2022 hasn’t been an exciting year for international music. Several interesting albums came out, but none of them stood out over the others. Looking at the rankings of the previous three years, titles such as Ghosteen by Nick Cave, When we all fall asleep, where do we go? by Billie Eilish Fetch the bolt cutters by Fiona Apple o Promises by Floating Points and Pharoah Sanders (who also passed away in September). There has been no such album in 2022. Despite this, quality music was not lacking, quite the contrary. Here’s the list. At the bottom of the article you will find a Spotify playlist with two songs from each of the ten albums on the chart.
10. ElectricityIbibio Sound Machine
Electricity is the fruit of a happy encounter between two creative worlds: that of Ibibio Sound Machine, a London band that has been mixing disco, electronica, West African and post-punk sounds for years, and Hot Chip, who produced this album. The end result is excellent: there are unassailable singles such as the song that gives the album its title, yet another example of how much contemporary music owes to the genius of David Byrne, but also Casio (Yes, no, no) e Protection from evilwhich enhances the voice of singer Eno Williams, born in the British capital but raised in Nigeria. Electricity it has some setbacks, but overall the peaks of the disc make it deserve a place in this ranking.
9. The line is a curve, Kae Tempest
Produced by longtime collaborator Dan Carey, The line is a curve is the first record since Tempest chose the name Kae and did coming out as trans/non-binary, choosing to use the neuter pronoun per se they/them. It is a path of liberation, as Tempest explained, which starts from the isolation and alienation described in the first piece, Priority boredombut then opens up to the community, to encounter and to love, obsessively evoked in the last piece, Grace. As Tempest wrote, it’s a record “about letting go.” Perhaps also for this reason the structure of the sung poem, which had made the masterpiece so powerful Let them eat chaos, this time he preferred a more canonical song form and a greater variety in the arrangements. The lyrics, as usual, are beautiful.
8. A light for attracting attentionThe Smile
After putting Radiohead in mothballs (we don’t know for how long), during the lockdown Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood gave birth to a new creature: they are called The Smile and they are a trio which also includes jazz drummer Tom Skinner, already in the Sons of Kemet by Shabaka Hutchings and in many other projects. Their debut album in many ways recalls the style of the parent company, but at times it deviates above all from the point of view of the arrangements (very minimalistic) and the rhythmic structures (in addition to the role of Skinner, that of Yorke and Greenwood is not secondary alternating on bass). The best tunes are the slow ones, like Speech bubbles e Open the floodgatesin addition to the concluding Skrting on the surface, capable of rivaling the best things ever published by Yorke and Greenwood. The second chapter is expected for 2023, I’m curious.
7. Ethiopians, Billy Woods
Born in Washington, but trained in the New York underground rap scene, Billy Woods is not a cover rapper. But this year he released two beautiful albums: Ethiopians e Church. The first is perhaps the better of the two, and is a dark journey into his childhood memories made together with the producer Preservation, which links the rapper’s personal story to that of the great African diaspora. It’s an archaic-sounding album that makes few concessions to mainstream rap but retains great appeal for nearly all 13 tracks. There are sensational songs like Haarleminspired by the Dutch city that gave rise to the name of the famous New York neighborhood, e Versailleswhich he cites The stranger by Albert Camus sailing on a reggae sample.
6. Feeding the machine, Binker & Moses
From the ever-fertile London jazz scene has come another record from the duo of drummer Moses Boyd and saxophonist Binker Golding. Feeding the machine it is inspired and magmatic. Long hypnotic crescendos (in the excellent opening piece, Asynchronous intervals) are mixed with moments where the rhythm is the master (Accelerometer overdose). If we have to choose a jazz record released in London in 2022, we can only focus on this one.
5. Skinty fiaFountains DC
It has been a long time since a rock group reached a transversal consensus among audiences and critics like the Irish Fontaines DC The young band from Dublin (DC stands for Dublin City) led by singer Grian Chatten has reached maturity with its third album, entitled Skinty fia, an ancient Irish expression meaning “the damnation of the deer”. It is a melancholy album, steeped in reflections on Irish identity as experienced by expats in London. Musically the band tends to quote, sometimes too much, but Chatten’s personality and lyrics elevate the overall quality of the group. And they could guarantee them a longevity that was not taken for granted at the beginning of their career. All the rock bands on the planet this year would have made false cards to come up with a single like Jackie down the line.
