Spaghetti Blogonese's Top Albums of 2022

 

1. BETH ORTON - WEATHER ALIVE - She'd taken a vertical drop and nobody realized. Being down  in the trenches happens to many people, but to utilize it in this way is credence to her cadence. In her third decade in the game now - the inspirational Chemical Brothers collaborator bust out her most gorgeous unchaperoned LP yet.

2. FONTAINES DC - SKINTY FIA - Ravaging. Stone-cold. Wanted to type "Steve Austin'' then. This post-punk LP takes Interpol, The Pogues and Jack Kerouac and puts them to blenderize on setting number 10.21 jiggawatts. The Irish accent helps grittify this further.

3. WILCO - CRUEL COUNTRY - Apparently the most popular band in my Spotify unwrapped, this was a double LP full of proper, inventive country music. There's a certain poetry to this collection that no other band can quite match. One lovely Sunday in summer I had a long, spontaneous walk with a friend drinking cans of beer, finding secret tarmac car-parks, blapsing this LP out. Good times.

4. MAKAYA McCRAVEN - IN THESE TIMES - When this dropped on the same day as Beth Orton's effort, autumn became embedded into a kind of healing capacity. As jazz continues to summon a quite startling renaissance, McCraven had been rustling up something special in the background. Like the title says, this variegated assemblage incarnates du jour.

5. EXEK - ADVERTISE HERE - This'll be your dark horse on the list. Gothy, dubby, propulsive and snarly music with saracstic and paranoid observations. Feeling like it comes from a preternatural time capsule from a David Mitchell or Emily St. John Mandel novel - but instead it washed up on my shores from Melbourne; let it wash up on yours too. 

6. ALABASTER DE PLUME - GOLD (GO FORWARD IN THE COURAGE OF YOUR LOVE) - Another dazzling British eccentric, of the jazz typoid. De Plume fuses spoken word and improv to disarm the listener. I first heard him criticising some amateurs sax playing techqniques with him exclaiming "You don't do it like that! You do it like this!'' in his hissy voice. As Pitchfork put it smartly - he's ''strangely uncomfortable and strangely comforting''

7. ADRIAN QUESADA - BOLEROS PSICODELICOS - One for the JimBob in Brooklyn here (yes - shout out) - this is a record collectors dream, a vintage, crisp sounding take on Bolero. Funnily enough brethren, I hadn't expected something like this to drop. It'll warm your cockles for sure and feel like it's always glorious outside.

8. KENDRICK LAMAR - MR. MORALE & THE BIG STEPPERS - 2022 was the year that Kendrick finally clicked with me - I was hoping it would happen at some point, but I could never force myself to feel it, James. Your Christmas card just arrived by the way. Hip-hop LP of the year.

9. BLACK COUNTRY NEW ROAD - ANTS FROM UP THERE - This really expanded on last years debut effort For The First Time. Amazingly, frontman Isaac Wood threw in the towel soon after this record saw the light of day, so who knows what direction this chameleonic band will take next; sliding and shapeshifting into a mental, elastic future.

10. BONOBO - FRAGMENTS - This was the one to jumpstart the year, a bit like Madlib the year prior, and Destroyer the year prior. Trip-hop might be the most unfashionable music known to man, but I'm not one for Vaporspray or Toilet House Duck. What a throwback this was and what an institution this man is. Dig.

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Honorable Mentions:

Destroyer, Kurt Vile, Daniel Avery, The Soft Pink Truth, Kokoroko, Daphni, Big Thief, Florist, Emily Jane White, Danger Mouse & Black Thought, Crack Cloud, Panda Bear & Sonic Boom

Spagheti Blogonese's Top Albums of 2021

SPAGHETTI BLOGONESE'S ALBUM CRUNCHES OF 2021!!!

 1. NALA SINEPHRO - SPACE 1.8 - Spacey jazz in the most capsuley way ever. These jazz suites were an incredible and incredulous rush of relief after a stagnating time which we don't have to reference. 

