How does the thing you love most survive a crisis? How can music, that force that has got you through a lifetime of personal neurosis, self-doubts, depressions, and impossible situations still retain its power against a situation that not only feels, but is, entirely beyond your control? This is something I’ve been thinking about in the days running up to writing this introduction to The Quietus’ favourite records of 2020. I’m sure I’m not alone in finding that the grim, unrelenting slog of coronavirus has had a profound impact on my relationship with music. Our situation over the past 12 months has been a combination of extreme emotions.
There’s been the surrealism of an unseen enemy causing national lockdowns, a pandemic dealt with in mind-boggling political ineptitude, even the visually bizarre sight of empty capital cities. Then of course the horror of mounting deaths, loved ones lost or severely incapacitated by long COVID. I doubt there is anyone reading this who hasn’t had a major life opportunity disrupted or destroyed by this cursed virus. Then the sheer mundanity of it, our horizons confined to, if we’re lucky, local streets, or just the walls of our own minds. The sheer volume of this situation has meant that culture has become slippery – who hasn’t read a page of a book and come to the end of it realising that they’ve not taken a word in, or sat in front of a film and had to constantly rewind to try and fill the gaps. The same has gone for albums – records have been loved for a moment, but then vanished into a forgetful black hole of anxiety.
Yet returning to the recorded output of 2020 has been a reminder that for all the distractions around us, this has been an astonishingly strong and diverse year for music. We’ll all have been listening out for different things in 2020, whether it’s records that engage directly and radically with the changes brought about by the Black Lives Matter movement, or confrontational sonics with which to armour the self against the idiocy of so much out there at the moment, or creativity from distant places to remind us of the positives of being part of a connected world, or simply sound in which to try and cleanse the mind of what is going on around us.
In 2020 of all years, a need for escapism is not to be sniffed at. All of these and more are to be found in this top year’s top 100. As we bring you this list we also have more positive news from tQHQ. For a while, it seemed as if the effective end of live music could put us into an existential crisis, with the collapse in ad revenues leading to the real possibility of having to dramatically scale back our operations. Thankfully, a grant from Arts Council England got us over the worst of the hump while also enabling us to set up a new subscriber system with the Steady platform.
We now have over 700 subscribers, which means we’re approaching the kind of stability we’ve only ever been able to dream of over the last 12 years, although we’re still some way off covering all of our costs. All of us at tQ would like to thank you to everyone who has signed up so far – it’s only thanks to your generosity that we’re going to be able to continue bringing you lists like this, and the editorial about all the artists in them, in the years to come. For anyone who’s not yet a subscriber, you can find out about all the perks you get by joining up here – so that’s exclusive essays, podcasts and specially commissioned new releases (a Sleaford Mods EP now, followed by a collaboration between JK Flesh and GNOD released for the winter solstice on 21st December). Subscribers can also listen to exclusive playlists of this very chart here. Sign up here and find all the content we’ve made thus far here.
And of course, when you’re reading through our albums of the year, if you can, do try and buy them, either via our friends at Norman Records or via the Bandcamp links where provided. As ever, most of our favourite music is made by artists who live hand-to-mouth outside of the mainstream, and they need your support. For now, thank you for reading, and we all at tQ hope you get some respite over the seasonal break and that better things might be in store for us all in 2021.
Luke Turner
This chart was voted for by Jennifer Lucy Allan, Bobby Barry, Aaron Bishop, Patrick Clarke, John Doran, Christian Eede, Noel Gardner, Fergal Kinney, Ella Kemp, Anthea Leyland, Peter Margasak, David McKenna, JR Moores, Luke Turner, Kez Whelan and Daryl Worthington
Pharaoh Overlord6Rocket Recordings
The unadulterated high-NRG synth finery of ‘Path Eternal’, which begins 6, is adulterated half a minute in by Aaron Turner’s vocals – thoroughly uncouth, ape-like grunts which evolve into a mildly studio-scrubbed version of his more familiar mode of delivery, essentially an amalgam of doom, death, black and industrial metal styles. ‘Without Song All Will Perish’ is illuminated by a fantastic synth riff which will, reasonably, attract comparisons to ABBA’s ‘Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!’ but equally sounds like it could have been composed for some crack disco group’s string section circa the late ’70s.
