My Favourite Albums of 2023 — The Top 25
Another year come and gone, this one was a GREAT one for music. Without too much pomp and circumstance then, here are my Favourite 25 Albums of 2023.
25 — Jane Remover — Census Designated
Jane Remover caught my ear with 2021’s Frailty. Census Designated continues to make her an exciting creative force to follow and feels like a warm depressive weighted blanket washed with shoegaze and a hint of noise. It became a comfort listen for me as winter approached this year. “Backseat Girl” and the two-song pairing of “Video” and “Contingency Song” at the end of the album are some of my favourite moments.
24 — Matana Roberts — Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the garden…
In 2011 Matana Roberts released Coin Coin Chapter One and for me it set a new bar for modern Jazz. Chapter Five blends more spoken word passages, poetry, old gospel and folk tunes, and diary readings into a collage in order to continue exploring family history, trauma, legacy, and liberation. This chapter focuses more on the extra expectations placed on women and pushing against those social constraints, making for some very powerful and challenging stories as the refrain “my name is your name, our name is their name, we are named, we remember, they forget” returns and returns as the story unfolds. Powerful art.
Well, they didn’t know I was electric, alive, spirited, fired and free
My spirit overshadowing, my dreams too bombastic
My eyes too sparkling, my laughter too true
“Ubneknowst” and “How Prophetic” are stand outs.
23 — Paramore — This Is Why
Paramore continues to be maybe the most successful and creative band to make it out of the 00’s pop-punk/emo age and into the modern world. Six years after they released the excellent After Laughter, they return with a slightly darker take on that funky and shiny punk. Hayley Williams’ voice continues to be the star of the show but the rest of the band are in full force as well. The first three tracks, “This Is Why”, “The News”, and “Running Out Of Time” showcase the variety the band is capable of while still maintaining high energy bops. It also showcases the existential ennui the lyrics hide behind the strong hooks and choruses.
22 — Noname — Sundial
Honestly, this album probably should be higher and deserved more of my time than it got. The lush jazzy beats, the inCREDible lyricism, the way songs flow into each other. There are so many layers here. But it’s the track “namesake” that immediately put this in my fav albums of the year list after one listen. In it she calls out hip hop culture and it’s double standard of fighting systemic oppression while also embracing the system once someone becomes successful. Not only are the bars FIRE, but she calls out the biggest artists who have performed at the Super Bowl while airforce planes fly over head — Rhianna, Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé. But it’s not just a call out coz it ends by calling herself out for moments where she’s compromised her morals for a bigger stage and audience. It’s a powerful moment and rivals the kind of artistic highs that Kendrick has reached. Underrated isn’t a strong enough word for Noname.
They got the devil hiding in plain sight
That’s you, that’s me, the whole world is culpable
Why complacency float the boat the most?
I don’t really get it, y’all ain’t really with itAll that eat the rich, tax the rich, y’all ain’t really about that shit
Bitch, if you want some money, you can say that
21 — Alice Longyu Gao — Let’s Hope the Heteros Fail, Learn, and Retire
Honestly this one is just 20 minutes of batshit (but incredible) production and incisively satirical lyrics. Just the intro goes from a music box lullaby to a semi industrial banger in under four minutes. It’s like if Poppy at her best combined with 100 Gecs — but wasn’t scared to explore deeper parts of the psyche while maintaining the silly exterior.
I screamed, I woke up
I’m covered with cold sweat
That guy! Yes, that heterosexual guy!
His hands were on my thighs
We were in a shitty club
Surrounded by a sea of his hetero friends!
The whole thing is a fever dream collage of genres and attitudes that blends into some of the most entertaining moments of the year. A perfect example is the one-two punch of “Believe the Hype” and “Make U 3 Me” — with a breakdown that just screams “Peanut butter jelly, baby! You drive me crazy!” What a trip. Alice is one of my ones to watch. Cannot WAIT to see what she does next!
20 —Model/Actriz — Dogsbody
Hey, what if Nine Inch Nails started in the 2020’s and embranced all the post-punk and noisey aesthetics of the decade? Ya. That might be this album by Model/Actriz.
It. Is. PUMMELING.
And Cole Haden’s vocal delivery slides between desperation and almost ecstatic pain. He growls, he shouts, he purrs, he weeps. It’s…a lot and yet it’s SO groovy. Just an unstoppable record.
