#443

Israel Vines - And Now We Know Nothing (Interdimensional Transmissions)



It’s the sound of apparatus roiling about, rusty hardware in motion (...) Grinding, mechanical, a uniform of clinks, turning of cogs, the giant machine speaking in its own vernacular. — John-Paul Shiver

2020

Wire 15 (8)
Catatonic Effigy - Putrid Tendency (Iluso)
Tyshawn Sorey & Marilyn Crispell - The Adornment of Time (Pi Recordings)
Chaos Motion - Psychological Spasms Cacophony (Transcending Obscurity)
Jan St. Werner - Molocular Meditation (Editions Mego)
Witch ‘n’ Monk - Witch ‘n’ Monk (Tzadik)
GRID - Decomposing Force (NNA Tapes) +#435
MSHR - Signal Hybrid Recursion (De Player)
Moor Jewelry - True Opera (Don Giovanni)
Maggi Payne - Arctic Winds (Aguirre)
Bob Vylan - We Live Here (Venn Records)
Hedvig Mollestad - Ekhidna (Rune Grammofon) +#439
Tashi Dorji - Stateless (Drag City)
Clipping - Visions of Bodies Being Burned (Sub Pop)
Laura Cannell, Kate Ellis, Stewart Lee, et al - These Feral Lands Vol.1 (Brawl) +#441
Krust - The Edge of Everything (Crosstown Rebels)

record of the year
Witch ‘n’ Monk - Witch ‘n’ Monk (Tzadik)

#442

Krust - The Edge of Everything (Crosstown Rebels)



As he has done for decades Thompson wrestles new innovations from his productions while using his music as a conduit to touch the very depths and heights of human feeling. — John Morrison

#441

Clipping - Visions of Bodies Being Burned (Sub Pop)



Continuing the horrorcore orientation of the previous album, Clipping include several collaborations, pushing their sonic experiments in new directions, defying genre while tapping into the curious world of Foley sound. — Mariam Rezaei

#440

Tashi Dorji - Stateless (Drag City)



Cerebral turns and Derek Baileyesque abstractions burble throughout, but Stateless hits more like a punk rock record than a study in extended technique. — Marc Masters

#439

Bob Vylan - We Live Here (Venn Records)



Bobby Vylan’s vocals throughout the album have a ragged rage that’s utterly compelling, adhering less to grime or hiphop patterns than a direct, unmannered arrhythmia akin to Bad Brains or Sleaford Mods. — Neil Kulkarni

#438

Maggi Payne - Arctic Winds (Aguirre)



In the Arctic, extreme atmospheric conditions can create aural and visual mirages; distant shorelines become huge cliffs. The longer you listen, the more disorienting and powerful this isolationist suite becomes. — Chal Ravens

#437

Moor Jewelry - True Opera (Don Giovanni)



Here, [Moor Mother] plays guitar and sings while [Mental Jewelry] plays drums and bass and the results are a fiery homage to the duo’s punk/no wave roots. — Neil Kulkarni

#436

MSHR - Signal Hybrid Recursion (De Player)



If a better realisation of a totalising digital media aesthetic exists, I’m not aware of it. — Emily Pothast

#435

Witch ‘n’ Monk - Witch ‘n’ Monk (Tzadik)



Hard to imagine that voice, guitar and flute could groove so hard and deliver so much. — Brian Morton

#434

Jan St. Werner - Molocular Meditation (Editions Mego)



The words and unmistakable voice belong to the late Mark E Smith, whose observations on mundane objects and events combine with moments of typical lucidity. — Neil Kulkarni

#433

Chaos Motion - Psychological Spasms Cacophony (Transcending Obscurity)



The death metal avant garde continues to embrace atonality and compositional complexity, and Mexican quartet Chaos Motion, whose name is incredibly apt, are pushing the music into the same realms of science fiction hyper-technicality and inhumanity occupied by Spain’s Wormed, among others. — Phil Freeman

#432

Tyshawn Sorey & Marilyn Crispell - The Adornment of Time (Pi Recordings)



The final 20 minutes are sublime, as a delicate chordal figure develops into a passage of astonishing sensitivity and power. — Stewart Smith