Nyx NttAux Pieds De La NuitMelodic
Aidan Moffat has worn many hats over the years as lyricist/songwriter, collaborator and solo artist (mostly as L. Pierre), and here we see his composition rather than his writing foregrounded and developed. He’s given himself a broad palette here of samples, SFX, keyboards and objects, and it’s often difficult to hear which is which. And though the press release speaks of a clarity of production, actually it’s a lack of clarity which is perhaps this album’s greatest strength. Things clip and are saturated, often removing a known sound from its deserving context. The effect of this is to disorientate, to warp and unnerve.
Luminous BodiesNah Nah Nah Yeh Yeh YehBox
Opener ‘Sykes’ sounds like rock & roll as veritable apocalypse, and one that you can growl along to no less, while the planet drowns in a plague of locusts accompanied by a lung-collapsing deluge of disgusting riffs. Faster numbers like ‘Hey! You!’ and ‘The Lidless Eye’ are probably a hoot live, as long as you aren’t standing next to one of the violent psychopaths who are no doubt drawn to this group’s ugly aural shenanigans. On the stereo system at home, it’s the slow and lingering tracks like the grindsome closer ‘Gut Reaction’ that really creep into your soul and make you want to do revolting things.
Sun RaSwirlingStrut
No group in jazz history has embodied the communal spirit like the Arkestra. Most of its members have spent time living in the group’s residential headquarters in Philly’s Germantown neighbourhood – the Arkestra’s base for over four decades – and they’ve bought in to the band’s collective spirit, and their hardcore fans are the closest thing jazz has to Deadheads. In a way, this new album is a gift to the faithful and new adherents, beautifully conveying the vibe and orchestral depth of the Arkestra’s recent live shows.
Potter PayperTraining Day 3Self-Released
This trilogy-completing mixtape marks the return of real road rap and sets the Barking-based rapper on a whole new career trajectory, having been released from prison only a few months prior. Debuting at number 3 in the UK’s albums chart, the achievement was bittersweet as he lost his grandmother during promotion for the project, which has only further motivated him to never go back to the life that made him who he is today, but to instead put those stories and lessons into his music.
Magik Markers2020Drag City
Sometimes Magik Markers sound dead meaty. Elsewhere there’s a thinner and tinnier fragility. The ballads are dreamy while ensuring that the forbidden Twee Zone remains always a dot in the distance. The poppiest song has the roughest production. In each case it’s entirely possible that everything is about to fall apart at any given moment, and in the most glorious way imaginable. Nothing at all has been overthought. Basically if you took every Royal Trux song and mashed them all together, the resultant smug and scrappy mess wouldn’t equal one twentieth of the ragged glory of 2020 by Magik Markers. Magik Markers were my Royal Trux. And they still are.
WireMind HivePinkflag
Wire were always concerned with making music that “felt” of something: a band who could create strong if initially broad-brush impressions with their sound and message. On Mind Hive. there are gentle, rich and abrasive moments aplenty, and often in harness. The beautiful ‘Unrepentant’ brings Pink Floyd to mind, just before their music became unbearably stodgy and prim. The track’s long tail out is a glorious instrumental meandering coda that affirms the dreamy thoughtforms that make up the lyrics. By contrast, ‘Primed and Ready’ is a simple stomp driven by that chugging “Wire” beat,traversing some form of sonic path like a beautiful dinky toy propelled over a thick pile carpet, the light (cast by the chiming guitars) reflecting on its basic paintwork.
Aksak MaboulFiguresCrammed Discs
Totally pop, yet psychedelic enough to make one reconsider the ingestion of psychedelic drugs just to hear it in in such a state, replete with wonderful touches (such as elements of the systems music of Steve Reich or Philip Glass), Figures manages to contain elements from every phase of the band, whilst still having a contemporary edge. As in the very best attempts to merge disparate elements, the pop and avant elements perfectly compliment one another.
