Our Favorite Albums, 2023: Individual Contributor Lists & Reflections, Part 1
Tone Glow writers reflect on 2023 through albums, songs, and more
Each of our writers was asked to submit a list of their 10 favorite albums from this year. They also had the option to list their 10 favorite songs and to create another list of any 10 things of their choosing. Below, find reflections and individual lists from our contributors, listed in alphabetical order by last name.
Vanessa Ague
I like living in the city because most of the time, I hear so much that I can’t think. But I like drone because I so desperately want to hear music in everything. I remember being alone on the dock at 7am, and a Great Blue Heron’s wings flapping were the most beautiful sound on the Hudson. When I got up even earlier to watch the sun rise in lavender ripples above the hills, I listened to nothing but the creak of red metal chairs and a golden retriever barking in the distance. And when I walked home at 3am, the only sound was the crunch of my feet against the leaves scattered along the pavement. In the end, music is always there, waiting, finding me.
10 Favorite Albums (in Alphabetical Order by Artist)
Amor Muere - A Time to Love, A Time to Die (Scrawl)
jaimie branch - Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)) (International Anthem)
Vince Guaraldi - A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (50th Anniversary Edition) (Lee Mendelson Film Productions)
Irreversible Entanglements - Protect Your Light (Impulse!)
MIZU - Distant Intervals (NNA Tapes)
Powers/Pulice/Rolin - Prism (Cached Media)
Éliane Radigue - Naldjorlak (Saltern)
Matana Roberts - Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the garden… (Constellation)
Titanic - Vidrio (Unheard of Hope)
Kalia Vandever - We Fell In Turn (AKP Recordings)
Top 5 Concerts of 2023
Bill Orcutt Quartet (Roulette, Brooklyn, March 27)
24-Hour Drone (Basilica Hudson, Hudson NY, May 27-28)
Yellow Swans (LPR, NYC, November 16)
Loren Connors/Alan Licht/Michael Vallera (Union Pool, Brooklyn, March 19)
Ellen Fullman, Elemental View (EMPAC, Troy NY, October 24)
H.D. Angel
2023 was a pretty pathetic year for me. I've never felt more detached from my life, my feelings, my interests, or my immediate surroundings. Next year I'm going to do a better job living out my core values – and complain less. Thank you to everyone who kept me together this year.
2023 Albums
DJ Danifox - Ansiedade (Príncipe)
Veeze - Ganger (Navy Wavy)
lostrushi - SISTERHOOD (self-released)
Amaarae - Fountain Baby (Interscope)
2023 Songs
Dlala Thukzin ft. Zaba & Sykes - “iPlan” (self-released)
Junior H - “PARIS” (Warner)
KP Skywalka - “Tyfreka” (Beat the Odds)
Mnelia ft. Bellah, Miraa May & Joyce Wrice - “Genesis (Remix)” (Parlophone)
Nídia - “Playboy” (self-released)
Sexyy Red - “Hellcats SRTs” (Open Shift)
swoozydolphin - “strike (holster) (swz juke)” (self-released)
Tomu DJ ft. Petty Getty - “Bedroom DJ” (No Bias)
Tyla - “Water” (FAX)
Jamila Woods - “Send a Dove” (Jagjaguwar)
33 Songs From Before 2023
Abacus - “My Planet Rocks” (1997)
Arovane - “Theme” (2000)
Barker - “Hedonic Treadmill” (2019)
Cabaret Voltaire - “L21ST” (1985)
Charlie Rich - “Rollin’ With the Flow” (1977)
chelmico - “moderation” (2022)
Coil - “Wraiths and Strays (from Montreal)” (2004)
Crucial Conflict - “Roll Somethin” (1998)
DJ Sharaz - “Circuit Breaker” (2001)
Fun Boy Three - “The Lunatics Have Taken Over the Asylum”(1982)
Gaelle - “Repetition” (2004)
Keith Hudson - “Talk Some Sense” (1975)
Hula - “Ghost Rattle” (1984)
ICYTWAT - “Final Boss Music” (2022)
Joi - “17 Inches of Snow” (2001)
Velly Joonas - “Stopp, Seisku Aeg!” (1980)
Lil Poppa ft. Toosii - “AM Flights” (2021)
Max B - “Why You Do That” (2007)
Paddy McAloon - “I’m 49” (2003)
Sarah McLachlan - “Elsewhere” (1993)
Mereba - “Black Truck (extended version)” (2018)
Meshell Ndegeocello - “Grace” (1999)
Lin Que - “Let it Fall” (1995)
Ikue Mori - “Birthdays” (2000)
Ahmed Mounib - “El Donia Bard” (1996)
Otyken - “Genesis” (2021)
Linda Perhacs - “Sandy Toes” (1970)
Pi’erre Bourne - “DJ In the Car” (2022)
quannnic - “thin” (2022)
Patti Rothberg - “Treat me Like Dirt” (1996)
Sd Laika - “Great God Pan” (2014)
Mark Stewart - “Hypnotised (Unique New York 12” Remix)” (1985)
Teengirl Fantasy ft. Laurel Halo - “Mist of Time” (2012)
María Barrios
In 2023, I changed jobs, moved cities, and kept writing and making music with my friends. I hesitate to say it was a “wonderful” or “big” year for me—quantifying life events and experiences seems unnecessary, at least to me. I let my intuition guide me for a while; I left when I had to leave, approached new people when I felt it was the right time, and went for long walks around Philadelphia, where I now live, until the streets felt familiar. I reflected on the past and the future and decided to let it go, the present is much more interesting: full of perfumes, friendships, new and old music, art to see, cities to uncover.
