This encompasses freer-form work. I once set up two basic “things” I’m looking for in music, all credit to mentor and friend Rich Dansky for helping me get to this: either a shot of emotion, a story; or a landscape I want to come back to and explore again and again. These are some examples of the latter category I loved in the darkness of 2020.
Continue reading for notes on each piece, basically post-show cocktail talk because you’d never hear me playing 90% of these on a jukebox.
Music was the single biggest balm for me in this fucked-up time. I tried to take advantage of the additional time at home to dig into records with a fervor I’m sorry to admit I’d let slip away from me for a few years.
I heard a couple hundred new records in full and it was hard winnowing down to 40ish, even harder getting to these 20 but these felt like they glowed together when I started looking at the track I kept. I’d be surprised if I’m not still taking these out and talking fondly in a few years.
I’ll also have a couple playlist posts last week of the month with songs from each of these and other songs I loved throughout the year.
Lilly Hiatt, Walking Proof
Don Bryant, You Make Me Feel
Jerry David DeCicca, The Unlikely Optimist and His Domestic Adventures
Kassa Overall, I Think I’m Good
Angel bat Dawid, LIVE
Todd May, Let’s Go Get Lost (couldn’t find a Bandcamp link, hit me up with one)
Nicole Atkins, Italian Ice
Makaya McCraven, Universal Beings E&F Sides
Jaime Wyatt, Neon Cross
Mourning [A] BLKstar, The Cycle
Ingrid Laubrock, Dreamt Twice, Twice Dreamt
Brandy Clark, Your Life is a Record (couldn’t find a bandcamp link)
Sa-Roc, The Sharecropper’s Daughter
Dave Douglas, Marching Music
Nubya Garcia, Source
Resistance Revival Chorus, This Joy
Quintron and Miss Pussycat, Goblin Alert
William Basinski, Lamentations
Busta Rhymes, ELE2: The Wrath of God (couldn’t find bandcamp link)
Joel Ross, Who Are You? (couldn’t find bandcamp link)
Screen of Distance 