39.
For many years, Hiroshi Yoshimura’s unbeatable classic ambient works from the 1980s only shifted hands for hundreds of pounds on the resale market, his discography the benefactor of renewed interest in a number of past Japanese ambient producers over the last decade. Two years ago, some of those works – namely Pier & Loft and Music For Nine Postcards – finally began to make their way to fans at a far more affordable price thanks to very necessary reissues. This year, another of his discography highlights, Green, finally got the same treatment, courtesy of Light In The Attic. It couldn’t have been more welcome, featuring a number of this writer’s most-loved Yoshimura pieces in ‘Feel’ and ‘Sheep’.Hiroshi YoshimuraGreenLight In The Attic
38.
While the five compositions on Gateway Summer Sound are mostly abstract, they evoke vivid imagery. ‘Episode’, for example, might be the soundtrack for a deranged version of Beauty And The Beast, as noises like those of candelabras, teapots, stoves, and pendulum clocks ssscrape, sssqueak, and wwwoosh embraced by a disintegrated harpsichord. Then everything’s turned on its head again. The deep, incisive title track and the nomen est omen ‘Gong Song’ embrace a sci-fi foley approach to concoct music that hints at what a heavily deconstructed, occasionally progressive collaboration between Delia Derbyshire and Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters might sound if performed by monkeys, motors, and field recordings from other dimensions. Ultimately, this bewildering and daring attitude makes Gateway Summer Sound an absolutely vital record.Ann McmillanGateway Summer Sound: Abstracted Animal And Other SoundsFolkways
37.
Kemistry StormDJ-Kicks!K7
Kemistry & Storm’s entry to the DJ-Kicks compilation series, originally released in 1999 just three months before Kemistry’s death in a freak accident, is the sound of one of drum & bass’ greatest DJ duos at their peak. The only D&B mix in the series to date, it was recorded live on vinyl in just two takes and roars into action with intent, as ‘Trauma’, the Dom & Roland-produced opener, soon rolls into the menacing swagger of John B’s ‘OIÉ’. From there, the duo tear through an almost unrelentingly dark run of tunes (the appearance of Sci-Clone’s ‘Everywhere I Go (Remix)’ at the 25-minute mark is a perfectly timed spot of brightness) from some of D&B’s biggest and best: Goldie, Dillinja, J Majik, and Digital & Spirit all feature.
36.
A big thanks goes to tQ contributors Bernie Brooks and Kristen Gallerneaux for releasing this extremely obscure Detroit underground gem by a little-known artist who goes under the name of Vinny Moonshine. Is it a true live album? What was its actual provenance, beyond it being a digital release in those hazy days BBC (Before Bandcamp) when digital releases would just get lost in the ether? Who knows, or indeed cares, for this record, recorded in the mid-’00s, is a gem of blissed-out, dubby, lo-fi pop.Vinny MoonshineLive At WaxwingMetaphysical Powers
35.
Noa Records is a label that focuses on alternative music from Pasifika and indigenous Maori people in New Zealand, or Aotearoa, and whose most recent record, Keep Your Distance!, is essential. Recorded over 10 days by a huge cast of musicians and poets during the country’s coronavirus lockdown, it is a meditative, hypnotic and profound collection bestowed with a gentle-yet-potent power.Virtual Shadow EnsembleKeep Your Distance!Noa
34.
Alterity sees Houndstooth gather 15 forward-facing electronic music producers from across the world for a collection that demonstrates the rude health that experimental club music is in in 2020. Representing the Shanghai-based SVBKVLT label, 33EMYBW, Gooooose, Hyph11E and Osheyack each deliver the kind of rhythmically warped, mutant club sounds that has seen their usual label home win a number of new fans over the last year or two, while the always on point AYA’s ‘DaRE u to sour lips with me’ sits at the cross section between deconstructed head-spinner and ecstatic peak-time hardcore slammer, taking all kinds of twists and turns over its six-minute runtime. With contributions elsewhere from the likes of Slikback, Deena Abdelwahed and E-Saggila, among others, this was always going to deliver.Various ArtistsAlterityHoundstooth
33.
UPRIZE! is a striking and unflinching film about the 1976 Soweto Uprising in South Africa, a youth protest against racist education systems that left up to 700 children dead. The film’s emotional power is elevated by a remarkable and bold soundtrack released earlier this year as the second LP by SPAZA, which is not so much a band as a series of recordings organised by the label Mushroom Hour Half Hour. They’re named after South African spaza shops, or tuck shops, informal convenience stores run from people’s homes, garages, shacks and shipping containers that sell miscellaneous household goods. Predominantly centred in Black townships, where paths to formal business ownership are limited, the word has become synonymous with entrepreneurial spirit. Just as each spaza shop is completely different from another, so too are all of SPAZA’s performances, entirely improvised by a constantly shifting line-up.SpazaUPRIZE! (Music From The Original Motion Picture)Mushroom Hour Half-Hour
32.