SatanToutes Ces HorreursThroatruiner
Satan have been going for ten years now, evolving from shrieking grindcore to a sound they call ‘possessed punk’ – a combo of full-throttle aggression, darkly chiming arpeggios and spidery lead lines. Toutes Ces Horreurs means ‘all these horrors’ if you want a further idea of what you’re letting yourself in for. ‘Confiture Pour Cochons’ is an unusual intro which blends a tribal folk sound with free-jazz sax and a spoken-word vocal. Then ‘La Guerre Lente’, with its surging chorus, arrives at a gallop, and the ‘Le Sang Du Poète’ hits at an even more blistering pace. ‘Triste Soeur’ fuses spiralling melodic sections with hypnotic riffing, while ‘Zone D’Inconfort’ clearly wraps hardcore punk in a black metal fog, veering into a blast beat spree midway through.
Haq123Evil Spirits Who Prowl About The World Seeking The Ruin Of SoulsSelf-Released
The premise of incredibly titled album opener ‘96% Warrior, 4% Barber’ is truly inspired and/or a direct appeal to my specific sense of humour: wobbly new age soundbaths, like Laraaji or someone, overlaid by encouraging phrases which turn out to be the motivational pablum shouted by (as I imagine to be the case here) parents on the touchlines of junior football matches. Which, on a release which also includes the lines, “I am a man of unclean lips and I live among people of unclean lips” and “Football, swingball, nerf, all the greats,” is but one of several highlights.
East ManProle Art ThreatPlanet Mu
Prole Art Threat, the second East Man album, is a showcase for a new crop of London grime MCs. Anthoney Hart detonates large, screwface bass drops and assembles mazy, minimalist rhythms while names including Darkos, Lyrical Strally and the brilliant Ny Ny chew your ear off. It’s a similar setup to Kevin Martin’s albums as The Bug, but more genre-focused, which is more than fine.
RegisHidden In This Is The Light That You MissDownwards
There is a certainty at play throughout Hidden In This Is The Light That You Miss, an absolute clarity of purpose. Each element seems in its right place, each moment feels considered without feeling overworked. It is, like the rest of O’Connor’s body of work, utterly contemporary and effortlessly relevant. Hidden doesn’t fall victim to the navel-gazing or rumination or over-reliance on past formulae that often plagues artists who’ve been in the game as long as O’Connor, but then, as far as new work is concerned, that’s never been his way.
NinesCrabs In A BucketWarner
Jam CityPillowlandEarthly
Jam City’s second album, 2015’s Dream A Garden, was quite a shock to some fans of the formerly Night Slugs-affiliated DJ and producer when it arrived laden with his own vocals and a more overt use of guitars than heard on any of his previous more club-friendly material. Where that album’s political motivations were laid bare for all to see, its successor, Pillowland, finds the producer in more escapist territory. Tracks such as ‘They Eat The Young’ and ‘Sweetjoy’ see him channel stomping 70’s glam rock, while gorgeous, sprawling cuts such as ‘Cruel Joke’ and ‘Cherry House’ find a sweet spot between all-out pop balladry and the dayglo synths of ’80s soul and disco. It’s yet another mesmerising development for one of the ‘post-dubstep’ era’s most interesting figures.
Dale CornishThug AmbientSelf-Released
Yeah, sure, Dale Cornish’s latest is another excellent release in a catalogue full of excellent releases. But! There’s something else at play on Thug Ambient, his ode to “the reconstruction of club music, Nag Nag Nag, masculinity, Finland, and Vatican Shadow memes.” A good handful of the tracks here feel tighter, harder, more ready for the floor than they have in a bit, while all the things his fans have come to rely on – his cheeky sense of humour, a real mastery of space, Dale Cornish Brand (TM) claps and kicks – are very much present and accounted for.
