At the end of 2022 I made a goal of opening myself up to a broader range of new music. I had started to feel like I was in a bit of a rut, finding most of my new music from the same handful of sources, with a rotating set of the same artists filling much of my list every year. Thanks to the internet, the world of music has become vast and segmented, so we are often stuck on just its surface. I wanted to look deeper but needed inspiration and direction. It came from Lars Gotrich, a contributor at NPR Music, who had spoken on several podcasts about his love of Bandcamp and how it was his go-to source for new music, particularly of the overlooked, under-appreciated, and further afield. So I took that as my challenge and decided I’d do my best to scour the vast depths of Bandcamp this year, spending what some would probably call a ludicrous amount of time surfing the site, sampling hundreds of albums, following one link to another to another, and browsing through endless categories of sub-genres.
Was it worth this new focus and all the time? I believe so, as any time spent finding new music that you love is well spent time. Even the time spent on music I didn’t love was time that helped me grow my awareness of the world and what is being created in it – including some pretty crazy shit!
Sitting down to compile this end of year list, I could see the overall effect as well. I had accumulated a much larger list of “good stuff” to pull from with a more diverse range of music. Because of this, my top choices were not as clear – I had a much stronger sense of comparing “apples to oranges,” so how could I define an overall favorite? I also suspect that some of this increased diversity (or in some cases niche quality) may result in a set of recommendations that aren’t as easily approachable for my friends and family. I’ve never expected to build a list that would be entirely to everyone’s liking – that wasn’t the goal – but the hope has always been to provide a sampling of wonderful music where almost anyone could find something that captivates them. I still believe that’s here, but we’ll have to see.
One last thing I want to acknowledge is a common through-line in my recent listening habits. It hasn’t been a conscious thing, but doing this review it became hard to deny that my music choices weren’t being influenced by a certain force: my midlife crisis. I mean, I wouldn’t say that it’s really a crisis, but the looming plunge into 50 might have gotten me thinking a bit (or a lot). My musical tastes are largely determined by melody, timbre, and rhythm, but lyrics can play a big part at times and my picks for this year (and some might remember last year as well) are littered with touches of existentialism, impermanence, futility, and mortality. But hey, it’s all in the context of beautiful music and having a good time!
With that said, I hope you have a good time poking around through this list of albums and the soon to drop list of songs. Let me know if you find something you love, or share a new favorite you found this year – it’s one of the best gifts you can give.
1. HELLMODE, Jeff Rosenstock
I would really like to be friends with Jeff Rosenstock, although I’m sure he already has plenty. I imagine he’s perpetually surrounded by a self-generated worthwind of good natured chaos. From New York and anxious by nature, I bet he’s the kind of person who won’t hesitate to call you out, might frequently leave you worried about what’s going to happen next, yet always make you feel welcome and embraced. [Note: This characterization is heavily influenced by early Rosenstock music, full of party anthems and antics. Now in his 40’s, I fully expect this to be intermixed with the realities of fatherhood, career, and adult stuff.] Rosenstock hit my radar with his 2016 release WORRY. and his 2018 album POST- was on my top 10 list that year. I think HELLMODE is easily his best work so far. This is still… punk music? Pop-punk? Garage-punk? Party-post-punk? (Now that I say that, I’d venture if you somehow took a heavily over-caffeinated Ian MacKaye of Fugazi and turned him into a much happier person, you would probably get this same album. Wait, has anyone actually ever seen MacKaye and Rosenstock in the same room at the same time?) HELLMODE has all the same Rosenstock charisma, the same fiercely independent DIY approach, the same call-to-arms vibe (with anthemic verses and a chorus of voices shouting along to various parts), the same SCREAM IN ALL CAPS approach. But here he’s turned down the manic nature of the music just a touch and found a precarious balance point between authenticity and approachability. Beyond all that, what this album has is something that connects directly for me – a giddy recognition of mid-life drudgery and inevitable mortality. (I warned you about a through-line…) In the 90 second long track “HEAD,” the message can be self-eviscerating: “Currently it’s obvious there are no fair elections / There is no constitution and there is no bill of rights / And if you gather in the streets to demonstrate objections / They’ll beat you with a club and whisk you off into the night / …And I don’t wanna think about it anymore / And it feels okay / But that doesn’t make it stop.” In the quiet/loud build up of “DOUBT,” it can be a form of self care: “I don’t know how to scrape off the dog shit that’s stuck on the heart of the fuckin’ world / How to cut loose the doom that’s been screwed to the roof of your fuckin’ skull / How to make life the kind where you don’t die regretting what you haven’t done / You gotta chill out with the doubt, the doubt, the doubt / You gotta cool it with the doubt.” And in my favorite track “THE FUTURE IS DUMB, Rosenstock channels some kind of punk-buddhist mantra: “So what if you die / So what if you don’t die / So what if you realize that we ran out of time / ‘Cause the world doesn’t owe you / The world doesn’t owe you / The world doesn’t owe you a thing.”
