MUSIC 2023: top 23 albums

Albums which I play in the car all the time. Albums which are way too long to listen to every day. Albums which I already listened to too much. Albums which I unjustifiably neglected. Albums with a profound message. Albums which are just pure fucking fun. Albums from bands I've been a fan of for ages. Albums I only just got in the last couple of weeks. And so on and so forth...

So many different albums with so many criteria coming into play. So many different moods and styles. What is more valuable? An album which calms me down? And album which makes me think? An album which puts me into a cathartic rage?

I feel that it's getting harder to come to a satisfying result when putting together my favorite studio releases of the year every time I'm doing this. My usual practice of only considering studio albums which I own as physical copies narrows the list down a little (obviously not always in a way that's fair), but the task still remains impossible. At some not too far point in the future I will inevatibly look back on some choices I made or missed and shake my head in disbelief.
How couldn't I with all those varied great releases that just didn't fit in anymore? When I had settled on 22 (or really 24, because I bent the rules twice) I still had a competition of names like Årabrot, Crawl, Edena Gardens, Fleshvessel, Jegong, John Zorn, Les Nadie, Onkos, Sulphur Aeon and more battling for that last spot. And that's good! As long as it's a pain the ass to put together a ranking like this it means that I've been exposed to an abundance of great music.

In this spirit: Here are - cast in stone for all eternity, or at least until tomorrow morning - my personal...

TOP 23 albums of 2023:

1. BELL WITCH - Future's Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate
   
   
   
   Even though the one eighty-three-minutes song album (their second in that specific format after "Mirror Reaper"!) cannot even be conclusively judged yet, because it is only the first part of a trilogy, I already predicted back in July that I would probably crown this glacially moving Funeral Doom behemoth as album of the year. And how could I not? Dylan Desmond and Jesse Shreibman have even improved their songwriting and arrangement skills and expanded their sound palette to appeareantly score the sorrowful fading of existence as a whole. Stillstand beyond the laws of time has never felt as crushing as floating here, in the void behind the Clandestine Gate.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. LAIBACH - Sketches of the Red Districts
   
   
   
   Yes, the Slovenian collective has made it into top positions of four different MUSIC 2023 lists now! One answer to how they can pull this off lies in several writing teams. "Sketches of the Red Districts", an Industrial / Ambient / Electronic historical recontextualization of Laibach's birth myth in 1980 in connection with a bloody conflict between Yugoslav fascists and the local labour movement of Trbovlje in 1924, saw the current drummer and guitar player step forward to create an atmospheric masterpiece, which is one of the most classic sounding Laibach releases post the 1980's, but still presents a fresh new take on their aesthetics.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. POIL UEDA - PoiL Ueda / Yoshitsune
   
   
   
   Bending the list rules, part one: This spot inevitably had to be shared by two equally brilliant albums, on which traditional Japanese vocalist and satsuma-biwa player Junko Ueda tells epic stories from the Far Eastern Middle Ages with the aid of the absolutely bonkers Magma- and King Crimson-inspired French Avantgarde Prog Rock group PoiL. Both albums of their joint cross-cultural project PoiL Ueda burst with boundless creativity in stunningly intense virtuosic performances. Undoubtly one - err, two - of the wildest and most exciting musical adventures of the year!
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. BIG|BRAVE - Nature Morte
   
   
   
   Once again the Canadian Noise Rock trio crushes our hearts, souls and bodies with the deeply satisfying Drone of monolithic guitars and the honest rawest emotion in Ronin Wattie's piercing heartfelt vocal  performance. In a discography that has never shown any sign of weakness "Nature Morte" sees Big|Brave broadening their compositional toolset by drawing lessons from the previous collaboration with The Body without sacrifing their principles of maximalist minimalism.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. HEALTHYLIVING - Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief
   
   
   
   While it's impossible to pin this band down on one specific reference like (old) Gggolddd, Brutus, Dool or Chelsea Wolfe, because every track shows a different side of their Post Rock/Punk/Hardcore/Doom/Noise/etc. mix and showcases another facet of Amaya López Carromero's amazing voice, which you might also know from her solo project Maud the Moth, one thing is for sure: Their amazing debut album is filled to the bursting point with strong songs which won't leave your head anytime soon.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. THE KEENING - Little Bird
   
   
   