CoilNTS In FocusNot On Label
31.
There are a few names on this stellar compilation from Dutch DJ Interstellar Funk (AKA Olf Van Elden) that will be familiar to most tQ regular readers: a throbbing chunk of ’90s Chris & Cosey; a particularly dirty slice of early Human League; some pounding gothy bum dungeon synths from cult Amsterdam group Clan Of Zymox. But it’s the lesser-known cuts that prove to be the real delight here: the flickering horrorcore of Psychick Youth affiliates Zahgurim; the broken machine funk of Mallorcan Sociedades En Tetra Brik; the dentist drill square wave party of Im Namen Des Volkes. This is filthy, sinister music for filthy, sinister people, the perfect soundtrack for wrapping yourself in clingfilm and getting sweaty under a concrete ceiling.Various ArtistsInterstellar Funk Presents Artificial Dancers: Waves Of SynthRush Hour
30.
Organised by Italian DJ and producer Neel, early into many nations’ COVID-19 lockdowns earlier this year, WorldWideWindow, a charity release that saw proceeds go to The Red Cross as they aimed to support health services in the pandemic, certainly didn’t scrimp on big names. Calling on artists to “take their time with whichever tools they had available at home to produce some music that reflects this time we are living in,” the result is more than six hours of previously unheard and unreleased music. Caterina Barbieri’s ‘Clessidra’ is a typically arpeggiated beauty, while Donato Dozzy’s ‘Let It Go’ soars like a lost track from the original Blade Runner score. There’s plenty to dig into across WorldWideWindow‘s 46 tracks, including standout contributions from Grand River, Mike Parker, Wata Igarashi, Marco Shuttle, Peter Van Hoesen, Voices From The Lake and much more.Various ArtistsWorldWideWindowEnisslab
29.
There is something extra special about Hex; maybe if it’s a stretch for you to outright say, hand on heart, that it’s The Fall’s best album, that shouldn’t stop you from recognising that it’s maybe the first among several equals. As I said, when I was reviewing the excellent Sanctuary reissue in 2009: “Even if it’s a fools’ errand trying to decide which is the greatest LP out of The Fall’s huge back catalogue of albums, many fanatics of the group will tell you that the worst thing you can say about Hex is that it’s their equal best at very least.” It was this sentiment that eventually led to my most sophisticated attempt to answer to that most vexatious Fall-related question, what is their best album? And my answer was that at any one time I would always profess to have three LPs in pole position: the current release, whatever it was I was listening to in the car and Hex. There is a sadness to this equation of course now and my answer is merely the CD I listen to in the car and Hex.The FallHex Enduction HourCherry Red
28.
No one liked New Grass on release. Not jazz fans. Not jazz critics. Not even Albert Ayler, who suggested that Impulse! had leant on him to head in a more commercial direction. It’s across the board unpopularity would go some way to explaining why this LP hasn’t seen the light of day back home in America since 1974. Of course, we can look back and see that jazz in 1969 was contemplating necessary change in order to get match fit for the ’70s in part by trying to forge meaningful new connections with the pop worlds of soul, funk and rock. Carla Bley was just starting to dream up her ambitious Sgt. Pepper’s of big band jazz, Escalator Over The Hill and Miles Davis had made his first tentative ‘rock’ music statement with In A Silent Way, the album that was a precursor to him kicking the doors in with Bitches Brew the following year. Ayler was in likelihood slammed simply because he chose uptight, Bar-Kays-style R&B as his vehicle of experimentation, which both rock and jazz critics of the day would probably have deemed boilerplate pop. It was their loss and this Third Man reissue has become our gain. It’s straight up joyful to hear. Even if some of his band mates are no match for him, Ayler slides between wild free jazz, polished sideman horn stabs and something more otherworldly, as if he is temporarily aware of parallel time streams running simultaneously and is able to move freely between them.Albert AylerNew GrassThird Man
27.
The Tears Of Technology is a compilation that celebrates early 1980s synthpop. The standout track is by folk-punk pioneer Patrik Fitzgerald. In 1982, Fitzgerald ditched his guitar for a synth and released this track ‘Personal Loss’ on his Gifts And Telegrams album. Here, Fitzgerald delivers the same level of social commentary with the usual biting lyrics, but it feels more direct than his better-known folk-punk work. ‘Personal Loss’, and the album, shows the synth is something more than just a box of noises and rhythms. With the right operator it became something that could deliver tender motifs and catchy melodies as the guitar was before it.Various ArtistsBob Stanley & Pete Wiggs Present The Tears Of TechnologyAce
26.