2. Lush Life, The Belair Lip Bombs
I don’t know what’s going on in the South Pacific but over the last 7 or 8 years Australia and New Zealand have started putting out a vastly disproportionate amount of the world’s best rock music. You could argue Courtney Barnett launched things onto a new level with 2015’s Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit. Fast forward to 2023 and every time I turn around I’m stumbling onto a new favorite release that just happens to come from down under with artists such as Carla Geneve, Angie McMahon, RVG, Split System, Julia Jacklin, and ZOJ, just to name a few. While there’s certainly diversity within this music scene, there seems to be some common trends towards post punk, jangly indie-pop, and strong female voices.All three come together with The Belair LipBombs, a Melbourne band fronted by Maisie Everett who’s applied some of the energy from her former post-punk band CLAMM to this new project that’s full of jangly guitars and melodic hooks heavy with 80’s and 90’s influences.
3. Turbulence and Pulse, Asher Gameze
As a kid who grew up playing the saxophone my early jazz idols were Coltrane, Parker, and as I got further into jazz, Lester Young. Once I stopped playing the sax myself, I started listening less as a wanna-be and more as a simple appreciator. I think that’s when I developed my awe of the great jazz drummers and Max Roach became my new jazz icon. I may still carry a soft spot for the saxophone, but I now find drumming is often what separates good jazz from great jazz and it’s certainly what first drew me into Turbulence and Pulse. (Special note on the album mixing: the rhythm section is perfectly mic’d in this production and it’s a critical component that enables the success of the album. I’ll assume this is the result of the band leader being the drummer and therefore putting priority on it, but it puts the drums and double bass on par with the traditional lead instruments (sax, trumpet) rather than leaving them as subtle background pieces. It brings out an essential depth and balance to the songs.) The album opens with a mission statement – an interest in what the movement of time in music can illuminate in the movement of time historically. Throughout the following tracks, the saxophone and trumpet move in and out of sync. First creating periods of turbulence that highlight these are individuals with their own awareness of time, and then resolving into a unison that shows us what it means for a group to have a shared sense of time. Paired with this dynamic, the double bass builds ensemble time and Gameze’s drumming mixes traditional jazz styling with African influences – all with a musicality that few drummers can match.
4. Hertz, Carla Geneve
Another one of those releases from Down Under, Hertz is one of the more straight forward “alternative rock” picks on my list, sitting in a similar neighborhood as Blondshell’s album mentioned later on. But the fact that it so immediately stood out as needing to place prominently on my list speaks highly of how effectively Geneve has constructed a set of very personal songs. It’s the very personal and easily identifiable nature of her lyrics that make these songs resonate with the listener. Interviews around the release talk about it being a concept album documenting Geneve’s experience with bipolar disorder. While I might not connect with that detail specifically, that’s clearly not a requirement for the music to work its charm. Instead, Geneve shows us how the focused honesty of one individual can create powerful songs that go beyond the specifics of an individual’s experience and become something universal.
5. Maps, Billy Woods & Kenny Segal
Does Billy Woods sleep? Couldn’t be more than a few hours a night. He’s an insane workaholic, putting out a profusion of music across so many different projects I quickly gave up on the idea of trying to list them all out for this review. While much of that work is exceptional, it’s his collaborations with Kenny Segal where he sets new standards. I was so enamored with their first collaboration, 2019’s Hiding Places, that I have to admit it took me a while to warm up to Maps. Overall, the tracks are more down-tempo and Woods’ lyrics and delivery reflect a weariness – at least in some part because of the demands of all that work. And while Segal’s production is just as complex and creative, my initial impression craved the heavier bunch it had in the earlier work. What I had missed with those first listens was the brutal punch that Woods’ more than delivers with his lines.
6. Good Grief, Magic AL
Don’t underestimate this album’s title. This is the brightest, most upbeat album you’ll ever hear that’s focused on death and loss. Alex Bingham is a musician and producer who has worked with some of my favorite folk and indie rock artists in the Southeast (Hiss Golden Messenger, Watchouse, Libby Rodenbough, Beth Orton). With the project Magic AL, he’s brought many of those friends together to help him work through personal loss, creating a musical celebration or wake for those now gone. From the ridiculously infectious dance-pop opener “Cryin’ at the Party,” to the warm and dreamy “Hello,” and on through the entire album, this feels like an act that could be the definition of cathartic. Good Grief turns the bittersweet up to 11, making you want to simultaneously smile, cry, and dance.
