2023 – what a year for music. It saw Olivia Rodrigo and Troye Sivan cultivate empires of pop, Lana Del Rey and Mitski cement themselves as matriarchs of alternative music, and rising stars Ice Spice and PinkPantheress break out beyond cult status. Here now, however, I present what I believe to be ten of the very best musical offerings that the year had in store:
10. Hannah Diamond – Perfect Picture
Marking itself as one of PC Music’s final non-archival releases, Perfect Picture is the culmination of a decade’s worth of output from this divisive London label. For that alone, it deserves all the glory of the spotlight – one that Hannah has so often given to others across her truly multidisciplinary career as a photographer and visual artist. This experience comes centrefold as Diamond fixates on imperfections of the self and relationships through her unique lens, inextricably tied to the heavily reconstructive nature of digital editing software. Unashamedly maximalist, and always quintessentially Diamond, Perfect Picture is glossy pure pop at its finest.
9. PinkPantheress – Heaven Knows
First gaining an abundance of traction via TikTok, PinkPantheress’ rapid ascent to acclaim marks itself as a keystone in the growing intersection between artistry and online virality. So much so, that Pantheress is now spearheaded by major label Warner on her first album outing – and yet, Heaven Knows is neither amiss of the authenticity nor relatability that was central to the D.I.Y. appeal of debut mixtape, To hell with it. In fact, the tracks on Heaven Knows double down on her Y2K agenda: still short in length, imbued with drama, and featuring lyrics of anguish top-lined over UKG and 2-step beats. A storyteller at heart, Pantheress’ progression lies not in her ethos to melody-making, but rather the tools at her disposal, as Heaven Knows represents a stark audible upgrade to lavisher fare.
8. Fever Ray – Radical Romantics
If anyone on this list is marching to the beat of their own drum, it is certainly Fever Ray. Make the sound of that drum off-kilter, alien, and unsettling, and you arrive in the disjointed world of Radical Romantics. Sporting co-production from the likes of Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, as well as brother Olof Dreijer (both formerly conjoined as duo The Knife), the record stands chaotic yet cathartic. That is, song serves as Dreijer’s preferred outlet for unburdening themselves from life’s affairs and creating a semblance of order, even going so far as to revel in revenge against their son’s high-school bully on track ‘Even It Out’. As the very title of the album denotes, another crucial aspect of Radical Romantics lies in redefining Ray’s relationship with love, prioritising materiality and foundations over ideals and excess – albeit with mutant flair. With ritualistic and almost reptilian reverberations emanating throughout, Radical Romantics is gloriously cold-blooded in conceit.
7. Lana Del Rey – Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd?
While artists often proclaim, “This is my most personal album yet”, when promoting their latest releases, no such declaration quite rings truer than the revelations of Lana Del Rey on feature-length Ocean Blvd. A distillation of Del Rey past and present, the record retains her penchant for all things Americana while further distancing itself from the exaggerated character rooted in her earlier work. Instead, Ocean Blvd seeks to clarify Lana’s unique point of view as a memoir made manifest in audio form. Under her auteurial penmanship, she elucidates the rawness of her experiences – ones that never define an individual but rather shape their outlook – with sprawling piano arrangements soundtracking her lyricism to great poignant effect. Thematically, there are pastoral overtones; her thesis statement best encapsulated by the religious guidance on ‘Judah Smith Interlude’: “I’ve discovered my preaching is mostly about me”. This line guides much of the content on Ocean Blvd, which is equally a love letter from Lana to her family, friends and lovers.
6. Eartheater – Powders
Sediments silt and sand come to a granular head against crushing waves on the operatic avant-folk odyssey that is Powders. Experimentation with sonic textures has always been Eartheater’s prowess, and here, no different, her sixth offering seamlessly melds the hypnotic siren call of her voice with a fusion of electronic, string and acoustic elements. The tracks, however, cohere elements in more senses than just one; Drewchin’s affinity for nature carries over from the water-drenched woes of mixtape Trinity and the incandescent moans of previous album Phoenix: Flames upon a Dew. Even down to her reimagining of System of a Down’s ‘Chop Suey!’, Powders pulses airy and atmospheric, a cinematic sandbox propelled by layers of indulgent trip-hop production. In all its dreamlike glory, Powders solidifies Eartheater as a multi-quadrant force to be reckoned with ahead of 2024’s sister album, Aftermath.
