#aarktica

DeRosa has been upfront when discussing Ecstatic Lightsongs about this being an Aarktica record that overtly nods to the post-punk, new wave, and post-rock music he loves, singling out late-period Talk Talk as a rhythmic inspiration. And sure enough, mere seconds into the opening “Trick of the Light” you can hear Mike Pride’s gently rolling fills setting the scene just as much as DeRosa’s ringing guitar. That Laughing Stock influence is most notable on “Laughing in the Rain,” where Pride and bassist Lewis Pesacov (who also produced most of the LP) immediately sketch out a similarly expansive, open space for the song to exist in. But the percussion here takes on more than one form, like the dusty, looping playing that opens “To Love Is to Believe” until it fades out as the track swells into an echoing, faintly dubby cloud.

Pride, Pesacov, and cellist Henrik Meierkord even put a shuffling spin on “Destination Paradise” that comes close to trip hop, not least because that’s also one of three songs here that features Britt Warner’s singing. Her and DeRosa’s interplay on those tracks is immediately compelling in a sandpaper-and-honey kind of way. DeRosa’s vocal tracks are often highlights on Aarktica albums, and their predominance here only confirms that they can carry a song practically on their own instead of just being an occasional ingredient.

Which is not to suggest that Ecstatic Lightsongs is a radical change from the kind of beauty Aarktica normally deals in, nor that DeRosa has abandoned his traditional strengths; although he adds synths here (in a less immediately surprising but equally significant departure from most Aarktica releases) his guitar remains the mainstay of the sound throughout and it’s always gorgeous, whether in the increasingly distorted solo playing on “Why Say Anything?” (the vocal track that most sounds like it could be plucked out of a past Aarktica release) or on the two instrumentals, especially the gorgeous duet with Meierkord that makes up “The Bird That Hides Itself.”

The digital release of the album closes with a bonus track that’s almost a proof of concept of the idea behind the whole LP, a cover of the Chameleons’ 1983 “Second Skin.” The original is great in a very characteristic way, both murky and confrontational with a great whacking beat and increasingly tormented vocals. The Aarktica take doesn’t try and beat the original at its own game; the beat is still central but, diffused a touch and surrounded by cello and DeRosa’s smoother baritone, the result feels more sweeping and darkly romantic. By taking on one of his inspirations directly and offering a fantastic, significantly tonally distinct version of it, DeRosa is showing both how this iteration of Aarktica is fully capable of standing with the works and artists it seeks to join, and that his own originals hold up well in their company. “Second Skin” is a classic, and it fits right in here.

Aarktica — No Solace in Sleep (Projekt)

Jon DeRosa has made a lot of music over the past 28 years, and for much of that time has been known for interspersing his ambient work with surprisingly straightforwardly sung (if still lambent) songs. Rarely has he been as stylistically consistent over an LP as he was on this, his 2000 debut as Aarktica. Now remastered by Taylor Deupree for its 25th anniversary, No Solace in Sleep consists almost entirely of DeRosa’s guitar. There are some submerged rhythms here, a choral-feeling arrangement there, but otherwise it’s just endless pools of his beautifully enveloping playing. Slowly assembled at night after losing hearing in one ear, there’s a gloomy comfort to even the harshest efforts here, and even at over an hour it never wears out its welcome. It’s sneakily influential too, elements of DeRosa’s work here having been showing up not just in ambient but in goth and metal circles over the decades. The remaster brings these songs a bit further from their hissy four-track birth and the result feels even more monumental than the original.

Ian Mathers

Bag People — S/T (Drag City)

Bag People were a short-lived outfit who transplanted themselves from Chicago into the grime and soot of New York’s lower-east side in the early 1980s. They fit in alongside that city’s no wave contingent but retained enough midwestern muscle to temper arty abandon with propulsive rhythms and a coruscating chug. The cantankerous sonic maelstrom hovered on the precipice of outright chaos, but Diane Wlezien’s vocal howl positioned Bag People in the Venn diagram at the point where Sonic Youth, The Stooges, and The Slits intersected. Forty years later, Drag City has unearthed some long-forgotten tapes, the only proof of Bag People’s existence, and polished them up as best they could for our consumption. The angst and nihilism are palpable in these energy-filled tunes, which sound just as ferocious now as they must have when the band laid them to tape.

