20.
It was hard to pick out a highlight when Tkay Maidza’s debut 4AD EP, Last Year Was Weird, Vol. 2, arrived over the summer, but in ‘You Sad”s whistled melodies, cutesy, sun-dappled guitar and catchy hook, she reached new heights.Tkay MaidzaYou Said4AD
19.
Young Knives’ latest album, Barbarians, is a bonkers and bombastic epic about the depths of human depravity, and this track is the thumping, maximalist, melodramatic centrepiece, with singer Henry Dartnall at his most wonderfully histrionic.Young KnivesBarbariansGadzook
18.
Written in response to Emma Warren’s book about the London DIY arts space Total Refreshment Centre, Make Some Space, Chicagoan Angel Bat Dawid finds parallels between that site and her home city’s 1960s Black Arts Movement hub, which this track is named after. It’s a gorgeous piece of music, two resonant lines of clarinet weaving amid one another over a simple and elegant base of organ and drum machine.Angel Bat DawidTransition EastInternational Anthem
17.
The most delicate and beautiful moment on a record that abounds with delicacy and beauty, like all perfect pop songs, ‘Trouble’ is at once heartbreakingly melancholy and irresistibly catchy, led by Dawn Bothwell’s softly powerful vocals.Hen OgleddTroubleDomino
16.
Paris’ pluralism has helped develop Murman Tsuladze’s music, which draws from their Georgian roots and fuses it with France’s adoration of dance music and African rhythms. ‘La Flemme De Danser’ is the first track to be shared from Murman Tsuladze, and culminates all of that promise into an ostentatious but irresistible final product.Murman TsuladzeLa Flemme De DanserLes Inrockuptibles
15.
Few rappers ascend to fame as rapidly as Pa Salieu. After releasing a few tunes in 2018 and 2019, the 22-year-old from Hillside in Coventry became a rapid success earlier this year with the release of ‘Frontline’. The song’s video, where he relays tales of block life and street crime over punchy snares and warped female vocal snippets, has racked up over three million YouTube views since, with the rapper just last month dropping his debut mixtape, Send Them To Coventry.Pa SalieuFrontlineWarner
14.
Arab Strap marked their return this year in decidedly Arab Strap fashion, with a saucy, sleazy single about fucking and dying. Built on an opulent beat cloaked in elegant auditory smoke, it’s Moffat and Middleton at their absolute best.Arab StrapThe Turning Of Our BonesRock Action
13.
I’m Not What I Was, the EP on which ‘Spiderfucker’ features, can definitely function as party music, coming on like amyl and torn speaker cone paper converted into soundwaves, but the lugubrious side of Concentration heard on first release Premature hasn’t been totally excised. As well as the ‘stare into the abyss of your ethnicity’s history and laugh’ vibe, there’s ‘Spiderfucker’. Zachariah Kupferminc scowls something about miserable pricks and little boys who keep repeating his name; “disgraceful! Disgraceful!” crows performance artist Thrush over spacey, tinted-windows electro.ConcentrationSpiderfuckerGlobal Terror Corps
12.
We might have been robbed of the sweaty, intense live environment in which bands like Scalping most thrive, but this head-manglingly relentless single comes as close as humanly possible to the group’s unreal IRL audiovisual performances.ScalpingDeadlockHoundstooth
11.
Jerskin Fendrix is a shapeshifter, every song he puts out completely different to the last. On ‘A Star Is Born’, he appears frantic and hypercharged, full of braggadocio and anticipation as he compares himself to Icarus and Nick Cave in Wings Of Desire.Jerskin FendrixA Star Is BornUntitled
10.
It’s credit to Headie One on ‘Ain’t It Different’ that he doesn’t allow himself to be overshadowed by two artists with as much as presence as Stormzy and AJ Tracey. Featuring samples of Lady Saw (from M-Dubs’ ’90s UK garage anthem ‘Bump ‘N’ Grind’) and, most curiously, Crazy Town’s ‘Butterfly’, the production, courtesy of frequent collaborator FRED Again, sees Headie One tread a fine path between chart success and UK drill loyalist.Headie OneAin’t It Different (ft. Stormzy & AJ Tracey)Relentless
9.
Instrumentally, ‘Buckfast’ is the swaggering, skronking centre-piece of Nadine Shah’s latest LP, Kitchen Sink, but like the rest of the record its power lies in her lyric-writing and her ability to explore the grim nuance of a toxic relationship with the keenest of eyes.Nadine ShahBuckfastInfectious
8.
