Everyone else might sign up for a gym or make some self-improvement lists. Music lovers reorganize their playlists – and what a joy to do so. So resident music lover David Abravanel is back and joins your dear edito. It’s a look back at music from 2022 that we can’t stop playing right into 2023.
David’s notes
Choosing a “best of the year” always feels like such a weird process. The album from 2022 that I most want to hear changes from day to day and week to week. So this year, I opted for something different.
As such, I went through the excruciating process of identifying some albums that made the most significant impacts in my listening year. These aren’t objectively the best, and aren’t even necessarily the ones I come back to most often. But they’ve stayed with me, and I urge you to hear them.
2022 top picks
50 Foot Wave – Black Pearl (Fire)
As the country in which took some horrible steps against women’s rights this year, I found it vital to hear an American musician, writer, and poet like Kristin Hersh. Most well-known for fronting Throwing Muses, 50 Foot Wave, is where Hersh gets more distorted and raw. Black Pearl is a wave crashing, it’s a rude splash of water, it’s a good reminder to fight.
Anteloper – Pink Dolphins (International Anthem)
Coppé – (Un)Tweaked (Mango + Sweetrice)
Culross Close – PRESSURE (Esencia)
John Zorn & Bill Laswell – The Cleansing (Tzadik)
Loom & Thread – Island Grammar (Macro)
Killer year for albums pushing jazz in all different directions adjacent to electronic music. Food for the soul, heart, and mind on these.
Boris – W (Sacred Bones)
Boris were beyond prolific in 2022, but the clear standout – both for the year and, for my money, for the career – is this icy bit of shoegaze and metal atmosphere. No matter what I’m doing, when it goes on, everything else seems to melt away.
Björk – Fossora (One Little Independent)
There’s been a lot of time to contemplate mortality in the last few years, and now we have Björk as the warmest spirit of death and renewal you’ve ever encountered. Over beds of bass clarinets and the occasional blasts of distorted kicks, Björk celebrates family, documents grief, and foregrounds fungi to remind us that death is far from annihilation.
Broadcast – Maida Vale Sessions (Warp)
I can’t think of another act who have said so much simply in how they change between radio sessions. In the four BBC performances on this compilation, you hear a band move from bookish psychedelic to a distorted powerhouse of a group – not that any of the stages are less than stellar.
Cabo Boing – Real Gems for Little Jewels (HAORD)
It’s often impossible for me to tell the sincerity with music that’s this out there – and even in absurdity I hope to find sincerity. Thankfully, Brian Esser has decades behind him (most notably as ½ of Yip Yip) and a delightful series of performances to prove how much he means it. The bounce, pitch-shifting, and children’s birthday party explosion of synths and drum machine blast beats provide pure joy when you let them. I’ve always found clowns far more delightful than scary!
Current 93 – If A City Is Set Upon A Hill (HomAleph)
At this point, we’re aware of how David Tibet & co. most excel; this album is not a revolution but it is one of the finest suites of melancholy neofolk songs to come from an originator of the style. Magic on that wax.
Deepchild – Fathersong (Mille Plateaux)
Rick Bull pulls back to a smaller set of parts, ups the reverb, and makes one of the most beautiful albums of the year. Empty dub spaces tells stories of weather, late nights, and life cycles.
Jason Priest – For Your Consideration (Midnight Mannequin)
Is there a word for when you feel concern over the welfare of a fictional character used by a musician for concept albums? Perhaps in French? I imagine plenty of Bowie fans felt similar fascination/trepidation when he was Ziggy Stardust. Jason Priest is a figment of Antoni Maiovvi’s imagination, but after traversing coldwave (the come up years) to Madchester (the excess years), he’s settled on a most personal groove, with dark synth pop intact.
Kevin Richard Martin – Nightcrawler (Intercranial)
I spend more time than I’d care to admit in the throes of insomnia, often wrapped in books. Perhaps Kevin Martin has been there too, with this set of bassy mystery novellas creeping along.
King Imagine – External Control (self-release)
The invasion of Ukraine brought out a trove of music, both in benefit compilations and in works from Ukrainian artists processing this horrifyingly unjust crime. All I can think to say here is a massive thank you to King Imagine for this experimental dub-inflected maze. Thank you for shouting.
Kuedo – Infinite Window (Brainfeeder)
Plaid – Feorm Falorx (Warp)
John Shima – The Empty Lands (Firescope)
µ-Ziq – Magic Pony Ride (Planet Mu)
Bear with me here: when you’re laying in bad late at night, put one of these on, look out the window, and picture either space travel, cyberpunk landscapes, or both.
