Smolders renders the warmly haunting transmissions as even more delicate, even more organic. This is what makes Sunshine Has Blown’s music so special: it sounds as if it came from another world, and yet at the same time it is palpably made by human hands. I never thought I’d hear more beyond the three performances that comprise the original, but three unreleased tracks on the bonus CD—one recorded the day after the Mormon Gibbon show with presumably the same lineup of Velvet Pesu on cello, the other two from May of 2006—offer a glimpse of what might have been. But it was, and that’s what matters.

Albert Ayler – La Cave Cleveland Live 1966, Revisited (Hat Hut, Jan 28)

The latest and just-as-greatest archival Ayler double CD from Hat Hut, along with last year’s 1966: Berlin, Lörrach, Paris & Stockholm, Revisited (which includes spruced-up versions of the cuts featured on the original Lörrach / Paris 1966 LP), have seriously shaken the foundations of the complete Greenwich Village recordings as my pronounced desert island option for the beloved saxophone visionary. Featuring Mutawef A. Shaheed on bass, previously heard only on the massive Holy Ghost set, and Michael Samson—about whom I can’t find much at all—on violin, the raucous joy of the sextet yet again illustrates how Ayler’s still-unmatched approach to free jazz possessed (and possesses) both impermanent nuance and consistent beauty.

The New Blockaders – Changez les Blockeurs 40th Antiversary LP (Urashima, July)

Another staple that has been written about extensively, Changez les Blockeurs occupies a unique space in every listener’s mind, and yet we all must agree to thank it for kickstarting noise culture as it exists today. While it may seem like just the latest in a scattered series of reissues, this fortieth anniversary vinyl edition from Urashima feels like something definitive, reimagining the original artwork and manifesto with the care of people who love this record just as much as I do.

Incapacitants – As Loud as Possible (Total Black, Mar 18)

Again, need I say more? Though admittedly I’ve never been the most devoted Incapacitants fan, this album has always been a favorite, both encapsulating the 90s noise zeitgeist and presaging approaches that arose much later. Plus, I don’t think I’d be the person I am today if I hadn’t had the privilege of seeing Mikawa play a cramped, intimate solo set in a record store back room. I doubt anyone would be surprised to hear I love noise, but this year I was reminded of just how much I love it. So excuse the nostalgia.

Motel Bible – Regression (Heathen Hand / Zegema Beach, Jan 22)

Sometimes it happens that these super-limited scene reissues and discography roundups introduce me to bands I’ve never heard of. Regression was one of those for which I knew the music beforehand and was excited to hear it revamped (much like with Hayworth’s A Nostalgic Battle-Scar last year), and it did not disappoint. Opening with the now definitive version of the instrumental opener from a previously obscure untitled tape and closing with a full live set from 2005, this is unquestionably some of the finest techgrind ever recorded.

MP5 (Hostile 1, July)

Both brief cassettes by the Dayton duo of Matthew Reis (Developer) and Luke Tandy (Being) are collected and remastered on this limited digipak release, which also happens to be probably my most frequently listened-to CD of the second half of the year. The two Midwest stalwarts, unsurprisingly, shred even more as a unit than they do apart. Addictively crunchy pedal attack and technical semi-auto cutup meet somewhere in the middle and get torn apart from both sides.

Blackout – Dreamworld: Othaside (Trill Hill / Snubnoze, Aug 6)

For fans of Memphis hip-hop either old or new, Blackout needs no introduction. 1995’s Dreamworld was easily one of the crowning achievements of the city’s mid-90s cassette culture, perfecting and defining the kind of smothered, psychedelic, legitimately terrifying horrorcore that artists are still trying (and usually failing) to replicate. Recorded in the same sessions as that legendary album but presumably cut for not fitting as well thematically, the tracks on Dreamworld: Othaside demonstrate the timelessness of Blackout’s slow, plodding drum machine beats and hypnotic mantra-flows. The fidelity is much higher than in my preferred rip of the original, but the songs hold up, remaining just as fresh as the trap it inspired and as lived-in as the classic Southern sound from which it grew.

Humectant Interruption (ODMOWA, November)

For the new issue of the Untitled zine (it just officially dropped today, if you’re interested in a copy I have a few extra) I contributed a piece about various features and points of interest in low-fidelity harsh noise. I hadn’t heard this exhumed single-sider from hermitic Flushing label ODMOWA when I wrote that; if I had, it certainly would have been included. Joel St. Germain recorded this previously unheard Humectant Interruption material in 1998, almost 25 years prior to its master and subsequent release, and it’s more exciting than half the brand-new stuff I’ve stumbled across recently.

