RA 2020's Best Albums

评语：2020's busiest electronic artist might have been Wyatt D. Stevens, AKA MoMa Ready. Beyond the dozen or so records he produced himself (including an LP with AceMo and two solo albums), there were the ten he released on his label, HAUS Of ALTR, three of which were towering achievements in themselves: HOA 10, 11 and 12, compilations of more than 25 tracks each, released in June, July and September, each of them presenting, in their own words, "the future of Black electronic music," the "Vangaurd in the war against white supremacy in electronic music," and a "march toward a future of unabashed Black electronic expression." These 72 tracks show dozens of vital artists from New York and beyond delivering their A-game or something close to it. Together, they form an embarrassment of riches we're still getting through half a year later.

评语：2020's busiest electronic artist might have been Wyatt D. Stevens, AKA MoMa Ready. Beyond the dozen or so records he produced himself (including an LP with AceMo and two solo albums), there were the ten he released on his label, HAUS Of ALTR, three of which were towering achievements in themselves: HOA 10, 11 and 12, compilations of more than 25 tracks each, released in June, July and September, each of them presenting, in their own words, "the future of Black electronic music," the "Vangaurd in the war against white supremacy in electronic music," and a "march toward a future of unabashed Black electronic expression." These 72 tracks show dozens of vital artists from New York and beyond delivering their A-game or something close to it. Together, they form an embarrassment of riches we're still getting through half a year later.

评语：2020's busiest electronic artist might have been Wyatt D. Stevens, AKA MoMa Ready. Beyond the dozen or so records he produced himself (including an LP with AceMo and two solo albums), there were the ten he released on his label, HAUS Of ALTR, three of which were towering achievements in themselves: HOA 10, 11 and 12, compilations of more than 25 tracks each, released in June, July and September, each of them presenting, in their own words, "the future of Black electronic music," the "Vangaurd in the war against white supremacy in electronic music," and a "march toward a future of unabashed Black electronic expression." These 72 tracks show dozens of vital artists from New York and beyond delivering their A-game or something close to it. Together, they form an embarrassment of riches we're still getting through half a year later.

评语：On September 1st, Slikback released ///, a surprise album that, at 30 tracks, doubled the size of the Nairobi artist's catalog in one fell swoop. Three days later, he released another 30-track bundle, ///||. He called them "a reflection of different vibes and emotions that make me... some rough, some gentle, some funny." The energy and artistry of these 60 tracks is stunning. Gqom, trap, noise, ambient, drill, footwork and techno all get tossed into Slikback's musical wood-chipper. Tempos run from around 70 BPM to over 170. Guest appearances range from Polish sound artist Morgiana Hz to the Ugandan MC Swordman Kitala. These albums should not be an easy listen—they clang, groan, shriek and bang, and sneak up on you when you least expect it. But instead of wearing you down, each new track lures you further in. You never know what kind of perfectly sideways groove is lurking around the corner.

评语：On September 1st, Slikback released ///, a surprise album that, at 30 tracks, doubled the size of the Nairobi artist's catalog in one fell swoop. Three days later, he released another 30-track bundle, ///||. He called them "a reflection of different vibes and emotions that make me... some rough, some gentle, some funny." The energy and artistry of these 60 tracks is stunning. Gqom, trap, noise, ambient, drill, footwork and techno all get tossed into Slikback's musical wood-chipper. Tempos run from around 70 BPM to over 170. Guest appearances range from Polish sound artist Morgiana Hz to the Ugandan MC Swordman Kitala. These albums should not be an easy listen—they clang, groan, shriek and bang, and sneak up on you when you least expect it. But instead of wearing you down, each new track lures you further in. You never know what kind of perfectly sideways groove is lurking around the corner.

评语：It's fitting that 2020 would produce a breakout star from the realms of ambient and field recording. Kenyan artist Joseph Kamaru, AKA KMRU, had been bubbling up already, but in 2020 he seemed to be everywhere, dropping tracks on his Bandcamp, appearing on the excellent Physically Sick 3, and releasing these two stunning LPs (along with a cassette, Jar) that show the incredible breadth of his sound. Appearing on esteemed avant-garde outlet Editions Mego, Peel is a silky abyss of droning soundscapes and spectral field recordings. Opaquer is its adventurous counterpart, with tracks like "Lost Ones" and "Canthenta" having more in common with bass-heavy experimental music than anything you'd typically call ambient. Together, they introduced many of us to an artist whose music is as powerful as it is subtle.