Loraine James – Building Something Beautiful For Me (Phantom Limb)
If I had to pick a single artist of the year, Loraine James would be the best candidate. Following the beautiful and eclectic Whatever the Weather album, James tackled the influence of legendary avant garde composer Julius Eastman, whose bold perspectives on his life as a Black queer person informed and influenced James’ album reinterpreting his minimalist masterpieces. With heartfelt tenderness, James answers the persistent bells of “Femenine” with lush synth beds and lullaby singing on “Choose To Be Gay”. As close to a dialogue with a spirit as you’ll hear on an album.
SAULT – Untitled (God) (Forever Living Originals)
I’m always interested in music that probes the very concept of the divine, and the pseudo-anonymous SAULT brought a new trove of it when they released five albums in one day for free, ostensibly as a tribute to God. The sincerity in the raw soul and the disarmingly direct interludes provides as catchy a call to spiritual struggle as you’ll ever hear.
Soichi Terada – Asakusa Light (Rush Hour)
I generally don’t pick a single album of the year, but this one is probably the closest to it. Real melodic joy in these electronic songs from Soichi Terada, best known for his video game soundtracks such as Ape Escape. The melodies just clinch it – and we all need more light like this in our lives.
Siavash Amini & Eugene Thacker – Songs for Sad Poets (Hallow Ground)
Poetry, at its best, can evoke both terror and beauty – in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, I read Yevtushenko’s “Babi Yar” again and found that it had lost none of its crushing effect. I’ve mentioned before that Siavash Amini is an honest musician who plumbs unsettling emotion with his ambient pieces. This album, a collaboration with Eugene Thacker, reflects the influence of the poets in the track titles. There’s majesty in some of the grain clouds, an edge or horror in the dissonant strings, and granular whispers that suggest music with a story too sublime to put exactly to words.
Stephen Mallinder – Tick Tick Tick (Dais)
First, go out and get this one – but then check out my feature with Mal.
Tomer Baruch – Synthesized Sounds of the Sea (Hamseen Sounds)
I can’t exactly explain it, but nature documentaries have always made me extremely sad. Perhaps it’s the awareness that we’re destroying our planet and all the beauty of other species. Regardless, Tomer Baruch and his Animals and Synthesizers series gave me a new, more optimistic love for the mysteries of the beings of Earth. In the tradition of classic “library” style music, Baruch designs synth tones that reflect the playfulness, danger, and everyday majesty of the animal kingdom. Synthesized Sounds of the Sea expands the project to a concept album, with blippy and squelching results.
The Veldt – Entropy is the Mainline to God (The Acid Test)
Decades in and The Veldt still have the most soulful vocals in all of shoegaze, with lyrics politically pained and personally celebratory. Thrilled to see them getting more of their due, and to hear the fuzz washes, dreamy chorusing, and pummeling beats (electronic and acoustic) that merge rock, soul, dreampop, and hip-hop. If you’re looking for a start, just put on “Sweeter” and ask why we don’t celebrate The Veldt as much as Slowdive or Lush.
Editor’s picks
I can wholeheartedly endorse all David’s picks but want to chime in. First, ABADIR and Loraine James I think deserve mention twice, they’re so essential to this year. Both also are electric live, and ABADIR has been an outspoken proponent not only of his own music, but others’ best, as well – which in an industry that rewards artists centering only themselves is something worth noting.
ABADIR, no, I won’t just go for the title track; let’s go with this utter sonic devastation:
Loraine James, a favorite cut for David and me:
Also from this year:
FAX – Catalog Number STA122 (Static Discos)
The splendid Static Discos turned 20 years old this year – but don’t only look backward, or you’ll miss gems like this crisp, squelchy mood study by the label’s Mexicali-born co-founder. It’s short but full of exquisite details and senses, a perfect aperitivo of an EP. (The indication that the label is keeping up steam is right there in the title – having just marked its 100th release with Fax and Murcof, Static Discos is already up to 122.) How this Baja crew don’t get more attention is beyond me as their musical imagination never ceases to amaze.