7. L.A. Shit, GracieHorse
I typically have a lot more country or country-adjacent music in my annual favorite albums list. My guess is that part of the change this year is a subconscious attempt to move away from past listening patterns (as referenced in my opening monologue). This album is the one exception for 2023 and it’s country music of a very specific vibe. It’s country music that has nothing to do with pickup trucks or cows, but it is country music that clearly creates a musical landscape of the American Southwest. It’s country music of the Los Angeles hills. It’s country music that you might hear pouring from the speakers of a convertible Cadillac in some Coen brother’s movie about Tinseltown’s downtrodden. From that, Gracie Jackson uses the rich storytelling heritage of country music as her launching point to build movie-like vignettes about quirky characters, being away from home in the strangeness of LA, and the struggles of living in a post-pandemic world. What completes the scene with beguiling charm is Jackson’s vocal delivery – a smokey drawl she uses to deceptively deliver biting lines in dream-like ease. My single favorite moment in the album? The way she uses that drawl to deliver the lyric “true crime sleuths” in “What I’m Missing,” something that requires a singer with guts.
8. Blondshell, Blondshell
It’s been plain to see for a while that 90’s grunge has been having a resurgence, heavily influencing a lot of new artists. These kinds of trends have mixed results – some examples creating new magic, others feeling like lazy dilutions. The original grunge had a lot of white male, self-indulgent angstiness in it. (Ouch, that hits a bit close to home…) Part of this revival has been driven by, or corresponded with, an upswell of young (often called angsty) women artists; pinnacle examples of course: the boygenius wonder-trio of Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus, and Phoebe Bridgers. I suspect this is a risk for Blondshell, the moniker for Sabrina Teitelbaum, as it could allow some folks to view her work as “tag along.” There are certainly comparisons there, and of course the similarities to 90’s alt-rock – she clearly loves that loud-quite-loud grunge dynamic, there are guitar sounds not too different than what you might find on some Nirvana tracks, and the lyrical contradictions of self-loathing while also seeking love. But this is not Teitelbaum’s first go in the music scene and she’s talented enough to build her own magic formula. She’s got wicked lyrics, a great voice, catchy hooks, and crunching guitars. What else could I ask for? I am a youth of the 90’s after all.
9. Dimanche a Bamako, Bounaly
Over the last 10 years or so I’ve developed a love for the desert blues of North African guitar music – artists like Omara “Bombino” Moctar, Mdou Moctar, Fatoumata Diawara, Ali Farka Touré, and Tinariwen. There is an amazing energy that is formed with the mixing of this pulsing, rhythmic, guitar style and the traditional folk music of Tuareg, Malian, and Saharan Region cultures. But when I first heard the opening track of Dimanche a Bamako it literally made my heart race. Recorded at a wedding celebration, this is not an album for an audiophile – there is chaos in this recording. The vocals over-saturate the mic, the speakers sound like they have already blown, the circuit breaker is sure to trip at any point (in fact, there’s a moment in one song where the recording captures an actual electrical fault) but no one cares as the band and the crowd are focused entirely on rejoicing. With sounds of families still eating and kids playing in the background this album creates an amazing magic unlike anything I’ve ever heard before – it simultaneously captures both a frenetic party energy and the multilayered complexity of a community. [Cool sidenote: This is one of two albums in my top 20 that are from African artists but have a local connection. They were both released by Sehel Sounds, a small record label based here in Portland which specializes in music from the southern part of the Sahara desert.]
10. Silencio, Karen y Los Remedios
“Silencio” is the final line uttered in David Lynch’s film, Mulholand Drive. I’m not sure when you last saw that film or how clearly you might understand the meaning of that line. My memory of the film was fuzzy and unsure; I’d been wanting to revisit it for some time. Recently, I was traveling for work and found it playing on one of the movie channels as I sat in my hotel room. What did I get from this rewatch? I confirmed that the 20-something me who first watched it really missed major parts of the plot. And I’m still unclear on the whole “Silencio” thing. The trick to appreciating Mulholland Drive (and David Lynch film’s in general) is to not get hung up on understanding it all, but instead embrace the meaning you can take as well as the mystery that remains. The same is true of Silencio the album. In interviews with Ana Karen Barajas, lead singer of Karen y Los Remedios, I’ve seen mention of taking inspiration from the film, but to what degree, it’s unclear. (Obvious to those who know, my understanding here is largely self-inflicted due to my thorough ignorance of the Spanish language.) However, what is mentioned almost everywhere is how the music of Karen y Los Remedios blends cumbia and existentialism – both of which I’ve recently developed a thing for. Now I tried digging into the existential aspect but had a hard time getting English translations of the lyrics, so much of that I can’t speak to directly. But regardless of how deep those themes might be in the lyrics, the hypnotic cumbia beats and the mysterious vulnerability of Barajas’ voice are a combination I was never going to be able to resist.
And the rest of my top 20:
11. Thank God We Left the Garden, Jeffrey Martin
12. LXXXVIII, Actress
13. Dynamic Maximum Tension, Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society
14. A Collection of Songs in the Traditional & Sean-Nós Style, Various Artists
15. Fil O Fenjoon, ZÖJ
16. the record, boygenius
17. Jerusalem, Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru
18. Liminal Fields, Vulture Feather
19. Variable Happiness, Edsel Axle
20. Namian Sidibé, Namian Sidibé
Not More Music Crap? 