MUSIC 2023: top 7 non-album releases

Here's the (almost) best of the rest category. As always this ranking only consists of releases, which I own in some physical form. Like the title says here's the top seven of everything which is neither a studio nor live album. Re-issues are also excluded, while split albums form an exception from the rule. So taken into consideration were singles, EPs (I know, the distinction between album and EP can be foggy sometimes), split releases and compilations. And damn, I almost put Effluence's "Liquified" at the top, even though I heavily argued that it's indeed an album before. But then I realized that it already had been out there as a CD in 2022, so it didn't qualify anyway.

TOP 7 non-album releases 2023:

1. LAIBACH - Love Is Still Alive
   
   
   
   If you ever wanted to fail really badly at something, just try to unravel and seperate all levels of  irony and earnestness, of ridiculous fun and highbrow art in the work of Laibach! On its own their "Iron Sky: The Coming Race" soundtrack walking bass Country song couldn't be a greater cliché, yet it's also a fitting and successful homage to the movie "Dark Star". But then in the next step turning this song into a full-blown eight-part space odyssey, which travels through all kinds of styles and moods is borderline ingenious. The sheer fact of this being from the same group stunning us with the deeply moving orchestral "Alamut" performance this year, makes the EP even better.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. OTAY:ONII - 夢​之​駭​客 Dream Hacker
   
   
   

   Few artists have impressed and touched me as profoundly as Chinese-American singer and experimental musician Lane Shi Otayonii this year. Her performance at Roadburn already won my ranking of favorite festival shows and this new mini album, which consists of entirely different songs than she played there,  came within a whisker of repeating that victory. On "Dream Hacker" her range of inspiration and expression between Eastern tradition and Western Pop culture seems more boundless and unpredictable than ever. Not from this world!
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. ZAÄAR / SPINTRIA - Genesis of Cycplopean Sorcerer
   
   
   

   The secret to a great split release is combining artists, who feel like different sides of the same coin, so their individual contributions add up to more than just the sum of playing times. WV Sorcerer Productions bringing together Belgian primeval Free Jazzers Zaäar and Tennessean trio Spintria's wild genre hopping from Drone and Dungeon Synth to Prog, Metal, Grind and Jazzcore is a paramount example of how this is done. Both bands' longtracks alone are already fantastic, but the whole of this barbarically beautiful LP is an epic Avantgarde masterstroke.
    
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. SARMAT - Dubious Disk
   
   
   

   And now that we have entered the world of musical Avantgarde extremism it's only logical to continue with Sarmat's debut CD/DVD, on which the band introduces us to their own brand of Extreme Metal / Jazz Fusion with a significantly extended rendition of the "Determined To Strike" album track "Disturbing Advances". In my book we can set this as the gold standard for this specific genre hybrid.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. GGGOLDDD - PTSD
   
   
   

   Even more electronically minimalistic than "This Shame Should Not Be Mine" this EP also continues the album's concept by exploring life after the trauma caused by the abuse thematized there. Three songs of "PTSD" are new, the other two are alternative versions of tracks from older albums in the recent sound of the Dutch Post Post Everything band.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. KING DUDE - Songs From The 1940s - vol 1 & 2

   
   

   

   You didn't expect to find a double 7" with Great American Songbook classics from the 1940's here? I wouldn't have bet on this happening either. But thanks to T.J. Cowgill bidding his alter ego King Dude farewell with his most Folk / Country release ever here we are now. Mostly performed just on acoustic guitar with ambient sprinkles on top and drenched in his typical cavernous echo, songs like "Oh Death" or "Riders In The Sky" expose their eeriest side, which makes this EP the perfect male companion (or counterpart) to Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter's "Saved!".
   
   

   
   
   
   
   
7. 夢遊病者 - Skopofoexoskelett
   
   
   

   With a plethora of Classical, Jazz and ethnic instrument guest musicians and singers the enigmatic Far Beyond Post Black Metal trio Sleepwalker returns with four tracks almost impossible to pin down in terms of genres or even music-historical time frame or continents associated with their inspiration. The only thing holding this amazing creative chaos back from ascending higher on this list is its dramatic lack of length. Being even shorter than the predeccessing "Noč Na Krayu Sveta" the twenty-five minutes of this so-called album seriously just aren't enough.
   
   

favorite MUSIC 2023 - all my lists:

TOP 23 albums   |   TOP 7 live albums   |   TOP 5 reissues
TOP 7 non-album releases   |   TOP 23 live shows

ZAÄAR / SPINTRIA - Genesis of Cyclopian Sorcerer

Welcome to the time before the creation of time, long after the apocalypse and rebirth of our world! This is the cosmic temple of chaos in the center of being. And this is our jam here!

ZAÄAR / SPINTRIA - Genesis of Cyclopian Sorcerer (sapphire marble vinyl LP) (2023)

The easisest way to describe the music of the Belgian group Zaäar, who are intertwined with Neptunian Maximalism is a question: Have you ever imagined how Free Jazz would sound on Conan the Barbarian's homeworld Hyboria?
Their twenty minute improvisation "Dance of Time" is a collective primal scream of percussions, sopranino saxophone, trumpet, flutes and throat singing over a foundation of droning bass and Ambient synth sounds. This music is at the same time spiritual as the ecstatic highs of Sanders and (both Alice and John) Coltrane, but it adds a menacing undertone, invoking a colourful darkness beyond the perception of good and evil. Zaäar reaches beyond the veil of human understanding and dips a fingertip into the eternal cycle of creation. Chaos and beauty. Or simply just a very daring fresh take on Free Jazz?
Anyone who has been fortunate enough to see them live or already loved their 2021 debut album "Magická Džungl’a" will have an easy time enjoying this new release, which gives you a similar experience in a more compact format. But since "Genesis of Cyclopian Sorcerer" isn't just a Zaäar EP, but a split album compiled by WV Sorcerer Productions , the transcendental journey doesn't end here yet, but continues in fitting fashion on the B-side.

In the beginning of their mammoth track "Mesmerism" Drone Metal guitars, Dungeon Synth keyboards and drums clattering in the far distance seem to be the ingredients the Tennesseean trio Spintria is cooking with. Yet after a couple of minutes the spectrum widens, embracing elements of Prog and Metal, Grind Fusion and Jazzcore. It's heavy and explosively destructive, but it somehow remains a musical and through the indeed mesmerising keyboards often elevating listening experience.
If Zaäar provided the soundtrack for the rituals in the temple's main hall, Spintria will ambush you if you dare to explore the catacombs beneath it too deep. So this is quite a different beast than the A-side, but its atmosphere somehow feels connected and it completes the split album perfectly.

Add the beautiful artwork and vinyl colour and you have everything you want from this kind of release, a split which is more than just a leftover dump for two Bands/artists, but something even a little more than the sum of its already amazing parts.