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I listened to a hell of a lot of music in 2022, but very little of it was “album” focused. Still, a handful of albums stood out and marked artists I wanted to spend more time with. I’ve avoided complete rankings, but have grouped the albums in tiers. All of these albums are, in my view, fantastic, but the top tiers just won my heart a little more completely.

I was tempted to make a separate list for jazz, but i don’t have it in me–neither the energy nor the expertise. I’ll just namecheck Melissa Aldana, Mary Halvorsen (who should probably have been on the below list), The Matthew Shipp Trio (probably the best) and Sun-Mi Hong.

“Classical” got less play this year for me this year, but I did love The Mysterious Motet Book album by Siglo de Oro, Caroline Shaw’s Evergreen, and Caroline Widmen’s L’Aurore.

Tier One

Cate LeBon–Pompeii

Welsch guitarist and songwriter Cate LeBon might make a bad album one day, but I wouldn’t bet on it. I jumped on the bandwagon with Mug Museum, but I think Pompeii might top it. She twists the weird into melody in a way that challenges while still giving the mind a place to land. I spend a fair amount of time complaining about saxophones, but the sax underpins most of the songs here and, well, it’s miraculous.

Aldous Harding–Warm Chris

Aldous Harding’s ability to write a song is only matched by her ability to vocally shapeshift in bringing it alive. Here live show was an odd experience–Harding was deeply strange but all the more entrancing for it. Unless she quits music to commit herself to topiary gardening, this New Zealand native will be one of our best songwriters for decades to come.

Lucretia Dalt–¡Ay!

Lucretia Dalt has been on a bit of a roll recently. This year alone she released three albums–two excellent soundtracks (The Baby, The Seed) and a solo masterpiece. While this Columbian artist is often classified as “experimental,” that label makes her sound alienating and intentionally weird. But she’s much more compelling than most on the experimental side of things. Think, perhaps, a cross between Bjork and Tom Waits, but in Spanish? Ok, maybe that does sound odd.

Angel Olsen–Big Time

While Angel Olsen can’t be said to be inventing new styles or changing the map of music, the power of her voice and the intimacy of her songwriting make her an essential artist. There are certainly echoes of Mazzy Star, old country, Roy Orbison, and others here. Maybe she’s our queer Loretta Lynne. She should be a household name.

Kikagaku Moyo–Kumoyo Island

I hate it when I discover a band just as they are breaking up. I hate it a bit more when I find out that they are playing blocks from my house just after the shows have sold out. Kikagaku Moyo is a Japanese psychedelic band that has apparently gone from barely knowing their instruments to a group that can weave hypnotic tapestries with symphonic precision.

Tier 2

Cocanha–Puput

Cocanha sings in the engangered language of Occitan, mostly to percussive claps and stomps. Yes, if I read that description I too would think this was perversely obscure and too precious for words. But wait and listen. They conjure playground chants and ritual dances, set in a folkloric realm. And, surprisingly, it can really groove.

Note: this apparently came out in 2020. I found it this year and I want more people to hear it, so who cares.

Bill Callahan–Ytilaer

It’s taken me a while to fall for Bill Callahan. I was never into Smog, despite people telling me I should be, but each album I listened to (and this is his 23rd) seemed to hypnotise me further. Though his voice is much better, Callahan’s closest comparison for me is probably Dylan in that his lyrics consist of curveballs that somehow always wend their way into the strike zone. In this album Callahan is a bit more…positive, comforting…than normal, and that’s what I needed in 2022. Time to revisit the backcatalogue.

Big Thief–Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You

If you set Radiohead aside, Big Thief is the best band going. Dragon New Warm Mountain is a huge double album that shows off the band’s folksier side. It’s maybe bordering on too much so for me–it’s rare that I can find a place for a jaw harp–but Adrienne Lenker’s lyrics and fragile voice win me over.

The Smile–A Light for Attracting Attention

Anytime any of the Radiohead gang produced anything the bar is set so high that anything not world-busting can be dismissed. The Smile is Johnny Greenwood and Thom Yorke of Radiohead, plus drummer Tom Skinner who has worked with Sons of Kemet and has an excellent album of his own. While not entirely eschewing the tendencey to orchestrate their sound, Greenwood and York let loose a little more with the Smile and return to a more guitar driven sound. For those of us who still worship OK, A Light hits a sweet spot.

