Joy Is the Aim
The year in song/the year in music
There’s no need to pretend it hasn’t been a lousy year on earth, nevertheless accompanied by a seemingly endless stream of stellar and sustaining music—far too much to call out by name, so I’m going to cut some obvious corners and get into just twenty of the many elevating records that I heard this year, in no particular order.
Debt Rag - Lost To The Fantasy
Curiously chill noise music from Olympia, carrying a torch from the Bay Area’s Wet Drag. Like their precursor project, Debt Rag play actually convicted “adult punk” with humour and adaptive verve. There’s no conventional rock percussion—rather, some random tom-toms and a steady cowbell keep loose, “free,” time beneath a richly discordant melee of highly contingent instrumentation. This puts me in mind of the great, underrated Danny & The Parkins Sisters, but more importantly, of all the things that punk could be if everybody dropped the workmanlike copyism and played already.
The Drin - Today My Friend You Drunk the Venom
Ominous, rhythmically insistent post-punk from Cincinnati, Ohio—I detect shades of The Fall in these murky garage rock vamps and Dylan McCartney’s monologuing vocal, but The Drin possess a menace all their own. There are great songs here, but an instrumental restraint and preference for atmospherics over licks set this sextet apart from many contemporary noise rockers, who simply don’t know how to ride. This is the kind of droning diatribe best taken for a long night drive, replacing conversation.
Sunk Heaven - Off-White Colosseum
Post-industrial salvagepunk; a skeletal percussion built from the rubble of Red Hook’s historic waterfront and shrouded in new-fleshly electronics. Sunk Heaven is the solo project of artist and musician Austin Sley Julian, whose plaintive vocals thread this dystopian narrative of the present cataclysm—“a headfirst campaign to kill off the wilderness.” Coldly soulful and ardently conceptual, Off-White Colosseum is a suitably cathartic complement to several of the best live performances that I saw all year.
TJ Felix - GO AHEAD AND REAP THE FOLLY OF SINCERITY
Go Ahead … is only the most recent collection in a brilliant run by East Van artist and musician TJ Felix, which includes four albums and numerous singles from 2023 alone. This record amply demonstrates their power and range, from the hardcore surf of ‘UR LORD WON'T FORGIVE (WUT A SYRINGE MIGHT)’ to survivalist power-pop anthems like ‘A D A P T O R D I E.’ Shrilly operatic digital punk with gleaming choruses amid the dissonance: “I know every nook and cranny, I know every crooked nanny of the system.” Real.
I’d been looking forward to hearing more from Fairytale of New York since an impeccable 2021 EP, and Shooting Star exceeds my high expectations. Fairytale play swaggering d-beat thrash ala any number of Swedish classics, but with urgent, intelligible vocals and enough rhythmic variation to pique and retain the hardened ear. The production is raw and brittle, but not so as to obscure the quality of songs. Brimming with righteous intelligence and PMA; levitate to this.
Deliriant Nerve - Contaminated Conscience
Neither old school nor new school, Deliriant Nerve play evergreen grindcore, pulling from classic Earache records and the brutal parts of Brutal Truth, but concisely. There are plenty of churning riffs and subtle grooves to reward repeat listening, with just enough dissonant voicings to place this in a contemporary sequence. As is the case with every great grind record, an incredibly charismatic drummer really carries this set; check out the half-speed closed blast on ‘Festering Existence’ or the pummelling rubato of ‘Neurological Devastation.’
I used to listen to a lot of second wave black metal in high school but don’t go for much present-day fare, whether of the no-fi tape trader variety or the shoegazing nu-school. This is neither, and stunning: mountainous, neo-romantic indie metal with agonized pterosaur vocals and sheets on sheets of riffs. Will Ballantyne of City is the architect of these craggy, cathartic themes, but I’d be remiss not to mention the bravura performance by drummer Greg Fox. Blight Year is emotional black metal that actually assists in survival, rather than skulking on the outskirts of human society.
“Black music that sounds technological, rather than music made with technology.” So begins this auto-theorizing opus; wisps of musical data drifting above a fusillade of post-footwork and free jazz percussion. I’ve always been fascinated by the continuity of DeForrest Brown, Jr.’s writing and research with his output as Speaker Music, and Techxodus is a suggestive sonic essay—sublating the continental, and then planetary, nationalism of earlier texts, reading Ishmael Reed into the Drexciyan trajectory, and charting a new course for Black arts in the twenty-second century.
Non Plus Temps - Dark on Harmon
I’ve written about this already but I’d be remiss not to mention my most-played release of the year, from Oakland collective Non Plus Temps. The blatant localism is appreciated—‘Hide Away,’ a furtively whispered anthem, memorializes the home studio where the group continues to fend off eviction; while ‘Wash Cycle’ adapts the landlord’s notice as crisis poetry: “Here comes the wash cycle … I am a finance vacuum.” Conceptually expansive post-punk, coaxing the listener towards a crepuscular insurrection of everyday life.
Creation Rebel - Hostile Environment
An astonishing return to constantly re-forming form from Creation Rebel, renowned as the house band for Adrian Sherwood’s On-U Sound label. A distinctively hoarse spectre of the late Prince Far I appears on the album opener, ‘Swiftly (The Right One),’ braiding past and future in a simple melody. From the multi-rhythmic atmospherics of ‘Jubilee Clock’ to the soulful reggae of ‘Whatever It Takes,’ the trio demonstrates their known range, sounding every bit as good as in the 1980s.
Wadada Leo Smith and Orange Wave Electric - Fire Illuminations
Far and above the heaviest album of the year, Fire Illuminations isn’t only indebted to Miles circa 1970 in style and configuration, where Wadada Leo Smith leads a star-studded electric group. Like Davis’ classic fusion records, it’s also an experiment in post-production, combining multiple sessions and ensembles in a range of grooving, brooding soundscapes. Check out the free funk scorcher above, named for the famous Rumble in the Jungle, in which Smith’s multiple voices on entry are portentously delayed, piercing a thicket of mangy, textural guitars.