Bryon Hayes

Lawrence English — Even the Horizon Knows its Bounds (Room 40)

Soundscapes for museum installations can be the quintessence of ambient music but often are unimpressive on their own. Lawrence English’s soundscore for the Naala Badu building at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia, demonstrates that work meant to be unobtrusive can also retain interest in closer listening. In Gadigal, Naala Badu means “seeing waters,” and English responds to this idea with washes of synths that ebb and flow like waves and aquatic field recordings. A minor-key piano progression provides a balladic rejoinder. Several guest artists — Chris Watson, Jim O’Rourke, and claire rousay among them — join to ride the waves alongside English.

Christian Carey

Goldmund — Layers of Afternoon (Western Vinyl)

The last time we caught up with Goldmund, that is, pianist Keith Kenniff, he was reinterpreting Civil War songs for solo piano on the lovely and evocative All Will Prosper in 2011. This time Kenniff mines a less conceptual vein and enlists the violinist Scott Moore for moody original reveries. “Darnley” brings the piano to the front, its pure melody oscillating against a crackling popping room sound. Moore enters half a minute in, swooning and lush where Kenniff is elliptical. “Before I Sleep,” likewise, finds mournful beauty amid lingering chords and a rush of layered string sound. Here’s a record that will envelope you like a pearly fog and leave you lost in your own thoughts and memories.

Jennifer Kelly

G*U*N*N* — S/T (Going Underground)

Another excellent punk band in the venerable Orange County tradition (smartassery, suds and lots of skateboards…), G*U*N*N* has finally gotten around to releasing a full LP after six or so years of gigs, 7” records and a handful of tapes. Given G*U*N*N*’s…um, informal approach to existing as a functioning band, it’s a surprisingly substantial album: 14 tracks, averaging two minutes in length, replete with fun samples and a long, pranksome reggae outro. In some nods to punk tradition more broadly, G*U*N*N* includes songs titled “Pig Champion” and “Stukas over HB” (Dickies, anyone?). But the band is at its best when it embraces its own antic violence, on tracks like “Annihilation” and “No Hope.” As G*U*N*N* advises, you’d do well to “Stick with the Plan”: skate an empty pool, vandalize some private property and turn up the tunes.

Jonathan Shaw

Kovaa Rasvaa — Tarinaksi Paketoitu Valhe (Svart)

Finnish crossover music that derives its principal interest by keeping the thrash and the hardcore elements at odds with each other. Kovaa Rasvaa writes songs that tend toward the fast and nasty, and tunes like “Nokkakolari” and “Romahdushäiriö” will remind you of Kreator or Voivod, while “Kolmiomainen Nolla” and “Keinotekoisesti Valmistettu” (holy shit!) might make you remember the Electric Deads or Terveet Kädet at that band’s most melodically speedy. For all the stylistic fireworks, Kovaa Rasvaa has a sharply resolved sound. And it's pretty cool to engage a record that’s so stridently Finnish in its insistence on that language’s rhythms and specificity. If you want the lyrics or the Bandcamp text in English and you’re not a fluent Laplander, you’ll need Google translate. Maybe just learn Finnish to sing (and shout) along.

Jonathan Shaw

Johnny Maraca and the Marockers—Little Heart (Perenniel/K)

Rock ‘n roll doesn’t come more basic than Little Heart, a stripped down, flirting, snarling collection of ripped leather romanticism, sourced from Oakland, CA. A trill of organ, a quiver of bass, and then the beat crashes through, drums thumping the fours, guitar slashing in time. Johnny Maraca has a rough, boisterous way of delivering a song, tough but tender. “And I know, how your little heart beats,” he shouts over the irresistible clangor of “Little Heart,” the dangerous guy with a killer smile. Has it been done before? Certainly. Is it worth doing again? Yes, indeed.

Jennifer Kelly

Paal Nilssen-Love Circus with the Ex Guitars — Turn Thy Loose (PNL)

Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love’s Circus started out as a vehicle for him to sustain his involvement with Brazilian songs and forms during the pandemic. That didn’t last; the original septet of Scandinavian-based musicians developed a unique approach to songs of all sorts founded on the agreement that any musician could introduce any song from their collective book at any time. If that sounds to you a bit like the Instant Composers Orchestra dynamic, you’re not wrong, and you might appreciate this recording, which presents the beginning of the Circus’ next phase, which occurred when guitarist Oddrum Lilja left the band and all three guitar-playing members of The Ex joined. The arrival of three newcomers disrupts the immaculate trust and rapport that the Circus had developed, but since they have a deep respect for improvisation as a relational enterprise, their presence is more that of periodic game-changers than total wrecking balls.