So grab me by the teeth
And whisper it to me, yeah, keep sayingYou don’t, you don’t, you don’t, you don’t
Have to submit, submit, submit, submit yourself to it
If you aren’t bopping your head by the end of track three I don’t think I can help you.
19 — Caroline Polachek — Desire, I Want to Turn Into You
What a voice. What an aesthetic. What a art-pop album. If Caroline Polachek maintains this trajectory and isn’t a superstar by the end of the decade, we’ll have failed the future of pop music.
Album opens with some of the best vocal moments of the year on “Welcome to My Island.” It’s such a visceral soul-shout, replete with technical grace. It’s almost a new age moment before those massive 80’s style synths kick in.
“Bunny Is A Rider” is easily in my top pop tracks of the year. The rhythm, the beat, the melody. Just all hit right for me. Also — if you can explain how the song is connected to Of Montreal’s “Bunny Ain’t No Kind Of Rider” to me (it may just be a reference in name only I guess)…I will be very grateful.
Oh ya, and “Sunset” feels like you’re riding Epona across Hyrule. So…that’s a heck of a vibe.
18 — Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter — SAVED!
As Lingua Ignota, Kristin Hayter made two of my favourite albums of the last decade. So when she said she was retiring the project (for VERY valid reasons) I was pretty sad. But I did get to see her perform as Lingy on her final tour. And it was a spiritual experience. Might have been the closest that the Rickshaw Theatre in the downtown east side of Vancouver has ever gotten to being a church — and she was singing about physical and spiritual torture. As the Reverend she goes further into church territory, making an album that sounds like an old anthropological recording of some obscure cult. Apparently she recorded hours and hours of hymns preparing for this project, as well as writing some of her own, or tweaking and making them her own. It’s an intense experience, even tho the production and arrangements are much more sparse than Lingua Ignota stuff was. From the apocalyptic “ALL OF MY FRIENDS ARE GOING TO HELL” to the mournful “I WILL BE WITH YOU ALWAYS” (wherein the beast of revelation convinces the penitent one that they do not need to be released because they are free already) to the extremely unnerving hysterical glossolalia and weeping of “HOW CAN I KEEP FROM SINGING”, this album is yet another heavy hitter. Hayter’s voice is front and centre, and is full of every emotion as she strives to connect with the divine. Overwhelming and powerful.
17 — JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown — SCARING THE HOES
Honestly, this is just some of the most frenetic and wild hip hop production I’ve ever heard. Nonstop madness with two creative artists at the top of their game. From the chipmunk samples of “Lean Beef Patty,” to the almost Aphex Twin beat of “Fentanyl Tester,” to soulful jazz and breakbeats combo of “Jack Harlow Combo Meal,” every track feels like it’s breaking the rules somehow. Also JPEGMAFIA’s calm baritone and Danny’s frantic high pitched register compliment each other well.
It’s exhausting but exciting and you never know what’s coming next. Which is always something that works for me.
16 — King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard — PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation
KGLW are back in heavy metal mode for their 24th studio album…and the one with the longest title yet. The prolific aussie band swaps genres faster than most bands release albums. PetroDragonic Apocalypse borrows from a whole new swathe of metal genres for this fantastic and slightly magical album about ecological devastation. “Motor Spirit” goes from the speed and aggression of Motorhead to an almost Tool-like psychedelic passage into a sludgier back half before getting back to the ripping speed of the start. “Converge” rips even harder and faster and is a huge stand out. It also returns to the tom-heavy Tool vibe on the drums for an interlude. In the back half of the album a monstrous kaiju emerges and people chant (“GILA GILA GILA!”) as the “Gila Monster” emerges. “Dragon” and “Flamethrower” again seem to embrace the Tool influence and are proggy and mathematical before “Flamethrower” actually devolves into a strange electronic and synth driven outro. It’s a heck of a trip and a wild ride.
