at the end of another stupid and lurid year, another year lived on ellipsis between parentheses, the only thing left to do is a list of the album I’ve listened to the most, and these are:

(1) Dead Bandit,
From the Basement (Quindi Records)
A dusty and ulsating bass and sandy, almost industrial percussion are the absolute protagonists of this album, an hybrid between early Tortoise and Bone Machine/Real Gone era Tom Waits. Although everything is infused with electronics, acid folk and a sprinkle of kraut minimalism From the Basement is what you need to get out of the shallows of an increasingly self-indulgent and colder post-rock to rediscover the post-rock of the origins, dilated, slowed down but still pulsating. From the Basement redefines the boundaries of genres already encoded in their own way, it is an album that goes back a little in order to move forward.

(2) Elori Saxl
The Blue of Distance (Western Vinyl)

Very few musician can balance ambient, drone, classical music, experimentation and accessibility like Elori Saxl. The Blue Of Distance – a beautiful title borrowed from an expression by Rebeca Solnit – shows a solid consistency: the seven tracks tell an experience, starting from normality (“Before Blue”), the sudden change (“Blue”), the causes of that change (“Wave I” and “Wave II”), the return to normality that embraces the memory of what has been (“Memory of Blue”) and finally, the peace, the awareness that all is beautiful when it’s simple: “The Blue of Distance.”

(3) Dummy,
Mandatory Enjoyment (Trouble In Mind)

Last year I wondered in what strange world Dummy will be able to bring us. Well, that world is here, between Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland, between kraut and Stereolab’s echoes, ambient turned to pop and pop pushed to the borders of avant-garde, Dummy look to the past in order to create the present with an exquisite personality of their own. And this is a world where enjoyment is really mandatory.

(4) Grouper,
Shade (Kranky)

She is the best. She is the one, the one and only who can make me make peace with myself, with the world, with everything. And she does it with nine stripped-down, essential songs, full of mistakes that make them fragile, and for this alive. Shade is an album of stirring beauty.

(5) The Same
Sync or Swim (Freedom to Spend)

2021 is so great for music that has been released even my favorite album of 1981. I think Peter COx has a time machine with which he went back to 1981 and sticked there to realize this futuristic album. “E Scapes” seems to be Tortoise’s “Djed” father.

(6) Spellling
The Turning Wheel (Sacred Bones)

I have to confess that I wasn’t that much into Spellling’s first two albums, I felt something was missing: a broader arrangement, some refinement, some light in a music slightly dark. That is, I was missing what I found here, and here, both in the more baroque first part (“Above”) and the more introspective side (“Below”) you’ll find a great songwriting, great arrangements, great and beautiful songs that can bring to mind Kate Bush, but also the Beatles in their most orchestal moments. MASTERPIECE.

(7) Sam Gendel,
Fresh Bread (Leaving Records)

Fresh Bread is a multifaceted kaleidoscope, a collection of Lego bricks that you can assemble as you like it to build your own musical box. An album like this could only be born in today’s world, deconstructed, fluid, liquid, degeneralized, and what better soundtrack than flexible music morphing into ambient, into spiritual jazz, into drone, into classic latin-blues and eve into electronic and trap?

(8) Damiana,
Vines (Hausu Mountain)

Take one of the best and most interesting experimental musicians in Chicago (Matchess), put her next to one of the most interesting ambient musicians in recent years (TalSound), bring them to one of the most daring and eccentric label in Chicago (Hausu Mountain) and what you get is one of the best album of the year.

(9) FACS,
Present Tense (Trouble In Mind)

hands-down the best FACS album to date, or at least ‘till the next FACS album. Here you’ll find a fine mixture of post-rock, hardcore, noise, shoegaze and even an almost ambient/drone track (“Alone Without”), together with the most catchy and pop FACS’ song: the liberating and powerful “Strawberry Cough.”

(10) Ovlov, Buds (Exploding in Sound)

Guitar-driven, riff-infused, head bobbing indie-rock goodness.

(11) Smoke Bellow, Open for Business (Trouble in Mind)

(12) Nightshift, Zoe (Trouble In Mind)

(13) Exek, Good Thing They Ripped Up the Carpet (Lulus Sonic Disc Club)

(14) Death of Pop, Seconds (Hidden Bay Records)

(15) Green-House, Music for Living Spaces (Leaving Records)

(16) Low, HEYWHAT (Sub Pop)

(17) Landing, Monthly Subscription Collection 2021

(18) quickly, quickly, The Long and Short of It (Ghostly International)

(19) Spirit of the Beehive, ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH (Saddle Creek)

(20) Maxine Funke, Seance (a colourful storm)

(21) NTsKi, Orca (Orange Milk)

(22) Salamanda, Sphere (Métron Records)

(23) Brett Naucke, Mirror Ensemble (American Dreams Record)

(24) American Cream Band, Dark Hemisphere (Moon Glyph)

(25) Samiratruth, I Got Bandz for the MoonLandin

Plus, in alphabetical order:

  • April Magazine, Sunday Music for an Overpass (Paisley Shirt Records)
  • Lea Bertucci, A Visible Length of Light (Cibachrome Edition)
  • Boyracer, Assuaged (Emotional Response)
  • Cabaret du Ciel, The Breath of Infinity (Quindi Records)
  • Cindy, 1:2 (Tough Love)
  • Colleen, The Tunnel and the Clearing (Thrill Jockey)
  • Courtesy, Check the Milk (Seasick Records)
  • Credentials, Why is my arm not a lilac tree (Orb Tapes)
  • Dravier, Earth Mirage (Not Not Fun)
  • Sally Decker, In the Tender Dream (NNA Tapes)
  • Editrix, Tell Me I’m Bad (Exploding In Sound)
  • Fievel is Glauque, God’s Trashmen Sent to Right the Mess (La Loi)
  • Floating Points, Promises (Luaka Bop)
  • Floatie, Voyage Out (Exploding in Sound)
  • Freaking, Walk On Land (Citizen’s Loft)
  • Gardener, I am Here for a Moment (Trouble In Mind)
  • Giant Claw, Mirror Guide (Orange Milk)
  • Gerycz, Powers, Rolin, Lamplighter (American Dreams Records)
  • The Humble Bee, A Miscellany for the Quiet Hours
  • Idle Ray, Idle Ray
  • Sophia Kennedy, Monsters (City Slang)
  • Nathan McLaughlin, Stoner Lake in G (Full Spectrum)
  • The Mind, Open Up the Window and Leave your Body (Lumpy Records)
  • Mj Guider, Temporary Requiem (Modemain)
  • Carlos Niño, More Energy Fields, Currents (International Anthem)
  • Pearl and the Oysters, Flowerland (Feeltrip Records)
  • Claire Rousay, a softer focus (American Dreams Records)
  • Patrick Shiroishi, Hidemi (American Dreams Records)
  • Nala Sinephro, Space 1:8 (Warp)
  • Pauline Anna Strom, Angel Tears in Daylight (RVNG)
  • Macie Stewart, Mouth Full of Glass (Orindal)
  • The Umbrellas, The Umbrellas (Slumberland)
  • Karima Walker, Waking the Dreaming Body (Orindal)
  • Water from your Eyes, Structures (Wharf Cat)
  • Wednesday, Twin Plagues (Orindal)