评语：It's fitting that 2020 would produce a breakout star from the realms of ambient and field recording. Kenyan artist Joseph Kamaru, AKA KMRU, had been bubbling up already, but in 2020 he seemed to be everywhere, dropping tracks on his Bandcamp, appearing on the excellent Physically Sick 3, and releasing these two stunning LPs (along with a cassette, Jar) that show the incredible breadth of his sound. Appearing on esteemed avant-garde outlet Editions Mego, Peel is a silky abyss of droning soundscapes and spectral field recordings. Opaquer is its adventurous counterpart, with tracks like "Lost Ones" and "Canthenta" having more in common with bass-heavy experimental music than anything you'd typically call ambient. Together, they introduced many of us to an artist whose music is as powerful as it is subtle.

评语：It doesn't lull you into a vegitative state, nor evoke a hotel spa lobby via rainforest field recordings. Instead, the side of ambient Ulla conjures on tumbling towards a wall carries you away with the subtlety of a daydream. The Kansas City artist has worn many aesthetic hats over the years, both on previous releases like Append and in projects like Pontiac Streator and the newly minted LOG. Her delicate compositional ear is clearer than ever on this release. Tracks like "stunned suddenly" and "new poem'' create space to think, without trying too hard to relax you. "feeling remembering," "leaves and wish" and "soak" are spotted with melodies and gentle textures—the album is ripe with soothing sounds, but never cluttered with them. You walk away from tumbling towards a wall feeling like the artist has told you something personal, a secret, and a precious one at that, even if you can't say exactly what it is.

评语：In the seven years since her debut album, E.M.M.A. has gotten comfortable composing soundtracks and scores—her recent work has found her soundtracking campaigns for luxury fashion houses like Gucci and Chanel. Her affinity towards large-scale, cinematic projects is reflected in the brief 35 minutes that make up Indigo Dream. Swirling '80s synths and club sounds collide on this mesmerizing album, sending us to the zenith of yearnful nostalgia and back again.

评语：Even within Theo Parrish's catalogue, Wuddaji felt like a monumental entry. After innovating an often-imitated, never-replicated brand of deep house around the turn of the millennium, Wuddaji's eight tracks felt like a new milestone, or a jumping off point for some new, deliriously funky Black dance music. Dense, futuristic tunes like "Hennyweed Buckdance" are interspersed with floor-fillers like "Angry Purple Birds" and "This is For You." Wuddaji came with a map of Idlewild, a once-thriving vacation enclave in Northwestern Michigan that saw the likes of Aretha Franklin and Louis Armstrong performing for Black audiences escaping segregation in St. Louis and Detroit. Wuddaji, like so much of his music, draws from the personal and the historical, musical and otherwise. His deep understanding of the triumphs and injustices of the past—and their impact on the present—is raw material for groundbreaking art.

评语：Maurice Fulton has a lighthearted, often humorous approach to dance music, and it's safe to say that BOOF is his quirkiest project. These records come out once every five years or so, are always named after flowers and feature elementary artwork that looks like it was made in Microsoft Paint (a stretched flower and clashing text). But beneath that exterior is some of the best work the American multi-instrumentalist has ever put out. Rebirth Of Gerberdaisy is no exception. In fact, it's the best BOOF record yet, with the gusto of a talented live band trying to work out as many dance genres as they can: minimal techno, piano house, stomping disco, jazz fusion and deep, soulful grooves. Of course it's not a band you're hearing, just Fulton going crazy on the organ, guitar and keyboards, a one-of-a-kind talent that makes every genre sound like something he invented.