Performing live in DC with my band was an absolute gift… We are recording in February of 2024 and if the record sounds anything like our live show at a Salvadorian restaurant in Mt. Pleasant, I will be very happy. The pain, hardship, and destruction worldwide do not escape me; many of my deepest conversations with friends and collaborators this year revolved around how to contribute, help out when needed, and still try to make the world a better place. I think we can, I really do. If that could be my only message, away from my personal rambling, so be it. That’s my wish for 2024, that’s my wish always.
Favorite Albums, Unranked
(does everyone realize how many incredible records came out in 2024? There are way more than just 10. Keep your ears open and excellent music will surely find you)
Ruth Anderson & Annea Lockwood - Tête-à-tête (Ergot)
The first time I listened to this one I was in bed and felt a profound sense of peace. I also interviewed Annea Lockwood, it was one of my favorite conversations this year.
Nourished by Time - Erotic Probiotic 2 (Scenic Route)
Anything recorded in a basement in Baltimore will immediately have my support and attention. Needs to be played immediately on WHUR 96.3.
L’Rain - I Killed Your Dog (Mexican Summer)
I’m gonna leave a quote from the artist here: “Sometimes when people talk about experimental music, it’s like it’s untouchable,” she says. “I wanted to do something that was the exact opposite of that.”
Ary Lobo - 1958-1966 (Limited Dance Edition No.19) (Analog Africa)
Beautiful compilation of music sung by a Brazilian master of Baião, Côco, and Batuque.
Kali Uchis - Red Moon in Venus (Geffen)
Women and girls rejoice.
Ibrahim Hesnawi - The Father of Lybian Reggae (Habibi Funk)
Focusing on a message of humanism and peace, Hesnawi brought reggae to the youth of Lybia. On repeat.
Lori Vambe - Space-Time Dreamtime: The Fourth Dimensional Music of Lori Vambe (Strut)
Ancient boogie.
Various Artists - Sonhos Secretos (Org Music)
Rare and unreleased private press singles from the last days of the military junta. I wrote a feature for it that got lost and forgotten on the Bandcamp-Songtradr sale. Unfortunate.
En Attendant Ana - Principia (Trouble in Mind)
The wild card on this list.
Hiroshi Yoshimura - Surround (Light In The Attic)
Pioneering ambient music from the year I was born.
Five Things I Loved This Year
“Gates Of Hell” Ramen from Hiro Ramen
This record I bought today
Drinking cocktails with vermouth
Tortoise at Union Transfer last November
Irreversible Entanglements with Marshall Allen at Solar Myth
Billdifferen
While Ryan Preece flipping a bajillion times at Daytona perfectly describes my tumultuous 2023 (To be real, I just wanted music nerds to see a NASCAR flip a bunch on here as a nice palate cleanser), joining the Tone Glow squad and getting to know these folks have been the saving graces of my year. Not even two years ago, I was mentioned here as a joke (“that one person that has compiled a top-100 of the most obscure Jersey Club SoundCloud bootlegs”) and here I am standing with some of the best music minds in the game. Feeling out of place here is an understatement to me, but the way everyone has been so inviting and helpful seriously made me both a better writer plus a better music enjoyer in general. Much love to everyone on here. Just going to eurostep-behind-the-back-layup this whole year in the trash though, so here’s to 2024!