#431

Catatonic Effigy - Putrid Tendency (Iluso)



Catatonic Effigy’s debut album is a powerful and effective attempt at inhabiting the zones between extreme metal, free jazz and modern composition. — Phil Freeman

2019

Wire 15 (7)
Éliane Radigue - Oeuvres Électroniques (Ina-GRM)
Black Thought - Streams of Thought Vols. 1&2 (Human Re Sources)
Hedvig Mollestad Trio - Smells Funny (Rune Grammofon) +#420
Alvin Lucier / Trevor Saint - Ricochet Lady (Black Truffle)
Wendy Eisenberg - The Machinic Unconscious (Tzadik)
Mopcut - Accelerated Frames of Reference (Trost)
The London Sound Survey - Thames (Persistence of Sound)
9T Antiope & Siavash Amini - Harmistice (Hallow Ground)
K-X-P - IV (Svart)
Olivier Messiaen / Linda Catlin Smith / Apartment House - Quatuor pour la fin du temps / Among the Tarnished Stars (Another Timbre)
Pharmakon - Devour (Sacred Bones) +#427
Keiji Haino / Merzbow / Balázs Pándi - Become the Discovered, Not the Discoverer (RareNoise)
Zonal - Wrecked (Relapse)
Morton Feldman / Philip Thomas - Piano (Another Timbre) +#429
Eve Risser - Aprés un Rêve (Clean Feed)

record of the year
9T Antiope & Siavash Amini - Harmistice (Hallow Ground)

#430

Eve Risser - Aprés un Rêve (Clean Feed)



The pulse gradually builds to a syncopated rhythm. The effect is mesmeric, creating a rolling Can-like groove against which Risser lays minimal chords. — Stewart Smith

#429

Zonal - Wrecked (Relapse)



This collision of industrial noise and hiphop related poetics helped open the artistic door for Techno Animal’s 2001 album The Brotherhood Of The Bomb and now Wrecked – the latest from Martin and Broadrick’s long dormant Zonal project, which features a heavy vocal contribution from Moor Mother. — John Morrison

#428

Keiji Haino / Merzbow / Balázs Pándi - Become the Discovered, Not the Discoverer (RareNoise)



Haino wrestles feedback storms, the odd jazz-like riffs and cutting squeals against Akita’s fluctuating whiteouts and mutilated radio sounds. — Antonio Poscic

#427

Olivier Messiaen / Linda Catlin Smith - Quatuor pour la fin du temps / Among the Tarnished Stars (Another Timbre)



Four members of Apartment House bring their cumulative insight and expertise as interpreters of experimental music to a performance that respects the intrinsic poise as well as the bold contrasts and occasional flamboyance of Messiaen’s score. By avoiding superfluous expressive artifice they allow this music to breathe. — Julian Cowley

#426

K-X-P - IV (Svart)



“Nimetön Tie” is truly magnificent, and any DJ with the guts to play it in its entirety at the right moment in a strobe-lit club deserves to be showered with glory. — Joe Muggs

#425

9T Antiope & Siavash Amini - Harmistice (Hallow Ground)



Even when Shamloo’s folky melismatic singing emerges, its tonal contrast with the ruthless electronics provides no respite, but rather makes the whole thing all the more unnerving. — Daniel Neofetou

#424

The London Sound Survey - Thames (Persistence of Sound)



“Tower Bridge North Bascule Chamber” sounds like a vast music box, and the tune that it plays could well have been a new work by Varèse or Ligeti. The raw, harmonious swelling of engines is quite captivating, reminding us that machines are sequenced in their actions just like a musical composition – even the whining of its parts is in tune. — Ken Hollings

#423

Mopcut - Accelerated Frames of Reference (Trost)



Mopcut are Audrey Chen from the US on voice and analogue electronics, Julien Desprez from France on electric guitar, and Lukas König from Austria on drums and synthesizer. — Andy Hamilton

#422

Wendy Eisenberg - The Machinic Unconscious (Tzadik)