Bill Meyer

Pyrex — Body (Total Punk)

Jackhammer punk from Brooklyn judders on a pogostick across a beer-sticky floor. Pyrex makes the kind of hopped-up, anxiety-attack thumpers that foment mosh pit casualties, though that shouldn’t stop you, if you’re so inclined, from full-body participation. All eight cuts make anatomical references from the vortex howl of “Reflex” to the razor-cut “Never Endings” to the nearly anthemic, power-chord-ripping “Digits.” That’s about right for an album that’s pure viscera. Body, indeed.

Jennifer Kelly

Paula Sanchez — Pressure Sensitive (Relative Pitch)

The liner notes of this South American cellist presently residing in Europe reads, “This album is the result of performative experimentations with cellophane and erotic encounters of transparent asphyxiation.” Now, there’s an explanation that raises as many questions as it answers! Particularly since a blindfolded listener might not detect the cello, the plastic or the erotic activity, but instead attribute this recording to oil-thirsty door hinges and tectonic plates. However you explain it, this is vibrantly physical stuff, sound that you can feel in the act of feeling. It’s also rather like the blind philosopher’s assessment of the elephant; having had the good fortune to hear Sanchez in diverse settings at Music Unlimited 38 in Wels, Austria, I can attest to her facility at playing parts and rocking the fuck out matches the performative noise-making of this CD.

Nick Storring — Mirante (We Are Busy Bodies)

The Portuguese word mirante denotes a scenic outlook. Canadian composer and multi-instrumentalist Nick Storring has a family connection to Brazil, so he’s had some time to view the country close-up, and it only takes one listen to know that he’s steeped in the country’s sounds. Dozens of instruments (all played by Storring) appear on Mirante’s seven tracks, but easy-flowing melodies articulated by plush keyboards and complex but uncluttered pulses expressed by a rich array of percussion dominate, while strings and voices flesh out the harmonies, giving the music a humid travelogue vibe. Storring’s pieces do not recreate Brazilian styles; he seems to be more concerned with expressing his feelings about the place, which are warmly conveyed.

Bill Meyer

Thor & Friends — Heathen Spirituals (Joyful Noise)

Thor Harris is perhaps best known for his contribution to the hard-touring and super-loud iteration of Swans that created albums such as To Be Kind (2014). During those tours, Harris could be found bashing all kinds of percussion on stage, often shirtless, his hair flailing and his muscles rippling. Harris’s new album is much gentler, despite the number of instrumentalists he’s mustered around him. There are over a dozen players on Heathen Spirituals, but they’re all playing in a restrained, minimal fashion on these three long pieces. “Anne Sexton’s Monocle” has a rapidly pulsing undercurrent of marimba and vibraphone, over which strings and woodwinds play slow, drawn-out phrases. The effect is akin to Philip Glass’s score for Koyaanisqatsi, soundtracking time-lapse footage of clouds scudding across the sky. “Heathen Spiritual” is slower and more mournful, with a less agitated pulse at its core. “Christmas Eve at the Wizard’s House” builds from a slow marimba line in 6/8, the other instruments dancing around it like tiny wooden characters. Pay close attention to this music as it dapples past and more rewards can be found, such as the occasional choral voices that emerge in the mix. It’s powerful in a gentle, insistent way.

Other than that horrible pall weighing down the end of the year, though, at least on the small scale 2022 was pretty good to me. The world in general continues to feel more and more fraught (here in Canada too!) and we’re still not properly dealing with a pandemic. With us being an immunocompromised household… when you see people talking about leaving behind the chronically ill, it absolutely includes those of us who, pre-COVID, nobody could tell weren’t “normal” or “healthy.” I did get to a very few shows this year, masked. But mostly this was a third year in a row of just… never going out or doing most of the things we used to do. Both my wife and I switched jobs to positions that are both much more satisfying and important to us and, not incidentally, quite a bit better paying. By the end of 2022 we’ve hit the first time in our adult lives where (despite how little it would take to knock us back down) we’re not experiencing constant financial stress.

I could have guessed this would change my relationship with music, but honestly, would have underestimated the degree to which that would be true. I’m happier with my writing this year, both frequency and end result, although there’s always more work to do on those fronts. And without feeling like I was trying very hard to do so, I somehow listened to 170 new LPs and EPs over the course of the year. And I found a lot to like, too: my 2022 playlist in Swinsian (which I tried out and then switched to when the Apple Music program started having weird glitches and hours of tech support couldn’t help at all) currently has a little over 1000 tracks in it, equaling over 3 days of music. There’s still a near-infinite amount of stuff out there I’ve never touched or even heard of. But more than ever, it feels like I covered my particularly bailiwick(s) as thoroughly as could be expected of someone who still has a day job and relatively normal life.