   After the rest of Salt Lake City's sadly disbanded Doom Metal giants SubRosa have already released an album as The Otolith in 2022, it was now time for front woman and main songwriter Rebecca Vernon to also step into the light again. And be it as singer and lyricist or as a composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist - she has so much to say on this genre-transcending full-length of wonderful Alternative Gothic Doom Folk greatness! The epic closer "The Truth" alone in truth is one of the greatest songs of the year. Gorgeous!   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. ESBEN AND THE WITCH - Hold Sacred
   
   
   
   "I am down here, in my chapel, where I'm safe from the evils of the world." Esben And The Witch's goodbye before an undetermined long break due to living far apart from each other now, is a magically intimate beauty I cannot stop listening to. Never has the trio's music been so stripped-down Ambient, so centered around Rachel Davies' mesmerizing voice and words. "Hold Sacred" goes right to the soul. This album is a soothing, consouling embrace in the darkness.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
8. DYMNA LOTVA - Зямля Пад Чорнымі Крыламі: Кроў (The Land Under The Black Wings: Blood)
   
   
   
   A Belarusian Post Black Metal band fleeing from the regime - right into Ukraine before Putin's  invasion - releases an anti-war album based on both the horrors of WWII in their home country and their personal experiences. Even after that serious premise you're hardly prepared for the gut-wrenching storytelling and adamant earnest stance of "Land Under The Black Wings: Blood". Musically Dymna Lotva's Black Metal incorporates Doom as much as influences from Folk, Classical music and even Jazz in a similar way artists like Dordeduh or White Ward are doing it. Very haunting and unfortunately so significant!
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
9. GILDED FORM - Gilded Form
   
   
   
   Hardly even moving synths, the halting heartbeat of minimal drums and a guitar slowing down the Blues to tectonic lentitude pay homage to Dylan Carlson's Earth with a coat of bohrenish Doomjazz. Besides Bell Witch no album here will let you hover in a world-withdrawing state of timelessness like Dead Neanderthals (Otto Kokke, Rene Aquarius) and Nick Millevoi are achieving it on their joint project, debut release and forty-minute track "Gilded Form". Even though this is as conceptually reduced as ever it ranks among the most  powerful things the prolific Dutch duo has done so far.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
10. THE END - Why Do You Mourn
    
    
    
    Is it the chaotic baritone guitar and drums rhythm section of Anders Hana and Børge Fjordheim? Is it the double saxophone force of Mats Gustafsson and Kjetil Møster? Or is it the mind-boggling vocal craziness of Sofia Jernberg? Each of these elements alone would already make the dynamic experimental Heavy Jazz Fusion on "Why Do You Mourn" special. Together however The End are capable of anything - even super-slowing down the Sudan Archives Trip Hop track "Black Vivaldi Sonata" to thrice of its original length. 
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
11. SWANS - The Beggar
    
    
    
    How to summarize two hours of Swans in just one paragraph? Yes, Michael isn't done yet at all, so here's another ginormous, existential offering, which combines the recent sound and wordiness of "Leaving Meaning" with the reverb aesthetics of "The Great Annihilator". This huge meditation on decline, decay, dissolution and Death even contains an album within the album with the forty+ minutes of the studio collage "The Beggar Lover (Three)". With all those larger than life works of the past it's unlikely that many Swans fans will crown "The Beggar" as their all-time-favorite. Yet of course the usual scale of operation alone still lets "The Beggar" tower far above most other music releases out there easily.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
12. AUTOPSY - Ashes. Organs, Blood and Crypts
    
    
    
    Fuck yeah! No deep analytical thoughts necessary for this one - it's a bloody gory new Autopsy album. Starting with the title it's a completely accurate what you see is what you get situation - that goes literally for the sick album cover and just as much for its rotten content. Last year's first album with new bassist Greg Wilkinson "Morbidity Triumphant" was already old school rancid Death Metal bliss at its best like only Chris Reifert and Co. can deliver it. But somehow the legends got even darker and filthier now. Gut-splashing, grave-desecrating Autopsy - they just always know how to throw the greatest parties.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
13. GODFLESH - Purge
    
    
    