Zavoloka – AMULET (Prostir)
I could easily make a list of just Ukrainian-produced and Ukrainian-released music this year – an unthinkable creative challenge, to remain expressive and focused in the face of terror. The Ukraine tag here on CDM is one easy starting point. Prostir and I Shall Sing Until My Land is Free deserve special mention. From those, one criminally overlooked outing is the dizzyingly lovely AMULET – again, probably because of its mid-December release (not that that’s an excuse, journos). I could describe it, but the artist – half of Cluster Lizard – does it best:
Ability for the impossible. Ukrainian folk instruments dissolve into abstract psychoactive sounds from the improvisational universe. The meditative engine of multi-instrumental music drives the magical means of influencing perception. This is the sonic amulet, which is decorated with radiant tones and the colorful ceremonial musical outline. Mythological music is spirited by epic historical times and ideas of freedom, dignity, and bravery. The acquired knowledge of ancient generations is infused into the present tense and crystallized into the art of liberation. Transform pain into gratitude, fear into love, rage into action, self-importance into empathy, fatigue into inner peace, anxiety into courage, and hatred into strength. Say “no” to darkness and direct the light on it, disagree to compromise with yourself, create on the destroyed, free yourself from stipulations, believe in wonders, burn and resurrect free. Always remember your own path to walk. And plant the blossoming cherry tree in the funnel from the bomb on the heart. Dedicated to free Ukraine.Ability for the impossible.
Ukrainian folk instruments dissolve into abstract psychoactive sounds from the improvisational universe. The meditative engine of multi-instrumental music drives the magical means of influencing perception. This is the sonic amulet, which is decorated with radiant tones and the colorful ceremonial musical outline. Mythological music is spirited by epic historical times and ideas of freedom, dignity, and bravery. The acquired knowledge of ancient generations is infused into the present tense and crystallized into the art of liberation.
Transform pain into gratitude, fear into love, rage into action, self-importance into empathy, fatigue into inner peace, anxiety into courage, and hatred into strength. Say “no” to darkness and direct the light on it, disagree to compromise with yourself, create on the destroyed, free yourself from stipulations, believe in wonders, burn and resurrect free. Always remember your own path to walk.
And plant the blossoming cherry tree in the funnel from the bomb on the heart.
Dedicated to free Ukraine.
Ryterski – Gaymers’ Cheatsheet (Pointless Geometry)
Pointless Geometry is another possible label of the year candidate; this imprint out of Łódź, Poland was on fire. Perhaps the best example for CDM readers is this utterly hyperactive, Space Invaders-if-it-were-actually-made-by-space-aliens magnum opus – neon-saturated beats gone wild. But seriously, start there and keep going through their catalog – tell ’em I sent ‘ya. Trust me.
Elyse Tabet – Low Toms Bright Bells and Darkest Spells – with Pascal Semerdjian and Yara Asmar (Ruptured Records)
A late entry in December that flew under the radar, Elyse Tabet’s newest sees a sophisticated mix of modular synthesis, digital electronics, metallophone, and percussion. Tabet and percussionist Pascal Semerdjian compose richly layered combinations of sound, then layer them again, alongside Yara Asmar on metallophone. On Lebanon’s fantastic Ruptured label, which had a banner year.
Wukir Suryadi – MENOLAK TUNDUK / REFUSE TO SUBMIT (Multiple labels)
We get an utterly haunting, defiant roar of sound from legendary instrument builder and experimental musician Wukir Suryadi of Indonesia. It’s labeled simply “DEDIKASI BAGI SIAPA SAJA YANG PANTANG MENYERAH \
DEDICATED TO THOSE WHO WAN’T GIVE UP” – a perfect message for 2022.
Following Senyawa’s release last year, Wukir’s music sees “decentralized” multiple-label release, out on iDEAL Recordings, WV Sorcerer Productions 巫唱片, Room40, and Senyawa (OfficialSublime Frequencies)
Afrorack – The Afrorack (HAKUNA KULALA)
While everyone laments the fact that mainstream (overground?) techno sort of went off the rails in 2022, why not turn instead to Kampala, Uganda and our friend Afrorack? The immediacy of raw electronics — much of it Brian’s own DIY creations — reclaims the punk ethos and deep emotions that copy-paste dance music so sorely lacks. It’s East African, it’s something uniquely Brian’s, it’s something really new. This sounds like voltage, dancing. Another candidate for album of the year.
Catch Afrorack soon at CTM Festival here in Berlin in a couple of collaborations. Now someone please fly Brian to Chicago so Uganda Afrorack and Illinois Afrorack can meet up.
Kali Malone – Living Torch (Portraits GRM)
Living Torch is exceptional even just for its textures – a dense electroacoustic orchestration that moans and breathes like a dragon. In the hands of this Swedish composer, the result is anything but static, plodding through uneasy homophonies and harmonies with foreboding melancholy, always organic and alive. That liveness is perfectly captured in the work by GRM and mastering engineer Stephan Mathieu for an essential release – though from what I’ve heard of Malone’s just-about-to-drop Does Spring Hide Its Joy, she might be back on the 2023 best-of lists, too.
