Spaghetti Blogonese's Top Albums of 2023

1. JAMES HOLDEN - IMAGINE THIS IS A HIGH DIMENSIONAL SPACE OF ALL POSSIBILITIES

Quite, simply a throwback to rave culture - not trance as a few publications made out. The bloop-bloop-bloop of a Kombucha tea being brewed sounds like his modular synths at work; Holden splicing together an hour and four minutes of vintage electronic bliss. At the center of it all, the magnificent opus of ''In The End You'll Know'' - a six minute scurry of manipulated bassline that gets buried, beamed up, filtered and squeezed through the eye of a needle; it's quite simply one of the best electronic songs of all time. The twists and turns that happen on this record make it much larger than the summation of its partakings - the sum of its parts if you'd like a cliche.

2. YVES TUMOR - PRAISE A LORD WHO CHEWS BUT WHICH DOES NOT CONSUME (OR SIMPLY, HOT BETWEEN WORLDS)

This came out on St Patricks day - so it's another early spring release that did well here. I wasn't expecting Yves Tumor to get on this list at all, as I'd never quite taken to him. But with this record, he went all Prince and just gave himself completely to the tracks. There are absolute bangers on here, other numbers oozing with soul - and the production is out of this world too. A chameleon of a band and another long named album on this list by Spaghetti Blogonese. Leaving so soon Marcoooos? Yes, editor, I have to go to work at Indian Mango. But you're here for a reason Marcooooos.

3. SLOWDIVE  - EVERYTHING IS ALIVE

Here's an album with a normal title. This one was out on September 1st, fresh for autumn and was a taste of spacey timelessness. I've lost my flair for writing about music, so need to practice more. This LP has 8 tracks of very differing quantities and themes. It's essentially the second act of Slowdive after their first three albums came out between 1991-1995 and then an 18 year gap made for their self-titled return in 2018 - a shoegaze masterpiece. This is like the gratis grateful sibling album to the previous; the previous the kestrel and this the dove. I dove right in.

4.  BLUE LAKE - SUN ARCS

Meditative music. Could have won the crown but I say this almost every year about a bunch of records. Jason Dungan, based in Denmark, custom-built his own 48 string zither, layered with slide guitar, clarinet and pump organ to communicate his walks in nature. It draws one in, in a hypnotic way - one day in summer I was in a shopping mall, buying toys for babies and ignored all the crowds with this record on headphones. Another day I was cleaning my apartment and the shimmering strings of "Writing'' came on and transported me to a state of absolute exaltation.

5. NOURISHED BY TIME - EROTIC PROBIOTIC 2

Once in a while, along comes along an artist with a brand new sound - and this was it. Marcus Brown with scat singing, piping and rapping - gets compared to Frank Ocean, but sounds much more original. I was in a bar one night and banged on ''The Fields'' on headphones and played it to two friends. One said it was weird, and the other said it's the funkiest thing since sliced bread.  I played this in my hotel room when I moved back to Vilnius in spring and it became clear that this one's an earworm.

6. SUFJAN STEVENS - JAVELIN

In which Sufjan consolidated all different sides of his career, Illinois-era big band mit backing singers, The Age Of Adz's scatty electronic production and keeping up the biblical thing, but thankfully as an undercurrent, as it's not exactly Bible-bashing music. As one of the best singer-songwriters of his generation, 48 years old, Sufjan delivered a warbly, autotuney doodly foodly - and as The Line of Best Fit aptly put it "A deeply personal, Earth-moving masterpiece exploring relationship tensions with the gravitas of an apocalypse and the simplicity of a melody passed down through generations.''

7. COMPLETE MOUNTAIN ALMANAC - COMPLETE MOUNTAIN ALMANAC

Chamber folk that is very, very delicate and supremely nuanced. Each track is named after a month of the year and it has a very natural cyclic feel. Rebekka Karijord and Jessica Dessner (sister of the twins from The National) have crafted a pastoral wonder that got better and better with each exploration. I used plenty of these cuts when making mixtapes for a special someone and I think she appreciated it in a tender way.

8. THE GOLDEN DREGS - ON GRACE AND DIGNITY

''Got to get away sometimes!'' croons Benjamin Woods on ''American Airlines'' and it becomes apparent that a major talent had arrived. In this age of listening to Spotify solo, sadly gems like this LP might not get unearthed by many, but on the plus side, why not enjoy the secret taste of these ''simmering barroom confessionals'' as Mojo superbly put it. I will be waiting with bated breath to see what their next move will be - but not with anxiety, with poise and G & D - as per the album title.

9. HEINALI - KYIV ETERNAL

Not just because of the war, - that just fasttracked it- rather played as a superb concept album of burnt-out electronica - lots of feedback and dissonance over samples that Oleh Shpudeiko captured with a handheld recorder from 2012 - here Kyiv Eternal acts as a loveletter to his city through these archived field recordings and in the mix crafts one of the best digital bodies of the year, decade, century. Yes, it's that fucking good.

10. LANKUM - FALSE LANKUM

Album of the year in five publications and getting its due credit here. Call it folk, avant-folk, drone, progressive folk or even doom-slumdog-of-a-funeral-chimney-potter - I'm down. This thing encompasses decades, centuries and eons of brutal human struggle through pure Irish conviction. The mettle and suffering underneath the surface here is certainly colossal.