    JK Broadrick and BC Green added only one letter to the title of their 1991 classic, and indeed the new Godflesh album is an open throwback to the sound and mindset of "Pure". While the guitar sound is fuller and sludgier now, the sawing riffs and screeching leads complimenting Broadrick's nihilist vocals are as similar as the rumbling bass sound and the Hip Hop inspired programmed and sampled drums. Due to its referential nature "Purge" isn't Godflesh's most experimental or original album by far, but with this execution - damn, it's a monstrously grooving cold and heavy Industrial Metal beast.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
14. SARMAT - Determined to Strike
    
    
    
    Recorded before, but released after their "Dubious Disk", which already made it into my TOP 7 non-album releases 2023, the album debut of Sarmat starts more on the Technical Dissonant Death side, before spreading wider into all kinds of Exreme Metal / Avantgarde Jazz Fusion insanity. "Determined to Strike" brings together brutality and classy brass with natural ease. This short but highly entertaining brainmelter for sure is a peak exemplary I, Voidhanger Records release and definitely one of the finest works in the current wave of Jazz Metal!
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
15. KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD - PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation /
    The Silver Cord (Extended Mix)
    
    
    
    
    Of course! With Joey Walker instead of Stu Mackenzie wearing the main composer's helmet this time, the hyper-prolific Australians released an unlikey pair of twin albums based on related song ideas - and who am I to seperate them? "PetroDragonic Apocalypse" is King Gizzard's longer, more refined and more relentless second Thrash Metal album after "Infest The Rats' Nest", which also calls back to the Psychedelic Prog greatness of "Polygondwanaland".
    
    
    
    
    "The Silver Cord" on the other hand is their first completely (vintage) electronic work, which bounces between Klaus Schultze Synth Kraut, 90's Euro Dance, Beastie Boys raps and many more influences. Both albums can easily look eye to eye with the top tiers in the band's always growing discography - at least if you don't count the regular twenty-six minutes version of "The Silver Cord" and go for the vastly superior hypnotic one-and-a-half hour Extended Mix instead!
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
16. REVEREND KRISTIN MICHAEL HAYTER - Saved!
    
    
    
    This album was the hardest to place in this ranking. It's just so hard to decide whether this incredibly fervent exploration of worship songs by the artist formerly known as Lingua Ignota is creepy, barely listenable - or an addictive, completely transfixing experience. How can these old and new blatantly religious hymns be so eerily alienating yet comforting, so ambivalently non-judgemental and still so powerful? Presented more detached from personal experiences than her previous work, with an analogue low-fi production simulating the decayed quality of unearthed, worn out historic recordings "Saved!" lays open the ecstatic core of congregational songs and deliberately leaves it up to us what to make of it. I guess I'm still in that process.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
17. COLD DEW - Yuyu 欲欲
    
    
    
    Released in early February the debut record of Cold Dew starts out so sugary and schmaltzy that I almost dismissed it immediately. And now look where we are eleven months later! "Yuyu 欲欲" still remains my favorite Krautrock album of the year - if the term is even sufficient enough for the boundlessly creative journey through East, West, mind and cosmos these Taiwanese Psychedelic Rockers allow us to share with them, as they confidently step into the space between the void which the departure of Kikagaku Moyo has left and Acid Mothers Temple, without trying to copy either of them.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
18. P/O MASSACRE + ALEX BUESS & MERZBOW - Aural Corrosion
    
    
    

    Best Harsh Electronics is a subcategory I probably wouldn't even have been able to fill every year since I've been doing these annual rankings. The double album of exile Russians Anton Ponomarev and Anton Obrazeena - featuring collaborative longtracks with Swiss experimental musician Alex Buess and Japanese Noise legend Merzbow - however must be included here. Made of Electronic Noise, guitar, saxophone and trumpet P/O Massacre is fighting fire with fire, as this unsparing "Anti-War" music sounds just like propaganda, invasion, occupation... war! Someone should melt the wannabe-czar's face with this!
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
19. DIVIDE & DISSOLVE - Systemic
    
    
    
    Black Native American and Maori girls unite against the state of the world! A ridiculously over-amplified duo playing instrumental Sludge / Doom / Noise Rock with interludes of looped Jazz saxophones and keys against the white supremacist system. It's a good sign that a band with this specific niché premise can even exist in today's Metal environment. The actual execution of Divide and Dissolve's raw and real fourth album however is even better. Crushing!
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
20. NI - Fol Naïs
    
    
    
