Month: December 2022

What a fantastic year for new music. My list is twice as long as usual.

I added over two hundred albums to my collection this year, and have listened to almost all of them since early November to try and the best. “Best” in this context means having double extra special sparkle sauce; absolute lightning in a bottle. “Honorable mention” is no dishonor; records in that group are truly outstanding as well.

In random order, the best music I heard in 2022 –

Elzhi & Georgia Anne Muldrow, “Zhigeist” (2022) – A beautiful meeting of polymathematical minds, hiking through history with vision and verve.

Amber Mark, “Three Dimensions Deep” (2022) – Everything that smart, modern R&B-pop should be, with bonus points for Afrofuturism.

Stik Figa & Conductor Williams, “Valley of Dry Bones” (2022) – Intentionally short, and undeniable. Conductor warps his samples right up to the point of over-sickness, and Stik continues to drop heartfelt truths in plain but striking language.

Beth Orton, “Weather Alive” (2022) – Orton braved the emotional wilderness to bring us back this collection of meditations, performed by an absolutely cracking band.

Kendrick Lamar, “Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers” (2022) – Uneven on early listens, but the great tracks are *so great.* I think “Mr. Morale…” will age incredibly well.

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Three minutes of noise drone testing two inputs and one output of the MR MTX MXR.