Rhyw – Honey Badger (Voam)
Who needs more than four tracks when all four tracks slap this hard? Just as chart-topper commercial techno snoozes into some sleep-inducing monotony, here’s fast-tempo stuff – set to broken beats – that channels all the frenetic chaos that dancefloor craves, all with razor-sharp production. If you wanted a new direction, here’s another nominee…
Arovane & Taylor Deupree – Skal_Ghost (12k)
Taylor Depree and Arovane layer loops and free-flowing sounds and patterns into mechanisms that unfold like some archaic ritualistic music box. At the heart of this release, unexpectedly, is a Nonlinear Labs C15 synth – the brainchild of Native Instruments founder and Reaktor creator Stefan Schmitt. Our friend Micah Frank is involved, too. It’s the kind of album you want to just move in and recline in for a long weekend.
Julia Sabra and Fadi Tabbal – Snakeskin (Ruptured)
Apologies for doubling up on Ruptured, but the haunting Snakeskin demonstrates the range of music that responded to the Beirut explosion. It’s complex and beautiful, a distorted folk lullaby, the work of Lebanese producer/musician/engineer Fadi Tabbal and singer-songwriter Julia Sabra from Beirut-based indie trio Postcards.
Lamin Fofana – Here Lies Universality (Avian)
I was rambling recently to aforementioned producer ABADIR that I hoped that we would reimagine “ambient” – that while Eno deserves credit for the term and original frame, there might be a new framing that takes into account other perspectives and recentering on different musical voices. This whole section might well be an answer to that, but I’ll let the liner notes speak on this gorgeous Lamin Fofana debut on Avian. This sums up what I was struggling to articulate to Rami – and on an album whose very title might best sum up 2022’s fears and hopes:
Despite the beatless nature of the compositions, Lamin Fafona’s work is imbued with the spirit of Detroit’s pioneering Techno experimentalists. As such, it is Ambient music that does not exist as a peripheral flavor to color the listeners own experience, but rather as a vehicle for expression that requires attention and observation. The artist uses sound as a vehicle to examine the historical movement – forced or otherwise, of Black people across the globe, and how this movement feeds into inequitable contemporary socio-political and economic power dynamics. Fofana explains that this latest missive, ‘rubs against liberal universalism and reflects on how the pandemic exacerbates existing contradictions and violence significantly and puts them in high relief.’
And sure, sure, Unsettling Scores is the release that was on everyone else’s list for this year, but this one also came out in 2022 and I’m a contrary person and the Avian release I might well give the nod as more my favorite.
One special mention for an album that came out last year, but whose live show premiered in 2022 – Lebanese-Québécois Liliane Chlela’s Safala (Amygdala Records) with visuals by Beirut’s Kawakeb studio was absolutely jaw dropping. I was lucky enough to catch this one twice, first in Beirut and then at MUTEK and it was for me the main AV standout of the year.
The lists
[Get ready – all essential. David’s hard work on this one. -Ed.]
Albums
!!! – Let It Be Blue (Warp)
ABADIR – Mutate (SVBKVLT)
Afrorack – The Afrorack (Hakuna Kulala)
Anteloper – Pink Dolphins (International Anthem)
Atom™ – Neuer Mensch (Raster-Media)
Biosphere – Shortwave Memories (Biophon)
Björk – Fossora (One Little Independent)
Bogdan Raczynski – ADDLE (Planet-Mu)
Boris – W (Sacred Bones)
Broadcast – Maida Vale Sessions (Warp)
Cabo Boing – Real Gems for Little Jewels (HAORD)
Christina Wheeler – Songs of S + D (self-release)
Christopher Willits – Gravity (Ghostly)
Cinthie – DJ-Kicks (!K7)
Coppé – (Un)Tweaked (Mango + Sweetrice)
Culross Close – PRESSURE (Esencia)