    Is Benoit Lecomte the MVP of this TOP 23? The bass player did not only play the acoustic four strings on both PoiL Ueda albums, but is also plugged-in member of the absolutely loony Avantgarde Math Noise Metal band Ni. Their delightfully heavy new coo-coo complex instrumental album sounds pretty much like its hilarious cover looks and totally fits its Old French title, which translates to "Born Mad".
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
21. THE NECKS - Travel
    
    
    
    The great mysterious question lingering on my mind when listening to The Necks is whether the Australian trio even needs to prepare or concentrate on a certain mood before they press record, or if this kind of almost spiritually hypnotic Post Jazz just comes out naturally in up to over twenty minutes long jams when you put these seasoned players into one room. Piano/organ, upright bass and drums - plus some overdubs and post production - forming transcendent signals and imprinting it into your bloodstream. (Look how I snuck all song titles into that sentence!)
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    


22. CAZAYOUX - Cazayoux
    
    
    
    My number one exclusively uplifting feel-good studio release of the year hails from Texas. The self-titled debut album of drummer Forest Cazayoux'  big band is grooving with a many-layered, rich and smoothly produced amalgam of infectiously funky instrumental Psychedelic Latin Afro-Beat Jazz Rock Fusion. This sweet and spicy record bursts with amazing individual performances from innumerable instruments, yet noone steals the spotlight too much from the ensemble as a whole, which is the sparlking star of the show.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
23. HENRIK LINDSTRAND - Klangland
    
    

    

    Need a score to turn any everyday situation into emotionally complex, melancholically longing arthouse cinema? Swedish composer Henrik Lindstrand's sat down at his piano and composed a roundel of achingly beautiful melodic pieces, which accompanied by a sixteen-piece string ensemble will give you exactly that. Contempory Classical music which captures the fugitiveness of the moment in genuine purity.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

    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

Veil of Stuff feat. ESBEN AND THE WITCH, JEGONG, SEVEN IMPALE and THE END

Yes, you guessed right: I accumulated four reviews over on Veil Of Sound again and I'm too proud to copy-paste, yet too lazy to write a second similarly elaborate text for them - even though each of these great albums would undoubtly deserve it!

THE END - Why Do You Mourn (LP) (2023)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

Let's start with the one I've reviewed most recently! It has also been mentioned in this blog too, in my Midyear TOP 15 of my favorites of the year (so far).

If you know their previous works "Svärmod Och Vemod Är Värdesinnen", "Nedresa" and "Allt Är Intet" you're probably already positive that Mats Gustafsson's The End have raised a perfect storm of mindblowing experimental Heavy Jazz Fusion again. And yes, the band with two saxes, baritone / bass guitar, drums and the always incredible versatile Jazz singer Sofia Jemberg did it again! As intense as ever, but this time also adding more quiter Folk-inspired parts as breathers between the madness.

Even if this would only be an EP consisting of the thirteen minutes opener "Snow", the epic tour de force "Whose Face" and the slow motion Sudan Archives cover "Black Vivaldi Sonata", it would already be worthwhile. What a fantastic band!

SEVEN IMPALE - Summit (2023)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

On one hand they are quite different beasts. On the other it's not a terribly long jump from the Swedes The End to the Norwegians Seven Impale, who are elegantly commuting between the borders of Metal, Jazz and Prog Rock and also have at least one saxophone player among their ranks.

Seven long years after their sophomore album "Contrapasso", their singer now having started a career in Opera, the band returns with a sublime work that not just continues right where they left off, but actually combines everything already great about them and takes a huge leap forward with it. Cool, bombastic, wild, weird and weirdly catchy... "Summit" is creative Heavy Fusion at its finest.

Yeah, I will definitely need a more "real" version of this one than the promo copy.

ESBEN AND THE WITCH - Hold Sacred (amethyst vinyl LP) (2023)

[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

After their shows at Roadburn and Hafenklang and many spins Esben And The Witch's soothing and ethereal new release "Hold Sacred" has already imprinted itself deep into my subconscious.

The union of Ambient Post Rock and Rachel Davies' raw yet delicate display of emotions is pure solacing poetry. But even though everything on this album circles around her voice and lyrics, the beauty it makes you feel is beyond words.

Maybe it is in colours. Something at least very close to the transparent amethyst of the vinyl.    