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers – In Concert (Steeplechase, Dec 16)

The legendary evolving combo once again appears on this list, this time with a 1962 Copenhagen set that features what retrospectively might be the Messengers’ most star-studded lineup: Hubbard, Shorter, Fuller, Walton, Merritt. The fidelity is a bit tinny, a bit trebly, but once the band settles in you remember why labels are still unearthing their live recordings sixty years later. I’d go so far as to say the purchase is worth it just for “It’s Only a Papermoon”… I think I have a new favorite Blakey solo.

Celestine Ukwu and His Philosophers National – No Condition Is Permanent (Mississippi, Aug 5)

More than a few of the highlife remasters I’ve heard have been overbearing, the compression often squeezing the tenderness out of the quieter, softer originals. Thankfully the lush, considered interplay of Ukwu and his best known band is not just preserved, but bolstered by Tim Stollenwerk’s treatment—every minuscule nuance of the flowing hand-percussion grooves, agile guitar work, and poignant lyrics in both Igbo and English has plenty of room to breathe and dissolve. There’s no chomping noise-reduction patch slapped over the vinyl crackle either, and thank god, because I don’t think the Nigerian legend’s voice ever sounds better than when it bleeds out of the grooves themselves.

Beatrice Harrison – His Delicious Voice So Liquid: The Complete May 1927 Nightingale Recordings (Canary, Jul 7)

The story behind these recordings is almost, if not just as fascinating as the soundscapes they capture. There’s plenty of reading to do courtesy of Baltimore-based archival project Canary Records, but the elevator pitch will likely be enough to intrigue anyone reading this list: nightingales plus cello plus recording and broadcasting techniques that were and are beyond innovative. There isn’t much music from this era I enjoy other than Washington Phillips, so I’m thankful to musicologist and curator Ian Nagoski for introducing me to yet another historic visionary.

Triple Negative – Rodez Island Cyclone (Cost of Living, May 23)

Covering a wider span of time than anything else on this list, Triple Negative’s latest release traces the project’s creative trajectory from sketches assembled as early as 2004 to tracks recorded alongside those comprising their last few records. This collection is unsurprisingly the group’s most eclectic, but every single thing on it has that indefinable aura that makes Triple Negative sound like no other band on earth. Original review

Julius Eastman – Stay on It (Week—End, Dec 20)

This LP pressing with “Stay on It” as the A side and “The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc” as the B isn’t a huge deal in the sense that the same recordings of both compositions were previously released as part of Unjust Malaise, but it’s nonetheless good to see Eastman’s work reaching new ears through any channel, and convenient to have my two favorites of his as a unit. The physical LP doesn’t seem to be out yet, so keep an eye out in 2023.

Gert-Jan Prins – 86–95 (Why Keith Dropped the S, Oct 3)

No matter how good their current output may be, some artists’ early ephemera are much more interesting than others’. 86–95 introduced an odd situation for me; other than the MEGO CDs Risk and Break Before Make not much of Dutch electronics whisperer Gert-Jan Prins’ oeuvre has grabbed me, yet these early works couldn’t be more up my alley. The rudimentary but ambitious recordings have the breadth and volatility of an improviser gradually honing the tools and techniques they’ll go on to use and perfect throughout the rest of their career—a wonderful process to be privy to.

Iron Knowledge – Rat Race (Peppermint, Jul 15)

One of a smattering of short-lived funk units whose best (and often only) songs were featured on Memphix’s 2002 compilation Chains and Black Exhaust, Iron Knowledge hailed from Youngstown, OH, and—just like fellow Chains contributors, Memphis natives, and genre namesakes Blackrock—cut just one 7″ before fizzling out and being lost to time, until now. Almost a half century after the group’s active years comes Rat Race, a squeaky-clean remaster of three unreleased songs still firmly steeped in the milieu of early 70s groove rock.

Not only have I run out of thought-provoking intro material, I’ve also used up all of my “clever” bits of subversion that I use when I’m too lazy to write actual copy. So have this obnoxiously self-aware and meaning-null series of words instead. Happy new year. 

I’m sorry for the formatting for the honorable mentions is a bit weird on both desktop and mobile. I really have no idea how to fix it but I’ll keep trying.

Also, sorry about the links. All fixed now—I think. Ugh.