15 — Thatifaxath — Hive Mind Narcosis
Thantifaxath is definitely the band whose name I had to double check the spelling of most often this year. Hive Mind Necrosis is a maddening swirl of guitars and drums with absolutely howling and scorched vocals. It’s got progressive elements to it but it never devolves into any of the cheesiness that “prog” can be susciptible to. The chaotic dissonance and uncomfortable tension and release of the playing and arrangements are almost like if Imperial Triumphant threw all the jazz influences and dramatic outfits out and just played in a dark cave. Or if Liturgy dropped everything and octave and stopped seeking transcendence and embraced the void. The album twists my sense of time, both musically and temporally. It simultaneously feels like I’ve been trapped in it forever, and like everything is flying by too quickly to grab hold of anything. The only real respite is when everything slows right down on the penultimate track “Sub Lilith Tunnels” but in some ways it’s more horrific than the previous onslaught, and is only building tension before the final track “Mind of the Sun” explodes into the most frantic portion of the album yet. This album is truly evil sounding in the best way possible.
14 — Kara Jackson — Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love?
This one was a really slow burn for me. But everytime Kara Jackson’s words and disarmingly unornamented vocal delivery came up, I couldn’t turn away. The former U.S. National Youth Poet Laureate really takes her time and cuts through without bombast or much flash. But it’s soul stirring stuff and captivating.
“no fun/party” is one stand out:
I wanna be as dangerous as a dancing dragon
Or a steam engine, a loaded gun
Being loved for my hazard and a will to destruct
And isn’t that just love, a will to destructIsn’t that just love
When you’re no fun?
Isn’t that just love?
…And “rat” is another:
Rat has made his bath and this is one he’ll surely drown in
Imitating tales of cowboy trails and traveling men
Hasn’t satisfied a single one of his new women
The one he left alone is in their home and busy hexing
The minimal folk arrangements are lovely and deceptively simple. There are lots of subtle layers and musicality going on when you start to pay attention. It’s no surprise she sights both Joanna Newsom and Joni Mitchel as influences. This album has the potential for me to keep unveiling new things to love and discover as I keep listening beyond 2023.
13 — Khanate — To Be Cruel
Maybe the scariest band ever, it was a complete shock this year when Khanate dropped their first album in 14 years out of nowhere. And an even nicer surprise when it was just as deliciously tense and vicious and patient as their previous works. This album feels like you’re being hunted on a spiritual level. The drone-metal supergroup (including members of SUNN O))) and OLD) just means every. single. note. And they let every one of them breathe, or gasp, or shriek (feedback is listed as one of the instruments in the liner notes) for as long as it needs or deserves. It’s a really remarkable feat. That is kind of exceeding my ability to describe in words. Alan Dubin’s vocals are hellish and terrorizing and it almost becomes a sort of slow torture waiting for the next demonic exclamation. Really harrowing. But also, the thickness of the tones can feel like a heavy blanket, it can get so exhaustingly overstimulating that it turns over into almost meditative.
Khanate’s discography is simply one of the heaviest things ever recorded. And To Be Cruel is a fitting addition and it’s kind of incredible it exists and that they’re even playing a few live shows after so long.
12 — Parannoul — After the Magic
Parannoul made a new go-to comfort album for me this year. The Korean band just locked into a really nice combination of walls of washed out shoegaze guitar, simple but lovely melodies, lofi beats, electronic dance music, and post rock crescendos. And I love it. It’s kinda that simple. It’s kind of like my favourite album of ’21, Nurture, which shocked me by how much I liked it as it didn’t really line up with much that usually draws me, this particular combination just feels safe and cozy in an appealing way. It kinda feels like a magic trick. After the Magic is just the best vibes and managed to lowkey recreate that magic trick this year. The vocals are really earnest (without me having a clue what they’re saying) and the drumming actually gets quite impressive in some portions, without ever taking away from the more straightforward vibes. The whole thing just feels like a really nice dream. “We Shine at Night” is a standout for me.
11 — underscores — Wallsocket
This album kinda came out of nowhere for me. From the opening track “Cops and robbers” it just kicked the door in and refused to leave. The song sounds like 90’s indie rock but with a hyperpop production mindset. Like a more frantic Built to Spill. And that chorus of “When’s the last time you saw someone with a ski mask and a gun / Get on the inside? / You gotta do it, gotta do it, gotta do it like me” just rips. Oh and the breakdown which sounds like it could be on a Jon Spencer Blues Explosion record. What is happening? And that’s just track 1.
Other stand outs are the meloncholy “You don’t even know who I am” and the CHILLING “Johnny johnny johnny” which talks about the experience of being a teenager being preyed upon by a man more than a decade older. It’s extra upsetting because the arrangement is so poppy and bouncy.