Honorable mentions

everything but the girl

pj harvey

anohni

roisin murphy

sofia kourtesis

bonnie prince billy

dave okumu

jason isbell

romy

blonde redhead

david holmes

forest swords

lewsberg

home is where

witch

isolee

craven faults

fenne lily

index for working music

loscil

robert forster

john cale

water from your eyes 

Albums of the Decade - 37. Young Fathers - Cocoa Sugar (2018)

 37. YOUNG FATHERS - COCOA SUGAR (2018) 

The grooves behind this thing are utterly shuffletonic and razorwired. It's a bizzare suffusation of TV on the Radio and Cypress Hill, mixed with a glass of tropicana. When this actually came out, I'd just moved to Vilnius, Lithuania to start a new life and would often blast it on, on bar speakers galore - it always went down with mixed results as it seemed like noone really knew what it was, or was ready for it. After all, I wouldn't have guessed Edinburgh for the origin - but life is indeed strange.

If this kinda hybridized funk, soul, punk-hop had been released a decade back, it would have been met with absolute mega-critic praise, but as it stands - Young Fathers remain a below the radar, tucked-under-the-bonnet kind of band which suits them quite nicely, but it still feels like they're just one album away from absolutely clearing up an end-of year Metacritic list if they just got the praise across the board.

Albums of the Decade - 45. Cornershop - Cornershop & the Double 'O' Groove Of (2011)

45. CORNERSHOP - CORNERSHOP & THE DOUBLE 'O' GROOVE OF (2011) 

Cornershop gave a great Punjabi album here. It's the best band name in history maybe. Famous for Brimful of Asha in the nineties, I've tried to enthuse to so many people about the validity of the statement that they're one of the best British bands of their generation, but I usually get curried for it.

There is an inherent funk to this LP that has to be span to be experienced. The intensity and then looseness and sheer smorgasbord of colour on this teapot effort sends Darjeeling down my spine. I used to chuck a couple of these cuts on, when DJ'ing in Taipei and it always raised an eyebrow, while it shimmied my hips. I wanted to sway with the yoga teacher after the picnic we'd had - have a red wine and then go back to mine. Of course not gonna bed her to this music or she would've curried me for it.

Albums of the Decade - 83. Bullion - You Drive Me To Plastic

83. BULLION - YOU DRIVE ME TO PLASTIC  

Jamming in at just over 20 minutes, this is technicallly an EP, but there's about two albums worth of ideas in this superlative mixtape from 2011. Starting off with a space shuttle oddyssey type jam and then getting as funky as a chicken with the sublime "Magic Was Ruler" at just three minutes in - it recalls my favorite club night ever - Beats In Abundance,at which once I cycled on a bike and powered an amp.:- https://www.beatsinabundance.com/.

Funk, soul, samples and electronica forge the ticket here, recalling The Avalanches, Hudson Mohawk and J Dilla. I am typing this in one spurt, as I get lost in the jam before heading out for a beer degustation. I would rather step out the door right now than stay home and think about Trump cancelling his meeting with The Taliban. Maybe if I hash-stamp his name, I will get more likes, either that or I buy some.

Records of 2014 - 29. Sharon Jones & The Dap Kinds - Give The People What they Want

29. SHARON JONES & THE DAP KINGS - GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT

This was one of the first great records this year. It was a nice, tender soul album that invited one into 2014 with an exceptional musical manifesto.Sharon's voice binds everything together really nicely in a soul stew that smells like vanilla. I love the way The Observer said it:

"The 50-something from Brooklyn is her own diva and sounds at once wounded, defiant and exuberant. Producer-bassist Bosco Mann runs a tight band with its own tricks and which purrs along so joyously the influences fade to leave a core of unadulterated soul."

It's stellar, Vanilla. Thriller .Listen to it will ya?

Records of 2014 - 36. Moodymann - Moodymann

36. - MOODYMANN - MOODYMANN

I think the main theme this year on the write-up is how friends inspire me and turn me on to music. I mean recommend. Not turn me on. However, this record turns me on. Don't wet yourself.

Moodymann is Detroit House and my friend who is a gentle giant at 200 cm tall and coming in at 2 on the Richter Scale recommending it to me represents good value and that's not a sentence. I DJ'd a bit on a laptop and played things like Les Sins and How To Dress Well who are also on this list. It's all in a good shift.

I don't know much about Moodymann but my 200 cm tall friend is called Ross McCarry and he's a tall boy. I went to Hong Kong with him and had a good time. Listen to Mooodymann listener, it won't make you feel moody or like a man. Propaply like a woman and happy. :)

Records of 2014 - 40. Les Sins - Micheal

40. LES SINS - MICHEAL 

The side-project of Toro y Moi finds its way onto this list by some way of a detour. Now, I'm a big fan of that man and all his light soul and funk that really came into effect at the start of the decade but I heard Les Sins as a completely different artist on my favourite radio show; BBC Radio 6's Gilles Peterson and his  weekly 3 hour extravaganza that "connects the musical dots."

I played music in a bar in Taipei about a year ago and there were a couple of Les Sins tracks that I dropped and I thought they were extremely funky and they came up in Traktor as being white labels so I thought it was some unknown stallion. I thought it was from London. I was wrong. It was the bull and me.

I just googled Les Sins before writing this and bang, it's Toro. Now by detour de force I'll wake up more to this South Carolinian master and this much richer project in terms of funk and diversity. It's full-fat dub, funk and hip-hop and this debut sounds mega. Soz Toro.

Records of 2014 - 50. Jungle - Jungle

 50. JUNGLE --- JUNGLE 

Just a recent discovery for me which is good timing for this list. These London producers have retro-futuristic funk in their trunk.  From wikipedia: "tropical percussion, wildlife noises, falsetto yelps, psychedelic washes and badoinking bass" which is about right. I'm not quite sure of how I missed this in Summer. I guess I was still going mental over The War on Drugs record  and by the time October came around I got all my funk kicks from Caribou.  I wish i didn't work full-time and that i had more time too listen to music so I could like multiple boogies from multiple artists seeking my exposure. Whoever has the funkiest junk at that given time usually gets the monopoly on my ear canals. Welcome to the jungle.