PyrrhonAbscess TimeWILLOWTIP INC
Whilst their 2011 debut An Excellent Servant But A Terrible Master was cool, ever since 2014’s boundary pushing The Mother Of Virtues, Pyrrhon’s vivid, imaginative sound has fully transcended tech-death tropes and now seems to exist in its very own unique sphere amongst the wider metal spectrum. Sure, you can definitely hear elements of Obscura-era Gorguts skronk, Cephalic Carnage’s joyously anarchic approach to deathgrind and Human Remains levels of dizzying, hyperactive technicality in there, but nobody else really blends these influences together or creates a racket anywhere near as obtuse and idiosyncratic as Pyrrhon. That the wonky, relentless dirge of their new record’s opening title track recalls the beginning of Brutal Truth’s classic Need To Control feels very fitting, as if any contemporary band so whole-heartedly represents that album’s fearless, experimental spirit, it’s surely Pyrrhon.
Lucrecia DaltNo Era SólidaRVNG Intl.
Lucrecia Dalt’s background as a geotechnical engineer has greatly influenced her musical identity. Her 2018 album Anticlines, referring to a kind of geological formation, delved into properties of matter: glaciers moving and the alchemy of evaporating water. With No Era Sólida, she similarly brings together the sound of the earth with mechanised human interventions. ‘Coatlicue S.’ is a bleeping sonar, intermeshed with stones falling into an endless well. ‘Suprema’ also plays with an echo-effect, voices reverberating through the static of an excavation drill penetrating the strata.
Liv.eCouldn’t Wait To Tell You…In Real Life
The “You” referred to in the album’s title isn’t an external audience, but rather, Liv.e dedicates her debut to herself, using the twenty track run to indulge in the internal; learning from past mistakes, focusing on growth and trying to replace preoccupations with fleeting romance for longer lasting self love. Opening track ‘What’s The Real’ introduces us into her hazy sample-warped world, already in dialogue with herself, fictional characters and foreign species talking over one another, vying to occupy the same soundscape without undermining their contradictory desires. She draws out her delivery and layers her lyrics, shifting its pitch and evading harmony, asking herself, “Everybody’s got a love story, right?” Each voice has a different answer. “Well, not everybody,” says one in a whisper. “Yours must be a secret.”
Shit And ShineMalibu Liquor StoreRocket Recordings
There are moments of whimsical innocence on tracks like ‘Chervette’, with its jazzy flute and string arrangement. It could easily soundtrack a pleasant stroll in the park if it weren’t for Shit and Shine’s trademark digital debasement. Stuttering drums and needle-skip samples give the impression of a Steely Dan covers band made up of malfunctioning automatons. Album linchpin ‘Hillbilly Moonshine’ ramps up the dread again with ten-plus minutes of seedy motorik workout music, like a fever dream in which you’re jogging through the charred remains of skid row, chased by an unseen entity. Synths wobble, a dial tone beeps and faulty circuitry crackles and hisses. This is not the chainsaw guitar assault of August’s speaker-destroying Goat Yelling Like A Man but it’s no less unnerving.
The HomesickThe Big ExerciseSub Pop
It’s difficult to know where to start with The Big Exercise, such is its effervescence. One can simply revel in seemingly microscopic sleights of hand that imbue the record with a sum greater than its parts. There are gorgeous chord changes, such as on ‘Pawing’, where the bass hops along, lifting the achingly beautiful plucked guitar part in the bridge. Last December’s single, ‘I Celebrate My Fantasy’, has enough clever twists to fill a whole record. It’s so exciting to hear the clarinet and piano parts mirrored by the guitar lick that apes them, or be wooed by the clarinet’s reappearance, which signals the drop to the beautiful, almost religious refrain. Tracks like ‘Kaïn’ are full of tiny, precise workings that seem incongruous if highlighted but nevertheless fit together beautifully like the mechanisms of a watch.
LaylowTrinityDigital Mundo
Trinity is a concept album that follows Laylow, as protagonist, through a complex dance with a program called Trinity – a name borrowed from Carrie-Ann Moss’ character in The Matrix – which simulates (or stimulates) emotions. As well as being told through interludes, what’s striking about the story is the way it is echoed by the sounds on the album. The virtual, ‘digital’ world is reflected in extreme autotune tweaking, trap beats, luminous synths, and the glam stomp of ‘Megatron’ (an obvious nod to ‘Black Skinhead’) but also distortion and glitches – like the moment in ‘Dehors Dans La Nuit’ where it sounds like your headphone jack has popped half-way out of the socket.
