2023 truly wrapped! get the playlist here.
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jorge - bessa
i am putting this at the top of the year in review because i think you are least likely to have heard it--unless you had to listen to the ep on loop at my house circa june, for which i will never apologise--and thus i want to promote it the hardest. the echo-y sound, the little piano tinkling, the dead on groove all go so hard. and since the profits of the ep all went to refuweegee it's also socially sound. a win win for bessa.
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big beat manifesto top 3 for 2023
sunsleeper - barry can't swim
higher than ever before - disclosure
make me - borai & denham audio
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sonicwonderland - hiromi + sonicwonder
this song takes the bass guitar on a real alice in (sonic)wonderland adventure, if you take that as your stride and imagine everything else as slices of the life that you meet on the way. beginning with some retro-future synths feat. an announcing trumpet (a bowser's castle x rainbow road collab, if you will), at just over two minutes in, everything seems to melt away like dali's clocks, only to pick back up more frantically and continue the journey through this bizarre realm, into some canonical and falsely soothing piano soon met with odd rhythms and distorted brass, etc etc, for eight minutes. and then it ends off right where it started. love it.
echo in the chamber - say she she
worst name of the year award, one of the best albums of the year award. oh they're so inspired by chic and nile rogers! ok bitch! ... but they are? and it's somehow not too naff? you gotta hand it to em.
hollatchu - jitwam, jaydonclover + yungmorpheus
jitwam's languid version of brooklyn boi lyf delivered one of my tracks of 2022 and he's back in 2023 with hollatchu, feat. also birmingham's jaydonclover, whose candyfloss-like vocals appeared on a couple of tracks i liked this year. i hope she gets her own starring moment next year and i also hope jitwam is back with more.
master crowley's - lankum
i can't really speak to the folk music tradition: despite hailing from a place with a highly regarded international folk festival, my journey to discovering lankum derived, in a roundabout way, from seeing oppenheimer for a second time at the valley centertainment imax. but i can state with absolute certainty, regarding this track: LET'S FUCKIN GO BOYS.
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a sharp read as always from socks_house_meeting🏴
ac yn awr am gerddoriaeth o gymru / and now for music from wales
pink notes - juice menace
very shygirl, tinges of hyper pop and grime, truly in the uk style: m to the b grown up and allowed to buy her own bottles of smirnoff ice (in the most complimentary sense). i got shows from the taff to the thames. lol.
hands - elkka
another banger mix in the dj-kicks series, this time from elkka.
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desperately free - art feynman
the name of this band is not talking heads but it is definitely in their ilk.
la ka ba'a - alogte oho and his sounds of joy
ghanaian gospel music dipped and coated in highlife. so vibrant, so fun - truly sounds of joy.
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uk-ish jazz 2023
annie's tune - dargz ft. charlie stacey
although he's from new york i do think you have to count dargz among the uk jazz scene given it is where he now operates. he's produced loads, especially for moses boyd and poppy ajudha, and i really like all the stuff he's starting to put out under his own name.
lime green skies - energy exchange ensemble ft. oscar jerome
ex ensemble are on some sort of melbourne / berlin / london vibe but oscar jerome is uk thru and thru - the man's from norwich! so again, it counts. i love this, there's real beachy energy coming from the bongo drums and the wibbly wobbly guitar licks.
raisins under the sun - yussef dayes ft. shabaka hutchings
i like yussef dayes as part of yussef kamaal so i was happy to see that his debut album black classical music did very well for itself. also i like raisins and being under the sun and shabaka hutchings so it floats my proverbial boat.
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rock and a calm place - antony szmierek
i think antony szmierek at yellow arch was my favourite gig of the year. was it the actual best? i don't KNOW ok i was just so rizzed by the whole thing.
the gig that probably would have been my favourite gig was roy ayers' farewell tour, but i was so unwell i literally shit myself (cheers!), spent two weeks pasted to my bathroom floor and had to forget i'd ever bought a ticket: a much more apt summary of the realities of this year tbqh.
but enough from me: let me know what you think of any/all of this, let me know your own faves, say hello! i love writing this newsletter and i love hearing from you about it; thank you all so much xo