Avalance Kaito–Avalance Kaito

According to their bandcamp page, Avalance Kaito is “A Burkinabe urban griot (vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Kaito Winse) meets a Brussels noise punk duo.” Admittedly, this sounds like a cross-cultural experiment where the novelty beats the musical value. But in my view it works. Kaito Winse’s gravelly shouts feel, well, punk, and the band’s rythmic grinding chuggs underneath and propels us into uncharted territory.

Tier 3

Perennial–In the Midnight Hour

It’s good to hear kids making noise. Perennial is New England trio that combines electro-punk, post-punk, and just energetic rock. There’s not much out there about them, but with any luck there will be. There’s a little bit of the loud quiet loud formula, which as a 90s boy I’m a sucker for, and there’s male/female vocal tradeoffs, which adds extra dimension to the sound. It’s a splendid debut.

Sprints–A Modern Job EP

Sprints are a Dublin punk(ish) band led by singer Karla Chubb, whose political–but not too self-serious–lyrics separate the band from the pack. They have a raw sound with aggressive bass and drums, with a guitar overlay that keeps hooks in the mix. Though they sound a bit more guitarsy, there’s some similarities to (the excellent) Porridge Radio. Looking forward to more from these guys.

Anterloper–Pink Dolphins

It’s hard to overstate the loss of jaime branch. From her purer jazz stuff–which was always at least a little influenced by a rock sensibility–to this album with Anterloper, her work is fresh, energetic, and timely. This album, which involves collaborations with fellow Chicago scenesters Jason Nazary, Jeff Parker and Chad Tayler, shows the mixture of improvisation and organization that she mastered. Is it jazz? Who cares.

Horse Lords–Comradely Objects

Cross Polvo with their idiosyncratic tunings with Don Caballero and you might get something like Horselords: a grooving, rythmic perfect mess. More evidence that Baltimore isn’t just for dreampop.

Moor Mother–Jazz Codes

Yes, Camae Ayewa–the Philadelphia based genius who is Moor Mother–is everywhere. Her own projects include those hip-hop inflected under her own name, those of a more jazzy sort with Irreversible Entanglements, slightly more electronic with 700 Bliss. And then there are guest spots galore. Ever since her debut, Fetish Bones, it’s been clear she’s one of those rare talents whose innovation and intelligence gives the midas touch. Jazz Codes is a sort of ode to jazz musicians gone by, but sounds like nothing else. Excellent guest spots by Melanie Charles and others.

Tier 4

Wet Leg–Wet Leg

Maybe the most talked about band of the past year, Wet Leg gave many of us the levity we needed. After the Isle of Wight duo’s single Chaise Lounge made every playlist of the previous year, it wasn’t obvious there was enough substance there to fill an album. Turns out, there was, and just about every song is a little pop gem. I have no idea whether these two will be around in ten years, but they’re definitely having a cool moment.

Alvvays–Blue Rev

I admit, after the indie-pop perfection of their debut album in 2014, Alvvays fell off my radar. Judging by Blue Rev, that was a mistake. While they aren’t reinventing the wheel–they owe to bands like Lush, The Sundays and many others–their music is too compelling to relegate to throwback status. Molly Rankin’s voice dances the melodies over distorted guitars, and then you smile.

Marlowe–Marlowe 3

I missed Marlow 1 and 2, but this album–by the duo L’Orange and Solemn Brigham–is one of the best rap/hip-hop albums I heard this year. (Never could penetrate the Kendrick–moments of brilliance, but a little hard to listen to on the whole. The Pusha T was excellent, but I just didn’t listen to it as much as the Marlowe.) The combination of Brigham’s words and flow with L’Orange’s samples and beats makes for a catchy and compelling mix. If you like Danny Brown, which you should, this is worth checking out.

Afrorack–Afrorack

Afrorack refers to Brian Bamanya, a Ugandan musician and electronics tinkerer, to his homemade modular synth, and to this album which is one of the most interesting electronic offerings I heard this year. Reviews mention his building on indigenous polyrythms, but I can’t speak to that. It sounds like a drum machine mated with a 1990s modem. This is what our AI overlords will listen to when they crank up the oldies.

Flock–Flock

Flock is an experimental/improvisational jazz-ish group from London. If that sounds scary, take a listen. It’s far from the chaotic Brotzmann style jazz that you might think of. Using a wide range of instruments, from flutes and sax to Fender Rhodes and vibraphone, these five musicians create tapestries that probably couldn’t have been designed, but hang together anyway.