’Cause when I was eleven years old, I just wanted to be pretty
And when Johnny was eleven, huh, I hadn’t even been bornJohnny, Johnny, Johnny, I just want to be your girl
I do, I do, I do
If this album had come out earlier in the year it might have had time to decant itself into the top 10. If you wish your Olivia Rodrigo was more 90s and experimental instead of early 00’s and pop…this might be for you.
10 — Fever Ray — Radical Romantics
Karin Dreijer has been on the cutting edge of experimental electronic music for over two decades now as both half of The Knife and as the main brains behind Fever Ray. They fully deserve to be named in the same breath as Björk. The way their production shifts and grows almost organically has continually baffled me since 2013’s excellent Shaking the Habitual and this is my favourite release since then. Slick and polished without ever feeling like it’s lost it’s edge. It immediately grabbed me. “Shiver” pulses and throbs like it’s from a sci fi strip club and it’s just so sexy.
Killer skies
Thick thighs
Some girls will make you blush
Some girls will make you shiver
“Carbon Dioxide” was upon first listen immediately in my favourite tracks of the year. Cannot get enough of it’s driving beat and the way the chorus just explodes outwards with the string stings. The lyrics feel like a neurodivergent club anthen: “Oh, will you meet me? Hocus pocus /
On the other sidе of hyper focus”
There are a decent number of vibes spread throughout the record. “Even It Out” is a more sinister track which threatens their child’s bully. And the album closer, “Bottom of the Ocean” is a strange ambient track with gulping vocal sounds and no lyrics. Like a 7 minute decompression session after the intensity of the rest of the album.
If you like creative and lush vibes, get into this one.
9 — Aesop Rock — Integrated Tech Solutions
Honestly? Aesop Rock hasn’t missed ONCE in 25 years. Still dropping crazy beats and insane bars with an unparalleled vocabulary, he is the epitome of underground hip hop. After the opening skit that explains “The ITS Way,” “Mindful Solutionism” comes out swinging with one of the strongest openings to any album all year. Just an insanely aggresive beat that would fit in any fight scene starring Keanu Reeves and Aesop’s most aggressive vocal tone:
2.5 million years ago, a friend of mine
Made a tool from a stone and defended his tribe
It’s technology, sorry for the technical term
It’s a wheel then a fire and the rest is a blur
Every track is a little journey. “Pigeonometry,” with it’s wandering baseline and funky drum beat, is a funny and slightly surreal story about the creative process, ambition, and setting realistic goals. “Plus a thousand is a lot…”
“Salt and Pepper Squid” lurches menacingly, while “Living Curfew (feat. billy woods)” starts out dancing on tip toes before slowing into a smooth stupor, and “Black Snow” sounds like it’s sampling Turkish Psych Rock (one of my favourite niche genres).
This album is slightly over an hour and I never even considering changing the channel. If ITS was a cult…I might join.
8 — Fire-Toolz — I am upset because I see something that is not there.
This album is the one that has most consistently had me saying, “Wait, what?” all year. That’s why it’s here. New-age black-metal telephone-hold-music? Prog-rock jazz-fusion hyperpop? N64 breakbeat training video sountrack? This defies pigeonholing.
But it’s not JUST chaos. There are melodies, there’s intention, there are…I mean some of these tracks are actually almost songs — see “It Is Happening Again (Thank You, Council Of Saturn!)” or “Everything & Everywhere Is a Divine Mirror” for examples. But yes, most of it is a mad collage of tone and texture — see “Mantra — Ing & Golgotha: Double — Bind (Prequel)” — yes, that is one track title.
I honestly don’t really know how to talk about this one except to say, somehow this insane milkshake made out of protein powder, veggies, and magic crystals goes down really smoothly for me and just tickled my brain with it’s avant-garde approach to…well to everything. It’s rare to find something so out there that also sounds pleasing to me and makes me want to go back to it over and over.
7 — Jeff Rosenstock — Hellmode
How many times can Jeff Rosenstock put every subgenre of punk into a blender and make one of my favourite records of the decade? At least one more time apparently. Jeff continues to somehow combine middle aged ennui with youthful rebellion without being cringe. Just earnestly annoyed at the state of the world without being a downer. Or having the music buoy up the lyrics in a way that makes it almost feel like a party to enjoy while the world burns.