JEGONG - The Complex Inbetween (Focus Defocus edition vinyl) (2023)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

Another treasure both regarding the visual presentation (you know Pelagic Records's coloured vinyl game) as well as the musical content is the second album of Jegong, a Post Kraut Rock project by Sum Of R's Reto Mäder and Mono drummer Dahm Majuri.

A vibrant energetic instrumental album full of motorik grooves, industrialish intensity, waving synths, satisfying drones and expressive harsh guitars. Every track has a different flavour, so it's hard to put "The Complex Inbetween" into a specific box. Unless of course the box is just labeled awesome.

But attention: This is unexpectedly addictive! I was hooked from the first time I listened to it.

MIDYEAR TOP 15: my favorite albums of 2023 (so far)

Oh shit, half of the year is already over again, so it's time for the ever impossible task!

Put this together rather quickly and already feel bad for half a dozen releases I omitted. No distinction between studio and live albums or EPs, only stuff I already own in physical form.
Tomorrow this would probably look different, but that's just how it always is, right? After a couple of places the order is as good as random.

One thing I can guarantee though: If you don't have a shitty taste, you should check all of these out!

1. BELL WITCH
   Future's Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate
   
   
   
   
2. LAIBACH
   Sketches Of The Red Districts
   
   
   
   
3. TEMPLE FANG
   Live at Slachthuis
   
   
   
   
4. BIG|BRAVE
   Nature Morte
   
   
   
   
5. ESBEN AND THE WITCH
   Hold Sacred
   
   
   
   
6. OTAY:ONII
   夢​之​駭​客 Dream Hacker
   
   
   
   
7. COLD DEW
   Yuyu 欲欲
   
   
   
   
8. POIL UEDA
   PoiL Ueda
   
   
   
   
9. TREVOR TOMKINS' SEXTANT
   For Future Reference
   
   
   
   
10. TILINTETGJORT
    In Death I Shall Arise
    
    
    
    
11. EDENA GARDENS
    Agar
    
    
    
    
12. HEALTHYLIVING
    Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief
    
    
    
    
13. THE END
    Why Do You Mourn
    
    
    
    
14. 李劍鴻 LI JIANHONG & 文智湧 WEN ZHIYONG
    & 鄧博宇 DENG BOYU
    歲​寒​三​友 Les Trois Amis de l'Hiver
    
    
    
    
15. GRAVE DESECRATOR
    Immundissime Spiritus
    
    
    
    

THE END - Allt Är Intet

Ich glaube ja nicht, dass ich es noch etwas gibt, was ich über die Jazz/Prog/Noiserock-Gruppe The End sagen kann, das generell angesichts so viel Advantgarde die Nase rümpfende Zweifler dazu bewegt, doch mal reinzuhören - bzw. das tendenziell interessierte Musiknerds davon abhält, eben dies zu tun.

Das hier ist gekonnte, große, großartig eingespielte, aber eben auch extrem irrsinnige Kunst.

THE END - Allt Är Intet (dark tourquoise vinyl LP) (2020)

Dabei geht das zweite volle Album der Gruppe ja durchaus ruhig los. Doch schon diese größtmögliche Annäherung an Vocal Jazz der Marke Nina Simone erfährt nicht nur durch die stimmliche Exzentrik Sofia Jernbergs, sondern auch durch den Einsatz des Langeleik - einer norwegischen Zithervariante - eine seltsame Wendung, die bereits verspricht, dass "Allt Är Intet" kein Easy Listening für den beiläufigen Hörer wird.

Dabei stecken in den sechs Tracks durchaus eine Menge griffiger Elemente. So halten die beiden Saxophone ihre Themen oft erstaunlich lange und eingängig durch, und auch einige der nicht Bass-, sondern Baritongitarrenriffs grooven heavy wie Sau. Im Titelstück erinnert das durchaus mal an Motorpsycho.

Die schon auf der "Nedresa"-EP erkennbare Tendenz zu trotz enormer, manchmal die Fühler ins Chaos ausstreckender Komplexität doch irgendwie leichteren Nachvollziehbarkeit setzt sich auf jeden Fall fort.