Last month we lost one of the most exciting artists in Jazz, trumpeter and composer jamie branch. Branch was one of the leading lights of the brilliant Chicago scene, and like many of those artists she was not easily constrained by genre. Though her work is often categorized as improvised, it’s more melodic and structured than some of the more extreme examples. As is often noted, she took as many cues from punk as from traditional Jazz sources, and her playing bears that swagger and intensity.

Branch’s catalogue was growing quickly, but every album she made is worth hearing. Two entry points are her debut “Fly or Die” by her quartet of the same name (a quartet with trumpet, cello (!), bass and drums) and for something a little more cross-over, “Pink Dolphins” from Anterloper, her band with Jason Nazarny.

Tidal:

Spotify:

Phyton, by Berlin based producer, singer and composer Yosa Peit, is a glitchy stew of 80s soundtrack synths, R&B, and the occasional birdsound. While it saw light first on Tax Free Records in 2020, Fire Records will be giving it wider release in November 2022. While the press release namechecks Bjork and Laurie Anderson, I don’t quite see the comparison there–other than those being two other amazingly innovative artists. Peit needs to be heard on her own terms, and she simply needs to be heard. The tracks flirt with the familiar and then skew off and fracture, sliding into another thing entirely. It’s the kind of delicate balance between groove and destabilization that feels correct at the moment.

Aldous Harding is one of those songwriters who seem to pluck melodies from the Platonic heavens. Or maybe not Platonic–there’s something too odd and unexpected about Harding’s tunes for Plato–but there’s a perfection there. As a singer, Harding is a chameleon. In songs like “Fever” she sings with the self-assured voice of someone like Cate LeBon, while on “Warm Chris” she sounds like a child singing a lullaby. Comparisons to Adrienne Lenker of Big Thief aren’t off base, but Harding is a more interesting vocalist, I think. This is an excellent album, first song to last, and will be one of the year’s standouts.

I had the good fortune to see her in concert last week and though her stage presence is unusual, to say the least, she was absolutely spellbinding.

This is apparently the fifth, and also unfortunately the supposed final, album from this Japanese Psyche-Rock band. It’s my first exposure to the group, but I’m an instant believer. As always with a solid album, the genre tag sells it short. Things are certainly trippy in Kikagaku Moyo-land, but there are dashes of lounge, jazz, and a touch of funk, all suffused with a self-aware exoticism that might or might not be rooted in Japanese folk traditions. (I tend to doubt it. Sitars and windchimes brush up against distorted guitars, and the lyrics are largely in fake language.) It’s basically what I need my summer to sound like–though the gorgeous orange vinyl won’t arrive till September! In the meantime, there’s bandcamp.

(Check out the band’s homepage here. It gives a sense of their ethos.)

Kevin Morby’s seventh album meditates on the fleeting nature of life and love but avoids melancholy by crisp specifics that remind us of what makes it all worthwhile. By now it’s safe to say that Morby is one of our best singer-songwriters. He won’t be to everyone’s taste–his vocals tend a little toward the chant rather than the melodic and his sincerity might shade into the precious–but he’s one of the best lyricists out there. Title track “This is a Photograph” uses a snapshot of his dad to capture the fact that all potential is ultimately buried by time but that it’s the moments, “My body…my girls…my boy…the sun” that are worth living for. This is an album that helps us reconcile ourselves to the convoluted topography the pandemic has imposed on our sense of the flow of our lives.

Brooklyn based Sarah Beth Tomberlin’s wistful songs are the sort you play when you’re on the road, driving back from a visit to what’s been left behind–the old college town, the folks back at home, an old lover. They comfort solitude but weigh with unease. I’m admittedly not familiar with her previous work, but if “i don’t know…” is anything to go by, it’s worth exploring. There’s a bit of Beth Orton here, maybe a bit of Wye Oak, but the songwriting here earns a space with such excellent predecessors. If there’s a criticism to be made, it’s that the album maintains a pretty constant tone and might need a little variation. But check out “Easy” and “Stoned” for peaks that give a sense of what Tomberlin is capable of.

OKI is an Ainu musician who combines traditional music, played upon the tonkori, with a range of influences that update the sound while retaining a ritualistic purity. The sound is generally very spare–the tonkori is a plucked five stringed open-fret instrument–but there is diversity among the tracks because of the lovely guest vocals (notably by Ainu folk singer Umeko Ando) and surprising sonic addtions–from casio beats to throat singing. I recommend experimenting with various tracks. (For a quick taste of the range, try Yaykatekar Dub and Iuta Upopo.) The album is a balm for hard times.