Think of Boston based guitarist Wendy Eisenberg as a musical tardigrade, thriving in polarised environments of extreme heat and pressure. On the trio date The Machinic Unconscious she deals in scalding noise-puke, spurting out molten gouts of heat, with little regard for public safety. — Daniel Spicer

#421

Alvin Lucier - Ricochet Lady (Black Truffle)



He composed Ricochet Lady (2016) for solo glockenspiel. Trevor Saint’s beating of the metal keys is rapid and insistent. The distinct characters of a university rehearsal hall, a stone and oak chapel, a vacant foundry warehouse and cement grain tower are unlocked by Lucier’s magic formula. — Julian Cowley

#420

Black Thought - Streams of Thought Vols. 1&2 (Human Re Sources)



With barely a single hook, and a bunch of tracks cutting off abruptly after just a few dozen bars, these sets can feel like the hiphop equivalent to Dean Benedetti’s legendary bootlegs of Charlie Parker. Where those tapes contained nothing but the saxophonist’s solos, dropping out when anyone else picked up the tune, these tracks leave room for nothing but bars. — Rob Turner

#419

Éliane Radigue - Oeuvres Électroniques (Ina-GRM)



Oeuvres Électroniques is, in its 14 CDs, a monumental – in all senses – release, and it is both a legacy compilation and a learned review of Radigue’s electronic works. But it is also – and this is so important – an authoritative collection that now brings Radigue securely into the cultural archives of the French state. — Louise Gray

2018

Wire 15 (6)
Ariadne - Stabat Mater (Auris Apothecary)
Godflesh - Post Self (Avalanche/Hospital Productions) +#407
Joan La Barbara - The Early Immersive Music of Joan La Barbara (Mode)
Terre Thaemlitz - Deproduction (Comatonse) +#408
John Cage / Bonnie Whiting - The Works for Percussion 4 (Mode)
Susana Santos Silva - All the Rivers: Live at the Panteão Nacional (Clean Feed)
Eva-Maria Houben - Breath for Organ (Second Editions)
Kamaal Williams - The Return (Black Focus)
Pierre Henry - Polyphonies (Radio France/Decca)
Angélique Kidjo - Remain in Light (Kravenworks)
Serena Butler - We Want Neither Clean Hands Nor Beautiful Souls (Stroboscopic Artefacts)
Gazelle Twin - Pastoral (Anti-Ghost Moon Ray)
Puce Mary - The Drought (Pan)
Guttersnipe - My Mother the Vent (Upset the Rhythm)
Black Replica - Dreams Versus Reality (Metaphysik) +#418

record of the year
Angélique Kidjo - Remain in Light (Kravenworks)

#418

Guttersnipe - My Mother the Vent (Upset the Rhythm)



[I]t feels more notable, and slyly satisfying, when a band like Leeds duo Guttersnipe make a comprehensive lack of effort to offer themselves to the world and via word of mouth still get clasped to bosoms just through being freakishly good at five alarm no wave overload. — Noel Gardner

#417

Puce Mary - The Drought (Pan)



Her peers revel in fantasies of sex, power and death; meanwhile, the Puce Mary project engages with the same drives from a different perspective, grappling with intimacy, vulnerability and the horrors of the ageing process. This might somehow imply The Drought is a soft or sanitised take on the genre. In fact if anything, the opposite is true. — Louis Pattison

#416

Gazelle Twin - Pastoral (Anti-Ghost Moon Ray)



Collisions of disparate traditions and ideas are often found in the cinematic subgenre known as folk horror, and Pastoral is one of several recent albums (...) that have attempted a sonic interrogation of these tropes. — Aimee Armstrong

#415

Serena Butler - We Want Neither Clean Hands Nor Beautiful Souls (Stroboscopic Artefacts)



[T]he closing track is a bed for actor Emma Watson’s speech to the UN on gender equality. Her feminist call to arms, delivered in quivering RP, feels, frankly, a bit normie for a record that claims to be about “Butler’s personal juncture with the Queerverse”, but you can’t fault the tunes. — Chal Ravens

#414

Angélique Kidjo - Remain in Light (Kravenworks)