When the signal fires burning cast a fog over the sky
I am screaming something that will later be deleted
And bracing for a world no longer suitable for life’Cause there’s a bomb inside my head
And I wish that I could disconnect the threads
From the gang vocals of “Liked U Better” to the downtempo surf rock of “Doubt” to the wistful indie folk of “Healmode,” Rosenstock makes room for such a broad swathe of life’s experiences.
And cars will cram the street
And that’s just fine with me
’Cause I will stay with you
Not do a single thing all day with you
And hunker down after the storm is throughPerfect lazy days where all you need is me and all I need is you
I hope he never stops making this kind of music. It’s always a good day when I’m listening to Jeff Rosenstock.
6 — Geese — 3D Country
When people say great rock music is dead, I’m gonna start pointing them to Geese. They have all the snarky swagger of 70s greats like Television or Iggy Pop, even a bit of a young Mick Jagger, or maybe a 90s staple like Jon Spencer.
“2122” kicks the album off right with a swirling riff that would make Jimmy Page proud. “We can make love in the end times.” Then things get more thoughtful on the title track with a soulful country rock track a la Exile on Main St. — gospel tinged background singers included. Lead single “Cowboy Nudes” is the what caught my ear and made this immediately one of the most exciting albums of the year. It boogies along with a great chorus and dueling guitar lines. There’s even a frenetic bongo solo in the middle.
“Undoer” throws out the pop stylings and goes straight to a Tim Buckley warble like something straight off of the disorienting and masterful Star Sailor.
Every track seems to draw on some masterwork of the past, but the band is so confident in their delivery and songwriting that it never devolves into pastiche. This is a new band with just…so many of my favourite artists of the last 60 years as their main influences. It’s delicious and a country worth your time to explore.
5 — boygenius — the record
I mean. What hasn’t been said? The boys (Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus) made probably the biggest indie record of the year, solidifying sad guitar girl music as a major subgenre all on its own. The harmonies, the guitars, the insane photo shoots. They opened for Taylor Swift, they played SNL and Colbert, and I got to see them live in Vancouver — and it was everything I wanted it to be.
“Emily I’m Sorry” broke my heart. “Cool About It” took a Simon & Garfunkel vibe and updated it for 2023 (“Once, I took your medication to know what it’s like. And now I have to act like I can’t read your mind”). “Not Strong Enough” got embedded in my brain for months (that bit when they go up on “SPINNING OUT” and then the refrain of “Always an angel, never a god”). The way everyone SCREAMS “kill the bourgeoisie!” in the live show on “Satanist.”
And of course the open wound that is album closer “Letter To An Old Poet”:
You’re not special, you’re evil
You don’t get to tell me to calm down
You made me feel like an equal
But I’m better than you
And you should know that by now
Ya. the record is just one of the best records of the year.
4 — Joe Hisaishi & Royal Philharmonic Orchestra — A Symphonic Celebration (Music from the Studio Ghibli Films of Hayao Miyazaki)
I debated whether this album “counts.” Coz it’s just new recordings of classic songs. But I make the rules. So it counts. According to Apple Music’s data mining, it was the album I listened to for the most minutes this year. It’s just…it’s just pure comfort. Great pieces by one of modern cinema’s greatest composers. From Kiki’s Delivery Service and Ponyo to Howl’s Moving Castle and My Neighbour Totoro, this is pure joy. A wonderful collection to have all in one place, performed by the composer and one of the world’s best orchestras.
3 — Colter Wall — Little Songs
If anyone makes a country western album I like more than this by 2030…it’ll probably be Colter Wall again. He made my top 10 in 2020 — the first time the genre had made it onto one of my lists — and here he is again. It’s just…such pure music. Great finger picking guitars, just enough percussion to keep it moving, and that goddamn voice that sounds like an old piece of wood got left out in the sun and was polished and covered in butter. And he’s still not even 30 yet.
“Prairie Evening/Sagebrush Waltz” sounds like it could fit right in on the greatest country album of all time — Red Headed Stranger by Willie Nelson — with it’s pedal steel, mandolin and tempo/meter shift in the middle.
“The Coyote & The Cowboy” is a fun little ditty that pokes fun at mankind’s worries, “Honky Tonk Nighthawk” honks and tonks with the best of them, and “Cow/Calf Blue Yodel” get’s all Hank Williams on the cut.