Schwer festzumachen bleibt die Musik von Mats Gustafsson und Co. aber nach wie vor, und die immer wieder neue Extreme von lieblich bis Horror ("Kraka Rorde Sig Aldrig Mer") auslotende Stimmakrobatik Jernbergs macht die Aufgabe nicht leichter.
Auf diesem Album geht die Entwicklung der Sängerin so weit, dass selbst vorige von mir verwendete Vergleiche zu Mike Patton, Youn Sun Nah und Diamanda Galas mir nicht mehr als Näherung geeignet scheinen. Unglaublich, was für Darbietungen sie hier vom Stapel lässt!

Wer auf anspruchsvolle Beklopptika, die irgendwie mit Jazz und irgendwie mit heftigem Scheiß in Verbindung stehen abgeht, der muss hier ein Ohr riskieren. Viel weiter geht es nach The End in diese Richtung nämlich nicht mehr. Wirklich gutes Zeug!


Das Artwork folgt der Ästhetik der beiden vorigen Veröffentlichungen und auch die Schallplatte präsentiert sich wieder in einem schönen Blauton. 

MUSIC 2020: my favorite live albums and EPs

Oh no, yet another end-of-the-year list category which makes me cry inside! Well, let's be grateful that at least we have the conserved memories of times when music was performed live in front of an audience, ok?

I've already covered quite a bunch of live releases in my recommended streams and favorite downloads, but now it's time to get physical with some actually touchable records.

But first let's warm up with a ranking of the best short albums / long singles (or whatever your preferred definition of an EP is) of 2020!

TOP 7 EPs:

1. VOIVOD - The End Of Dormancy
   
   
   

   With two recordings of a modified version of an already known song (studio and live) plus the live performance of a "Nothingface" classic that's been played at most shows of the last thirty years, this EP clearly doesn't win this ranking by quantity of new original material. But the vintage movie style brass treatment of "The End of Dormancy" from "The Wake", which is already one of the greatest musical journeys in Voivod's history is just just too perfectly executed. More of that jazz please!
   
   
   
2. -S- - Zabijanie Czasu I
   
   
   

   This I, Voidhanger Records release could already have been included in my favorite downloads, but since a CD version of this EP exists, I'm letting it co-lead the field here. Sporting bass, drums, vocals and clarinet this Polish group calls its style "Dark Occvult Funk", which is an astonishingly apt description of the weird mix of jazz, contemporary classic, punk, post rock and extreme metal on display on this twenty-six-minutes-track. Sick shit!
     
   
   
3. ZEAL AND ARDOR - Wake Of A Nation
   
   
   
   Powerful. That's the description you get if you want to sum up the whole message, concept and musical realization of this EP in just one word. While the songwriting and performances of Manuel Gagneux' black metal meets blues meets gospel meets electronic etc. project keeps getting more refined and mature with each release, "Wake Of A Nation" also dials up the honesty and urgency by stepping away from the alternative history of its predecessors and reacting directly to racist police violence and the direct thematization of events concerning the Black Experience like the syphilis experiments of Tuskegee.
   
   
   
4. MONO & A.A.WILLIAMS - Exit In Darkness
   
   
   

   Wonderful. Wonderful. Wonderful. Just wonderful.
   The combination of singer / songwriter / multi-instrumentalist A.A. Williams and Japanese post rock monumentalists Mono proved to be a meeting of minds and souls that could hardly have resulted in something more beautiful than this 10" EP. The calm patience and deep substantial emotion of these two tracks is a peaceful dream we didn't know we would need so badly, back in January, when "Exit In Darkness" came out.
   
   
   
5. THE END - Nedresa
   
   
   

   Even being a little bit more accessible and straightforward than on their debut album, The End keep establishing themselves as an extra-weird, unique brand of avant-garde jazz/prog/noise fusion on this two-track 10" EP. While almost guaranteed by the involvement of saxophon animal Mats Gustafsson, it's mostly due to Sofia Jernberg's as eclectic as technically impressive vocal performance that the Swedish quintet's music explodes with delightful insanity.  
   
   
   
6. FRA DET ONDE - feat. the Legendary Emil Nikolaisen
   
   
   

   Is this a blizzard or a firestorm? One thing's for sure: Whatever this Norwegian electric free jazz fusion trio unleashes with drums, bass and trumpet here, is guaranteed  to kick you out of your shoes if you don't brace yourself. Yet another proof that the psych and kraut label El Paraiso Records always kills the most, when its releases are going full jazz.
   
