My albums of 2021

I seem to have been particularly indecisive about whittling down my albums of the year to my self-imposed limit of five. On the plus side, this means that I have had lots of excuses to revisit some great music repeatedly while I made up my mind…

I really enjoyed records from Claire Rousay, DJ Black Low, Robert Hood as Monobox, Robin Rimbaud, and Sunn O))) with Anna von Hausswolff.

There were two albums which I am particularly sad to have missed off the final list, so I’m going to pick favourite tracks: Skin by the astonishing Katrine Grarup Elbo [blog; bandcamp] and Under The Lilac Sky by the entrancing Arushi Jain [blog; bandcamp].

So here are the records which I went for in the end:

• Grace Ferguson’s Voler [blog; bandcamp]. This is going to sound cheesy as hell, but there were times this year when this record helped me remember that there was still beauty in the world.
• Eris Drew’s Quivering In Time [blog; bandcamp]. This helped me remember that there were still people out there having fun — and, god help me, I might even have been one of them sometimes.
• Emeka Ogboh’s Beyond The Yellow Haze [blog; bandcamp]. This took me somewhere new, in a far more chilled fashion than actually travelling (the very thought of it!) could have done.
• Winter Family’s Chevaliers [blog; bandcamp]. This took me utterly outside of time and space.
• Mira Calix’s absent origin [blog; bandcamp]. The protest record which 2021 didn’t know it wanted but somehow really needed.

Happy New Year!