Top 10 Albums from 2023
Chuquimamani-Condori - DJ E (self-released)
Veeze - Ganger (Navy Wavy)
DJ WS da Igrejinha - Caça Fantasma, Vol. 1 (Dalama)
Club Casualties - Bridge Underwater (self-released)
qua x HaZe x SteezTheProducer - TRIO TAPE (self-released)
DJ Danifox - Ansiedade (Príncipe)
RP Boo - Legacy Volume 2 (Planet Mu)
Hayden Pedigo - The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored (Mexican Summer)
DJ Arana - Rock Pesado 2 (Portuga)
TisaKorean - Let Me Update My Status (Jazzzy)
Top 10 Mg Burto Songs from his 2023 Jersey Club MVP Campaign (Actual Song List is Here)
Mg Burto x FńeTheProducer - “ULTRAKILL”
Mg Burto x qua - “Max B”
Mg Burto - “Jurassic Park Battle Track”
Mg Burto x FńeTheProducer - “FireWork Battle”
Mg Burto - “Shots Gon Off In The Universe”
Mg Burto - “Ahh Choo Battle Track”
Mg Burto x Feltic - “LawnMower Battle Track”
Mg Burto x raverobber - “2099”
Mg Burto - “Mater”
Mg Burto - “Picked The Wrong House Fool Pt 2”
Top 10 Best Races That I’ve Seen Throughout 2023 Across all Motorsport
PPG 375 at Texas Motor Speedway - 4/2/23 (IndyCar)
Chicago Street Race at Grant Park - 7/2/23 (NASCAR Cup Series)
2023 24 Hours of Le Mans - 6/10/23 (World Endurance Championship)
107th Indy 500 - 5/28/23 (IndyCar)
The Last 30 Minutes of the 12 Hours of Sebring - 3/18/23 (IMSA)
Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway - 8/29/23 (NASCAR Cup Series)
2023 Thailand Grand Prix - 10/29/23 (MotoGP)
Grand Prix of St. Petersburg - 3/5/23 (IndyCar)
ADAC TotalEnergies 24 Hours of Nürburgring - 5/21/23 (Endurance Racing)
2023 Singapore Grand Prix - 9/17/23 (Formula 1)
Matthew Blackwell
The biggest writing project I began this year was the new Best Field Recordings column at Bandcamp. When I started it, I knew that I would learn a lot about field recording, but I didn’t anticipate just how much other information I would uncover. Here’s a partial list of the topics that I researched for the column: the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, the draining of the lowland fens of East Anglia, the Cihara’ay community of Taiwan, the kecak dance of Bali, the eruption of the Fagradalsfjall volcano in Iceland, the nixi pae ritual of the Huni Kuin people of Brazil, the 17th-century English socialist activists the Diggers, the zompopa leafcutter ants of Costa Rica, the Kathmandu Fun Park in Nepal, the architecture of the Therme Vals spa in the Swiss Alps, the Köppen climate classification system, the Kentucky State Fair, the lone wolf called GW954f in Germany’s Ruhr Valley, the UK Meteorological Office’s system for naming storms, the influence of Dutch water management on Japanese wetlands, and the use of music in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.
When I listened to more traditional music—recorded in a studio with instruments—I found my interest split between ultra-sparse minimalism and big, colorful maximalism. Arnold Dreyblatt’s harmonically resonant bass; Erik Hall’s dizzying piano; and Conrad, Dreyblatt, and Roberts’ gently buzzing feedback alternated with Irreversible Entanglements’ urgently political jazz and Les Rallizes Dénudés’ deafening guitars. Other albums somehow combined both approaches, like goat (JP)’s hypertechnical jazz-rock, delicate but powerful like the inner workings of some giant clock. There are many, many more albums that deserve mention here—I’m tempted to cheat and add an extra one here, like Martyna Basta’s gorgeous album, but I won’t. Instead, here are my top 10 albums and top 10 archival releases, in alphabetical order:
Top 10 Albums
Bounaly - Dimanche à Bamako (Sahel Sounds)
Sophie Cooper - Lean In/Intact (OtoRoku)
Arnold Dreyblatt - Resolve (Drag City)
goat (JP) - Joy In Fear (Nakid)
Erik Hall - Canto Ostinato (Western Vinyl)
Holy Tongue - Deliverance and Spiritual Warfare (Amidah)
Irreversible Entanglements - Protect Your Light (Impulse!)