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UVC – Broken Phonemes of the Unconscious(ness) Grid (Regional Bears, Oct 10)

UVC has always been an artist to whom I attribute brevity as one of his main strengths, so I’ll admit I was the tiniest bit skeptical when I saw that this Regional Bears tape was a C46 (less “will this be bad?”, more “how in the hell will this work?”). But as soon as the A side–spanning first track on Broken Phonemes of the Unconscious(ness) Grid settled into its “groove”—an innocuous yet wholly singular sound-universe of tape whir, noisy blankness, and trivial mundanity that defines not even the loudest of UVC tapes, but other memorable one-off BPF projects like Winston 1 and Bill Lewis Medicine Cabinet as well—it was like coming home. There’s something so intensely fascinating about the null-zone between instantaneity and retrospectivity that this “music” occupies, a place where sounds are both “here” and “there.” Throughout the humble opus, closely recorded scrabble/shuffle and analog-grimed tedium drones inexplicably harmonize and congeal into unperceivable, impossible currents that activate stuttering loop churns and other structural destabilizers; plucky junk-electronics pinch and ping into the dusty void; distant domestic clatter both coexists with and contradicts claustrophobic DI noise. I swear, it’s like he made this specifically for me.

 

Billy Strings – Renewal (Rounder, Sep 23)

Michigan-born, Nashville-based songwriter Billy Strings (a.k.a. William Apostol) is a name that’s unfortunately unfamiliar to many, but ubiquitous to few (both this record and the one prior to it easily hit #1 on the Billboard bluegrass charts), but if anything can change that it’s his sprawling, ambitious third solo effort Renewal. Fans who discovered his music via 2019’s Home, such as myself, may have expected him to delve even further into jam-heavy electric psychedelia on subsequent releases, but the 70-minute, 16-track double LP is a thoroughly acoustic outing, with the classic lineup of banjo, mandolin, double bass, and violin (performed by Billy Failing, Jarrod Walker, Royal Masat, and John Mailander, respectively) rendered in sublime, spacious clarity alongside Apostol’s trusty six-string and additional contributions. Every single song is a self-contained, mesmerizing masterpiece: beautifully ragged group harmonies and infectious solo exchanges power straightforward foot-stompers like “Secrets” and “The Fire on My Tongue”; expertly applied tension-and-release bolsters longer jams on “Heartbeat of America” and the spellbinding “Hide and Seek”; and it’s all rounded out by flawless nods to the deepest roots of this music in the form of the Walker/Ward-penned “Red Daisy” and “Running the Route.” It gets better every single time you listen, I’m not joking. Thanks Billy.

 

___ Duo – Music (music. dot. com!!!, Jan 16)

When I first heard Music it was called ., an even more evasive and inconvenient title that nonetheless represents well what the musicians behind the various ___ collective projects are going for. Completely formal or serious (or even worse, “academic”) electroacoustic improvisation has become utterly boring in this new age, and thus I’m finding myself drawn to subversive music created using even more unlikely sources and combinations thereof. Music certainly fits the bill with its credits of synth, sequencer, turntable, cello, sampler, and guitar to one unnamed performer and tapes, flute, voice, and live processing to the other, but ___ Duo doesn’t just obstinately oppose any sort of conventional instrument selection—they also refuse to make anything remotely conventional with them either, an approach that paradoxically leads to crude, asymmetrical lumps of misplaced convention amidst dense abstraction. I once again feel obligated to bring up the short-lived but legendary Sunshine Has Blown ensemble, whose once-untouched uniqueness I see reflected in the sluggish, sun-cracked swathing of “hr9%$KtQP#jedpVW” and the shabby loops of “fSvvbsg_6M97zj@A.” This is the future, unfortunately.

 

Olivia Rodrigo – SOUR (Geffen, May 21)

It’s not often that I appreciate an album so deeply for being not just a pop-culture juggernaut, but also essentially a voice of an entire generation, so when it does happen, I make sure to value it. At just 18, Olivia Rodrigo has handily met that tall order with her first full-length album, and thus, beyond the strength of the music itself, SOUR feels nothing less than important. It’s as much a love letter to the artists that made Rodrigo the artist and songwriter she is today as it is an incendiary teen-pop reset: “brutal” feels very much in the vein of early- to mid-00s bad girl pop rock, but with a decidedly Gen-Z supply of frankness and impatience; “1 step forward, 3 steps back” incorporates a piano melody from a Taylor Swift song; and, of course, “good 4 u” is a not-so-subtle tribute to you-know-what by you-know-who. But unsurprisingly it’s the sleek, deftly produced, newfangled cuts that I’m personally most partial to: the unruly percussion, soaring melodies, and gloriously cringeworthy youthfulness of “deja vu”; the endless replayable and sing-alongable “drivers license”; the unapologetic and stiltedly propulsive “jealousy, jealousy.” I have no doubt that SOUR won’t take long to be seen/heard as a product of its time, and I also have no doubt that I will love it even more for it.

