Athena, Holding Your Hair, Whispering In Your Ear

For me a few are enough, one is enough, none is enough. This is not for the many, but for you. We are audience enough for each other.

It's been a few years since I enjoyed a Grammy-nominated record, but I really loved this one. Charming pop rock with a fresh, funny sensibility and some really killer hooks. The lyrics are clever and her delivery has an enjoyably theatrical quality (probably pulling in skills from her other life as an actress). For example, "Get Him Back" takes on romantic ambivalence through strategic equivocation turning on the two meanings of the phrase "Get Him Back," cleverly reinforced in the video where she's literally beside herself with two or more copies of her working through her (their?) feelings. A few of the ballads drag a little, but the highs are very high, and the lows aren't that low. Recommended if you like pop or guitar rock at all. Start with: Bad Idea Right, Love is Embarrassing, Get Him Back.

High gloss, arty, indie rock that will burrow into your brain until you wake up humming it, over and over. It may seem a little slack or unassuming at first, but is very much a grower with lots of compositional complexity that only reveals itself over time. If your first listen doesn't catch you, I'd strongly recommend giving it at least one more before writing it off. Start with: Agreeing For Two, Blink, Prove Your Good.

A quietly beautiful psychedelic folk record. I have a very low tolerance for new folk music these days unless it's really exceptional, and this album is just out of this world. Gorgeous, dense song-writing and a haunting vocal delivery make for an album that rewards careful listening. Everything about this album is exactly right. Recommended for anyone who even slightly enjoys folk or singer/songwriter type material. Start with: Unnamed Drives, Star Hill Song, Cross Bay.

A unique synthesis of various left field electronic and synth pop influences making something really new and cool. The influence palate feels very "90's meet Hyper Pop": complex IDM rhythms, intricate house-influenced vocal lines, punctuated by rapping that's often closer to Tricky-style Sprechgesang, but married up with sparkling high-energy synths and aggressive, angry cuteness (see, e.g., the smiling sledge hammer on the cover). But it's much more than the sum of its influences and is very much it's own "thing." Highly recommended. Start with: For Granted, Fever, Done (Let's Get It)

Gentle, folk-inflected rock music (shades of Carole King or Joni Mitchell, and occasionally Joanna Newsom), sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter. This album isn't doing anything musically new, but the song writing, vocal melodies, and lyrics are truly exceptional. Bright hooks and charming wordplay make for earworms that burrow in and don't let go. The lyrics are particularly pleasant and whimsical, almost Dylanesque. She occasionally drifts into the same kind of freewheeling, evocative riffing on culture that Bob did in the 60's ("sugar babies, Mickey Mouse, digitize your parent's house" would fit right in on some of Dylan's talking blues numbers), but she also tosses out clever apothegmic takes on idioms and set phrases (compare "money talks, but I can scream" with "money doesn't talk, it swears", etc.). Start with: Security Question, Itch, and Touch Tank

80's inspired college rock/jangle pop (think the Smiths with a touch of early R.E.M.). The songs are beautiful and are just jammed full of hooks, but with dark lyrics that belie the energy of the instrumentation. The songs grapple with madness, poverty, loss, and interpersonal betrayal, but you might not notice until you're already singing along with them. Recommended to anyone who enjoys 80's indie rock or even rock generally. Start with: Illusion Pt. II, Wretched Lie, Sniveller.

Pioneering Hyper Pop label PC Music is slated to shut down at the end of 2023, and this album was one of the label's final releases. It's a fitting coda. This album exemplifies the mixture of frantic, bubble gum pop electronica with off kilter effects and thematic experimentation that typified the label. At first blush the album scans as contemporary electro pop with sparkling synths and heavily processed vocals, but the vocal processing and robotic delivery quickly send the whole thing hurtling into the uncanny valley. While pop music often feels like it's written by committee, this album deliberately gives off the vibe that it was written by a machine. Themes of mimicry and simulation recur over and over ("Perfect Picture," "Lip Sync," "Flashback," etc.), and even the love songs lean into a peculiar android idiom (e.g. "Divisible by Two"), all of which is underscored by the cover's hyperreal aesthetic (which echoes the cover of another familiar album that riffed on mimesis and simulacra). In brief, a high gloss pop album with some off kilter and pleasantly offputting undercurrents. Recommended for fans of weird pop music or EDM. Start with: Flashback, Affirmations, and Poster Girl.