Mandy, IN - i’ve seen a way (Fire Talk)
Pangaea - Changing Channels (Hessle Audio)
Matana Roberts - Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the garden… (Constellation)
Top 10 Archival Releases
Tony Conrad / Arnold Dreyblatt / Jim O’Rourke - Tonic 19-01-2001 (Black Truffle)
Charles Curtis / Alan Licht / Dean Roberts - May 99 (Blank Forms)
John Fahey - Proofs & Refutations (Drag City)
Peter Gutteridge - Pure (Superior Viaduct)
Les Rallizes Dénudés - CITTA ‘93 (Temporal Drift)
Annea Lockwood / Ruth Anderson - Tête-à-tête (Ergot)
Arthur Russell - Picture of Bunny Rabbit (Audika)
Various Artists - The Complete Obscure Records Collection (Dialogo)
Various Artists - The NID Tapes: Electronic Music from India 1969-1972 (The state51 Conspiracy)
Various Artists - Playing for the Man at the Door: Field Recordings from the Collection of Mack McCormick 1958-71 (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings)
Corrigan Blanchfield
This song is so true for us old school truckers. This generation has no idea about west coast turns and back row parties and chasing the black dog down the highway. Those days are gone forever
—@kevindrobot389, 8 months ago
Top 10 Albums
Brent Faiyaz - Larger Than Life (ISO Supremacy)
Chuquimamani-Condori - DJ E (self-released)
Club Casualties - Bridge Underwater (self-released)
Corinne Bailey Rae - Black Rainbows (Thirty Tigers)
DJ Danifox - Ansiedade (Príncipe)
Freak Heat Waves - Mondo Tempo (Mood Hut)
KP Skywalka - Rhythm N Bip (self-released)
Nourished by Time - Erotic Probiotic 2 (Scenic Route)
Veeze - Ganger (Navy Wavy)
yanaa - Dreamscape (self-released)
Top 10 Songs
Baby Keem & Kendrick Lamar - “The Hillbillies” (pgLang)
Curren$y & Jermaine Dupri - “ESSENCE FEST” (Jet Life)
HiTech - “TEETEES DISPO (ft. Sprng4evr)” (FXHE)
Lil Yachty - “Strike” (Quality Control)
Liv.e - “NoNewNews!!! (Ben Hixon Remix)” (In Real Life)
maffalda 2023 - “essa track nao faz sentido nenhum eh apenas uma ***vibe***”
MIKE - “African Sex Freak Fantasy” (10k)
NewJeans - “Super Shy” (ADOR)
Rylo Rodriguez - “Taylor Port Junkie” (Glass Window Entertainment)
Sexyy Red - “Hellcats SRTs” (Open Shift)
Top 10 Ailments of My 30th Year
Sprained ankle
Big toe hurt like shit for a month ???
Slipped disc
Calf strain
Food poisoning
Bruised ego
Shoulder impingement
Slipped disc deluxe: two-disc special edition
Built different disorder (acute)
Shin splints
Daniel Bromfield
I’ve been gradually working my way back into pop this year after mostly gravitating towards instrumental music during COVID, and I’ve begun to realize that a lot of my reticence towards anything with melodies or lyrics in the last few years has to do with my desire to maintain a neutral emotional state and not “feel” anything. Thus it feels like a breakthrough how much I loved the new album by Anohni, who I’ve been listening to for half my life and who pulls out every tool at her disposal to wound the listener on her first Johnsons record in 13 years. But if that’s the best album of the year, my favorite is ML Buch’s Suntub, which captures the beauty and mystery of the early Internet era better than any other record I’ve heard—I feel like I’ve been waiting for it since I was seven years old.
Top 10 Albums
ML Buch - Suntub (15 Love)
ANOHNI and the Johnsons - My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross (Secretly Canadian)
Lana Del Rey - Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd. (Interscope/Polydor)
Ryuichi Sakamoto - 12 (Milan)
Call Super - Eulo Cramps (Can You Feel the Sun)
Chuquimamani-Condori - DJ E (self-released)
Kurt Vile - Back to Moon Beach (Verve)
Steve Gunn/David Moore - Let the Moon Be a Planet (Rvng Intl.)
Animal Collective - Isn’t It Now? (Domino)
Scree - Jasmine on a Night in July (Ruination)
Top 5 Songs
Anohni & the Johnsons - “It Must Change” (Secretly Canadian)
Lost Girls - “Timed Intervals” (Smalltown Supersound)
Rob Grant - “Lost at Sea” (Decca)
ML Buch - “Flames Shards Goo” (15 Love)
Paul St. Hilaire - “Bedroom in My Bag” (Kynant)
Discoveries & New Additions to My Rotation
Sun Kil Moon - “Duk Koo Kim” / “Lost Verses” (Caldo Verde)
Charlemagne Palestine - Four Meditations on Six Elements (Sonnabend Gallery)
Mickey Newbury - Looks Like Rain (Mercury)
Daniel Lanois - “Jolie Louise” (Opal/Warner Bros.)
Jason Urick - The Day (Oma333)
Dominic Coles
Experimental music is an imaginary. At this conjecture, it is the result of our collective fantasies, delusions, and narratives about a particular historical moment – about the “post-Cagean adventure that never was.”[1] This moment and the explosion of work that followed it have crystallized and hardened in our imaginary, having been reified into musical convention. The issue is not the music’s imaginary aspect though – there is nothing wrong with fantasy. This aspect only becomes problematic when we recognize the contradictions between the claims made and enforced by this music – its participants – and the realities of the work that we encounter.
How are we to understand a music that claims to be oriented towards transformation, that purports to hold a strictly anti-authortarian position, yet which seeks to discipline the listener at every sounding, attempting to influence them into reproducing a specific, naturalized form of audition? This manifests as a pervasive symptom: an illusion of stability, of unmediated impact that characterizes the conversation around listening in this “experimental” music[2]. It is one that flattens all social distinctions that exist in our sensing and seeks to make universal a set of constricted expectations for how we encounter sound. How can an artwork even exist under these conditions?
