Always fun to go back through all the music from the past year and try to sort out which were my favorites. Fun, but very, very difficult. I’ve narrowed things down, but only because I forced myself to. A lot was left off and what was left off could easily be on one of these lists, so… what can you do? A good problem to have.
As usual, I’ve broken things down into sets and each set is alphabetical. I have playlists for each version, so you can dig into my top 10, top 25, or, probably best, top 125 or so. If that’s still not enough, I have a playlist that’s like 300 or so albums here, and one that’s basically everything I would’ve given four stars or more right here. Let me know what I’m missing!
That being said, without further ado…
My Top 10 for 2020 (alphabetical)
Spotify playlist with my top 10
Bananagun — The True Story of Bananagun
I like to think every band from Australia is a genre-defying, norm-busting creature like King Gizzard or Courney Barnett. I’m sure they have shitty bands Down Under like we do here and mediocre ones to fill in the gaps. Banagun is neither shitty nor medicore, they’re a genre-defying, norm-busting creature. 31 flavors of kick-ass, from groovy to rocking to psychedelic. Dig it.
Bonny Light Horseman — Bonny Light Horseman
The superest supergroup there is. When this band first was announced (as a lineup addition to Newport Folk last year), my first reaction was that this band was a fever dream I never knew I had. Some of my favorite musicians playing together. The music is as good as I could’ve dreamed, folk music perfection from Eric Johnson, Anais Mitchell and Josh Kaufman. So good!
Ezra Feinberg — Recumbent Speech
Ezra Feinberg is two for two on making this list. When his Pentimento and Others came out a couple years ago it came from way off the radar and socked me in the soul with its gorgeous guitar-centric instrumental beauty. This one didn’t sneak up on me like that, but it’s doubly impressive for its soul-socking. If you forced me to pick an album of the year, this would probably have to be it. A perfect antidote to 2020’s ails.
Matthew Halsall — Salute to the Sun
My new favorite genre is “notjazz.” Yes, I might have made that up, but Halsall’s record is a perfect specimen to prove the point. I mean, maybe it’s jazz, but it’s more like what jazz might sound like if it were invented in the 21st century. This is some stunning instrumental mind-soothe, a perfect blend of instruments, lovely melodies, just enough what’s-coming-next excitement. Each track is a thing to marvel.
Hollow Ship — Future Remains
The best tunes come from Scandanavia… everyone who’s listened to me yammer or checked out any of my recommendations know that. 2020 was full of perfect examples to prove the point, but perhaps my favorite was Sweden’s Hollow Ship — a great rec from my brother, actually. When I wrote about them earlier this year, I described their sound as Pink Floyd meets the Family Stone… with a Eurojam twist, of course. Who wouldn’t want to listen to that?
Madeleine Kenney — Sucker’s Lunch
This is another one of those records that followed up one that caught me off guard a couple years ago. I was really looking forward to Kenney’s release this year and she nailed it. Excellent songs, heart-stirring arrangements. This was going for it all and nailing it. I love this record, each song a gem.
Mary Lattimore — Silver Ladders
The harpist Mary Lattimore makes a lot of music. Oh sure, her newest full length is a masterpiece of ambient harp playing mixed with electronics and synth, the lightest tough, a gentle caress, a soul cleanse for when you didn’t even know you needed it. It’s all there. But Lattimore was all over my playlists this year, a live album, adding her harp to other people’s albums (like half a dozen appearances or more, all of them amazing), plus one-off tracks on her Bandcamp on like a monthly basis it seems. She makes a lot of music, it’s all gobsmackingly good.
Becca Mancari — The Greatest Part
When I was putting together this list, I kept coming back to this one. Was it really a top ten album for me this year? The answer every time I asked it was a resounding yes. Is it rock and roll? Is it singer songrwriter folk? Is it familiar and a breath of fresh air all at once? Sometimes you just need to listen to the music to get to the answer and with this one, the answer is yes every time.
Libby Rodenbough — Spectacle of Love
Rodenbough is a member of the indiefolk outfit Mipso, but with her debut solo release, it seems that there’s a whole range of music inside of her. It seems like all of it came out on this one and damn, if that ain’t a good thing. Hopping across genres, she keeps it centered with an ear for melody, some lovely lyricism and that certain something. This is the album I kept begging people to check out. Hits me differently every time I go back to it.
Sven Wunder — Eastern Flowers
Sven Wunder hit me in my sweet spot with Eastern Flowers, an album that is a full bouquet of worldly sounds, the music of a man who has tilled his garden with the genre-defying fertilizer of lands near and far. Exotic melodies, serious grooves, psychedelic expansiveness. This has it all. A sweet spot indeed. And then he followed it up with an almost-as-good record that does the same with Japanese influenced sounds. Something tells me we’re just getting started with the aptly-named Wunder. Certainly one of my favoirte albums of the year.
