Our Favorite Albums, 2023
Our favorite albums of the year, as voted on by Tone Glow's writers
My greatest takeaway with each passing year is that I feel like an entirely different person than I was 12 months ago. This isn’t to say that a large part of who I am has changed—I’m still losing sleep by digging for music, I’m still in love with interviewing, I still think that eating good food and talking with friends is the best possible use of one’s time—but there is a sense that everything that I have been through has left me, at least in some small way, anew. One of the great privileges I have as the editor of Tone Glow is that I see this growth in all of our contributors—not just as writers and interviewers and thinkers, but as regular ol’ people. Some of us aren’t writing anymore, some of us are writing for other publications, some of us are not so interested in new music at all. And that’s the beauty of it, that in these four years since Tone Glow started, I’ve witnessed people (friends!) just live out their lives, and it’s just that music happens to be a big part of them.
The list below feels right because it feels like our list, which means it is just one small snapshot of what 32 different people decided to proclaim as the best music from this year. I am fairly certain that there is a 0% chance that you have heard every single one of these albums, unless you’re the sort of person who listens to Asian idol pop, jazz, field recordings, baile funk, regional Mexican music, footwork, and rap. And it’s a great feeling that with all of these records, I can guess the people who voted for them. You’ll be able to see what every contributor voted for on our individual contributor lists—spread across two parts—alongside their reflections of the year. All of the 38 albums below received at least two votes. Thanks for reading, thanks for listening—here’s to another year. —Joshua Minsoo Kim
Tone Glow’s Favorite Albums of 2023
The below list is Tone Glow’s Favorite Albums of 2023 as determined by our contributors’ individual lists. Every album below received at least 2 votes.
Received Thirteen Votes
Chuquimamani-Condori - DJ E (self-released)
Received Eight Votes
Matana Roberts - Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the garden… (Constellation)
Received Seven Votes
Veeze - Ganger (Navy Wavy)
Received Three Votes
ML Buch - Suntub (15 Love)
DJ Danifox - Ansiedade (Príncipe)
Guido Gamboa - Left-Handed Club (Rope Editions)
Nourished by Time - Erotic Probiotic 2 (Scenic Route)
Scree - Jasmine on a Night in July (Ruination)
Received Two Votes
Ruth Anderson & Annea Lockwood - Tête-à-tête (Ergot)
babyMINT - Loading… FUN! (HIM International Music)
jaimie branch - Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)) (International Anthem)
Ken Carson - A Great Chaos (Opium / Interscope)
Club Casualties - Bridge Underwater (self-released)
DJ Arana - Rock Pesado 2 (Portuga)
dj interior semiotics - 2019-2022 (self-released)
Arnold Dreyblatt - Resolve (Drag City)
En Attendant Ana - Principia (Trouble in Mind)
Eyes of the Amaryllis - Perceptible to Everyone (Horn of Plenty)
Jarrod Fowler - Jarra Fowlea (Hibari)
Kyle Gann - Geometry (self-released)
Laurel Halo - Atlas (Awe)
Catherine Christer Hennix - Solo for Tamburium (Blank Forms Editions)
Irreversible Entanglements - Protect Your Light (Impulse!)
Junior H - $AD BOYZ 4 LIFE II (Rancho Humilde)
Sunik Kim - Potential (Otoroku)
Éric La Casa + Seijiro Murayama - Supersédure 2 (Swarming)
Lankum - False Lankum (Rough Trade)
lostrushi - SISTERHOOD (self-released)
MIKE - Burning Desire (10k)
Nondi_ - Flood City Trax (Planet Mu)
NewJeans - Get Up (ADOR)
Pasocom Music Club - Fine Line (HATIHATI)
RP Boo - Legacy Volume 2 (Planet Mu)
RXK Nephew - Till I’m Dead (self-released)
Ryuichi Sakamoto - 12 (Milan)
TisaKorean - Let Me Update My Status (Jazzzy)
Vayda - breeze (self-released)
Ὁπλίτης - Ψευδομένη (Pest Productions)
Read our Individual Lists & Reflections
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