2022 in music
Trying to push past the embarrassment I feel any time I try and actually verbalize anything about music. Some good stuff came out this year. Everything is in alphabetical order. I hate rankings.
Favourite 2022 albums:
WARM CHRIS - ALDOUS HARDING
It’s Aldous Harding’s world and we’re just living in it. What do you want me to say. She’s one of the most imperious primadonnas to ever grace folk music (at least in terms of her persona as a performer.) Of course this album is good.
BIG TIME - ANGEL OLSEN
I just love Angel Olsen and she’s never put out a bad album. Continues to shift and grow her scope and style with every release and I admire it a lot. Crisp and sad, and I’ll admit that I do like the return to a more organic sound, even though I liked All Mirrors. Also she’s gay now and good for her.
EXCESS - AUTOMATIC
There’s a lot of good music coming out of the current post-punk/new wave boom but Automatic have been consistently making some of the most sonically and lyrically interesting stuff of it all. This album is predictably bouncy and lurid. Fill in the lines, cover the gaps / give me all the toys that the other girls have / even if it’s sordid, even if it hurts / move into the edges, put your fingers in the dirt…
LIVE AT MONTREUX JAZZ FESTIVAL - ANNA VON HAUSSWOLFF
I don’t typically like live albums that much, but organs are meant to have resonance and fill up a space and that translated so well here. Love to feel electrified. I legitimately think that AVH has been making some of the most ambitious and unique music of the last decade.
PREACHER’S DAUGHTER - ETHEL CAIN
It may already be too late, but I’m desperately hoping that Ethel Cain doesn’t get utterly Mitski-ified (taken up as such a memetic Sad Girl Musician by people who both project all of their own feelings and issues onto her and also fail to engage with her music in its actual genre and production contexts, leading them to a) not know how to fucking act and b) reject any work she puts out that strays from the narrow track of relatability) because this album is really fucking good. I’ve been following her stuff since the Golden Age EP and genuinely never thought she would end up making music like this – the trajectory is clear, and this was always In There as the fully-fledged version of the lofi laptop music she started out with, but it’s really gratifying to see it come together.
Also, to the guy who wrote the tepid P4K review that complained about the album being too long while giving a wildly inaccurate stat of how long it is that had to be corrected post-publication… JUST ADMIT YOU HATE WOMEN AND GO
STORM QUEEN - GRACE CUMMINGS
I really want Grace Cummings to have her breakthrough into the more country-adjacent corner of the Angel Olsen/Sharon Van Etten-type field. She’s got the voice, the lyrics, the presence. This album was just gorgeous!
SHUNKA RYOUGEN - HARU NEMURI
Literally it is a blessing and a burden to be alive. Haru Nemuri is one of the best live performers I’ve ever seen, 10/10.
PRIPYAT - MARINA HERLOP
If you like any combination of Eartheater/Bjork/LEYA/Enya/Cocteau Twins I’d suggest giving this a spin for a wild and delightful time.
TIME BEND AND BREAK THE BOWER - SINEAD O’BRIEN
Might be my favourite album of the year. Post-punk! Spoken word! Weirdly danceable! Sinead has insane charisma! No one grieves the loss of the day to the night / til the last of the day and the last of the light!!!!!!!!
EMERALD SEA - SOUND OF CERES
Sound of Ceres get better with every album they put out. Delightful, frightening, energetic, ambitious. I wish more artists made weird shit that feels completely wholeassed. Also Marina Abramovic is there.
Albums not released this year that I nonetheless spent a lot of time with:
INFINITE GRANITE - DEAFHEAVEN
I was super late to the party but in September I entered my Infinite Granite era and listened to like, nothing else for a month.
LOMA AND DON’T SHY AWAY - LOMA
I was kind of lukewarm on Cross Record’s self-titled, but I’ve looped fully back around to being emilycrossstan69. Nobody sounds like her!!!!
HUNTER - ANNA CALVI
I love Anna Calvi but didn’t really give this album its due when it came out… so now I have to report that it’s uh a masterpiece. Gives-you-chills-every-time kinda music. I open the door wide / I wanted to survive WHAT MORE IS THERE TO SAYYY
OUR LOVE TO ADMIRE AND ANTICS - INTERPOL
I listened to Turn On The Bright Lights a bunch as well, but I spent sooooooooooo much time this year listening to mid-2000s Interpol. It just hits.
RARE, FOREVER - LEON VYNEHALL
One of my favourite albums of last year, saw me through so many stressful work days. You ever hear electronic music so beautiful you want to cry?
Individual tracks released this year that I loved:
These are either singles, or songs where I wasn’t wild about the whole album, but the standout tracks really stood out:
“MOONSTRUCK” - JACKIE COHEN
Nothing Jackie Cohen’s released since Tacoma Night Terror Pt. 1 has really hit for me in the same way (though I did enjoy Zagg), but this track is just. Great. So great. Making the chorus of your country-girl-group song Get the knife / get the big knife in a way that doesn’t even feel performatively edgy, just, like, desperate…
“LONE RANGER” - JULIANNA RIOLINO
I like country music.
“OLGA” - KELLY LEE OWENS
I support women to make music that sounds kind of harsh and bad to listen to (and some of LP.8 sounds nice!) but I did love this track. Sinuous and bassy and complex, which is what I want from KLO.
“RESET” - COALS
Moody downtempo Polish electropop! One of the catchiest songs I heard all year, somehow!
I made a couple playlists with stuff I particularly liked this year: here’s the first, and the second.
If you listen to anything, let me know what you think!