4. Motomami, Rosalia
Motomami is a declaration of love to Latin American and Caribbean music. It’s a job away from the evil will, the record that had transformed Rosalía into a world star thanks to the contamination between pop and flamenco. This time the reference genre is reggaetón, starting from the opening track Just in casewhich samples Daddy Yankee, and from Chicken teriyaki. “Reggaeton doesn’t apologize or ask for permission. For this it seemed perfect for me Motomami. It’s a straight and raw style, and people aren’t used to women speaking straight,” the singer said. But other genres also end up on the disc, starting with bachata and salsa. Also worth noting are some pretty good ballads, such as Hentai. There is almost no trace of flamenco anymore, except in buleríasand you feel a little nostalgic for certain atmospheres of the evil willwhich sounded more spontaneous than Motomami. Certain emotional peaks, like that of Badly, this time they are not reached. After all, Rosalía has decided to transform herself, like a butterfly, into the animal symbol of the disc. She may have lost some intensity along the way, but her path is clear: she is now a global star, Spain is close to her.
3. INVERSE, Sarathy Korwar
This was the surprise of 2022 for me. Born in the United States, Sarathy Korwar grew up in India and began studying the tabla, the Indian drum, at the age of ten. Today he lives in London and mixes western jazz with Indian tradition, adding a splash of rap and electronics. This explains the mesmerizing sound of his new album, which sounds like a spaceship landed from another planet. In the intentions of its author, INVERSE, imbued with Buddhist theories and created together with the American producer Photay, moves in the wake of Indofuturism, a sort of Asian version of Sun Ra’s Afrofuturism. It is a disc based on the idea of circularity, very common in South Asian and West African cultures. For this Korwar has created what he calls the “KALAK rhythm”, a circular percussion notation that acts as an ideological and sound anchor of the album. After all, in the Hindi language, “kal” means both yesterday and tomorrow.
2. Dragon new warm mountain I believe in you, Big Thief
Recorded in four different studios between Upstate New York, California’s Topanga Canyon, Arizona’s Sonoran Desert and the Colorado Mountains, this is an album of twenty songs, with different sonic souls reflecting the group’s journey to these places. The reference genres are the cornerstones of the white American tradition: folk, country, rock and pop. But the writing of the leader of the band, Adrianne Lenker, always maintains a strong personal signature. Dragon new warm mountain I believe in you it should be listened to at sunset, and it reminded me of those endless landscapes that were seen in the film Nomadland by Chloe Zhao. Time must be given to it. But the advice is not to stop at the first five or six songs, all of which are beautiful (especially the single Time escaping) because there is valuable material also in the second part, such as the acoustic ballad Promise is a pendulum or distorted Love love love. If you like American music you will love it madly.
1. Mr. Morale & The big steppers, Kendrick Lamar
Mr. Morale & The big steppers is the most intimate record of Kendrick Lamar’s career. A kind of long session of psychoanalysis that lasts 19 songs, divided into two parts (plus the appendix of The heart part 5, present only in the digital version). It’s not her best album, but it’s an interesting addition to his artistic journey. We will fully appreciate it in a few years, because songs like Mother I sober o Crownwhich almost bring Lamar closer to songwriting, are not what many expected after years of waiting and after a pop work like DAMN. There isn’t one Humble around here, not even by mistake. But it would be wrong to be put off by the gloom of some atmospheres, because anyway Mr. Morale & The big steppers it’s also a record with great pop potential: take songs like Father time (enriched by the voice of the always good Sampha) e Purple heartswhere a monument of rap history such as Ghostface Killah appears. Mr. Morale & The big steppers it has to be tackled all together, not like a playlist, like an old-fashioned album. Kendrick Lamar, on the strength of an indestructible credibility, has decided to move the shot elsewhere, but he remains an absolute point of reference, not only for the rap scene.