We’re of the firm belief that good words sell records, and hope that you, our dear readers, agree. It was an excellent write-up by the World Of Echo record shop that led me to buy this wonderful self-titled album by Viennese due Astaron. This feels like cold wave in its deadpan vocals and haunted lullabies, but there’s a lot more here, for instance on the Mittel European accordion goth waltz of ‘St John’s Fire’, and the whole is carried off with a sparkling jouissance and wry panache.AstaronAstaronSealed
25.
When overwhelmed by the various horrors of 2020, there is no album I have turned to for solace more than this unfathomably gorgeous collection of songs by Beverly-Glenn Copeland. It represents a long, long overdue overview of a rich and varied career, one that has gone criminally unrecognised until his recent ‘rediscovery’. It’s the tracks from his pioneering 1986 LP Keyboard Fantasies that stand out the most, ‘Ever New’ and ‘Sunset Village’, twin pillars of absolutely overwhelming tenderness and beauty.BeverlyGlenn CopelandTransmissions: The Music Of Beverly-Glenn CopelandTransgressive
24.
SVBKVLT was unstoppable in 2020, thanks to EPs from roster members such as Seven Orbits, Nahash, Osheyack, and Gooooose (teaming up with DJ Scotch Egg on record for the first time), as well as an album by Hyph11E, that all sounded like nearly nothing else out there. The Shanghai label rounded off the year with the compilation Cache 02, the successor to 2019’s Cache. Its 14 tracks are a nifty introduction to the label if you’re not yet familiar. 33EMYBW’s ‘Coupling’ revolves around frantic, skitterish drums, while you could imagine hearing Swimful’s ‘Muckle’ on an old Sidewinder tape, complete with an MC spitting over it. ‘Alternet’ from NET GALA pairs SVBKVLT’s deconstructed take on club music with trance, and Gabber Modus Operandi are on fine frenzied form on ‘Pedas’. Long may SVBKVLT continue to bless us with its barmy take on club music.Various ArtistsCache 02SVBKVLT
23.
Like his creative colleague Michael Rother – who also often deliberately evoked the landscape of Saxony in his work – Roedelius is happy to endow the music with broad enough shoulders to carry the listener to wherever they want to travel. Many of these pieces do seem to flow like water, particularly memorable is the way the melody line seems to meander on the familiar-sounding piece, ‘Skizze 4 Von By This River’, or how the well-named ‘Springende Inspiration’ continually switches key. And ‘Rokkokko (Nicht Verwendetes Stück)’ could be an impression of the wide blue sky shimmering above the Saxon countryside. The music on the record also reminds me of the beautifully droll pieces that accompanied the first of Edgar Reitz’s Heimat series. More post-classical music set in, and redolent of, German countryside.RoedeliusTape Essence Archive 1973 – 1978Bureau B
22.
While a range of styles make up the six tracks, unsurprising given they were written by five different individual group members, it remains cohesive. The Afro-funk guitars and bass playing, disco keys and polyrhythmic drumming makes for a head-spinning force, with horns accentuating the key build-ups. The forward-thinking progressive nature of the music extended to the lyrical themes on the album, as sung by all group members, for example, opener ‘Nka Bom’ translates as togetherness with a message of strength in unity.EdikanfoThe Pace SettersGlitterbeat
21.
If I have one problem with this amazing Soul Jazz series, it’s that, strictly speaking, these albums tend to be anthologies of kosmiche or rockin’ krautrock tracks as much as elektronische; drawing mainly from the work of bands at the Nurse With Wound List end of the German rock scene of the ’70s. Which isn’t even a problem at all when the curatorship on offer is as good as this. As per usual, Soul Jazz are egalitarian crate diggers and they mix the obscure with the well-loved, the genre typical sounds with the synapse scrambling, so Harmonia, Can and Amon Düül II nestle up to Emak, Dzyan and Virus. There are a lot revelations here including the ‘fake-sheikh’ arabesque of ‘Patella Black’ by Alex (whose drummer has clearly been listening to Jaki Liebezeit and taking notes) and the pleasingly zonked ‘Nearby Shiras’ by Kalacakra.Various ArtistsDeutsche Elektronische Musik 4: Experimental German Rock And Electronic Music 1971 – 1983Soul Jazz
20.
Live In Paris is, put simply, the sound of a concert so powerful (and so well recorded) that it remains utterly magical 45 years later. We can only imagine how amazing Sanders and his band, on remarkable form following his imperious run of early-1970s releases, must have sounded to the 800 or so actually in the crowd for this show at the studios of Radio France, because even now it is utterly transfixing. The closing rendition of ‘Love Is Everwhere’, in particular, where Sanders and his band’s incredible playing fades at the end into the sounds of communal bliss from the audience, imparts the joy of music in its purest form.
