10 + 11 x 10 Albums of the Year 2013 – 2022!

It’s now over ten years since I started writing about music. To mark the occasion I’m doing a short series of posts marking the highlights over the past ten years.

In all honestly I’m a bit flighty when it comes to sticking to one thing… and I have changed websites a few times, first writing for backseatmafia.com, then out on my own with psychinsight.com (now defunct), and finally here at The Fragmented (which has all my content from the other two). However, that I’ve stuck to actually writing about music for ten years is something of a miracle, and a sign that it is something I get a massive amount of pleasure doing… not least from a positive mental health perspective.

While I have been doing an end-of-year ‘Essential Albums’ (essential to me) list for most of those ten years, I have never actually declared an ‘album of the year’ as such. So I thought that I old go back and see if I could pull out ten albums, one for each of the last ten years… but of course it was not that simple, and there were some albums which I just could not bear to leave out of such a list.

So, here are my ten ‘albums of the year’ from 2013 to 2022, plus another eleven without which life would be sadly lacking… I have also written short descriptions of each from the perspective of now, but there are also links to my original reviews (where they exist). There we go: 21 albums to celebrate the decade where my little website grew up (or something)…

It has been a joy to listen to all of these again, and please also enjoy agreeing or disagreeing with my choices…

ALBUMS OF THE YEAR 2013 – 2022

2013 Lupus by Dead Sea Apes (Cardinal Fuzz)

‘Lupus’ was a real gateway album for me. I had only recently started writing for backseatmafia.com and was sent through Cardinal Fuzz’s press pack. Intrigued, I listened to the album and was transported somewhere else like nothing I had listened to in some time… the chime at the start of ‘Pharmakon’ acting as some sort of invocation into some otherworldly space… where darkness and an strange chilled easiness coexisted. It also kicked off a decade-long love of the Dead Sea Apes music, and no band has appeared on my ‘Essential’ lists more often because of the way the band keeps on evolving and changing. What I’m saying is that any number of their albums could appear on this list, but it’s ‘Lupus’ that kicked it off, and it’s Lupus that it still revealing new things to me ten years later…

Read the original review here.

2014 Infinity Machines by GNOD (Rocket Recordings)

For all the ‘stürm und drang’ that GNOD have immersed themselves in over the years, it is this triple album that has really stayed with me the most. It took me up (or maybe down) another level in terms of the sort of music I could access… and it is a set which I have listened to on any number of occasions since it was released… an investment of time which is always repaid handsomely. Probably lying fairly equidistant between GNOD and GNOD R&D this is a wonderfully ambitious couple of hours of music which just keeps on giving, and a special mention to Rocket Recording for putting such an epic work out

2015 Minami Deutsch by Minami Deutsch (Cardinal Fuzz/ Guruguru Brain)

Wow! This was one of those albums that just hit me out of the blocks, and sparked a real ‘motorik’ revival for me… on the first few listened you could perhaps argue that a lot of the album was derivative of Neu and its immediate successors… but the longer you delved into it, the more I realised was lying under the repeato-sheen. This was a modern Krautrock album which has, for me, revived the genre and taken me to obscure late 60s/ early 70s musical places that I may not otherwise have gone. What is more it still has that ‘wow-factor’ for me nearly a decade later… an album that is still on rotation in the house, in the car… and on my many walks. Bloody excellent.

Read the original review here.

2016 House In The Tall Grass by Kikagaku Moyo (GuruGuru Brain)

I mean, what can I say about this album that I have not already said. My ‘Album of the Decade’, for which I wrote: “This then is an album through which I can find my happy place… it has gone past just being a great LP to one of a handful that I consider to be truly essential. It achieves this because it does so many different things well. Yes it is comforting, but it is also inspiring, surprising and eclectic… it is an album that can move me in many different ways… it appeals to the majority introvert in me… but also encourages my extrovert side… all in all it is something of a perfect album for me…”. And that’s about it… as close to a perfect album for me… from my favourite band of the last ten years…

Read the original review here.

2017 Dag & Natt by Kungens Män (Adansonia Records)

Pretty much any of Kungens Män’s releases should make it onto a list like this… they are one of the few bands I feel to be somehow on the same wavelength with. This, though, is arguably their most accomplished and ambitious release… essentially a cycle of tracks taking you through a 24 hour period, it somehow both captures and transcends what it is setting out to do with a series of numbers which are stunning in their diversity… and feel different every time. So, just as every day is different, so is interacting with this album…

Read the original review here.