 

Irreversible Entanglements – Open the Gates (International Anthem, Nov 12) 

I wasn’t exactly coy about my love for east coast super-quintet Irreversible Entanglement’s last record Who Sent You?, so their first double LP being featured here shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, but I’m also sure I speak for both myself and many others when I say that Open the Gates is even more spectacular than I ever could have anticipated. Though much of the album’s appeal comes from its lengthy instrumental sections and the way they steadily progress while both intertwining with and springboarding off of Moor Mother/Camae Ayewa’s reverberant spoken mantras, the brief opening title track is one of the band’s best yet, featuring a quite-distinctly Luke Stewart bass groove and an invigorating rhythmic energy that carries over even into the patient, slow-building haze of “Keys to Creation.” As a whole the record feels at once like a smooth-seamed suite of continuous collective imagination (it was recorded in a single day back in January) and like a jewel-studded “best of” compilation due to each cut’s heaping helping of memorable moments—Aquiles Navarro’s vivid trumpet that lays the groundwork for centerpiece “Water Meditation,” for example, or Tcheser Holmes’s fluid groove-trades with both Ayewa and Stewart on “Storm Came Twice.” Consistently awe-inspiring, mind-warming, and life-affirming.

 

Georgia (Rodent Tapes, Oct 6)

One of the first albums I discovered when I was just beginning to learn all the things music could be was Bugskull’s Phantasies and Senseitions, a scuzzy outsider lo-fi classic that puts on display both the uncanniness and the comfort that “poor” recording quality can frame so fittingly. Nothing, and I mean nothing, has ever come so close to evoking the same unsayable things as Georgia does. The Toronto duo’s eponymous debut, despite being digital-only as far as I can tell, is pretty damn close to the same sort of obscurity that invariably complements this type of music; no one (not even me—yet—I’m ashamed to admit) has bought it on Bandcamp, the band itself is nigh-unGoogleable, and the label that put it out doesn’t seem to have much information to offer either. But the loose collection of thirteen tunes speaks for itself. “Ottawa” sets the stage with its ramshackle collage of bright, naïve guitar noodling and textural soup like the song of a small army of malfunctioning radios; “Souvenir” is a breathtaking bit of simple singer/songwriter drift complete with soothing dual-vocal coziness; and “Condensation” is a noisy, Pumice-esque mass of overblown beauty that’s nothing less than magic. It’s like being slowly wrapped in an impossibly soft, warm blanket with just enough scratchiness to remind you how soft and warm you are.

 

SZSZRZ – No Trees Were Harmed During the Process of Making These Recordings (self-released, Sep 3)

Few other musical works in 2021 are as profoundly calming as this first album from the Polish method-trio of Tomasz Pizio, Jędrzej Siwek, and Łukasz Suchy, an exercise in sonic subtlety that can serve as both reminder and soundtrack to stop, sit, and take more than just a few deep breaths every now and then. Comprising seven tracks of both raw and processed/arranged recordings of creaking branches, No Trees Were Harmed During the Process of Making These Recordings focuses on the familiar yet captivating ambience of the serene outdoors, and it seems to me that the roles of at least the just-creakers (Pizio for numbers one, two, and three; Suchy for four and five) being essentially equivalent to breeze-assisting acolytes is no accident; this music is about simultaneously inserting and removing ourselves, appreciating the natural rhythm, sway, and stasis that surround us while acknowledging and fulfilling our limited place within it all. In this way, Siwek’s “Reworks” are simply another level or plane of reserved interaction, an auditory realization of the invisible but beautiful connections we frequently take for granted.