This year has made me think that maybe: a music is only as experimental as our reception of it. Given this music’s imaginary aspect, perhaps what we really mean by experimental music is experimental reception? In this way the music becomes a kind of catalyst, a test-tone with which we can begin actively probing our relation to sound. We might then ask: where do these listening tests lead us, to what and to whom do they connect us, what behaviors and beliefs do they allow or suggest at any given time, who do they allow us to be, to become? These could be preliminary questions towards something like an ethics of reception and one place those of us interested in the continuation of some form of earnest experimentalism can turn our ears.
[1] http://www.tutorialdiversions.org/Documents/MA%20BD.pdf
[2] This is captured by the musicians who speak of: immediacy, pure affect, sounds that just hit you, perfectly placed sounds, etc.
10 Favorite Albums
Catherine Christer Hennix - Solo for Tamburium (Blank Forms Editions)
Chuquimamani-Condori - DJ E (self-released)
Éric La Casa + Seijiro Murayama - Supersédure 2 (Swarming)
Greg Kelley - Threnody to the Limits of Musical Expression (self-released)
Kieran Daly - Experimental Music and The File Drawer Problem & Monophonic Forms of Glissandi and Tempo Modulation (Madacy Jazz)
Matana Roberts - Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the garden… (Constellation)
Michelle Lou - HoneyDripper (Carrier)
Milford Graves, Arthur Doyle, Hugh Glover - Children of the Forest (Black Editions Archive)
Noah Ophoven-Baldwin - 0 Oktas (All Sky)
Seymour Wright - RITES (Seymour Wright alto-saxophone solos 2003-2023) (self-released)
Mark Cutler
The blurb is required and so it begins like this: I lost my apartment in a building fire almost exactly through the calendar year—June 30th. The apartment itself didn’t burn very much—the fire sparked on the ground floor and shot straight up through the interior walls—but the entire building was declared uninhabitable in perpetuity.
In almost every other respect, my partner, dog and I have been exceptionally lucky. We were all unharmed, and only lost about a quarter of our stuff. Our family and friends came together immediately to help us find accommodation and replace destroyed furniture and clothing, and without them, I genuinely don’t know what we would have done. Since the fire, we have both experienced some major career successes, and are going into the next year genuinely optimistic about the future.
Nevertheless, it is impossible for me to think or talk about this year without stopping on the event which cleaves it almost through the middle. The event itself is like a black hole; things on either side of it—both before and after—feel distended, outsized. Eight hours before the fire, I was in FiDi, and I remember seeing a short staircase and some park benches, plopped an enormous and treeless concrete plaza. The sight occupies more time and space in my mind than do whole weeks that passed in November or March.
I spent a lot of 2022 working on a three-part piece for recording device, based on the neighborhood where I lived and, in the third part, specifically on the view from my bedside window. It was an ode to what then felt like an imperturbable space which we’d managed to carve for ourselves. I haven’t abandoned the piece, but it remains unfinished. Whatever I do with it now, the piece will already be different, because it will be—already is—about the past.
Garlic, rosemary, onion, basil, paprika, turmeric, celery, carrot, potato, flour, egg, tomato, broccoli, turnip, leek, squash, lemon, vanilla, oat, cream, almond, walnut, raspberry, pumpkin, eggplant, peppercorn, cucumber, labneh, Brussels sprout, rice, cinnamon, clove, apple, cauliflower, peanut, green bean, caramel, vinegar, kale.
10 Favorite Albums
Félicia Atkinson - Ni Envers Ni Endroit Que Cette Roche Brûlante (Pour Georgia O’Keeffe) (Portraits GRM)
Anne-F Jacques & Gudinni Cortina / Li Weisi - 屋顶 azotea / 我与房间 me with room (Zoomin’ Night)
Kyle Gann - Geometry (self-released)
Joseph Hammer, Joe Potts & John Wiese - The Elusive Flexure (Helicopter)
Steve Lehman & Orchestre National de Jazz - Ex Machina (Pi Recodings)
RXK Nephew – Till I’m Dead (self-released)
Kaija Saariaho performed by Helsinki Chamber Choir - Reconnaissance (BIS)
Speaker Music - Techxodus [Planet Mu)
Sunik Kim - Potential (OTOROKU)
Various Artists - ꆀꃅꆈꌠꉙꇁꑵꃚ ꂱꆹꊨꌠ：ꉼꉹ 涼山彝族音樂 第一輯：口弦 Nuosu Music from Liangshan Vol. 1: Mouth Harp (WV Sorcerer Productions 巫唱片)
Hannah Edgar
My sophomore year of college, my German teacher called me into his office for a check-in. It was actually an intervention: I’d missed close to a third of my assignments that quarter. Personal problems weren’t the culprit. The truth was lamer: We had so many tiny assignments to complete each week, rather than a few big ones, that I’d simply forgotten some of them existed.
Alas, I couldn’t convey all that in horse-shit German. I settled on: “Uhhh. Zu viele Dinge, zu erinnern.” Too many things to remember.