This increased volume of input doesn’t necessarily make me think 2022 was a better (or worse!) year for music than any other, but it does lead to a list of records that I feel more strongly about. There are plenty of good records I am keeping in full that just didn’t make it onto my list(s), especially since I’m sticking with a top 40 like I did in 2021. In years where I’ve ‘only’ managed to check out 80-90 records, even a top 20 often covers just about everything I’ve solidly enjoyed from the year. In 2022, 40 records isn’t even half of that group. It has made me reflect a bit on just how sustainable this all is — do I just keep accumulating dozens of records I love every year I’m here? How often am I going to go back to any of them? And sure enough, one thing all this new listening has done has drastically slowed progress on my now years-long effort to corral and organize my existing collection. But I do feel strongly enough about what I loved this year, both from existing favorites and acts totally new to me, that I’m probably just going to kick those cans a little further down the road. I’m also mulling over how, if at all, I want to change my listening in the new year, not least because one of the major ways I discover new things ended in 2022 (RIP, The Singles Jukebox).

As I’ve mentioned before in these roundups, I don’t necessarily feel like every year these days I have an “album of the year” (and am generally loathe to try and rank things). This year I can’t decide if I have one or two; Cloakroom’s Dissolution Wave was one of my most anticipated and ever since I first got the promo back in January, I’ve been listening to it very regularly. One of the things I like about music writing (at least the way I do it) is that it forces me to listen to records a lot more than I would even if I otherwise adore them, and at this point I have an almost Pavlovian joy reaction to the beginning of “Lost Meaning.” For a long time, it seemed like it stood alone for me, and I think it still does, but I need to give at least an honorable mention to Let’s Eat Grandma’s Two Ribbons. It didn’t have the immediate impact on me the Cloakroom did, even though that first half, especially, is immediately ingratiating. But over months I found myself going back to it more and more and in another year, I could easily see it having the unquestioned top spot. I’ve seen neither in most year-end stuff, which makes me a bit sad.

So here are the lists; my 40 favorite LPs, followed by 5 EPs, 5 reissues and/or compilations, 5 releases from Aidan Baker (which makes up not even half of the releases from his various projects!), and 20 ‘loose’ songs either from records I liked but who don’t make it into the main list, or where this song was really the only one I liked, or just ones that came out on their own. If all the little extra lists seem like cheating, well, they kind of are. But this was as narrowed down as I could get it. All of the lists are in alphabetical order, and for all but the songs list any links are to where I’ve written about them here at Dusted. For the songs, partly because so many of them do have music videos (and I love music videos), I’ve actually just provided a link to the song on YouTube should you be so moved. Last year I ended by saying I hoped we’d all continue to get better at taking care of ourselves and each other in 2022. On a micro level, I can say that did happen for us, and many of our loved ones. I hope as much as possible it did for you too, and we can all find the strength to keep at it in 2023.

40 LPs

Aarktica — We Will Find the Light

Alvvays — Blue Rev

Aoife O'Donovan — Age of Apathy

Beyoncé — RENAISSANCE

Billow Observatory — Stareside

Black Ox Orkestar — Everything Returns

The Body & OAA — Enemy of Love

Bruno Bavota & Chantal Acda — A Closer Distance

Carly Rae Jepsen — The Loneliest Time

Charli XCX — Crash

Chelsea Jade — Soft Spot

Cloakroom — Dissolution Wave

Earthless — Night Parade of One Hundred Demons

Eric Cheneaux — Say Laura

Esmerine — Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More

Ethel Cain — Preacher’s Daughter

Fujiya & Miyagi — Slight Variations

Hagop Tchaparian — Bolts

Hatchie — Giving the World Away

High Vis — Blending

Horsegirl — Versions of Modern Performance

Hot Chip — Freakout/Release

Jessica Moss — Galaxy Heart

Kali Malone — Living Torch

Let’s Eat Grandma — Two Ribbons

Locrian — New Catastrophism

Loop — Sonancy

loscil — The Sails p.1/p.2

Michael Beharie — Promise

Oneida — Success

Party Dozen — The Real Work

SASAMI — Squeeze

Spiritualized — Everything Was Beautiful

Szun Waves — Earth Patterns

Use Knife — The Shedding of Skin

Vince Staples — RAMONA PARK BROKE MY HEART

Water Damage — Repeater

Wet Leg — Wet Leg

Winged Wheel — No Island

Winter — What Kind of Blue Are You?