 

Lifelost – Punitive Damnation (Onism Productions, Dec 10)

The year’s best black metal release took its sweet time revealing itself, but we were finally given the gruesome gift of Lifelost’s second record Punitive Damnation earlier this month, and it was worth every second of the wait. I hadn’t heard the first declaration from this solo project by Spanish multi-instrumentalist Phlegeton, 2018’s Dialogues from Beyond, before I discovered this one, but either is certainly a sufficiently harrowing introduction to the bleak, twisted world conjured up by the astral auteur’s equally bleak, twisted mind, a world “where time, words and human hierarchies lack meaning, where a supernatural pain underlies as punishment.” Pain (more like agony), despair (more like desolation), fear (more like terror), and god knows what else are all innate to these oppressive, labyrinthine assaults; breakneck blasts burst into supercharged sludge-doom like rotting-planet supernovas, plodding gallops wrapped in pitch-black noise both hypnotize and pummel, the barest hints of some semblance of triumph emerge at the farthest edges of anguish. Actually wait, no, that was just your brain finally granting you the small mercy of shutting itself down.

The Rest

I’m out of words. What do I even say at this point? Happy holidays? Be safe? Fuck you? I love you? I wasn’t paying attention, so I’ll just go with the last thing I heard, however inaccurate it may be. I love you.

Note: This list is to be considered in conjunction with both the previous and the next posts.

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CBN – Crimes Against White America (Phage Tapes, Nov 5)

I don’t know if there was a single musical work released this year as compulsively replayable, unapologetically brutal, and punishingly relevant as CBN’s Crimes Against White America 12″. Many of you probably saw my Anti–Power Electronics mix and the terrifying backlash it received, so music that directly confronts whiteness, by both those who uphold it and those subjected to it, in such a violent and merciless manner is more necessary now than ever. When in doubt, “SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH” and spin Crimes yet again.

Ashcircle – Level Up Everywhere (verz, Dec 10)

To call Ashcircle’s music political is both accurate and inaccurate. Yes, the improvisational electricity and strangled aggression that undergirds the nuanced sampler-spamming and high-velocity electroacoustic exchanges originate in resolute opposition to Tory rule, but the duo’s singular formula also deliberately subverts not just standard political discourse but also the very conventions upon which it is based, completely discarding any semblance of “civility” or “respect”—which, it seems, is really the only way to go these days. What’s more, Level Up Everywhere is easily their best work yet.

Serpent Column – Katartisis (Dissociative Visions, Aug 27)

The mysterious duo of extreme music heavyweights James Hamzey (a.k.a. Theophilos) and Maya Chun have consistently impressed with every single release, but Katartisis, with its overblown, largely unmastered production style and much more agile compositions, feels like even more of an exciting next step. The bright, dexterous guitar riffs lend an almost screamo-esque energy to the still crushingly metallic proceedings, and Chun’s drum work is as awe-inspiring and complementary as always, especially on “Edelweiss,” a track so heavy that maniacal laughter is really the only possible response.

Ellen Phan – Visual Squash (anòmia, Dec 24)

I’m sure that all you MOTHERFUCKERS publishing your end-of-year lists before December even hits are just sad, sad people deep down, but you should be even sadder knowing that such a pointlessly incomplete critical net misses gems like Visual Squash, sound artist and therapist Ellen Phan’s first musical release since 2018’s Ideomotor Response tape. This gorgeously packaged CD is even shorter than that C16 at just 11 minutes, but it’s still Phan’s most fully realized work yet, an impossibly organic array of fluid glitch that somehow synonymizes the electrical and the existential.

Virhe (Starving Light Collective, Nov 1)

Most hardcore fans are well aware that the Finnish scene has always been on another level, producing legends from Vox Populi in the early 80s to Death Basket in just the past few years, but I don’t know if there’s ever been a band from the country—or anywhere, really—as exciting and/or eviscerating as Virhe. Last year’s demo did plenty to hint at the quartet’s significant potential, and yet this vicious self-titled tape makes even those tracks look tame; fans of fluoride, Svffer, and other bright points of the elusive “false grind” style that are looking for a bit more grit need search no further.

Savannah Conley – Surprise, Surprise (EMPIRE, Apr 30)

Nashville’s Savannah Conley took up permanent residence in my brain with her Twenty-Twenty 7″ back in 2018, and it’s hard to believe there were three years between that and the release of Surprise, Surprise, which I may love even more. Few opening tracks this year are as earworming and addictive as the tantalizingly short “Being Around You” with its invigorating electric coda, and Conley’s effortless mixture of easygoing country ramble and supercharged dream pop is at its best on “Dream Boy” and “Never Want to Be in Love.”