2018 Qujaku by Qujaku (So I Buried)

This is possibly one of the most enigmatic albums that I have heard… and I have listened to it a lot. I didn’t review it at the time it was released because I simply didn’t know what I wanted to say about it… and, actually, I still don’t… I just listened to it again and was still surprised by how much I love it… but as to why… ain’t got a clue. So below is the link, just got and have a listen as to why this was my album of 2018… and still is.

2019 För Meditation by Centrum (Rocket Recordings)

Another album which absolutely knocked me sideways when I first heard it… in fact I was so keen to write about it at the time that I pre-emptied the official release by some weeks… it is an incredible record which clearly came from deep inside of those who made it… and in turn transfers itself deep inside of me. It is, then, a very intense record… but not one that ever feels to be overwhelming… a real one-off which, to date, those involved with its making have never sought to repeat. While that may disappointing for some, I personally would rather have just this one outing than none at all… and I can always just put it on again!

Read the original review here.

2020 Erratics and Unconformities by Craven Faults (Leaf Label)

I didn’t come across Craven Faults until the Lowfold Works Trilogy had all been released, which I am pleased about in some ways as it gave me a better perspective of how special to me this music can be. This, and then the release of ‘Erratics and Unconformities’, has brought me back to electronic, and especially analogue synths, and expanded my horizons not only of what I appreciate… but how I can integrate it into elements of my life that are more natural and bucolic… in many ways it is the missing link for me between two elements that I thought would forever contain a degree of separation… but here is electronic music which almost feels pre-modern, and yet also encompasses the decay of the post-industrial… I’m not going to explain it… but I am happy to embrace it!

Read the original review here.

2021 Promises by Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & the LSO (Luaka Bop)

This album came totally out of the blue for me… I hadn’t expected to by overwhelmed by an album from any of these artists in 2021 (at least not with new music)… but the combination of Floating Points’ electronics with Pharoah Sanders fluid playing provided to be not only a winning combination, but a new perfect one that was then augmented further by the contribution from the LSO. It is one of those albums that you can listen to for pleasure… or when you are in pain… a record, then, that emphasises the healing power of music… but also its joy too… to say anything more would be superfluous.

Read the original review here.

2022 Flowers Rot, Bring Me Stones by Moundabout (Rocket Recordings)

Another album that came completely out of the blue… GNOD’ s Paddy Shine and Irish musician Phil Masterson combine to create a piece of work which is mysterious, majestic, dark, spiritual and deeply psychedelic… like most of the records on this list, it is something that seems to come from deep inside those involved in making it and I am grateful that they were able to transmit it to the rest of us in such an effective manner. It is a thoroughly contemporary folk record that also manages to convey an air of ancientness which feels like something that would be next to impossible to achieve… the most recent LP here… but potentially one for the ages.

Read the original review here.

THOSE, THEN, WERE MY ALBUMS OF THE YEAR… BUT THE NEXT ELEVEN SHOULD NOT IN ANYWAY BE CONSIDERED INFERIOR AS, PROBABLY AT DIFFERENT TIMES, THEY WOULD BE ON THE ABOVE LIST THEMSELVES… THESE HAVE HAD EVERY BIT AS LARGER IMPACT ON ME AS THOSE ABOVE… AND HAVE BEEN WHITTLED DOWN FROM A MUCH MUCH LONGER LIST…

THEY ARE IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER OF THE ARTISTS…

Omegaville by Anthroprophh (Rocket Recordings)

I said at the time that this fantastic double album felt like a fascinating look inside the head of Anthroprophh’s principal protagonist Paul Allen… it is a set which begins with tracks that are raw and have a massive energy to them… and gradually lengthen and fragment into something else completely. At no point, however, does it seem to dip retaining a level of creatively and engagement which is hard to maintain. This remains one of my most played LPs and it continues to inspire me.

Read the original review here.

Volumes 1 and 2 by Naujawanan Baidar (Cardinal Fuzz/ Radio Khiyaban)

An astounding double album comprising the first two cassette releases from The Myrrors’ N.R. Safi under this pseudonym. In a way this would be the best way to list to this music, since it is inspired by the atmosphere of Middle Eastern tape culture… I can’t really top my original description that: “This music lands you in an interstitial space where rationality seems to shape-shift and melt into something that could be construed as spiritual by those who wish to see it that way.” Either way it remains a superb set, which has been at least matched by Naujawanan Baidar’s recently released follow up Khedmat Be Khalq. Both are deeply psychedelic and atmospheric records.

Read the original review here.