2. CASSANDRA JENKINS - AN OVERVIEW OF PHENOMENAL NATURE - Another record that's tantamount to healing, a trully hush-hushly sung/sang record that breathes in your fiery vitriol and breathes out                                                                             rainbows of wonder.

3.  THE WEATHER STATION - IGNORANCE - Completing a female podium; 2021 has been the year of the ladies for sure - beautifully sensitive, fully fleshed out narratives against global warming - often personified.

4. LOW - HEY WHAT - This band incredibly put feedback and reverb through decontrictive loops and reinvented their sound again with a divine pairing of couply vocals parched over smeltering piledriving riffs and white noise.

5.SUFJAN STEVENS & ANGELO DE AUSUSTINE - A BEGINNER'S MIND - Lovely fairytale-esque side to Sufjan. Seeming like he'll have a fair whack of classics in his musical career, well here's another

6. DRUG STORE ROMEOS - THE WORLD WITHIN OUR BEDROOMS - Dream pop. Angelic. Crystalline. They don't even have a Wikipedia page yet, unlike your local pharmacy or favorite Shakespeare love play.

7. MADLIB - SOUND ANCESTORS - Kicked off my 2021, fresh off the bat in a Hilton hotel devastated by the news that MF Doom had passed. This instrumental album from close friend producer Madlib, compliled by Four Tet, helped soften the blow.

8. BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD - FOR THE FIRST TIME - This seven-piece crafted what will likely go down as one of the classic debuts. British indie at it's finest - but with brass, strings and woodwind. And unbelieveably, it's on Ninja Tune.

9. LOST GIRLS - MENNESKEKOLLETIVET - The audio equivalent of walking into a Berlin modern art installation. Jenny Hval documents an improvised take on the artistic process. I played this is at my friends place and they begged me to change artist - what more endorsement do you need?

10. JON HOPKINS - MUSIC FOR PSYCHEDELIC THERAPY - Really didn't imagine that this kind of output would make it onto here, but seriously this is the most gorgeous natural field recording ever made without being shoeboxed into the newage shoebox.

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Honorable mentions: 

Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, Floating Points, Ghetts, Genesis Owusu, Ducks Ltd, Emma-Jean Thackray, Leon Vynehall, Painted Shrines, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Jack Ingram, Lana Del Rey, Still Corners, Greentea Peng, Cedric Burnside, Marianna Faithful, Lael Neale, Pino Palladino & Blake Mills, Cloud Nothings, Damien Jurado, Matt Sweeney & Will Oldham

Records of 2014 - 32. Taylor McFerrin - Early Riser

32. TAYLOR MCFERRIN - EARLY RISER 

A brilliant signing onto the Brainfeeder label, this multi-talented jazz schmoozy beatboxer is so glossy and produced but in a great way. If it was an animal it would be a synth, or a trumpet. Pitchfork went and said on their review that some songs feel like sand slipping through your grasp. I disagree. This album is a lovely jazzy tide to float on. I think it was weak writing. I do weak writing. Just not every week.

The review goes on to say that this album isn't an early riser for morning running and that it's better for lying in bed in the morning. I think this album is best when I'm blue and eating berries but not when I'm in mourning. Sloppy as these reviews on here. It says there's no anchor on the the songs and that most of the album slips away into the atmosphere without you even noticing. I think that I'm not on a dinghy in the water anyway and that it's only a bit deep, so I won't be needing an anchor.  Shit, hand me a contract Pitchfork.

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. :)

Albums of 2012 - 9. Neneh Cherry & The Thing - The Cherry Thing

9. NENEH CHERRY & THE THING - THE CHERRY THING

There are so many styles of jazz, sometimes lilting and somethimes thundering, packed into this collaborative effort between soul/pop legend Neneh Cherry and Scandinavian improv jazz band The Thing.

The best thing here was that it came as a complete surprise, felt like it came from the vaults, even though it was contemporary. There have not been many jazz albums on my lists over the years, but I hope this will provoke a bit more movement in that genre, around these parts, in this bolognaise.