Rich Allen ~ Favorite Things 2023
Since 2011, I’ve been running an international music review site called A Closer Listen, specializing in instrumental and experimental music. In 2023, we received an average of a dozen submissions a day (4380/year) in those categories alone, so I’ve been listening almost exclusively to new music. By simply doubling that figure, I estimate that at the very least, an instrumental or experimental album is released every hour. In the digital era, there has never been so much to choose from ~ and so much that goes unheard. On the brighter side, although there’s much more to sift through, there seems to be an equal amount of great music. These were my favorite releases of 2023!
Albums
Buy via Bandcamp Rent via iTunes [?]
Aho Ssan ~ Rhizomes (Other People)
https://ahossan.bandcamp.com/album/rhizomes
This is the sound of a positive future: collaborative, cross-cultural and genre-fluid. Rhizomes is a growing organism: an album, a book, an extended album (via QR codes), a sample pack and an AV show. Guest stars from across the globe contribute some of their best work; the timbres are constantly in flux, from drone to hip-hop to electronic. With any luck, it will spark a revolution.
Buy via Bandcamp Rent via iTunes [?]
Spurv ~ Brefjaere (Pelagic)
https://spurv.bandcamp.com/album/brefj-re
Norwegian post-rockers Spurv pulled out all the stops this year, adding soloists, choir, strings and brass. There was just no way this album was going to fail. The energy is huge, the dynamic contrast immense. They’re going to need a bigger bus.
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Hammock ~ Love in the Void (Hammock Music)
https://hammock.bandcamp.com/album/love-in-the-void
Touted as Hammock’s “loudest album to date,” Love in the Void lives up to its billing with shoegaze guitars, post-rock crescendos and a plethora of drums. It’s been a tough few years for the band, but instead of imploding into sorrow, they explode into euphoria.
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Francesco Fabris & Ben Frost ~ Vakning (Room40)
https://benfrost.bandcamp.com/album/vakning
This is real rock music: the sounds of magma and lava, seismic rumbles and ruptured crusts. Fabris and Frost capture the sounds of Iceland’s Fagradalsfjall: whistles, drones and eruptions, then sculpt the raw material into thrilling new forms.
Buy via Bandcamp
Tomas Senkyrik ~ Spring / Jaro (Self-Released)
https://tomassenkyrik.bandcamp.com/album/jaro
Recorded in a Czechian forest while the artist’s son was asleep in his bicycle seat, Spring is a glorious series of sonic captures, a reminder of the awakening season in the wild and wondrous world.
Buy via Bandcamp
Totakeke ~ Subjects of Assimilated Consciousness Vol. 1 (Inner Demons)
https://innerdemonsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/subjects-of-assimilated-consciousness-vol-1-ind140
The year’s most powerful burst of concise industrialism, Vol. 1 is a single track broken into movements, a return to form for a veteran Long Island artist. We can only hope that more volumes are on the way.
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Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Eva Ollikainen ~ ARCHORA/AION (Sono Luminus)
https://sonoluminuslabel.bandcamp.com/album/archora-ai-n
Iceland Symphony Orchestra covers two recent compositions by a composer who has risen to the top of her field. The contrast between immersive depths and transcendent heights creates narrative arcs without words, while the major themes are the finest of her career.
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Maud the Moth + trajedesaliva ~ Bordando el manto terrestre (Time Released Sound)
https://bordandoelmantoterrestre.bandcamp.com/album/bordando-el-manto-terrestre
Exquisitely presented in a film tin, the album feels like a time capsule from a fairy tale land. The album is a tribute to Spanish-born Mexican surrealist painter Remedios Varo, and loosely traces her career, exile and legacy. The mood is reminiscent of Hyperium’s Heavenly Voices series, gothic, ethereal and beguiling.
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Gazelle Twin ~ Black Dog (Invada)
https://gazelletwin.bandcamp.com/album/black-dog
Bandcamp describes the limited edition vinyl as a “Slime Green Blob;” we call it “Green Eggs Without Ham.” It’s the only light touch on a dark album, one that tackles depression head-on, with timbres that recall early Nine Inch Nails and a sense of power accrued through confrontation.
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Cruel Diagonals ~ Fractured Whole (Beacon Sound)
https://crueldiagonals.bandcamp.com/album/fractured-whole
Every sound, even those that come across as drums or drones, is produced by Megan Mitchell’s voice. The set faces outward and inward at the same time: seeking, stretching, yearning. Like Lisa Gerrard, Mitchell attempts to connect with the divine, while simultaneously serving as its vessel.
Songs
UPPERROOM feat. Skylar Dayne, You Have Kept Me
Jenny & Tyler feat. Wild Harbors, Peace Be Yours
Everything But the Girl, Nothing Left to Lose
Lovejoy, Normal People Things
Bjork ft. Rosalia, Oral
Music Videos (in recommended viewing order)
Dirk Koy, Organic Flux
Bravery in Battle, Wetico
Cassie Marin, Tonto
Dog & Rabbit, The Beatles Vs. The Stones Animation
Reid Willis, Conveyer
Jonathan Djob Nkondo, Little Taste of Joy
Kate NV, confessions at the dinner table
RARI, Ego Death
Chemical Brothers feat. Beck, Skipping Like a Stone
Squid, Swing (In a Dream)
TV
Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 2
Ted Lasso Season 3
Blue Eye Samurai
My Adventures With Superman
The Last of Us
Movies
Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse
Books
Holly Smale, Cassandra In Reverse
Marc Masters, High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape
Jane Hirshfield, The Asking: New and Selected Poems
Roger Kreuz, Failure to Communicate: Why We Misunderstand What We Hear, Read and See
Tim Alberta, The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism
Rich Allen
www.acloserlisten.com