Blackhill Transmitter by Blackhill Transmitter (FSOL)

Something of a one-off from the Future Sound of London… you can hear the duo’s music amidst the Krautrock and recordings of transmitted sounds that persist in the space around the Earth… it is a fascinating combination which feels quite different. If you excuse the pun, it also seems to have slipped under the radar but has a unique sound that could be placed at several points over the last half century… without having any particular temporal point of reference… which I imagine was the intention. Anyway I absolutely love it…

Retaliation by The Chisel (La Vida Es Un Mus Discos)

I thought that I was done with punk long ago, at least in terms of the contemporary scene… but this album has turned that on its head… it is supremely angry… it is amazingly heavy… it doesn’t give a shit… and it never lets up all the way through. It’s the sort of full on record that I never thought I’d hear again. I rate it so highly because there is no an ounce of fat on it… not a split second of filler… along with the Deconstructive Surgery EP, which precedes is, it is just perfectly imperfect punk in every meaning of the word.

Read the original review here.

Misphonia by Electric Orange (Adansonia Records)

Electric Orange are another of those bands whose output is constantly changing and developing… no two releases have exactly the same style and yet there is something that is recognisably ‘Electric Orange’ every time, which, for me, is the hallmark of a great band. Add in the Cosmic Ground electronica of Dirk Jan Müller, and you get a breadth of music which could last you a lifetime. ‘Misphonia’ is typical of this… a mixture of moods and styles which you can never fully unravel… which keeps you guessing even after multiple plays… which you always finish wanting more… where every listen is different. Just excellent!

Great North Star by Great North Star (The Acid Test Recordings)

In some ways I like this album for the same reasons that I do Craven Faults… it is saturated in the very air and soil of Yorkshire… it is timeless and seems to inhabit some of the temporal and non-temporal spaces that I do. Having said that there is nothing really about the music on this record that makes me want to compare or locate it within any other LP or genre… it just exists and I am more than pleased that it does exist because it makes me feel warm and comfortable every time I listen to it… one of the most musically beautiful pieces of music that I own… another one that can be filed under ’near perfect’.

Read the original review here.

Heron Oblivion by Heron Oblivion (Sub Pop)

Another complete one-off, something of a theme on this list I think… four musicians, including members of Comets on Fire and Espers’ Meg Baird, came together for this album and a subsequent tour and created something stunning. The combination of Baird’s voice with a melange of styles, notably folk and psychedelic rock create a wonderful atmosphere on this record which will probably never be repeated… and, actually, need not be because this is probably as good as it could be…

Read the original review here.

Invocation And Ritual Dance Of My Demon Twin by Julie’s Haircut (Rocket Recordings)

This always strikes me as being a patient record… it sounds like it has been made with care and precession,,, and, in some ways, it does not give up it’s charms quickly. Having said that from the first time I heard the opening track ‘Zukunft’ I knew that I was hearing something special… since then this album has given me hours of pleasure… just losing myself in its labyrinthine structures… I’m listening to it now and have just spotted something new… just terrific!

Read the original review here.

Mässen by KOSMOGON (Tonbad Grammofon) 

Recorded in a Swedish country cottage in the Autumn of 2020 this is a breathtakingly beautiful album comprising just two side-long tracks… like many records here it just gets me straight in the soul and cajoles me… it provides the link between the natural world and the world of my imagination… it helps me to be somewhere else and process life to make it more understandable and liveable… simply superb!

Read the original review here.

Borderlands by The Myrrors (Beyond Beyond is Beyond) 

Pretty much any Myrrors album could appear here and choosing which one was one of the hardest choices I had to make on this list. It came down to ‘Arena Negra’, ‘Entranced Earth’, ‘Hasta La Victoria’ and this. It my surprise ‘Borderlands’ got the nod primarily on the second and last tracks which I just think are brilliant… of course the rest of the oeuvre isn’t too shabby either… but ‘The Blood That Runs The Border’ and ‘Note From The Underground’ were just too ingrained in my consciousness to choose anything else. Well, as you will have noticed, I’ve sneaked the others in anyway… so go and listen to them all… your brain with thank you for it.

Read the original review here.

Another Shape of Psychedelic Music by Mythic Sunship (El Paraiso)

An absolute landmark album for me… it seemed to turn what was becoming a rather stale genre on its heads and injected something really special into it… going back to jazz, Krautrock and other genre it felt like Mythic Sunship rebuilt something from scratch adding in their own brand of music in the process. What we get is a double album that is simply stunning… and album that took me in new directions and was one of the key drivers in me wanting to move from the ‘Psych Insight Music’ blog to this one…

-o0o-

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