It’s the final three songs that really solidified this album in the number 3 spot tho. “Little Songs” is about people with hard lives getting by in life by “filling the little empty with little songs.” “Evangelina,” — originally written by Hoyt Axton — with it’s “spanish-style” shuffle is one of the best straightforward love songs I’ve heard in years and Colter brings the yearning to life.
And I dream in the morning
That she brings me water
And I dream in the evening
That she brings me wineAnd the fire I feel for the woman I love
Is drivin’ me insane
Knowin’ she’s waitin’
And I can’t get there
The album closes with a good old fashioned story of a man who dies on the trail — lonesome harmonica and everything.
“Goodbye, goodnight
So long, my friend
I fear that New Mexico is where my trial ends
Think of me with kindness”
These were the last loving words
It’s hard to write or sing a really simple song in a way that sticks in the mind and heart. It’s like a magic trick and Colter Wall keeps on finding new ways to bring the magic to life. I hope he keeps it up for decades to come so we can keep filling that big empty with that voice and its little songs as we huddle close around a campfire to keep warm.
2 — Liturgy — 93696
12 years ago Liturgy completely changed how I think about what’s possible in metal with Aesthethica. Then 4 years ago, they ascended to another level with H.A.Q.Q.. Now, 93696 has completed the trilogy of their great albums. There are others albums in the Liturgy discography, but these three have become part of my canon, like Oceanic and Panopticon by ISIS, or I and ObZen by Meshuggah, or Monoliths and Dimensions by SUNN O))), that mark a sea change in my understanding of what heavy music can be and accomplish.
Haela Ravenna Hunt‐Hendrix is the mastermind behind all of Liturgy’s album and has written spiritual manifesto’s complete with complex diagrams to explore the nature of existence and of God, creating her own rich tapestry of theology and lore which she then expresses in her art (there are 30 minute youtube videos with titles like “theory of metaperichoresis part I: Integration” and “The Ten Antinomies of Apocalyptic Humanism” if one wants to learn more). I have never delved into this overwhelming background, nor have I ever really delved into the lyrics, yet the intention and the pursuit of transcendence and connection with something beyond is still conveyed powerfully. There is SO much intensity in this music. I saw them live this summer and it was exhausting to watch, I can’t imagine the athleticism and dedication it must take to play so hard and fast for so long.
As the drums blast and guitars swirl, choral voices appear and disappear, recorders whistle, and electronics glitch in and out, layering textures upon texture into a mad religious ritual, reaching ever higher.
This album is interesting coz it takes and reworks previous compositions and reintroduces them in a new context. Some are almost unrecognizable and others are the same melody but with different rhythms or chords underneath. In any case, it’s a remarkable collection of challenging and heavy pieces that just captured me and would not let go since it came out nine months ago. Every listen just makes me more impressed that music like this can get made.
“Djennaration”, “93696”, and “Antigone II” are major standouts on this epic (over 80 minute) album.
1 — Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily — Love In Exile
From one form of transcendance to another.
Love In Exile could not be more different stylistically from 93696 but they both take me to similar places, just along drastically different paths. While Hunt-Hendrix tries to burn as intensely and brightly as if to try and imitate the light it seeks to reach, Aftab, Iyer, and Ismaily float, drift, and shimmer their way through swirling shadows. If you’re patient enough, the shadows form the ethereal shape of something that might hurt you if you looked directly at its brilliance.
Arooj Aftab made my favourites list of 2021 with her stunning vocal work on Vulture Prince which is what drew me to this project as soon as I heard of it. I’d heard of Vijay Iyer before, as he’s a mainstay of modern jazz, but honestly hadn’t payed much attention before, and I’d never heard of Ismaily. These three are so patient and attentive to every inflection each other makes, and they’ve really captured something magical here. Tension and release is the key. Ismaily’s droning electronics or hypnotic bass patterns create a canvas over which Aftab’s rich voice can glide its (to me) incomprehensible laments. Meanwhile Iyer decorates the edges with his keyboard improvisations, playing off of, or contrasting the melodies with hypnotic patterns of his own.
Each track transports me to another plane, often arid, but never bleak. Love in Exile conjured something from within my soul and continues to baffle and mezmerize every time I return to it. A spell like that is rare. That’s why it’s my album of the year.
Thank you for reading. Let me know if this list inspired you to check any of the projects contained within, and let me know what your favourite album of 2023 is. May music continue to guide you to new places in 2024.