Current 93 – If A City Is Set Upon A Hill (HomAleph)
Deepchild – Fathersong (Mille Plateaux)
Dirty Bird – Wagenmuzik (self-release)
Eliad Wagner – C15 (Falt)
Etch – Further Adventures of The Cosmic B-Boy (Purple City Soufflé)
Fracture & Sam Binga – Omura (Astrophonica)
Fred P – Coordinates (Private Society)
Gav & Jord – Writings ov Tomato (MAL)
Jason Priest – For Your Consideration (Midnight Mannequin)
Jimi Tenor – Multiversum (Bureau B)
Jimmy Edgar – Liquids Heaven (Innovative Leisure)
John Shima – The Empty Lands (Firescope)
John Zorn & Bill Laswell – The Cleansing (Tzadik)
Jordan GCZ – My Brain’s Brain (Minimal Detroit Audio)
Kaan Bulak – Illusions (Feral Note)
Kendrick Lamar – Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers (Top Dawg Entertainment)
Kevin Richard Martin – Nightcrawler (Intercranial)
King Imagine – External Control (self-release)
Kuedo – Infinite Window (Brainfeeder)
Lighght – Seodra (Doom Trip)
Lila Tirando a Violeta – Desire Path (Naafi)
Loop – Sonancy (Reactor)
Loom & Thread – Island Grammar (Macro)
Loraine James – Building Something Beautiful For Me (Phantom Limb)
Matmos – Regards/Ukłony dla Bogusław Schaeffer (Thrill Jockey)
Melchior Productions Ltd. – Vulnerabilities (Perlon)
Mizmor – Wit’s End (Gilead Media)
Moiré – Circuits (Avenue 66)
µ-Ziq – Magic Pony Ride (Planet-Mu)
MVW – CONNECTIONS (AWAL)
Nicolas Bernier & Co. – Science_Fiction (self-release)
The NRG – Stadium Ambient (self-release)
Om Unit – Acid Dub Studies II (self-release)
Panda Bear & Sonic Boom – Reset (Domino)
Perfume – PLASMA (Universal)
Plaid – Feorm Falorx (Warp)
Product Unit Xero – Nexus Points (Mirror Zone)
RAVEN – CODEX (Vaguetracks)
Ripatti Deluxe – Speed Demon (Rajaton)
Ryoji Ikeda – ultratronics (Noton)
SAULT – Untitled (God) (Forever Living Originals)
Shinichi Atobe – Love of Plastic (DDS)
Siavash Amini & Eugene Thacker – Songs for Sad Poets (Hallow Ground)
Signal Flow – Critical Condition (Douglas Deep’s Shed Collective)
Smoke Point – Smoke Point (Geographic North)
Time Wharp – Spiro World (Leaving)
Soichi Terada – Asakusa Light (Rush Hour)
Space Ghost – Private Paradise (Pacific Rhythm)
Spiritualized – Everything Was Beautiful (Fat Possum/Bella Union)
Stephen Mallinder – Tick Tick Tick (Dais)
The Smile – A Light for Attracting Attention (XL)
The Veldt – Entropy is the Mainline to God (The Acid Test)
Tomer Baruch – Synthesized Sounds of the Sea (Hamseen Sounds)
Whatever the Weather – Whatever the Weather (Ghostly)
Yosuke Tokunaga – KaGOSHiMa (.TOST)
Reissues
Arovane – Tides (Keplar)
Chris Clark – Body Double (Warp)
Coil – Music To Play In The Dark2(Dais)
DJ Sprinkles & Mark Fell – Incomplete Insight (2012-2015) (Comatonse)
Farben – Textstar+ (Faitiche)
Goldfrapp – Felt Mountain (Mute)
Paul Leary – The History of Dogs, Revisited (Shimmy Disc)
Sigur Rós – ( ) (Krunk)
Stereolab – Pulse of the Early Brain [Switched On Volume 5] (Duophonic)
Susumu Yokota – Baroque (Modern Obscure Music)
The Chemical Brothers – Dig Your Own Hole (Astralwerks)
The Detroit Escalator Co. – Soundtrack [313] (Musique Pour La Danse)
The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (Warner)
Various Artists – Artificial Intelligence (Warp)
µ-Ziq – Lunatic Harness: 25th Anniversary Edition (Planet-Mu)
EPs & Singles
Actress – Dummy Corporation (Ninja Tune)
Alan Vega – Invasion / Murder One (Sacred Bones)
Ben Lukas Boysen – Clarion (Erased Tapes)
Chevel – Waiting for Love (Fixed Abode)
Community Theater – Having Everything (Sorry)
Inigo Kennedy – Elysian Splinters (Asymmetrik)
minimalviolence – Phase Three (Tresor)
Nookie – Love Less Chaos / Got Soul (Over/Shadow)
Objekt – Objekt #5 (Objekt)
patten – Desire Path (555-5555)
The Soft Pink Truth – Was It Ever Real? (Thrill Jockey)
David Abravanel is a regular music contributor to CDM – and his epic year-end round-ups have become a new year’s holiday tradition for us.
