I’ve written and rewritten the intro to this year-end edition more times than I’d care to admit. Not because I’m trying to summarize a year’s worth of experience in a couple paragraphs. In fact, I think I’m trying to get at something even larger. I’m trying to write about how we can often be too quick to assess relationships based purely on time, i.e. the longer the relationship, the more significant it is.
I’ve been finding it helpful to hold in mind that this equation is far too simple. I’ve met people who’ve profoundly changed my life within the hour or two I’ve spent with them. Then there are some people I’ve known for years and honestly?... they don’t mean a whole lot to me. I think the same goes for music.
I spent a lot of time with Big Thief for the first time earlier this year, listening to their new album almost daily for a while. But upon reflection, it doesn’t feel so important to me. Comparatively, on two separate occasions, I listened to about a tenth of Junkpolitik by Bristol-based artist Robin Foster and I feel like it’s changed how I conceptualize music forever. I don’t mean to dismiss or deify anyone, that’s just my personal experience. In short: don’t define your relationships in strictly quantitative terms, be it to art or people.
Here is some of the music that really spoke to me this year. As ever, thanks for reading and listening! And since this issue is dedicated solely to contemporary artists, it feels important to refrain: please support these brilliant people if you feel financially able!
click the covers to listen or go your own way ~~
Sessa - Estrela Acesa
I’m feeling hard pressed to imagine a listener who couldn’t appreciate something about Estrela Acesa, the second album from Brazilian songwriter Sessa. It’s forcing me to rely on a term that did far too much heavy lifting in 2022: vibe. It’s just such a fucking vibe. The languid bass grooves, the wonderfully subtle percussion. The way the string arrangements and backing vocals suspend every song in a dust-filled sunbeam. It’s a real mellow glory that feels broadly accessible and perfectly captured.
Vic Bang - Burung
There’s a playfulness to Burung that belies just how odd and abstract it is. I find its bubbly mood so utterly successful and pervasive that I actively have to stop and ask myself, ‘wait, what exactly is going on here?’. But music this gorgeous simply resists such an analytical reading. Imagine the buzzing of a sunkissed jungle within the computerized utopia of Visible Cloaks and you’ll be somewhere in the vicinity of this absolutely wonderful work from Argentinian composer and sound artist Vic Bang.
evan j cartwright - bit by bit
Truly hard to put into words how special this music is… where to begin? bit by bit is conceptual and yet incredibly direct, it’s melancholic and life-affirming. It’s the feeling of being incredibly small in a big, swirling world and cherishing the wonder of scale, and opening to the tenderness of learning. And isn’t it so special to have art that can evoke such a rich sense of intimacy in this big swirly place?
Jockstrap - I Love You Jennifer B
I can’t really get comfortable with the artist name, nor do I have any clue who Jennifer B is, but this music takes me places. Specifically, Jockstrap’s stealthy brand of pop revisionism takes me to places I’m surprised I like to visit. Each song is filled with seductive, perfectly sculpted nooks that come one after the other. Each time a new aesthetic element is introduced it feels somehow both unlikely and unifying. If I’m being honest, this music makes me feel like a younger, more dramatic version of myself I’m never sure I was to begin with. In a good way?
Jairus Sharif - Water & Tools
Can’t hardly remember an album from The Prairies that scorches so much earth. Hell, this is one of the best jazz records ever made in so-called Canada, and one gets the sense that Jairus Sharif (who performed and recorded nearly everything on the album himself) is just getting started. It has a really momentous, cosmic, punk energy that feels both spacious and hard as fuck, landing somewhere between the groovier moments of Black Spirituals and the great contemporary rallying cry that is Your Queen Is A Reptile.
Jeff Parker - Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy
A collection of longform live cuts led by Jeff Parker aka the greatest jazz guitarist of all-time. Can’t handle that kind of claim? How about this: Parker uses space and silence to create groove in a way not heard since Ahmad Jamal. Or this: no one rocks a toque better or more consistently than Jeff Parker. I’ll wait.
Ustad Noor Bakhsh - Jingul
I could do with A LOT more of this in my life. The music of Balochistan’s Ustad Noor Bakhsh contains a revitalizing joyousness, it’s a real rollicking shred fest. It seems fitting that Jingul, Bakhsh’s first release, was named after a bird that frequents his home: the slight 20-minute run-time feels fleeting, furthering the sense that this music is a real gift to be cherished.
Joel Ross - The Parable Of The Poet
Across this album’s near one-hour run time, the compositions of vibraphonist Joel Ross unfurl in the most miraculous way, each instant feeling perfectly considered and mesmeric. And each upon each building into a grand arc that reveals its epic proportion in slow drip. Decidedly biblical in nature and relatively large in scale (Ross leads an octet here), the music never strays too far from lyrical beauty or loses touch with its inner peace.