[Q]uestions about cultural appropriation have orbited the album for years. Kidjo’s homage transforms the nature of these questions, both by infusing the songs with a new, collaborative authenticity and radiating a playful, open-hearted brilliance that makes Eno’s original production seem self-conscious by comparison. — Emily Pothast

#413

Pierre Henry - Polyphonies (Radio France/Decca)



[T]here is a lot more to him as a composer, as a technician, as a sonic visionary of sounds untethered to their origins, than simply as one of the chief exponents of musique concrète – the 12 CDs that make up Polyphonies make this fact abundantly clear. — Louise Gray

#412

Kamaal Williams - The Return (Black Focus)



It blends a mostly dark and slow fusion with chopped up hiphop elements and an almost cinematic quality, as if Williams were soundtracking endless reels of South London streetscapes. — Brian Morton

#411

Eva-Maria Houben - Breath for Organ (Second Editions)



Along with engines running at full throttle, [Peter] Handford documented trains at rest or undergoing maintenance, revealing the breath-like source of their enormous mechanical power. Houben engages with another pneumatic giant in the aftermath of its glory years and finds fascination in its inner life. — Julian Cowley

#410

Susana Santos Silva - All the Rivers: Live at the Panteão Nacional (Clean Feed)



Her stillness is audible in the music, which proceeds very slowly, in short bursts of melodic narrative that are allowed to reverberate through the church’s complex marble interior, creating layers of overtones. — Brian Morton

#409

John Cage - The Works for Percussion 4 (Mode)



In his article “Experimental Music” (...) [Cage] stated “relevant action is theatrical (music [imaginary separation of hearing from the other senses] does not exist)”. Whiting has appropriate flair as well as technique, understanding and judgment. — Julian Cowley

#408

Joan La Barbara - The Early Immersive Music of Joan La Barbara (Mode)



The magic of her solo artistry lies not just in the sounds she projects but crucially in their intricate composition, forms envisaged beyond the boundaries of technique. — Julian Cowley

#407

Ariadne - Stabat Mater (Auris Apothecary)



Christine Lanx’s sombre hymnals make clear her background in contemporary and early music. But deft electronic processing sees her voice twisted and refracted into barely recognisable forms. (...) Benjamin Forest, meanwhile, shadows her with ringing electronic frequencies, jags of burrowing noise. — Louis Pattison

2017

Wire 15 (5)
Ariel Guzik - Cordiox (VON Archives)
Bobbie Johnson - You & I (Escape Route Media)
Tanya Tagaq - Retribution (Six Shooter) +#396
Harriet Tubman - Araminta (Sunnyside)
Various - Total Reggae: Special Request (VP)
Dopplereffekt - Cellular Automata (Leisure System)
Dead Neanderthals - Craters (Consouling Sounds)
Sarah Angliss - Ealing Feeder (Bandcamp)
Bill Orcutt - Bill Orcutt (Palilalia)
Jo Thomas - Sunshine Over Nimbus (Bandcamp) +#402
Maggi Payne - Crystal (Aguirre)
Myra Melford Trio - Alive in the House of Saints (hatART)
Melaine Dalibert - Ressac (Another Timbre)
Anji Cheung - Spirit as Creature (Utech) +#405
Wadada Leo Smith - Najwa (TUM)

record of the year
Bill Orcutt - Bill Orcutt (Palilalia)

#406

Wadada Leo Smith - Najwa (TUM)



On Najwa Smith explores as he consolidates, always ready to acknowledge indebtedness, always stretching beyond his own horizon, under the influence of comparably questing and restless spirits. — Julian Cowley

#405

Melaine Dalibert - Ressac (Another Timbre)



En Abyme, constructed from three-note permutations that stretch towards infinity, appears simultaneously to rise and fall in a paradoxical manner reminiscent of the graphic conundrums of MC Escher. — Julian Cowley

#404

Myra Melford Trio - Alive in the House of Saints (hatART)



The intensely bluesy “Evening Might Still” (...) is a stomping opener, with shades of Keith Jarrett. “Frank Lloyd Wright Goes West To Rest” recalls Don Pullen’s take on Cecil Taylor, with the funky attack of Horace Silver. In time, I reckon, these individual influences have melded into a totally coherent style. — Andy Hamilton

