2023 Albums: Honourable Mentions
- 4 minutes read - 738 wordsA quick list of ten other albums I considered to be among the best of last year. I either listened to these less, or in the cases of “Transmission Three” and “Be Opened By The Wonderful” considered them to be ineligible as they are compilations.
Yves Tumor, “Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)”
Great album, recommended to me by Apple Music slinging the first track into my discovery feed back when that featured was added. Lots of earworms and a really good headphone listen. My top 10 was pretty dance heavy and putting this in might have added a few more guitars. Highly recommended.
Peter Gabriel, “i/o”
These songs dribbled out one a month on the new moon. This gave me the idea of only saying yes on Doodle polls to dates coinciding with a new moon, mainly because Doodle polls bore me. After 21 years or so, any new music is gratefully received. “Four Kinds of Horses” is awesome. Almost all of the rest is excellent too, save for the two songs that sound like “Kiss That Frog” and “Blood of Eden” respectively.
Wilco, “Cousin”
Too bad they’d already used “Wilco Schmilco” as an album title. This is a decent album that sounds like Wilco but with a new producer. Which is what it is. “Sunlight Ends” is break-your-heart gorgeous though.
Various Artists, “Jura Soundsystem Transmission Three”
Excellent compilation of rare eighties and nineties ambient singles. “Lunar Base Dub” by Full Moon Scientist made it on to one of my most played playlists, and so has ended up as one of my most played tracks this year. It has a Doctor Who sample on it. I got the vinyl edition of this (I’m collecting for after the apocalypse so there are still some good records about) and it actually has samples from the movie “The K Foundation Burn a Million Quid”. Presumably that’s the source of the Jura Soundsystem name.
Panda Bear, Sonic Boom, and Adrian Sherwood, “Reset In Dub”
I’ve listened to Reset loads this year, but it’s a 2022 album, so I couldn’t include it. “Reset in Dub” is, as the name suggests, a dub remix of the same album. Remix albums are as ineligible as compilations IMHO, so it didn’t get included in the main list. It’s always good to hear an album get dismantled and spaced out dub style, and this doesn’t disappoint. Compare and contrast with Foals’ dub remix that they put out for Record Store Day, which totally and utterly sucked.
David Holmes and Raven Violet, “Blind On A Galloping Horse”
I was excited for this but the bangers (“Hope Is The First To Die”, “Necessary Genius”, “It’s Over, If We Run Out Of Love”) get drowned out by a lack of editing and focus, this album did not need to be 75 minutes long except possibly in homage to the CD era. CDs were great but nobody misses them, not really.
James, “Be Opened By The Wonderful”
A 40 (!) year anniversary of James songs performed with an orchestra sounded pretty worthy at first but there are some good choices and deep cuts here. It’s a good testament to how varied their career has been and also shows off how Tim protects his voice these days. There might be a new album this year. If they’ve ditched Jacknife Lee as producer, I’m in.
Natural Wonder Beauty Concept, s/t
Collab between DJ Python and someone else I’d never heard of. Super slow electronica which might once have been called trip hop, but I don’t think it matches the best of that genre. Very good for doing work work to or anything else that requires me to basically be a vegetable.
CHAI, s/t
I love CHAI. Didn’t love this. Gave it a few goes and went back to their earlier stuff.
Chris Coco and George Solar, “Island Vibrations”
Look, I like chill out music ok?!?
Final thoughts
There are still loads of albums that I’ve missed even on this list, albums that I’ve loved listening to or really enjoyed a couple of songs from. I still haven’t listened to any of the new Blur album yet. Looking at the release lists for 2024, it’s quite a slow start this year, so I still have plenty of time to catch up with a few albums that I’ve not given a lot of attention to.