5. ANOHNI & The Johnsons – My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross
Potent and politically charged, My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross speaks to intergenerational processes of social change through issues of marginalisation and ecological devastation. Across the LP, ANOHNI undergoes a transmutation of perspective as she embodies the aggressor in all their wilful ignorance, the Earth herself under climate collapse and the despondent bystander she fears she has become within it all. Whilst prior solo album Hopelessness dealt in urgency through brash electronic tones, the addition of The Johnsons softens the sonic palette – a perfect accompaniment to ANOHNI’s newfound self-nurture, blanketing her fears of complicity. With constant allusions to light, her message is as clear and wrenching as the soulful weight of her voice: the flames of the future are not a given, existing in polar opposition to darkness, but must be set alight in spite of the void.
4. Kelela – Raven
A self-professed ode to Black femmes working in the dance space, Raven feels like the comedown of a night to remember. Equal parts sensual and reflective, Kelela’s rich vocals inhabit an ethereal soundscape: ambient, yet tinged by lurid ripples of breakbeat and drum and bass that intermittently flow to the forefront across the track-listing. Liquid in essence, Raven can be distilled down to an introspective journey navigating through the murky waters of relationships – all trials and tribulations included. With remix album Rave:N on the horizon, what better time than now to listen to the original future classic.
3. Yves Tumor – Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply Hot Between Worlds)
Perhaps the only working artist of this generation truly worthy of rockstar calibre, Yves Tumor basks under the eye of God on Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply Hot Between Worlds). A meditation on divinity in extremis, Tumor pares down the experimental noise of their earlier projects, instead siphoning their energy into a fully-fledged art-rock transformation. Reborn anew, Praise A Lord […] is not just glamour and no grit, however: industrial undertones remain ever-present and, despite the falsetto of Tumor’s voice firmly at the crux of tracks ‘Parody’ and ‘Heaven Surrounds Us Like a Hood’, their tortured yelps and screams take over ‘God Is a Circle’ and ‘Operator’. As a result, there is a palpable persona throughout Praise A Lord […] that is a natural extension of Heaven To A Tortured Mind, ascending Tumor’s artistry to new heights.
2. yeule – softscars
The scars of the past often take on physical form and impose an internalised toll on our body mass, accumulating across time as more than just mere memories. Yeule explores this painful embodiment on softscars, each song a flesh wound into the recesses of their lived experience. On 2022’s Glitch Princess, Yeule began a “Cyborg Manifesto”, speaking to topics of body image, substance abuse and isolation as a ghost withdrawn from the shell of their being. Softscars expounds upon these topics with freshly gleaned insight, likening the cybernetic and the digital to the infernal and the physical by way of a nostalgia trip. Parsing the catalogue of genres that dominated their adolescence, Yeule infuses the tracks on softscars with primal screamo rage (‘x w x’), surrealist hazy shoegaze (‘sulky baby’, ‘dazies’), electronic minimalism (‘inferno’, ‘bloodbunny’) and impressionist ambience (‘fish in the pool’). The self contains multitudes, and with glitched-out sound-effects throughout (concordant with Yeule’s character), softscars paradoxically evokes sublime resonance in the listener, emerging from the singer’s own self-aware dissonance.
1. Caroline Polachek – Desire, I Want To Turn Into You
Perfectly encapsulated by its title and accompanying visuals, Desire, I Want To Turn Into You is all the quixotic charm of taking the metro in the sweltering heat of a midsummer’s afternoon. It is the elusive sphinx in the desert, esoteric and mystical in its lyricism, and the exuberant spring far-off in the distance – a bountiful and rewarding repeat listen. That is, like all great mythologies, Polachek is self-referential, reusing melodies and arrangements to form a labyrinthine musical puzzle-box. Add church bells, lutes and bagpipes to the mix, as interpolated across the course of the album, and Desire […] becomes further artifactual – an urn of indeterminable origin. Like a volcano churning at the core, a motif for Polachek, her vocals pack tectonic power and soar to an inevitable eruption on tracks like ‘Welcome To My Island’ and ‘Smoke’. Overall, meticulously produced and mixed, Desire […] is art-pop intricacy incarnate.
– Miles Comer, Deputy Online Editor
(Featured Image Source: Miles Comer)
RAZZ 