Tha God Fahim - The Supreme Hoarder of All Pristine Wealth
Relaxed, positive exhortations from Tha God Fahim and timeless yet nostalgic production by Camoflauge Monk of the Heartbreakers. Perhaps this isn’t even the prolific MC’s best record of 2023, noting the more ambitious and polyvalent Notorious Dump Legends Vol. 2, where Fahim visits and supports Mach-Hommy’s flitting vision. But his own steady, circumspect flow and sober braggadocio deserve a separate hearing, and this record is both representative and a cut above.
Modern Cosmology - What Will You Grow Now?
A second instalment of off-kilter tropicalia from intercontinental collaborators Laetitia Sadier and Mombojó. Sadier is droll as ever, distributing slyly suggestive agitprop across angular hooks; check out the staccato ascent of ‘Making Something’ (“and not merely consuming”). Mombojó are the perfect accompanists—supplying unrushed, subtly climactic grooves and clever instrumentation. The darkened bossa nova of the title track enraptures, while uptempo moments inescapably evoke peak Stereolab, where it’s simply impossible to have too much of that good thing.
Mira Martin-Gray - Hen’s Teeth
From ear-cleaning work for no-input mixer, released under the moniker tendencyitis, to the exquisitely produced apartment pop of Rumor Milk, Mira Martin-Gray’s musical vision is vast; check out the synthesizer treatise Different Parts of the Same Dream for yet another highlight of a busy 2023. Hen’s Teeth enlists a roster of fantastic Toronto-based musicians in a set of unclassifiable songs and scores, jazz poetry enlivened by a surprising range of micro-idiomatic gestures and textures. Come for the fantastically observed lyrics and wide melodies, stay for the whimsical group improvisation, or vice versa; this is a record of cohesive contrasts and constant delight.
Darius Jones - fLuXkit Vancouver (i̶t̶s suite but sacred)
Recorded at Vancouver’s Western Front in summer 2022, this suite by Darius Jones places the composer and saxophonist before a string quartet and drummer Gerald Cleaver, who impulsively punctuates the long unison lines of ‘Zubot,’ swings behind the jagged theme of ‘Fluxus V5T 1S1,’ and generally motivates this session. Based on a Fluxus-inspired visual score and developed over the course of a public-facing residency, this is a deep and multi-faceted collaboration grounded in site-specific research. Jones’ tone is hard and elastic at once, one of the most knowing going. Yes.
Susan Alcorn Septeto del Sur - Canto
Susan Alcorn continues to seek out global settings for her multi-voiced pedal steel on Canto, leading a Chilean ensemble in a set of nu-nueva canción, commemorating the many thousands forcibly disappeared during the Pinochet era. The title suite, composed by Alcorn, spans lilting chamber folk and clamorous improvisation; its final section named in tribute to Chilean percussionist Lukax Santana, who recorded the hushed, bustling movements of BASE NICA—another of the year’s gems—inside the former Valparaíso prison. Alcorn and company conclude with a faithful rock rendition of Victor Jara’s classic ‘El derecho de vivir en paz,’ or “the right to live in peace”—tears of hope and rage on every hearing.
Lush sound worlds constructed entirely from sampled voice and acoustic guitar. If anything, the moments of instrumental transparency—a tactual purring of strings or dislocated vocable—provide a focal point for the listener, contrasting an entrancing depth of sonic information. Some of the most fascinating moments here closely resemble ensemble playing, such as ‘Freedom in a Complex Society,’ which opens on a flurry of tabla-like percussive tones and retains a choral strata throughout. This is careful, meditative work with many foreseeable contexts, and should be better known.
Riley Urbano & Savan DePaul - Improvised Weapons
Psychedelic, liberationist rap music “from the shitty of brotherly loathe”—Improvised Weapons is the product of several years of back-and-forth between producer Riley Urbano in Seattle and MC Savan DePaul in Philadelphia, although these roles are porous. Both artists are prolific—Urbano maintains a steady stream of guitar-based power-pop, and DePaul’s mixtapes, including the science-fictional R&B of Ishtar Sr., are a deep repository of avant-pop and synthetic hip-hop. Together, one’s allusive lyrics find their complement in the other’s epicurean ear. This too really ought to have travelled further than it did, but there’s still time for discovery.
Mary Jane Dunphe - Stage of Love
Mary Jane Dunphe’s elastic alto is one of my most trusted voices, in settings ranging from hardcore rock’n’roll to wistful, electronic dream-pop. Stage of Love veers nearer to the latter path, replete with weeping synths and chordal basslines from the New Order feel-kit. Much like the indispensable CCFX EP, the best songs on this record feel densely nostalgic on first listen—evocative of bygone seasons, foolish risks, the height and depth of fresh experience tested in song. If you haven’t already, get this in time for spring.
Pocket-sized sonic vignettes, like a commuting Robert Ashley. These diaristic, voice-based compositions perfect a contemporary micro-genre of confessional field recording, though Sheshadri’s fragmented soliloquies incorporate any number of unattributed intertexts in a supple, transfixing social collage. The resulting anthology is both analytical and intimate, thick with occasions and their traces. (See also this year’s excellent collaboration with Mattin, opaque and oddly rhythmic by comparison.)
For more highlights of 2023, check out tonight’s episode of Radio State on UMFM, featuring oblique guitar music by Zimoun, Jacob Becker, Jules Reidy, Jan Matiz, and more.
There are some gems here, oh man!
Still haven’t listened to all of these but so so far TJ Felix, fairytale and Malukol.
Thanks for this!