Terrace Martin’s guidance of what must be one of the collaborations of the year, creates an unshakable framework for the acetylene rage of Denzel Curry to shine all the more brilliantly against. While there is a lot to be said about why Curry is one of the most necessary voices to be speaking truth to power against police brutality, let it not drown out the praise for the liquid beauty of Daylyt’s mercurial verse contrasted against the sublime horn squalls of Kamasi Washington.Denzel Curry Terrace MartinPIG FEET (ft. Daylyt, Kamsi Washington & G Perico)Sounds Of Crenshaw
7.
Not that anyone will care but after the results of the last general election came in just over one year ago, Luke and I were so disheartened that we broke for winter three days early and abandoned our annual tracks chart. Black Country, New Road were the clear winners though with ‘Sunglasses’. But here they are 12 months later with three near perfect singles under their belts and a blinding debut album ready to go, and it reassures me that come what may, they will clearly get their time in the sun.Black Country, New RoadScience FairNinja Tune
6.
Whatever your position on Kelly Lee Owens’ attempts to revive the mid-’90s ‘makes you think, yeah?’ promo video (cf. Radiohead’s ‘Just’), I will fight anyone who declares this single anything less than a wond’rous balm for this turbulent age. It’s a true representation of the literally magical effects of the heatwave, and I could listen to John Cale read my negative test results at the clap clinic and still find it lyrically swoonsome.Kelly Lee OwensCorner Of My Sky (ft. John Cale)Smalltown Supersound
5.
The standout cut on Ungodly Hour, Chloe x Halle’s second album, ‘Do It’ harks back to classic R&B bangers of the early ’00s, thanks to Scott Storch’s bass-heavy trap production and the sisters’ sparkling harmonies, as they wax lyrical about the simple pleasures of a night out with your best friends. Now if only that prospect hadn’t felt so out of reach through most of 2020.Chloe x HalleDo ItParkwood Entertainment
4.
The forthcoming LP by crushing noise duo Divide And Dissolve is set to be one of 2021’s early highlights. ‘Denial’ is the best taste of what’s to come, a minute and three-quarters of unsettling, off-kilter quiet that suddenly explodes into a gigantic, overwhelming blizzard of noise.Divide and DissolveDenialInvada
3.
‘Hillbilly Moonshine’, a linchpin of $hit & $hine’s Malibu Liquor Store LP, ramps up the dread felt across the record 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.hit hineHillbilly MoonshineRocket Recordings
2.
Jockstrap are among the most innovative producers in the world. Nowhere is this showcased more clearly than on ‘Acid’, a lavish and tender waltz, tweaked off-kilter at every turn with a million little glitches and sweeps that are applied with the deftest of touches. A mini-masterpiece.JockstrapAcidWarp
1.
The Billy Nomates-featuring lead track from Sleaford Mods’ forthcoming album, due early in 2021, is “the sound of the central heating and the dying smells of Sunday dinner in a house on an estate in 1982,” the duo’s Jason Williamson says. It’s the first taste of a record that is loaded with anger and despair at the actions of elites following a year full of turmoil.Sleaford ModsMork N Mindy (ft. Billy Nomates)Rough Trade
The Quietus Tracks Of The Year 2020
- 1: Sleaford Mods – Mork N Mindy (ft. Billy Nomates)
- 2: Jockstrap – Acid
- 3: $hit & $hine – Hillbilly Moonshine
- 4: Divide And Dissolve – Denial
- 5: Chloe x Halle – Do It