评语：The idea of the lone genius is appealing, but most great records are the labor of many minds. On Workaround, South London-born artist Beatrice Dillon embraces the collectivity of music-making, weaving together acoustic instrumentation from 12 different collaborators with her software production techniques to create 14 rhythmically complex toe-tappers, all fixed at 150 BPM. Batu brings the hi-hats on "Workaround Six," which are nonchalantly assembled into a beat, while the malevolent thwack of stand-up bass comes courtesy of Swedish jazz musician Petter Eldh. "Workaround Two" has flushed synths and vocals from Laurel Halo. Dillon's catalogue is an advent calendar of distinct treats, containing dub techno abstractions such as 2015's Face A, experimental cassettes like Index Tape For Performance and Two Changes (with Rupert Clervaux). Workaround, galvanized by a crush on UK dance music, is cultivated through the diligent practice of purposeful limitation.

评语：At the beginning of July, four months into the pandemic and six weeks into daily protests following the murder of George Floyd by police, Allergy Season and Discwoman dropped Physically Sick 3, a charity compilation that raised money for Equality For Flatbush, an organization fighting police brutality and gentrification that also helped residents of Brooklyn stay safe during COVID-19. Curated by Physical Therapy, Umfang and Frankie Decaiza Hutchinson, the music was exceptional—27 tracks of bold club sounds, plus the odd bit of noise and ambient, from a cast of artists that spanned continents and generations. The series' tradition of what it once called "electronic protest music" had never felt more necessary, and it was inspiring to see electronic artists rising to the occasion so readily. Beyond being some of the best music that came out this year, Physically Sick 3 was a how-to in DIY music activism.

评语：Ana Roxanne's debut record, ~~~, had ambient fans in the palm of her hand, eagerly awaiting a follow-up. Her sound instantly had its own niche, drawing from New Age, devotional music and drone. Because Of A Flower is a more confident record than her first. It's conceptually provoking and brilliantly executed, full of vulnerability and understated beauty. Her enchanting vocals elevate Because Of A Flower above your typical ambient fare. It's a refined set of songs that seem to fly by and leave you in a different, more serene mood from where you started.

评语：Many of the most cherished post-punk pop records—Young Marble Giants' Colossal Youth, Gareth Williams & Mary Currie's Flaming Tunes—are scrappy projects held together by spit and glue. Jonnine's Blue Hills fits that bill. Recorded at HTRK member Jonnine Standish's home in the Dandenong Ranges outside Melbourne, the nine-track album was a low-key affair, first released on cassette as part of Boomkat's series of quarantine records, Documenting Sound. But the spare songs, built on less-is-more bass lines and Standish's spectral vocals, punched above their weight with their effortless mix of the mundane and the sublime. "And hey, you're the best thing that I've had / because you want all the things that I have / And when the birds sing / they sing just for you / they live in blue hills," Standish sang, guiding the listener through the small psychodramas of a life lived in lockdown at the edge of the forest.

评语：Maybe you saw Moodymann in the flesh this year. Or caught his residency at Grand Theft Auto's new nightclub, The Music Locker. Most of us weren't so lucky. Instead, we sought consolation in Taken Away, a record so quintessentially Kenny Dixon Jr. it could probably form the basis of a biography. Detroit? Tick. Roller skating? Tick. Track after track of toasty gospel, house and hip-hop, peppered with sultry, sometimes madcap musings from the "most memorable voice in modern dance music"? Obviously. This LP had it all. Behold a masterclass in house music songwriting.

评语：The highlight of Yves Tumor's show-stopping fourth album is "Kerosene," a collaboration with the singer Diana Gordon that isn't so much a duet as a collision, rising to a churning climax where Gordon's vocals feel like a cross between Dolores O'Riordan and Alanis Morrisette. It's a moment of fireworks on an album that functions like a powder keg, a 21st-century rock opera starring Tumor, flanked by an arsenal of session musicians and armed with oodles of vaporwave-style loops. Here, amid horn sections that rise up like tidal waves and guitar leads that go up against clipped funk samples, Yves Tumor emerges as something like the rock star they've tried to be for years: sexy, alien, suave, and a master of melodies that get stuck in your head.

评语：No one knows much about techno producer Shinichi Atobe. The Saitama-based artist has been releasing albums on DDS for five years now, with the only communication between him and the label typically consisting of no more than a CD with track titles in the mail. Building on the warm housey elements that were the foundation's of 2018's Heat, Yes is chock full of bright melodies, and of course delivered with his trademark hi-fi production standard. There are also a few surprises, too, like the sci-fi synths on "Lake 3," the funk-driven pulse of "Ocean 1" and the Drexciyan touch of "Loop 1."