I think about that interaction whenever year-end season rolls around. It approximates what full-time freelance writing has felt like these past two years, at least for me. It’s a dream. It’s a nightmare. It’s a sitcom with a new plot each episode, and it’s always on the brink of cancellation. Nothing about it suits me: the uncertainty, the quick hits, the onto-the-next-thing-ism, the plunge into a topic only to get ganked back up like a fucking bungee jumper because whatever-this-is pays $200 and I need another $500 to crack rent. Music, people, stories deserve to be lived in. I’m lucky, most times, if I make it past the welcome mat.
Call it sedentary, parochial, or just plain lazy (you wouldn’t be wrong about any of those), but maybe that’s why I focus nearly all of my listening—and this list—on artists based in Chicago, where I live. I like homes. Four walls and a foundation I’ll never see. The cats making peace and breaking it. The rumble of my neighbor snoring downstairs. The nonsense greetings my partner and I chirp to one another when one of us walks through the front door.
A few things I can say for sure happened in 2023: Some of my favorite journalists got laid off. I worked through Shabbat and shouldn’t have. At its start, I gabbed at parties about my unifying theory of the Millennial/Gen Z divide: Do you, or do you not, remember 9/11? By its end, having barely grieved the Oct. 7 attacks before waking up daily to devastation in Gaza, I decided the question wasn’t worth posing if so many forgot—or didn’t care—what had happened next. A musician with limited time chose to spend some of it with me, for reasons I may never fully understand. I got engaged to my best friend.
2023 was all those, plus some other happy-ish stuff I’m probably forgetting right now. You know. Zu viele Dinge.
Favorite Albums, Ordered by Release Date
Spektral Quartet and Julia Holter - Behind the Wallpaper (New Amsterdam)
Lia Kohl - The Ceiling Reposes (American Dreams)
Arooj Aftab, Shahzad Ismaily, Vijay Iyer - Love in Exile (Verve)
Damon Locks & Rob Mazurek - New Future City Radio (International Anthem)
Mad Myth Science - self-titled (Infrequent Seams)
Matana Roberts - Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the garden… (Constellation)
Hearsay - Glossolalia (Amalgam)
Sen Morimoto - Diagnosis (City Slang/Sooper)
Nicole Rampersaud - Saudade (Ansible)
Hieroglyphic Being & Jurek Maczynski (Universal Frequencies and Harmonies) - TUNE IN (yeyeh • ninih)
Songs and Compositions, Heavily Rotated
Freefucked, Ted Hearne, performed by Seth Parker Woods, from Difficult Grace (Cedille)
“Flesh and Bone,” Edith Judith, from Bones and Structure (Ruination)
“The Mountain,” jaimie branch and Jason Ajemian, from Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)) (International Anthem)
“8.11,” Joseph Branciforte and Theo Bleckmann, from LP2 (greyfade)
I Tell You Me, Annika Socolofsky, performed by ~Nois Saxophone Quartet, from album of the same title (Carrier)
“why does the earth give us people to love?”, Kara Jackson, from album of the same title (September)
“Again?”, PawPaw Rod, This Must Be a PawPaw Rod EP (GODMODE)
“Cope,” Debo Ray (self-released single)
Non-2023 releases, “ ”
Charles Uzor - Mothertongue, 2021 (NEOS)
Thee Sacred Souls - Thee Sacred Souls, 2022 (Penrose/Daptone)
Rami Atassi and Tatsu Aoki - Atashi Wa Rami, 2020 (Asian Improv)
anything I could find by Jacqueline George
You Had to Be There
The haunting music theater of Missy Mazzoli’s Millennium Canticles, performed by Third Coast Percussion
Peter Brötzmann’s eloquent and unflinching memorial concerts at Constellation
The perplexed silence after a dawdling Gerald Barry premiere at the BBC Proms, shattered by a cry of “That was rubbish!”
Alex Fields
Since giving up my own aspirations as a musician in my early 20s, I’ve felt a hole in my life where creative work should be, and this was the year I finally did something about it. I started writing on film regularly, actively expanded my musical interests after a few years of more passive listening, made new friends in this community, and in general thought extensively about my relationship to art.
All of that has been very rewarding, but after years of devoting most of my time to political organizing, I feel pretty conflicted about having shifted my attention to art at a time when my country’s government is arming and providing political cover for a genocide. I don’t believe that art and justice are actually separate or separable, or that my own life would feel worth living without art, but I also don’t think that writing about experimental film is going to substantially help free Palestine or slow capitalism’s devastation of the planet and its people. I hope to find a better balance for how I use my time and resources in 2024.