Ghost Dance – Indian Babies: How to Keep Them Well (self-released, Mar 5)

Along with Maraud, anonymous project Ghost Dance is one of the formidable figures at the forefront of a quickly growing Indigenous power electronics scene, and Indian Babies: How to Keep Them Well, a perfect encapsulation of the artist’s scathingly sardonic approach to deconstructing jargon-dressed anti-Native rhetoric new and old, is a spectacular debut. Just as much harsh noise as PE, the sample-heavy set of two tracks are both disturbing and cathartic exercises in pain, anger, and resistance. “IN SOLIDARITY / IN WAR.”

Dominic Coles – Everyone Thinks Their Dreams Are Interesting (Wandelweiser, Dec 20)

I first discovered Queens sound artist Dominic Coles’ work via the irreverent cracked-electronics improv of Other Plastics, his duo with Hunter Brown, but this brief, ephemeral, and yet deeply affecting work produced by Edition Wandelweiser (an important label whose material I nonetheless hardly ever find interesting, let alone good) is something else entirely. It’s a detailed, silence-filled exploration into the microscopic innards of sound-producing devices loosely based on dream journal entries, and is thus difficult to describe in any way that does it true justice—other than one word: sublime.

Daniel Iván Bruno – Brazo (TVL, Mar 5)

I’ve already written about Buenos Aires improviser and devout experimentalist Daniel Iván Bruno’s dose of abrasive brevity in a review and for my first-half top ten earlier this year, but Brazo deserves every bit of attention and acclaim it gets. It takes a tremendous amount of skill to strip noise down to such an uncompromisingly scientific level and still retain the powerful, life-affirming impact that more immediate approaches often make simpler, but somehow Bruno does just that. A modern classic.

Ghost Food – Night in My Mind (Sweet Wreath, Oct 22)

This debut CD by Ghost Food, the supernaturally inclined collaboration between multidisciplinary artist/musicians Joel Nelson and Paul Wilm, was the perfect soundtrack to this year’s particularly haunted Halloween season. Born out of a shared “ghostly experience,” the four tracks combine spectral ambience, obtuse spoken word, and memorable songwriting to wondrous effect, and each moment is just as enigmatic and beguiling as the next, whether Wilm is muttering surreal observations about biscuits (“Hello Ghost”) or Nelson is conjuring unforgettable beauty from his arcane arsenal of instruments (“Ghost’s Come Home”).

Rebecca Black – Rebecca Black Was Here (self-released, Jun 16)

Falling in love with “Girlfriend,” the whimsical and utterly infectious closer of Rebecca Black Was Here, was the easy part. My appreciation for the other five songs took a bit longer to materialize, but once I realized that the first few times I listened I just wasn’t paying enough attention, the revelation that this is truly excellent electropop (with exactly the right amount of the obnoxious excess of “hyperpop”) came soon after. And even more exciting than the music itself, perhaps, is the promising future for which it builds the basis.

George Rayner-Law – The Tryal of Old Christmas (Brachliegen Tapes, Dec 10)

The small but fecund subset of experimental music dedicated to evoking some sort of holiday spirit was especially fruitful this year. Idiosyncratic tape wrangler George Rayner-Law’s newest tape The Tryal of Old Christmas is easily one of the highlights, especially the pensive title track on the B side, which stitches together soft organ drones and sliced-up dictaphone mutterings in an ambiguously calming Poem (for Voice & Tape) / I’m Some Songs–esque soundscape.

xfeverfewx – Trans Body Music (Enforced Existence, Oct 12)

Lansing, MI artist xfeverfewx has built an eclectic body of work since January of last year, with material ranging from the painterly voice-and-guitar eccentricities of Huge Black Wings to the longform, droning lo-fi noise of the One Hundred and Twenty-Seven Angels Gathered collaboration with Empty Banks. Trans Body Music, however, is an easy favorite, a compact CDr release that traces the physicality of the artist’s body with unmanipulated contact mic recordings throughout two ten-minute “Bodypoem”s.

Chain Lightning – Aimbot (Amateur Electronics, Sep 17)

Aimbot is synth-punk done right. I could write more but nothing I would come up with would be a better description than the following, quoted directly from the Bandcamp page: “Chain Lightning is like watching TV at grandma’s. Every single show is starring Jim Carrey Jr. The man of every hour. Quantum bio-feedback is nutrition feedback. Mr. Chain Lightning finds a home in your living room PC and sits in a chair. But there’s one thing that’s for sure… Money can’t buy you happiness, but damn, this Tesla’s close.”