评语：There's always excitement around an Actress album, but for this year's Karma & Desire, Darren Cunningham and Ninja Tune went the extra mile. There was a prequel mixtape, which included a cryptic teaser tracklist for the album proper. There was a short film and a hotline you could call to hear a track down the phone. For a few days, rumours even spread of a second Actress mixtape, but it turned out to be the work of Dam Voyage. After all that, Karma & Desire had to be good. Cunningham delivered on the build-up and then some. What we got was a more open and fun version of Actress's early sound. The vocalists made the record more accessible. The instrumentals, too, were brighter and clearer. The album experience, its innovative preamble included, was a clear highlight of 2020.

评语：Duval Timothy's fourth album has a documentary writer's touch. With his piano front-and-center, the LP narrates a journey of healing and navigating the perils of the music industry, primarily drawing on minimalist jazz hooks and immersive sampling. Timothy has a gift for making gems out of the mundane. On Help, spare vocals are distorted and looped into oddball rhythms, while field recordings bring the compositions to life. It's one of those special, emotive albums that says a lot by doing less.

评语：After creating dance floor bangers so universal they had festival crowds sing along with them, Yaeji took a backseat, preferring to collaborate and curate rather than release the long-awaited follow-up to her breakthrough EPs. What We Drew is a candid study of depression and ennui, how to break free from those things, and how to avoid beating yourself up when you do feel bad. The lead single is a tribute to the act of living: "I got hydrating down / I got listening down," she sings. On "Money Can't Buy," her guest Nappy Nina says, "Snuggly and sleepy / These naps come easy" after a verse of braggadoccio. What We Drew makes it clear that Yaeji connects with audiences around the world because she presents life as it is, celebrating the triumph of persevering and just getting the small things down, supported by love not only from others, but for yourself, too.

评语：More than most techno producers, Jasmine Infiniti embodies the euphoric potential of the genre alongside its darker impulses. Take "Downhill," where muddy drums thump beneath bright, neon-streaked synths. The American artist's debut album straddles this divide so well because of Jasmine Infiniti's lived experience as a person on the margins, where nightlife can be a trap as much as an escape. But for every moment of foreboding, there's a glimpse of light, underpinned by an elastic, almost buoyant sense of melody and rhythm, informed by her days in the Bay Area's vogue scene and the taut slap of ballroom music. It's a techno record unlike any other in 2020—heavy and light, ecstatic and paranoid.

评语：The authorities coming down hard on Black music is nothing new, but the story around UK drill felt different. This time, even hugely influential platforms like YouTube shared in the vilification, removing videos at the request of the police. That was in 2018, which is incredible when you consider how far the genre has come since then. No one better embodies this turnaround than poster boy Headie One, whose excellent debut album, Edna, felt like a watershed moment for UK drill. Here was a #1 record laying bare the glory and despair of gang life in London, told through the eyes of not only its protagonist but a whole cast of rap stars, from local legends (M Huncho, Ivorian Doll) to global icons (Drake). Once again, Black street music, through a combination of grit and pure talent, had silenced its critics and conquered the mainstream.

评语：【Album of the year】Despite everything, 2020 delivered some wonderful albums. Some purred. Others rocked. Too many yearned for teeming dance floors. But none captured the mood of this hard, heartbreaking year better than Mas Amable. By the time it hit the shelves in late April, the world was in turmoil, the future utterly uncertain. This LP helped soothe our pain and anxiety, both through its tender tones, resonant with the warmth of a cosy night curled up on the sofa, and its deeply moving messages of hope and self-love, spoken by the Brooklyn writer and poet LA Warman on standout track "ADMSDP." "It's OK to feel hopeless because the whole world is hopeless," she whispers. "It's OK to think about dying." Bryan Piñyero couldn't have known this record would harmonize so powerfully with the year's events—he wrote it in 2019. But isn't that often the way with great art? Timely works turned timeless by the forces of history, relics to be cherished and revisited forevermore.