Favorite Albums of 2023
Lankum - False Lankum (Rough Trade)
John Francis Flynn - Look Over the Wall, See the Sky (River Lea)
Chuquimamani-Condori - DJ E (self-released)
Brìghde Chaimbeul - Carry Them With Us (Glitterbeat)
Laurel Halo - Atlas (Awe)
Matana Roberts - Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the garden… (Constellation)
Water Damage - 2 Songs (12XU)
Ahl Nana - L’Orchestre National Mauritanien (Radio Martiko)
Myst - Apere Oredxer (Ored)
Wednesday - Rat Saw God (Dead Oceans)
Favorite Films of 2023
May December (Todd Haynes)
Earth in the Mouth (Ewelina Rosinska)
ALLENSWORTH (James Benning)
EVENTIDE (Sharon Lockhart)
Laberint Sequences (Blake Williams)
Here (Bas Devos)
Our Body (Claire Simon)
Mechanisms Common to Disparate Phenomena: #59 (Joost Rekveld)
Fallen Leaves (Aki Kaurismaki)
Solmatalua (Rodrigo Ribeiro-Andrade)
Sam Goldner
In 2023 I got married and camped in the desert and went to Mexico City and took a boat to the Channel Islands and met a bunch of my friends at Pitchfork Fest and road tripped through New England and Death Valley and Nevada and wrote more than I meant to and now my brain is fried and I can’t think of anything else to write, sorry Josh!!
Favorite Albums of 2023
TisaKorean - Let Me Update My Status (Jazzzy)
Vayda - breeze (self-released)
Veeze - Ganger (Navy Wavy)
FOANS - Selected Classics (100% Silk)
Leo Takami - Next Door (Unseen Worlds)
Anti-God Hand - Blight Year (American Dreams)
HiTech - DÉTWAT (FXHE)
Nourished by Time - Erotic Probiotic 2 (Scenic Route)
Lauren Auder - The Infinite Spine (True Panther)
Nondi_ - Flood City Trax (Planet Mu)
Favorite First Watches of 2023
Whisper of the Heart (dir. Yoshifumi Kondo, 1995)
Emergence Collapse (dir. Rainer Kohlberger, 2021)
The Last Picture Show (dir. Peter Bogdanovich, 1971)
Andrei Rublev (dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966)
Old Joy (dir. Kelly Reichardt, 2006)
Grim (dir. Takashi Ito, 1985)
The Killing (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1956)
Paper Moon (dir. Peter Bogdanovich, 1973)
Catalog (dir. John Whitney Sr., 1961)
Cityscape (dir. Michael Snow, 2019)
Marshall Gu
There was not a lot of music that I liked from this year, and I barely read a thing this year, and I think the only movie I saw in a theater was Ant-Man: Quantumania, which was probably the worst movie I have ever seen. So it was a rough year for art for me. But I enjoyed this year more than any other year since well before the pandemic. I got to (fake) officiate my sister’s wedding after watching her get legally married. I planned my best friend’s bachelor party, and watched him get married. I published a book, and held a physical copy in my distressingly dainty hands. I went to Mexico for the first time, and tasted the sun, ocean, tequila, mezcal, and factory-made guacamole (our resort sucked for food). I went to Prince Edward Island for the second time, and drank more clam chowder than my lactose intolerant body knew what to do with. I went to New York City for the second time. I drank cocktails at three of the best cocktail bars in North America, kissed my girlfriend lots, and kissed my dog even more than that. I endured no shattered hearts and drank lots of coffee. People pay good money for this kind of luxurious peace.
Favorite Songs
Oneohtrix Point Never - “On An Axis” (Warp)
Steve Lehman & Orchestre National de Jazz - “Los Angeles Imaginary” (Pi)
Yo La Tengo - “Aselestine” (Matador)
Jpegmafia & Danny Brown - “Fentanyl Tester” (AWAL)
Sufjan Stevens - “Goodbye Evergreen” (Asthmatic Kitty)
Big Thief - “Vampire Empire” (4AD)
Killer Mike - “Scientists & Engineers” (Loma Vista)
Aesop Rock - “By The River” (Rhymesayers)
Yves Tumor - “Operator” (Warp)
DJ Koze - “Wespennest” (Pampa)
Michael Hong
It’s been five years since my mom died. This is kind of a fucked-up place to start a year-end reflection, but let’s go from there. Grieving, and well, general restlessness and confusion, have defined the past few years, for me, probably for you, and everything’s a welcome distraction: music, TV, even grad school. Every piece of noise to fill the space. Every blur to block the thoughts. But at some point, you start lending purpose to these things—that’s the hard part, isn’t it? Finding the meaning of it? Writing about Chinese music has been a way of reconnecting with culture and a means of connecting with others, something that’s unsurprisingly deepened over time as I’ve written more and more. I’ve found myself listening to music out of curiosity, watching TV with actual interest, and the grad school thing is done and over with (thank god), so we don’t have to talk about that anymore. A lot of my favourite art has understood that grief is endless. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t feel it, but that you shouldn’t have to feel it all the damn time. I’ve been making the effort to let what fills my head actually mean something. Endless lists as a means of contextualizing scenes. Driving to the top of a mountain north of Vancouver with Faye Wong playing the background, excitedly rattling on about her. But the noise doesn’t always have to be there. Some mornings, I listen to the silence before reaching for an album.