The Gabys (ALL Gone, Feb 18)

The label is spot on with their comparisons of The Gabys to golden-age New Zealand scuzz and Black Tambourine, but primary appeal of the English duo is that they reside in a small but nonetheless defined place in which they are entirely alone. A place filled with paradoxes: light and shadow, sweetness and sorrow, song and silence. All of the tracks are excellent, but “Peter Bell” especially sounds like a no-fi classic unearthed from thirty-year-old sun-stained tapes, a sound I’ll never not be a sucker for.

Various Artists – You Have Three Seconds (Welcome to Clydebank, Feb 26)

Beyond just the fact that the roster/tracklist reads like a who’s who of contemporary experimental music (Hair Clinic, Howard Stelzer, Hardworking Families, Territorial Gobbing, Posset, Daniel J. Gregory), You Have Three Seconds is a fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable compilation that simultaneously feels like a rich collection of diverse contributions and a single, very impatient sound collage. Plus, new material from Klaysstar, no matter how small an amount, is always a treat.

RXKNephew – Bro Ham (New Breed Trapper, May 7)

I, like many, first heard RXK Nephew—he operates, alternately, under several alias variations—on ZelooperZ’s “Paranormal Snaptivity” (which is featured on this tape as well, in slightly different form, as “Paranormal Shelter”). But I’ve grown to enjoy the Rochester MC nearly as much as my beloved Bruiser baron, especially Bro Ham, which dissolves trap, east coast, and the sparest hints of horrorcore into a murky but distinctive sound that never fully leaves my head. It also gets points for eventually making me aware of another RXK project, Make Drunk Driving Cool Again, that remains one of the best cursory listens I’ve ever had.

I haven’t had access to my turntable for a significant portion of the year, and thus have been attempting to assuage the heartbreak by stocking up on a somehow even more obsolete class of physical music media. Did it actually help? No. Do I regret spending money I could’ve used for transit, groceries, and weed on flimsy-hinged plastic bricks that constantly litter all surfaces of my disastrously cluttered bedroom? Hell no.

Note: This list should be considered in conjunction with the two summary posts yet to come.

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Zbysko Cracker / MO – Mowin’ (Grandmother’s House, Oct 29)

Certainly one of, if not the most “non-musical” musical releases I’ve come across this year. You get exactly what it says on the tin, and whether you listen to these two 15-minute sides of leisurely lawn care as audiotherapy, productivity ambience, lullabies, or just the charming bits of careless pseudo-composition that they are, Mowin’, despite its resolute commitment to artistic minimalism, is a tape with which it’s impossible not to fall in love.

Mažas Kiekis – Much Like Yourself (Chocolate Monk, September)

According to Nyoukis’s introduction, the story behind Gnaw Bone, IN artist Mažas Kiekis’s first-ever tape makes it a perfect fit for Choccy Monk: unsolicited submission, degrees of removal, deep-set idiosyncrasies. Much Like Yourself is an easily digestible but not so easily forgotten slab of messy, delirious sound poetry fed through the murky mastications of magnetic tape cut-ups. Kiekis—and I do not suggest this lightly—may be the next-generation stateside heir to Germany’s Michael Barthel.

Guido Gamboa – Music for Tape and Spectral/Granular Processes (Second Sleep, October)

I’ll buy anything Guido Gamboa puts out without hesitation, but I’ll admit, even I was a bit skeptical about a release so pointedly exploratory and scientific from a technical standpoint from this artist whom I’ve always appreciated because of his seamless assimilations. I shouldn’t have worried, unsurprisingly; the four self-contained pieces collected by Music for Tape are some of the Chicago paragon’s best, and the detailed liner notes offer a look into the specific methodologies utilized for each.

presque fantôme (dents de scie, Sep 6)

A new project from the reclusive Geneva artist also behind the crève-chiens alias and elusively fruitful dents de scie imprint, presque fantôme is clattering outsider tape-noise of the highest order, and this self-titled debut has been one of my most consistent plays since I picked it up back in September. Think early Darksmith, 010001111000, Matt Krefting, Termite Acropolis . . . yeah. This is the good shit.

Bent Duo – Ramble (self-released, Jun 28)

David Friend and Bill Solomon’s Bent Duo collaboration would be fascinating enough without a recorded musical element—their presentations blur the lines between performance and installation, and audience participation is used as a flexible vehicle for exploring spaces that would otherwise remain stubbornly closed—but Ramble, a “re-imagining” of the multimedia project of the same name, is the perfect avenue to sufficiently engage with their work from any distance, because I’m not sure music has ever been this intimate or clandestine.