   
   
   
7. LOUISE LEMÓN - Devil
   
   
   

   Within 2020's turmoil the gothic-ish soul of Louise Lemón somehow feels like a blissful caring hug, probably even in moments when it's not even supposed to do that. But the Swedish singer's warm voice and the seemingly simple beauty of her songs is just a too irresistable island for the heart to rest a while. Most times I listen to this I immediately repeat the whole EP at least once.
   
   
   
   
   

TOP 6 LIVE ALBUMS:

1. TRIPTYKON with the METROPOLE ORKEST - Requiem (Live At Roadburn 2019)
   
   
   
   "What Triptykon have achieved here is highly remarkable and should be the universally accepted benchmark for artistic integrity and adventurous courage in any future metal / orchestra production from whoever, regardless of budget or subgenre." 
   This conclusion of my review still stands. It was a long journey from Celtic Frost's "Into The Pandemonium" to the completion of this piece for Roadburn Festival 2019, but there's no doubt that it was entirely worth the wait. In my book this is one of the most essential live recordings ever made from any metal band. Definitely worth the deluxe artbook version with vinyl, CD, DVD, bonus 7" and more extras. 
   
   
   
2. LAIBACH - Bremenmarsch: Live at Schlachthof 12.10.1987
   
   
   
   There are already plenty of Laibach live bootlegs and a couple of official releases from the 1980s around, so one could have assumed that the market for that is pretty much saturated. But who would have thought that a performance from the golden "Opus Dei" / "Macbeth" times of this phenomenal sound quality could be unearthed from the Radio Bremen archives?
   But not only the production is great here. The  show itself - with extra musicians from a theater performance the day before - is punishingly ferocious and at the same time creative and playful as fuck. Essential!
   
   

   

   Also very much worth to be honorably mentioned here is another Laibach live album, which digs even deeper into the Slovenians' past. As far as I know "Underground", a special Vier Personen performance of early years classics like "Boji", Siemens" or "Smrt Za Smrt" inside a mining tunnel in 2012, isn't available on its own though, but remains one of several good reasons to purchase the gargantuan "Laibach Revisited" box. 
   
   
   
3. ZOLA JESUS - Live At Roadburn 2018
   
   
   
   Capturing one of the most significant shows of the in my book probably strongest Roadburn edition so far and pressed on some of the most beautiful vinyl editions of 2020, this double album is a treasure inside and outside.
   Even if me experiencing it in the flesh from the center of the first row might make me a bit biased, I dare to say that the special energy of this performance for both audience and Zola Jesus herself can be felt in every moment of "Live At Roadburn 2018".
   
   
   
   
4. SENYAWA & STEPHEN O'MALLEY - Bima Makti
   
   
   
   Does this fully count as a live album? Because I suppose it's based on a live show and improved with overdubs afterwards? But who truly cares about these technicalities, when there is such a stunning gathering of ethnic and metallic drone mastership? With flutes, elements of Gamelan music and the weird vocal wanderings of Rully Shabara the Indonesian duo and the Sunn O))) guitarist  find a unique, rich, storytelling and spiritually deep tone that makes "Bima Sakti" a timeless genre masterpiece.
   
   
   
   
5. MYTHIC SUNSHIP - Changing Shapes - Live At Roadburn
   
   
   

   Recorded not only at the same festival, but also at the exact same time as Triptykon's "Requiem" the only thing the two performances clearly have in common is that they could both be descrived as monolithic in their own distinct ways. Danish fuzz wizards Mythic Sunship teamed up with "Another Shape Of Psychedelic Music" guest saxophonist Søren Skov again to recreate the feeling of said double album without sticking to the script of its songs - and boy, recreate they did! A seemless fusion of heavy psych rock with free jazz elements. 
   
   
   
   
6. KONSTRUKT & OTOMO YOSHIHIDE - Eastern Saga: Live At Tusk
   
   
   
   I think by now it's safe to say that any cooperative record the Turkish experimental free jazzers Konstrukt unleash into the wild via Karlrecords can be expected to kill it.
   This time it's a festival show they played together with Japanese guitarist Otomo Yoshihide in the UK in 2018, which shows no willingness to let either your body nor your mind rest. With two six-string players and two drummers the oriental and blatantly jazzier aspects are sometimes forced to take a backseat in favor of raw noise rock power, but as a whole these two improvisations make a very cohesive - and with all its inherent craziness still relatively accessible - avant-garde music record.