Ten Albums
babyMINT - Loading… FUN! (HIM International Music)
Blush - Supercrush (No Sleep)
Homecomings - New Neighbors (Pony Canyon)
JUNGWOO - Cloud Cuckoo Land (Poclanos)
María José Llergo - ULTRABELLEZA (Sony Music Entertainment España)
Mom - Kanashī Dekigoto -The Overkill- (ClubDetox)
NewJeans - Get Up (ADOR)
Pasocom Music Club - Fine Line (HATIHATI)
Yang Naiwen - Flow (AsiaMuse Entertainment)
Yokkorio - Moirai Kiss (self-released)
Ten More Songs
drogas - “蝴蝶” (CyberMade)
Enno Cheng - “us” (FIRE ON MUSIC)
Lana Del Rey - “Kintsugi” (Polydor / Interscope)
Leah Dou - “Monday (feat. Lionman)” (Grey Waters)
LUSS - “Lonely (Extrovert?)” (Wayfer)
mui zyu - “Sore Bear” (Father/Daughter)
ONEW - “O (Circle)” (SM Entertainment)
PAS TASTA & Soushi Sakiyama - “River Relief” (self-released)
Tainy, Rauw Alejandro & Skrillex - “VOLVER (feat. Four Tet)” (NEON16)
2pillz - hoàng hôn (feat. tlinh)” (Warner Music Vietnam)
Ten Shows
A Place Further than the Universe (Japan, 2018)
Hunter x Hunter (Japan, 2011-2014)
Link Click (China, 2021-2023)
Nothing but You (China, 2023)
One Dollar Lawyer (South Korea, 2022)
Oh No! Here Comes Trouble (Taiwan, 2023)
Run for Young (China, 2020)
Skip and Loafer (Japan, 2023)
The Bear (USA, 2022-2023)
The Glory (South Korea, 2022-2023)
Vincent Jenewein
The end of 2023 also marks the first year of my personal Subsatck Infinite Speeds. Doing extensive quarterly new music roundups for it has been an interesting and rewarding experience that has changed my relationship to new music. While consistently digging and evaluating new records, it really felt like this year, a new generation of electronic music producers has come into its own, bringing plenty of new ideas and takes to the table.
10 Favorite Albums
Maara - The Ancient Truth (Step Ball Chain)
Catherine Christer Hennix - Solo for Tamburium (Blank Forms Editions)
Nueen - Link (3XL)
Sunik Kim - Potential (OTOROKU)
Jo Johnson - The Wave Ahead (Mysteries Of The Deep)
Hoavi - Phases (Gost Zvuk)
Shackleton & Wacław Zimpel - In The Cell of Dreams (7K!)
Purelink - Signs (Peak Oil)
Marta de Pascalis - Sky Flesh (Light-Years)
Various - The NID Tapes (The State51 Conspiracy)
Colin Joyce
In February, I got broken up with and since then I’ve gone to the gym 230 times and watched almost 400 movies. I haven’t really had time to do much else, but there was some good music too I think. I hope that next year I can finally learn how to do a backflip.
Top 10 Albums
Julie Byrne - The Greater Wings (Ghostly)
ML Buch - Suntub (15 Love)
Mark William Lewis - Living (self-released)
Scree - Jasmine on a Night in July (Ruination)
Austere - Corrosion of Hearts (Lupus Lounge)
Eterna - Wardrove (self-released)
Rezzett - Meant Like This (The Trilogy Tapes)
Jonny Nash - Point of Entry (Melody As Truth)
Ken Carson - A Great Chaos (Opium / Interscope)
a.s.o. - a.s.o. (Low Lying)
Top 10 Songs
Nettspend - “2024 Freestyle” (self-released)
Colleen Ballinger - “hi.” (self-released)
phreshboyswag - “hottie” (self-released)
NewJeans - “Super Shy” (ADOR)
Sexyy Red - “Skeeyee” (Open Shift/Gamma)
Skrillex and Bladee - “Real Spring” (OWSLA/Atlantic)
Ichiko Aoba - “meringue doll” (hermine)
Proc Fiskal - “Job Centre Cataclysm” (Hyperdub)
Dean Blunt - “Rinsed” (WORLD MUSIC)
Tohji - “Aglio e olio” (self-released)
Top 5 Older Noise Rock Albums I Heard for the First Time in the Gym in 2023
Zeni Geva - Desire for Agony (Alternative Tentacles, 1993)
Kittens - Tiger Comet (Sonic Unyon, 1995)
Unsane - Blood Run (Relapse, 2005)
Breach - It’s Me God (Burning Heart, 1997)
Buñuel - A Resting Place for Strangers (Tannen / La Tempesta International, 2016)