I also loved (the rest off my top 25 in alphabetical order)
Spotify playlist with my top 25
Causa Sui — Szabodelico
Greg Foat — Symphonie Pacifique
Frankie & the Witch Fingers — Monsters Eating People Eating Monsters…
Bill Frisell — Valentine
Thanya Iyer — KIND
Linkwood & Other Lands — Face the Facts
Sarah Louise — Floating Rhododendron
Misha Panfilov & Shawn Lee — Paradise Cove
Martin Rude & Jakob Skott Duo — The Dichotomy of Control/The Discipline of Ascent
Surprise Chef — Daylight Savings
Sean Watkins/Matt Chamberlain — s/t
Waxahatchee — Saint Cloud
Woods — Strange to Explain
Spencer Zahn — Sunday Painter
Good shit (26–50 in alphabetical order)
Spotify Playlist with my top 50
Fiona Apple — Fetch the Bolt Cutters
Zachary Cale — False Spring
James Elkington — Ever-Roving Eye
Aoife Nessa Frances — Land of No Junction
Ghost Funk Orchestra — An Ode to Escapism
Girls in Airports — Dive
Erik Hall — Music For 18 Musicians (Steve Reich)
Marla Hansen — Dust
Harrington, Gustin & Zahn — Tura Lura
Holy Hive — Float Back To You
The Homesick — The Big Exercise
King GIzzard & the Lizard Wizard — K.G.
Aidan Knight — s/t
L.A. Takedown — Our Feeling of Natural High
MAITA — Best Wishes
Laura Marling — Song for Our Daughter
Ohmme — Fantasize Your Ghost
Once and Future Band — Deleted Scenes
Pacific Range — High Upon the Mountain
Esme Patterson — There Will Come Soft Rains
The Sorcerers — In Search of the Lost City of the Monkey God
The Texas Gentleman — Floor It!!!
Thao & the Get Down Stay Down — Temple
Stein Urheim — Downhill Upliift
Andrew Wasylyk — Fugitive Light and Themes of Consolation
Adrian Younge, ALi Shaheed Muhammed, Roy Ayerrs — JID002
Honorable Mention (rounding out my top 125 (or so) in alphabetical order)
Spotify playlist with my top 125
Idris Ackamoor & the Pyramids — Shaman!
Sam Amidon — s/t
Arbor Labor Union — New Petal Instants
Nicole Atkins — Italian Ice
Jennah Barry — Holiday
Bent Arcana — s/t
Will Bernard — Freelance Subversives
Jake Blount — Spider Tales
Doug Carn, Adrian Younge, Ali Shaheed Muhammed — JID005
Chicano Batman — Invisible People
Steve Cobby — Nostalgia Intensa
Joachim Cooder — Over That Road I’m Bound
Samantha Crain — A Small Death
Rudy De Anda — Tender Epoch
Luke De-Sciscio — Sublime
Delta Spirit — What Is There
Daniel Donato — A Young Man’s Country
Dezron Douglas/Brandee Younger — Force Majeure
Dukes of Chutney — Hazel
Domenique Dumont — People On Sunday
Seamus Egan — Early Bright
Ellis/Munk Ensemble — San Diego Sessions
Early James — Singing For My Supper
Fly Golden Eagle — Leprechaun’s Milk
Nubya Garcia — SOURCE
Garcia Peoples — Nightcap at Wit’s End
Giobia — Plasmatic Idol
Ross Hammond/Linda Michelle Hardy — Elements
Toby Hay — New Music For the 12 String Guitar
Richard Houghton — Sailing Through Rainbows of Sound
Horse Lords — The Common Task
Jaga Jazzist — Pyramid
Jahari Massamba Unit — Pardon My French
Leifur James — Angel In Disguise
Jyoti — Mama, You Can Bet!
Kanaan — Double Sun
Peter Kerlin — Glaring Omission
Khurangbin — Mordechai
Josh Kimbrough — Slither, Soar & Disappear
Quin Kirchner — The Shadows and the Light
Allegra Krieger — The Joys of Forgetting
Kungens Man — Trappmusik
Kutiman — Wachaga
Little Barrie & Malcolm Catto — Quatermass Seven
Gia Margaret — Mia Gargaret
Jon McKiel — Bobby Joe Hope
Mosses — T.V. Sun
Motorpsycho — The All Is One
Mythic Sunship — Changing Shapes
Osees — Protean Threat
PAINT — Spiritual Vegas
Misha Panfilov Sound Combo — Days As Echoes
Shane Parish — Way Haul Away
Jeff Parker — Suite for Max Brown
Pictish Trail — Thumb World
Chris Potter — There is a Tide
Brigid Mae Power — Head Above the Water
Gwenifer Raymond — Strange Lights Over Garth Mountain
Enrique Rodriguez & the Negra Chiway Band — Fase Liminal
Caroline Rose — Superstar
Rose Cit Band — Summerlong
Rymden — Space Sailors
L.A. Salami — The Cause of Doubt & a Reason to Have Faith
Sei Still — s/t
Shabaka and the Ancestors — We Are Sent Here By History
Jeffrey Silverstein — You Become the Mountain
Skinshape — Umoja
Spacebomb House Band — X: Kernel Eternal
STRFKR — Ambien 1
Dougie Stu — Familiar Future
TG — Memory Foam
The Third Mind — s/t
This is the Kit — Off Off On
Barry Walker Jr — Shoulda Zenith
Wax Machine — Earthsong of Silence
Sven Wunder — Wabi Sabi
