Issue #33.1 ~ Dec 2023
This issue marks three years since I started Music Regular. To this day I’m unsure of its lifespan: will I be writing Regulars ten years from now? Have I already overstayed my welcome? Will I make merch someday? A zine? A book? That’d be fun… but is it in the spirit of the project? I do not know. I’m just wingin’ it here.
What I can guarantee you is that there will be at least one more issue. Because this month, for the first time ever, there will be TWO ISSUES. That’s right: it’s time to reflect on my favorite albums of the year and there simply isn’t enough time / space to cover it all in a single issue.
I’m also trying something new: I’ve created a separate section this year for releases from so-called Canada. I’m doing this for a variety of reasons, none of which are patriotic, and all of which feel a bit too long winded to explain here (but please ask me if you’re curious). This list will appear in both issues, in addition to a lllloooooonggg addendum of other albums I really got down with. Regardless of which section a given record lands in, know that I believe it to be full of wonder and well worth your time.
Ok - without further ado - my favorite albums from this year: PART ONE 😎
click the cover to listen or go your own way ~~
Tara Clerkin Trio - On The Turning Ground
This young group from Bristol just keeps on getting better and better. What I love about the music they make is that it feels profound, uplifting, dreamy, knotty, curious - and entirely effortless. There’s something miraculous about how they weave a broad range of influences together so seamlessly. Swaying somewhere between somnambulant jazz, and the squinty feeling of a little too much sun behind the eyelids, the trio glows on!
Cleo Sol - Gold / Heaven
I’m not sure why exactly we deserve Cleo Sol, but she hath returned with a pair of exquisitely soft, explicitly heaven-sent r&b troves. I have a slight preference for Gold, but both records, dropped within two weeks of one another, are wonderful. This year’s easy choice for a universal recommendation: hard to imagine someone not appreciating these dulcet jams.
nykolaes & Daniël Paul - neofolk
This album opened up a palette of music of which I was heretofore resistant. Confoundingly, it is not neofolk as I understand it. It’s… cloud folk? A good chunk of this album essentially sounds like bladee doing Iron & Wine, though it’s so much more emotionally resonant than such a pithy comparison would lead you to believe. Oh also, it features a Nirvana cover. Easily, like faaaarrrrr and away, the most unlikely find of the year for me. It’s very good - impossibly so. The kids are alright.
Titanic - Vidrio
I’ve been a fan of Guatemalan cellist Mabe Fratti for a minute (haven’t we all?). Here, she joins fellow CDMX-based composer Hector Tosa in leading a bracing chamber quartet in tracing lines between jazz and pop . Every moment of Vidrio feels charged, grounded and clear-eyed. Regardless of the stones their sifting, the duo root each composition around Fratti’s great strength: her assuredly unpretending voice.
Chief Adjuah - Bark Out Thunder Roar Out Lightning
After releasing heaps of excellent future-oriented, ancestral-minded jazz, the artist formerly known as Christian Scott plunges more profoundly into a specific familial tradition: New Orleans’ Mardi Gras Indians. Like his uncle and grandfather before him, Chief Adjuah was recently crowned big chief of the Xodokan Nation. This journey to his roots is reflected in Bark Out Thunder Roar Out Lightning, an incredible blend of big-band, parade-ready percussion and chanting, Adjuah’s mystical harp work, and transcendent hints of music past/present/future.
Bodikhuu - Tokyo
I was relatively disinterested in hip-hop this year. That’s not a judgment on ‘the state of the game’ or anything so drastic, there just wasn’t much that clicked for me. The addendum below includes a couple albums I dug (namely MIKE, Noname and H31R) and Part Two of this year-ender will feature an entry for my fave hip-hop album of the year (c’mon, you know who 🤭). All that being said, I really enjoyed this unassuming collection of instrumentals that thrives exclusively on ~exquisite vibes~. Highly replayable.
*But please: send your hip-hop recommendations so I can surreptitiously squeeze them into the next issue and pretend I was always down.
Ben Vida w. Yarn/Wire & Nina Dante - The Beat My Head Hit
This album is a universe. An entire way of feeling and being in the world. It’s heavily languaged and remarkably crafted. I was completely captivated the first time I heard it, and none of its bewildering magic has diminished. Its power only grows with each return, each listening provides more clues. The sound of The Beat My Head Hit is so stark and idiosyncratic, yet I’d feel remiss if I didn’t humbly suggest that some of its DNA is borrowed from this particular track by The Books (a group all too forgotten these days).
Blue Lake - Sun Arcs
Absolute pastoral magic. An album so thoroughly transporting, it’s almost hard to believe; each time I returned to it, I’d worry a little that a glint of sun might be gone, some reedy marsh dried up. But no - Jason Dangan, the Copenhagen-based composer and instrument-builder known as Blue Lake - has created something truly timeless and pristine. A most welcomed addition to the lineage of folks like William Eaton, Robbie Basho, etc. Highly recommend taking a dip into the Blue Lake back catalog as well, lots of beauty to uncover.
CAN CON
Here are my fave albums from so-called Canada in 2023. There’s lots to explore here and I encourage you to take the time: jazz-inflected poptones , mutant house jamz, honeysweet country, spatial trumpet explorations, bracing death metal, art-damaged song, psychedelic downtempo, time-stretched hymnals and so! much! more!
Beverly Glenn Copeland - The Ones Ahead
Freak Heat Waves - Mondo Tempo
Helena Deland - Goodnight Summerland
Joseph Shabason - Welcome To Hell
Masahiro Takahashi - Humid Sun
Mira Martin-Gray - Hen’s Teeth
Thantifaxath - Hive Mind Narcosis
Tomb Mold - The Enduring Spirit
ADDENDUM
In the spirit of The Roots’ sophomore studio album, I ask: Do You Want More?!!!??!
.
Amber Meulenijzer - Saab Fanfare
Anohni & The Johnsons - My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross
Ascended Dead - Evenfall Of The Apocalypse
Black Taffy - Six Arrows For Nadyra
Brighde Chaimbeul - Carry Them With Us
Cassandra Miller, Laurence Crane, Linda Catlin Smith - Folks’ Music
Chanel Beads - Ef / Shining Armor
Fondation Petya Sasser Rike - CCCC*
Gonubie - Signals At Both Ears
Gravesend - Gowanus Death Stomp
Johanna Orellana - Las Camelias
Josiah Steinbrick - For Anyone That Knows
Kara Jackson - Why Does the Earth Give Us People To Love?
Kyoko Takenaka + Tomoki Sanders - Planet Q
Lisa Lerkenfeldt - Halos Of Perception
Liv.e - Girl In The Half Pearl
Nourished By Time - Erotic Probiotic 2
Outer Heaven - Infinite Psychic Depths
Paul St. Hillaire - Tikiman Vol. 1
Plume Girl - In The End We Begin
Rowan Coupland & Eirini Fountedaki / Ceri Rhys Matthews - Betwixt & Between 9
Steve Gunn & David Moore - Let The Moon Be A Planet
Steve Lehman w. Orchestre National De Jazz - Ex Machina
Yaya Bey - Crying Through My Teeth / The Evidence
ICYMI, I started a donations page for Regular Readers. All the money I receive will go back towards music (eg. purchasing physical/digital music, merch, concert tickets, supporting other music outlets, etc.). If you’re not able to support the newsletter financially (no presh!), you might also consider liking / sharing / following on Instagram.
ALSO, I started a ~*fun*~ tracking sheet that provides transparency on donations and spending. It also includes links to my Bandcamp + Discogs profiles. This is as much about accountability as it is an experiment in tracking my own financial investments in music over a calendar year.
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