Ruben Machtelinckx & Arve Henriksen - A Short Story
This profoundly delicate and spellbinding record dropped in the wee hours, when the year was just a mere four days old. The first evening I heard it, I had one of those ~moments~ y’know? A perfect intersection of posture, room, sound and mood, as if the music was made specifically for me in that moment. What’s even more incredible: this generous, subtle music is a room one can reliably return to, the story feeling equally compelling and complex each time.
Time Wharp - Spiro World
Spiro World combines a cluster of neighboring styles (komische, chamber jazz, ambient, hints of 90s pop and some good ol’ fashioned New Yawk minimalism) to create music that feels weightless, purposeful and welcoming. And while the collection feels very much of a piece, each track here has its own identity, clear and crisp. The music retracts and expands with incredible grace, moving from a kind of taught and studied center out into flowing moments of keen emotionality.
Moin - Paste
I’m going to say Spiderland, but I also need you to relax. I know we’re not supposed to just throw out references to that album willy nilly, and I’m not. The truth is that Paste is an entirely different work and the towering spectre of Spiderland is but one among many stations it explores. This addictive, big mood album elegantly reorients many tendrils of post-punk, ultimately surfacing its dub foundations. Moin is a trio consisting of both members of London’s world-building industrial duo Raime and one of the best percussionists in the biz, Valentina Magaletti (Vanishing Twin, Tomaga). ‘Nosferatu Man’ for contemporary bass bin culture.
I-Sef U-Sef - Consistency
Consistency, a collection of brief jamz from Egyptian-American composer Yousef El-Magharbel, does the sneaky work of feeling classically chill and familiar, yet on closer listens, ultimately unique and unclassifiable. Pulling from r&b, hip-hop and minimal chamber moods, these bassoon-forward bops are really striking. I regret not gripping the tape before it sold out : (
Lucrecia Dalt - ¡Ay!
I’m trying to think of a comparison here. First thought best thought: ¡Ay! is like when David Lynch dropped The Straight Story. In both cases, you’re looking at artists whose previous output was entirely freeky, unique and utterly brilliant. Then BAM! they unleash a major work that uses popular forms to redraw cultural boundaries, blurring the concept of ‘the experimental’ while massively increasing their general appeal and simultaneously retaining their idiosyncratic voice.
Various - Touching Bass: Soon Come
A real rare treat these days: this compilation from South London’s Touching Bass is perfectly sourced, sequenced and sounding. Equally forward-leaning as it is grounding, Soon Come offers a unified collage capturing the best in r&b, house, hip-hop and adjacent soundworlds.
Shabason & Krgovich - At Scaramouche / Fresh Pepper - Fresh Pepper
What an absolute delight it is to be living through Joseph Shabason’s Brodown Era. Following 2020’s stunning Philadelphia, the Toronto saxophonist doubles down on the format with a victory lap alongside long-distance vocal dude Nicholas Krgovich and a perfectly tempered pot of congee with homeboy André Ethier (+ a crew of Toronto’s finest sous chefs). Bonus points if you’re willing to rip it to the moon with everyone’s favorite jazz dad and his co-pilot Vibrant Matter.
Plus, for your consideration, another 36 releases with no clues provided. Because why not? We came all this way, after all.
Christina Vantzou, Michael Harrison & John Also Bennett - Christina Vantzou, Michael Harrison & John Also Bennett | Francesca Heart - Eurybia | Curren$y & Alchemist - Continuance | Designers - Designers | Işık Kural - In February | Dolman / Rossy / Jobin - Are You Here To Help? | Lynn Avery & Cole Pulice - To Live & Die In Space & Time | Panda Bear & Sonic Boom - Reset | More Eaze - Strawberry Season | CS + Kreme - Orange | Plantar - Forest, Sea, Harmony | Rat Heart - Each 1 Teach 1 | Country Phasers - Country Phasers | Ka - Languish Arts + Woeful Studies | Mary Sue - Kisses Of Life | Toninho Carrasqueira - Oriente-se Ocidente | Shy One - From The Floor To The Booth | Lord Kayso - Moor Choices | Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer - Recordings from the Åland Islands | Aldous Harding - Warm Chris | Holy Tongue - III | Sam Gendel - blueblue | JOYFULTALK - Familiar Science | Loren Rush - Omaggio a Giuseppe Ungaretti | Sault - Earth + 11 | Eucalyptus - Moves | Ways Lain - As You Lay Sleeping | billy woods - Aethiopes | Carmen Villain - Only Love From Now On | Caroline - Caroline | Roc Marciano & Alchemist - The Elephant Man’s Bones | Eric Chenaux - Say Laura | Anadol - Felicita | Astrid Øster Mortensen - Gro Mig En Blomst
I’m super interested in feedback / dialogue / suggestions. If you have ideas about the newsletter, want to share music with me, have specific questions / requests, don’t hesitate to get in touch. And please: share this newsletter with a pal if you feel so inspired!
Yrs.,
Andrew P.
andrewdanielpatterson [at] gmail [dot] com