Van Gelder Skelter – The Aerosol Transit Lounge Showdown (Born Physical Form, April)

The steady flux of new and increasingly more entertaining aliases/projects into the Born Physical Form catalog slowed slightly this year, but the quality underwent no such diminishment. I still haven’t heard Microphone Crumb’s Primate Sequences, the most recent tape by the mysterious Philadelphia tape twiddler, but it’s hard to imagine it being better than The Aerosol Transit Lounge Showdown, a quick pair of squirrely, slipshod sketches that seem to get more bewildering each time.

Tupperware – American Underbelly (Deluxe Bias, Jan 24)

Barely more than three minutes of brash, equal parts angry and arty hardcore recorded in gloriously primitive mono is apparently all it takes to win my heart. There are perhaps no other tapes that I have played more than American Underbelly this year. The Olympia, WA band have also recently erected the other side of their set of year-framing bookends with their nearly just as diminutive self-titled EP, which was released on cassette and 7″ on the 21st.

Hair Clinic – At Work and at Home (Music for People, Jun 24)

With this fairly new alias, Oakland oddball Max Nordile has cemented himself as one of the greats in a scene where “greatness” often holds no esteem, nor even meaning. “Jim’s Place”, released last year by Regional Bears, saw Nordile turn his indiscriminate lens to the unruly outdoors, but At Work and at Home represents almost the exact opposite: a rough, noisy survey of the dross and detritus of domestic spaces. Short but sweet.

Mister Baby – Sidewalk Pop (Paisley Shirt, Feb 5)

A cozy little gem of a tape that can almost certainly provide some much-needed escapism for anyone who pops it in. The fuzzed-out twee bliss of unforgettable cuts like “Moonlight Racing,” “Cake Shop,” and particularly the extended cover of Aqua’s “Dr. Jones” evokes the featherweight carelessness and warmed bones of a dreamy summer day, and has me with my ear to the silk-grassed ground in rapt vigilance for whatever Mashikian comes up with next.

Heejin Jang / Network Glass / Philippe Vandal (Ultraviolet Light, Apr 8)

Three contemporary computer music heavyweights (primarily of the irreverent variety) gather for this spectacular split tape produced by Baltimore’s formidable Ultraviolet Light. The highlight here for me personally is Network Glass’s track on the A side, which nearly broaches the singular territory previously established, explored, and violated via modern classic Twitch, but both Jang and Vandal contribute excellent material as well, the former’s serving as fitting bookends for the whole tape.

Hit with the Joke Hammer (Crooked Branch Collections, Jun 4)

If the rattling spindles and warble-wrack of presque fantôme weren’t enough nourishment for your bag of bones, Hit with the Joke Hammer is here to help. The second in a promising series of short tapes from Nashville’s newly minted Crooked Branch Collections, it presents noise in its most stripped-down manifestation (or one of them, at least), a tightly contained but still dizzying stumble through whirs and rustles and scratches and gurgles.

Alex Cunningham – Rivaled (Void Castle, Feb 23)

For the hopefully large amount of you who have heard Rivaled already, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about when I say that there are few tracks, or even full-length works, from this year that can match (rival, if you will) the searingly seraphic blast of “Faith.” However, the much more subdued, less immediate “Void” on the B side has steadily become just as transcendent, and each of the halves very much feels like a different, unique  attempt at the same thing—but both handily succeed.

This Friendship Is Sailing – Live on Curious Ear Radio (Beartown, November)

When I ordered a pair of tapes from Beartown’s newest batch it was Natalia Beylis’s Variations on a Sewing Machine that I expected to connect with most, but I ended up playing this collection of live-in-studio magic from the quartet of Sam Andreae, David Birchall, Greta Buitkute, and Maggie Nicols even more often. A softer, quieter companion of sorts to Andreae and Birchall’s previous work with Yan Jun on Click Here (and There) for More Information earlier this year.

Connive – Verleugnung (Play & Ceremony, Nov 5)

After last year’s self-titled debut cassette on Reserve Matinee, this plastic-bagged C90 is an impressive next step for Michael Stumpf’s Connive project, a sprawling odyssey filled with screeching, swelling, looping harsh that has that indescribable effect of simultaneously slowing down and speeding up time. Though stylistic lineage in noise music is usually pointless to trace, Stumpf seems to have a spider-leg drawing influence from each and every one of the genre’s notable hotspots, and thus pretty much everyone will find something they like in the maelstrom of Verleugnung.