5 EPs

Gillian Stone — Spirit Photographs

Greet Death — New Low

Picastro — I’ve Never Met a Stranger

Sun’s Signature — Sun’s Signature

Trauma Ray — Transmissions

5 Reissues/Compilations

Broadcast — Maida Vale Sessions

Laddio Bolocko — '97​-​'99

Les Rallizes Dénudés —’77 LIVE

Prolapse — John Peel session 20.08.94/John Peel session 08.04.97

Wire — Not About to Die

5 Releases From Aidan Baker

Aidan Baker — The Evelyn Tables

Aidan Baker — Tenebrist

Baker Ja Lehtisalo — Crocodile Tears

Nadja — Labyrinthine

Nadja — Nalepa

20 More Songs

Animal Collective — “Prester John”

Boy Harsher ft Lucy - Cooper B. Handy — “Autonomy”

Caroline Polachek — “Billions”

Chappell Roan — “Casual”

Death Cab for Cutie — “I Won’t Give Up on You”

Diatom Deli — “False Alarm”

Duke Deuce ft GloRilla — “Just Say That”

Flume ft Caroline Polachek — “Sirens”

HAAi ft. Jon Hopkins — “Baby, We’re Ascending”

Ibibio Sound Machine — “Protection From Evil”

Miči & Sun-EL Musician — “Respond”

MUNA — “Anything But Me”

Porridge Radio — “Back to the Radio”

Spoon — “Wild”

Steve Lacy — “Bad Habit”

Storefront Church ft Phoebe Bridgers — “Words”

Stromae — “L’enfer”

Sudan Archives — “Selfish Soul”

Yeah Yeah Yeahs ft Perfume Genius — “Spitting Off the Edge of the World”

yeule — “Bites on My Neck”

Before I get to that, though, let me emphasize that this doesn’t mean that what I found to love in 2019 I loved any less; some years a single record announces itself as some sort of emblematic favorite strongly, some years it’s more a gestalt, but I’d put my feelings about this year’s top three against any recent years’, easily. I certainly didn’t expect Hatchie’s Keepsake to top the list when I first got it (even when I had this reaction to one of the early singles, a song that I wouldn’t even necessarily say is my favorite on the record!), but it got there the old-fashioned way; I simply couldn’t stop playing it, coming back to it between other records, getting various songs stuck in my head, etc. It’s a record I loved passionately and thoughtlessly enough that I couldn’t find the words to articulate it here at greater length than a Dust entry. If it feels a bit less tightly connected to current events than my dual 2018 favorites (Low’s Double Negative and Leverage Models’ Whites) did, that just speaks again to the multitude of ways we all connect with art. I’ll let most of my 2019 list stand on its own, except to note that the rest of my top three had at least an oblique relationship to that notion of currency, with the dark fables of Picastro’s Exit certainly being harrowing enough to soundtrack the news (particularly a song like “A Trench,” which like most Picastro songs instantly sounded like some dark old folk song I’d known since I was a kid the first time I played it) and Hot Chip’s ebulliently humane A Bath Full of Ecstasy being written in the spirit of providing a positive ideal to strive for, even while we’re (on both sides of the Atlantic) being buried under a mountain of shit.  

But even in that context, I don’t think my sudden attention to my archives was in the spirit of retreat or refuge; I can honestly say it started on a pure whim, with a friend mentioning how much they preferred the non-album version of The Wrens’ great “This Boy Is Exhausted,” a version that I can now tell you is from the Drive Thru Records 1999 compilation You’ll Never Eat Fast Food Again. This comment reminded me that I have that alternate version (and he’s right, it rips), but that I had no idea where it comes from. And something, somewhere, snapped. See, although I’ve been through multiple computers since I first had my own in the late 90s, and I’ve always been able to transfer all the music I’ve had on it (sometimes through crazily baroque methods) to my new machine, other things have changed a lot. It used to be I kept a ton of CDs but (since both the process was lengthy, hard drive space was at a premium, and internet speeds were painfully slow) I’d usually rip the four or five songs I most wanted to keep around. And any time I was keeping less than basically a full album of songs I’d erase most of the metadata (this now seems insane to me, but I think my mind at the time just wanted all those songs to display in alphabetical order and this seemed the easiest way to get, at the time, WinAmp to co-operate). Well, I got rid of 9/10ths of my CD collection at least five years ago, most of the music I get now whether promos or bought by me come as files, and I’ve got about 100 gigs of hard drive space free and a good, cheap internet connection.  