- 6: Kelly Lee Owens – Corner Of My Sky (ft. John Cale)
- 7: Black Country, New Road – Science Fair
- 8: Denzel Curry + Terrace Martin – PIG FEET (ft. Daylyt, Kamasi Washington & G Perico)
- 9: Nadine Shah – Buckfast
- 10: Headie One – Ain’t It Different (ft. Stormzy & AJ Tracey)
- 11: Jerskin Fendrix – A Star Is Born
- 12: Scalping – Deadlock
- 13: Concentration – Spiderfucker
- 14: Arab Strap – The Turning Of Our Bones
- 15: Pa Salieu – Frontline
- 16: Murman Tsuladze – La Flemme De Danser
- 17: Hen Ogledd – Trouble
- 18: Angel Bat Dawid – Transition East
- 19: Young Knives – Barbarians
- 20: Tkay Maidza – You Sad
- 21: Planet 1999 – Party
- 22: Charli XCX – forever
- 23: Godspeed You! Peter Andre – Clubber
- 24: Dua Lipa – Hallucinate
- 25: Keeley Forsyth – Start Again
- 26: Soccer96 – I Was Gonna Fight Fascism (ft. Alabaster DePlume)
- 27: Megan Thee Stallion – Savage (ft. Beyoncé)
- 28 BENEE – Snail
- 29: Perfume Genius – On The Floor
- 30: Jessy Lanza – Lick In Heaven
- 31: PREGOBLIN – Gangsters
- 32: Napalm Death – Amoral
- 33: Ana Roxanne – Suite Pour L’Invisible
- 34: CURRENTMOODGIRL – Love Like Lasers
- 35: Junglepusy – Main Attraction
- 36: Calabashed – Ode To Jazzman John Clarke
- 37: Squarepusher – Terminal Slam
- 38: Perc – Fire In Negative
- 39: Daði Freyr (Daði & Gagnamagnið) – Think About Things
- 40: Time Cow & RTKal – Elephant Man
- 41: G Sudden – Skin Get Bun
- 42 Caribou – New Jade
- 43: Çhâñt Élečtrónïqùe – Maíz De Viracocha
- 44: Gary, Indiana – Nike Of Samothrace
- 45: Yves Tumor – Kerosene!
- 46: Krust – Negative Returns
- 47: James Blake – Before
- 48: DJ Space Heater – Bernie D’Agostino
- 49: Sola – Oh My Love
- 50: Senyawa – Istana
- 51: Crack Cloud – Tunnel Vision
- 52: Thundercat (ft. Ty Dolla $ign & Lil B) – Fair Chance (Floating Points Remix)
- 53: Midas The Jagaban – Come We Bill Ehh
- 54: SAULT – I Just Want To Dance
- 55: British Murder Boys – Real Good Time Together
- 56: Six Organs Of Admittance – Two Forms Moving
- 57: Ghetts ft. Jaykae & Moonchild Sanelly – Mozambique
- 58: 3Phaz – Cluster Drum
- 59: Daniel Avery – Lone Swordsman
- 60: Arca – Mequetrefe
- 61: Porridge Radio – Sweet
- 62: The Japanese House – Chewing Cotton Wool
- 63: Manga Saint Hilare – Contraband (ft. Queenie & MicOfCourse)
- 64: Aksak Maboul – Tout A Une Fin/Everything Ends
- 65: Patten – RE-EDITS: 54D3
- 66: Karenn – Shoes Off
- 67: Mez – Babylon Can’t Roll
- 68: Lonesaw – Barbed Wire Church
- 69: Phoebe Bridgers – I Know The End
- 70 Two Shell – N35
- 71: FAUZIA – When It’s All Over (ft. Kelela)
- 72: clipping. – Chapter 319
- 73: Koffee – Lockdown
- 74: Digga D – Woi
- 75: Ariana Grande – Positions
- 76: Wit. – Viper
- 77: Run The Jewels ft. Greg Nice & DJ Premier – Ooh La La
- 78: Brontez Purnell – Forgive Me, Philip
- 79: Taylor Swift – Exile
- 80: Robert Hood – The Struggle
- 81: Melt Yourself Down – Crocodile
- 82: R.Aggs – Exuberance
- 83: Little Simz – Might Bang, Might Not
- 84: Abra Cadabra – On Deck
- 85: Shanique Marie – Freak
- 86: Silver Sphere – Football Game
- 87: Paul Epworth ft. ISHMAEL – Space Inc.
- 88: Jenevieve – Medallion
- 89: John Foxx & The Maths – Howl
- 90: Caroline – Dark Blue
- 91: ENNY – Peng Black Girls (ft. Amia Brave)
- 92: Ani Glass – Mirores
- 93: Eartheater – Below The Clavicle
- 94: Tierra Whack – Dora
- 95: Dizzee Rascal ft. Ocean Wisdom – Don’t Be Dumb
- 96: Wrangler – Machines Designed (To Eat You Up)
- 97: Moses Boyd – Stranger Than Fiction
- 98: Destroyer – Crimson Tide
- 99: Sex Swing – Valentine’s Day At The Gym
- 100: Pearson Sound – Alien Mode