#403

Maggi Payne - Crystal (Aguirre)



Flute, voice and synthesizer are processed beyond recognition into tense, fluttering signals that Payne escalates into stark crescendos of noise, interspersed with abrupt silences and cold wastelands of eerie, harrowing frequencies. — Britt Brown

#402

Bill Orcutt - Bill Orcutt (Palilalia)



Orcutt’s ‘nude stumbling down a staircase’ fingerwork will land upon a note within a phrase, linger on it, repeat it, shove it down and open it up into the next portion of the melody that he finds worthy of extrapolating, the ring of the amplifier deepening each moment. — Matt Krefting

#401

Sarah Angliss - Ealing Feeder (Bandcamp)



In an era when London is increasingly open only for business, it is refreshing to feel the city made strange again, to see its weird old ghosts brought out into the light to dance in the sodium glare of the modern city, to hear its history fed through a Max patch. — Robert Barry

#400

Dead Neanderthals - Craters (Consouling Sounds)



This single 36 minute track rolls over your skull like a tank, leaving you breathless and unsettled but weirdly euphoric when it finally ends. — Phil Freeman

#399

Dopplereffekt - Cellular Automata (Leisure System)



Dopplereffekt is now said to be based somewhere in the Alps. (...) it’s reassuring to imagine one of Detroit’s most singular artists toiling wordlessly in his lab coat in the shadow of those peaks, perhaps imagining himself as an invisible assistant to the particle-blasting laboratory just down the mountain range. — Chal Ravens

#398

Various - Total Reggae: Special Request (VP)



Belying its mystifyingly prosaic title, this selection of dancehall mayhem from Greensleeves’ Chris O’Brien is an absolute scorcher, a collection of sound boy killers dating from the time dancehall revivified reggae in the early 1980s by returning to its sound system roots. — Steve Barker

#397

Harriet Tubman - Araminta (Sunnyside)



The music is a sort of atmospheric post-metal, with a strong dub element and drumming that shifts seamlessly between rock and funk rhythms and improvisatory pulse time. — Phil Freeman

#396

Bobbie Johnson - You & I (Escape Route Media)



At her worst Brighton’s Bobbie Johnson is an imposingly brilliant performer radiating righteous anger and eloquent melancholia, something like Little Simz might sound if she had got fully grown before getting famous. — Richard Stacey

#395

Ariel Guzik - Cordiox (VON Archives)



In its physical appearance this electromagnetically activated instrument, sensitive to the presence of visitors, may suggest arcane hardware from a handbook of steampunk science, but the droning radiance and shadowy rumble that emanate from its 180 strings, held taut in towering vertical frames, seem custom-made for a time-worn and cavernous ecclesiastical space. — Julian Cowley

2016

Wire 15 (4)
The Sprawl - EP1 (Death of Rave)
Guttersnipe - Demo (Arcane Pariah) +#383
Roscoe Mitchell - Sustain and Run (Selo Sesc)
David Bowie - Blackstar (ISO/RCA)
eMMplekz - Rook to TN34 (Mordant Music)
Puce Mary - The Spiral (Posh Isolation)
Elza Soares - The Woman at the End of the World (Mais Um Discos)
Let’s Eat Grandma - I, Gemini (Transgressive) +#388
Ben Johnston / Kepler Quartet - String Quartets 6, 7 & 8 (New World)
Der Zyklus - Renormalon (WéMè) +#389
Hedvig Mollestad Trio - Black Stabat Mater (Rune Grammofon)
Teresa Rampazzi - Immagini per Diana Baylon (Die Schachtel)
Moor Mother - Fetish Bones (Don Giovanni)
Joëlle Léandre & Théo Ceccaldi - Elastic (Cipsela)
Peter Evans - Lifeblood (More is More)

record of the year
Moor Mother - Fetish Bones (Don Giovanni)

#394

Peter Evans - Lifeblood (More is More)



Without being a trumpet technician, it’s hard to know exactly how Evans achieves some of these effects. Is that ozone burning rush in the middle of “Abyss” multiphonics and feedback? Or are his lungs just superhuman? — Stewart Smith