Somehow this combined with a momentary impulse to clean up and properly file my Wrens MP3s and turned into a massive sorting/deletion/reclamation project, complete with a spreadsheet in Google Docs to keep track of what I was keeping and a still to me surprising sense of satisfaction whenever I could justify spending an afternoon or evening just listening to, sorting and often deleting material, some of which hadn’t been played or looked at in 10+ years. Building a new library of stuff I still actually care about, and of course all the little fringe benefits (the little shocks of rediscovery, moments of outright nostalgia, even just the feeling of tidying up); it’s been the most edifying thing I’ve done in a while, and feels somewhere between self-indulgent and the best thing I could be doing for myself.  

Mind you, I’ve got a lot of music and I’ve been trying to prioritize this project below things like the people in my life, my day job, and writing here and elsewhere (which is rarely focused on that older material I’ve been processing, but is often informed by what I’ve been getting out of the work), so after eight months I’m… still working on the end of the Cs. Which means I’ve gone through literally everything starting with C that was already in my iTunes library, and have since moved on to the Unsorted pile I generated through that process, which holds both everything in the library I realized needed more time/listening before I made a decision (including things I downloaded as I went, because you do this and you realize it’s insane you somehow only have one Curtis Mayfield song, for example), and then all the other stuff starting with C that was sitting in a few directories that somehow didn’t make it into iTunes before. As I noted on Twitter at the time, C was a particularly rich haul in this respect not least because my love for Coil and the relatively messy state of their discography had at one point led me to say fuck it and accept another fan’s offer of their complete works (and even that wound up being not quite it… keeping a twitter thread of all the random little things that have come up during this process was a surprisingly good part, too). Those particular embarrassments of riches I’m still going through during my spare time, which led to November being a month where, except for stuff I was writing about, pretty much only Coil and Carly Rae Jepson got played in our apartment (my wife, with a saintly patience that comes naturally to neither of us, minded neither).  

It even feels a bit weird to discuss this still-ongoing project just in the context of 2019. Aside from some early goings where the thrill of just getting stuff put away properly was overwhelming, I’ve mostly been able to keep it as something I’m working on but after other things, which means it’s definitely going to be a years-long endeavor (to say nothing about how newly obtained material will get integrated in, as it comes), but maybe the major thing it’s done is abated the slowly but steadily rising background panic I only now realize I’d been feeling over the past decade or so, as all the new listening I keep doing (which I love and wouldn’t trade for anything; every year it gives me so many new things I love and that matter to me) was out of whack with the near total neglect I had for everything once it fell off the treadmill of the new. I felt stuck on that treadmill; now it feels, to torture this metaphor, like I still spend a good amount of time on the treadmill but also get off every so often and, I don’t know, lift weights or something. If anything, it’s made me more eager to hear new things when I carve out time for them. My teenage self, always worrying whether I’d still feel the same way about music once I hit my (late) 30s would be thrilled to hear the answer to possibly incipient burnout is not “stop listening” but rather “listen even more, but differently.”  

Ian Mathers

   Albums:

Hatchie - Keepsake

Picastro - Exit

Hot Chip - A Bath Full of Ecstasy

Blanck Mass - Animated Violence Mild

Sunwatchers - Illegal Moves

Clinic - Wheeltappers & Shunters

Wand - Laughing Matter

Ladytron - Ladytron

Aarktica - Mareación

Boy Harsher - Careful  

Nakhane - You Will Not Die

Lambchop - This (is what I wanted to tell you)

loscil - Equivalents

Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society - Mandatory Reality

Sigrid - Sucker Punch

Julia Kent - Temporal

Pelican - Nighttime Stories

Rafael Anton Irisarri - Solastalgia

Beth Gibbons & Krzysztof Penderecki - Symphony of Sorrowful Songs

The National - I Am Easy to Find

Singles:

Kitten - "Memphis"

James Blake ft. Rosalía - "Barefoot in the Park"

unperfect - "Gots to Give the Girl"

Rinne Yoshida - "Mu"

Georgia - "About Work the Dancefloor"

Vampire Weekend - “Harmony Hall”

Caroline Polachek - “Door”

Freddie Gibbs & Madlib - “Crime Pays”

BiSH - “DISTANCE”