Post-punk-influenced britpop with some interesting rhythms and angular guitar work, and occasional shoegazey moments. Pitchfork gave it a soft pan and described it as "moody, moth-eaten record-collector rock that gets by on moody insouciance"¹ like that was a bad thing, but that's exactly what I like about the record (in tumblr idiom "this, but unironically.") The album is full of allusions and quotations to great bands (the Cure, Galaxie 500, Pavement, etc.) that are amusingly transfigured into strange and interesting textures. "A rock record for people who like rock records" is a more charitable take. Start with: Nurse!, Punkt, Missus Morality

Stellar electro pop with some strong early 90's influences from the softer end of the trance or progressive house vein (think Opus III, Orbital, or Delerium). Described by one reviewer as "Space Rave" which is not too far from the mark. Short but propulsive, assertive yet wistful, lots of fun. Start with: Fai Fighter, Trinity, Sports

More exceedingly weird, yet compelling electronic music from Saya Gray. I gave her full-length last year an honorable mention, but it almost made my top ten, and this EP is both more focused and even more charmingly odd. 90's style break beats and Aphex Twin inspired ambient sections melting into leftfield R&B weirdness, then gelling into some kind of bizarro world/alternate history trip hop. Very short (17 minutes), but super cool and worth your time. Start with: Preying Mantis!, Dizzy Ppl Become Blurry, Ok Furikake.

Electronic auteur Clark's latest record was produced by Radiohead's Thom Yorke, and Yorke also contributed significant vocal and bass work on the album. If you've enjoyed Clark's previous albums or the recent Radiohead side project work, you'll probably enjoy this quite a bit.

Dark electronics that remind me of Burial's early work but with a bit more dance music in the mix. The overall vibe is approximately Trip Hop meets Witch House, but that's pretty reductive, give it a spin.

Indie pop stalwarts Phoenix return with an occasionally charming, but sometimes disappointing new effort. The linked song (and it's hilarious video) is far and away the best thing on the album, so if it's not your cup of tea, give this one a pass.

This was almost a "best of year" album, except I think the album as a whole is a little too uneven, but the best parts are really, really good. The video linked above is particularly excellent, and you owe it to yourself to see just how fucking rad and weird her aesthetic is (the scene with her spooky dancing and shadow-boxing with CGI sperm is worth the price of admission all by itself). Easily my favorite thing Caroline Polachek has done since her Chairlift days. Don't snooze on this.

Experimental electronics in a vaguely industrial mode, but very much it's own thing. Lots of cyberpunk vibes (the album is called Dream Hacker after all). Worth a spin for fans of experimental or dark ambient music.

Dark, smoky post-punk that occasionally shades over into shoegaze. Great for night driving.

Fun synth pop that evokes Debut-era Bjork or late career New Order, recommended if that's your kind of thing.

K.G.L.W. took a quick break from their regular schedule of releasing five psych rock albums every single year to drop another pretty solid heavy metal album. The record is musically fun, but thematically dark returning to their ongoing meditation on fossil fuels and climate change (the record is titled the PetroDragonic Apocalypse for context). If you like K.G.L.W. or sludgy, psychedelic metal, this is for you.

90's dream pop inspired electronica with a darker tinge. Brooding yet relaxing, like sitting on the beach at night.

So I don't normally recommend score or soundtrack work because I'm not typically that invested in it, but this video game soundtrack is one of the best I've heard in years. I listen to it regularly long after finishing the game. It's simply excellent and indelible, like the original Diablo score or the SNES Final Fantasy scores. Also play the game if you haven't already, it's great too.

Miya Folick released a full length called Roach this year, and if this were the first time I were hearing these songs, Roach would have been one of my choices for top album, no question. But the six best songs on this album were released as an EP last year (confusingly titled the 2007 EP), and that EP made my best of list last year. The additional songs on the full length are fine, but they're simply not as good as the already released material, which (fairly or not) makes them feel like filler or padding to get the beating heart of this record up to full album length. If you didn't listen to her EP from last year yet, pick up this album and give it a spin, you'll love it. But if you've already digested the EP, there's not much more here for you.