Here It Is Folks, Another Selection of Music Album Releases That I Enjoyed Through A Year (2022)
While you were studying the blade, I was studying all these jams. I think it’s a cool ensemble of albums that ranges all sorts of sounds and styles. There’s still a lot of stuff I never got around to listening to that I wish I did, but oh well! Here’s the stuff that I did get around to and enjoyed!
My only rule, as always, that you must follow: if you like the album art, you have to listen to it.
Streaming Versions:
If applicable, every album links to its Bandcamp page.
TIDAL
SPOTIFY
Top 1
It was a weird year, no single album stood out as my top/favorite/best/undefeatable/untouchable album of the year. It felt as different sections of the year had their stand outs (below), but no album to tie it all together. But there was a common thread, which I will use to tie my year together, between all my favorites :
GuruGuru Brain and Husky Pants record labels.
And it makes total sense. GuruGuru Brain is the label project of Go Kurosawa and Tomo Katsurada of Kikagaku Moyo, a wonderful Japanese band who called it quits this year after a final world tour and a really good album.
Husky Pants is Ryley Walker, a damn master guitar shredder, who started his own label a few years back and has been pushing some of the coolest out-there music of all styles.
And would you believe it – they all collaborated at the Le Guess Who Festival in 2018: Ryley Walker + Kikagaku Moyo. That concert was recorded and released on Husky Pants in 2021. I feel that both labels have parallel missions in what albums they’re releasing and the artists they’re promoting. It’s a natural fit.
So Husky Pants and GuruGuru Brain are my #1 for 2022 because they both released some incredible albums by a kaleidoscope of artists that I kept returning to over the course of the year. Hard to beat that.
Top 10
Here’s a selection of ten albums that were special to me throughout the year. Whether that was a super refreshing sound, something I kept returning to, soundtracking important times in life, or whatever – these ones stood out to me the most. They hit me at the right time.
Cyrus Pireh – Still Here, Still Ripping (Astral Editions)
Episode One – Pitchfork Gave This A 9.3 (Self-Released)
EXEK – Advertise Here (Castleface)
Guerilla Toss – Famously Alive (Sub Pop)
Hatis Noit – Aura (Erased Tapes)
Kribo Records – Sounds of Lecak, Vol. 1 (GuruGuru Brain)
Marina Herlop – Pripyat (PAN)
Minami Deutsch – Fortune Goodies (GuruGuru Brain)
Ryley Walker – So Certain (Husky Pants)
Tobacco – Skids And Angels (Rad Cult)
All The Other Albums I Enjoyed
I liked all of these albums. Listed in alphabetical order.
Alabaster DePlume – Gold (International Anthem)
Animistic Beliefs – Merdeka (N.A.A.F.I.)
Annika Zee – Bleu (Vain Mina)
Author & Punisher – KRÜLLER (Relapse)
새눈바탕 Bird’s Eye Batang – 손을 모아 Flood Format (Self-Released)
Boris – W (Sacred Bones)
Chris Corsano/Andrew Scott Young/Ryley Walker – Belladonna Garnish (Husky Pants)
Cold Gawd – God Get Me The Fuck Out Of Here (Dais)
Collapsed Skull – Eternity Maze (Closed Casket Activities)
Converge & Chelsea Wolfe – Bloodmoon I (Epitaph & Deathwish)
Dama Scout – Gen Wo Lai (Hand In Hive)
Destroyer – Labyrinthitis (Merge)
Dhidalah – Sensoria 認識 (GuruGuru Brain)
Diatom Deli – Time~Lapse Nature (RVNG)
Ecko Bazz – Mmaso (Hakuna Kulala)
Emily Wells – Regards to the End (Thesis + Instinct)
Eve Maret & David Onri Anderson – Eve and David 1 (Curious Music)
Eve Maret – Live At Crystal Bridges (Self-Released)
Future – I Never Liked You (Epic)
Gehenna – Negative Hardcore (Iron Lung)
Geotic – To Not Now, Nor To Ever, Despair (Basement’s Basement)
GOAT – Oh Death (Rocket)
GOAT – World Music: 10th Anniversary Remaster (Rocket)
Hisato Higuchi 樋口寿人 – キ、Que、消えん？Ki, Que, Kien? (WV Sorcerer)
Holy Ghost Tabernacle Choir – Slow Murder (Graveface)
Horse Lords – Comradely Objects (RVNG)
Hot Chip – Freakout/Release (Domino)
Hunter Van Brocklin – Elemental Harmony (Lilypad)
Ikue Mori – Tracing The Magic (Tzadik)
Jake Acosta – Rehearsal Park (Husky Pants)
Jordan Reyes & Eli Winter – Controlled Burning (Husky Pants)
Kikagaku Moyo – Kumoyo Island (GuruGuru Brain)
Kukangendai – After (ULYSSA)
La Femme – Levitation Sessions (Reverberation Appreciation Society)
Lynyn – Lexicon (Sooper)
Mario Batkovic – Introspectio (Invada)
Max Eilbacher & Henry Birdsey – Bell Formations (Husky Pants)
Meat Wave – Malign Hex (Swami)
Mei Semones – Tsukino (Self-Released)
Moon Bros – Le Jaz Mystique (Husky Pants)
Moriwaki Hitomi – Subtromic Cosmos (GuruGuru Brain)
Naja Naja – EP (bie Records)
Nilüfer Yanya – Painless (ATO)
Nuisance – Kuchisabishii (Katuktu)
Precocious Neophyte – Home In The Desert (Self-Released)
Say Sue Me – The Last Thing Left (Damnably)
Shinichi Atobe – Love Of Plastic (DDS)
Silvana Estrada – Marchita (Glassnote)
Sore Dream – Tears of a Blistered World (Federal Prisoner)
SPICE – Viv (Dais)
Steve Gunn – Nakama (Matador)
TENGGER – Earthing (Self-Released)
The Black Angels – Wilderness of Mirrors (Partisan)
The Dog’s Body – The Dog’s Body (Self-Released)
The Marshmallow Ghosts – The Castle (Graveface)
The New Romantics – “Let You Down” (Self-Released)
The Smile – A Light For Attracting Attention (XL)
Various Artists – Somewhere Much More True compilation (Spare No Expanse)
王子健 Wang Zijian – 幻滅情歌 Love Songs in Disillusion (WV Sorcerer)
Wormrot – Hiss (Earache)
YĪN YĪN – The Age of Aquarius (Les Disques Bongo Joe)
