Albums of 2023

The nights are drawing in, 2023 is drawing to a close, I'm drawing a musical blank. Usually it's so easy to reinvoke the albums that meant something to me in the year! I've done it for four years now, each time coming up with a mollycoddle of crap indie and semi-good post-punk/other that may or may not be from the year it's supposed to be from.    

    This year, however, in part thanks to Rough Trade East, and in part thanks to someone with better musical taste than me, I've tried to come up with seven albums from this year, actually from this year that I think are actually good... And then three that aren't. Look, need a bit of leeway for the ol' sentimentality. So listen up! Or read on! I really couldn't care less! BLOGGING.

1. Snake Sideways by Do Nothing

    Come on Claude, at least start with one that you didn't nick from Rough Trade's list. Okay, here's Snake Sideways, the first full-length LP from Nottinghamshire sadbois Do Nothing. These guys hit it big a few years ago with their alt-rock punk cranko single (just let me invent words ok) Handshakes, which was very okay but also very much the kind of song enjoyed by that archetype of boring girls (and indeed boys) you see on Hinge. Snake Sideways is more inventive, the Feeld to Handshakes' Hinge. What the fuck am I saying? Basically, there's some very fun stuff going on here that leans Do Nothing more into their natural home somewhere near where Shame or Courting are at the minute and further away from the reproducible "post-punk" that is really still just indie. The title track, for example, has this incredible offbeat drum track (slightly harder to get right live) and a delicious unnerving energy. Lyrics similarly odd: "But he just backed away, sinking like a submarine into diesel. Deep fried eagle. Blank on both sides". What. I thought it was "deep fried ego" but I'm trusting Genius here because, well, deep fried eagle. Some other great tunes here, but particularly noteworthy is Happy Feet; a song, topically, about Christmas, a shit version thereof. "At the house, in 19-something. My uncle Paul dares my mother to drink bleach". Okay, great. But also, it builds so beautifully from there; and by the end you are crying inside for uncle Paul. Or whomever.

2. The Nation's Most Central Location by Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan

    Okay, now we can start with #13 on Rough Trade's list. Discovering this shortly after a gig for an artist we'll get onto in a minute, staring down the full gamut of what East London record joints think is a good album, this one immediately stands out. Its name is ridiculous; its line up is one middle aged man; it is hitting the "GEOGRAPHY" button pretty hard. And when I see the "GEOGRAPHY" button, I have to press it. So let's try WRNTDP... Wow that's a cumbersome acronym.

    In simplest terms, this album is Boards of Canada meets Biosphere meets the entire line-up of the documentary Synth Britannia. Very much at the centre (ha ha) of this music is, and I can't believe I'm nicking this idea again, hauntology: a longing for a lost future that never came. In the 1970s and 80s, Warrington and Runcorn (located in the north of Cheshire, with Liverpool to the west and Manchester to the east) were designated as new towns, designed to operate in combo as well as individually. They were small-ish towns originally; industrialised, sure, benefitting from the proximity of innovative MCR and exporting Scouse-ville. But the planners of the post-war period saw to turn Warrington and Runcorn into huge conurbations in their own right. Unfortunately, the worldwide scourge of neoliberal deprivation and the slightly more British scourge of NIMBYism put paid to the grand plans. Now the space between these cities is a land of faceless suburbs and heartless shopping centres, missing the monolithic and monumental structures designed to tie them together, missing the grand gestures of the world's best architects, forced to tear down their magnum opi. All that remains is the memories and the motorways. And that's what WRNTDP is all about, in a musical format. God, that acronym still sucks ass.

3. Yard by Slow Pulp

    It is 28 November 2023 and I am queueing for a gig outside Rough Trade East. The kids in front are complaining about the albums of the year. The kids behind are complaining about Spotify Wrapped. At the front of the queue, people are collecting CDs for Slow Pulp's new record. The CD option is the cheapest way to get into this gig; it's half the price of the LP. I know that my dad's old hi fi is ready for Slow Pulp on compact disc. And I know, I fucking know, that most of these kids just use it as a particularly expensive vehicle for a signature after the gig. The CD, not my dad's old hi fi. It is very heavy. Jeez.

    Anyway, the four-piece from Wisconsin appear after about an hour, along with a fifth man whose name is definitively Javier. It's vocalist Emily's first time wearing a hat on stage; she complains that her head is unbecomingly small. This is funny. Anyway, ushankas aside, they start playing. One song that carries particularly well (because it's the best one on the album) is MUD. The absolute slams of each guitar hit are magisterial; it's like you've been thrown back to the late 90s guitar rock scene, but it's actually still good, and no one is being sued by a baby on an album cover. But there are heartfelt moments too. And a song about period cramps that is also about love-lust. It's just a perfect example of its genre! And sure, maybe that genre doesn't move so much nowadays, or turn so many heads, but it's great that it exists. The best thing to come out of Wisconsin recently, beating out Willem Dafoe and Pabst Blue Ribbon (obviously).

4. Strange Disciple by Nation of Language

    Track back about an hour and a half in the course of the night. I've just arrived in Rough Trade East and because this band is from Wisconsin I must pay homage by ordering a beer (Wisconsinites are very good at alcoholism). I go up to the taps by the Rough Trade till and order their "Album of the Year" beer, or AOTY beer for short, which is almost but not quite as bad an acronym as WRNTDP. It is called Strange DiscIPA and the guy pulling it for me calls it Strange "Disc" which shows that he probably hasn't heard of his own employer's FKKING ALBUM OF THE YEAR. 

    

    Now, I promise, I promise to whichever god science officially determines is / isn't real, that I knew about Nation of Language before they hit this magisterial billing of Rough Trade Album of the Year. Yes yes, "before it was cool". But not because I'm cool, noooo, because lil' Nadia Zymovets, bless her Beatles-themed socks, has liked this band for ages. We went to see them in Sheffield. My favourite album was their first outing, Introduction, Presence (oh my god, I like their earlier stuff, I'm sorry, I'm the worst). But Strange Disciple is as good, if not better. It's beautifully varied in how it deploys a set of sounds that were used to do surprisingly limited things in the golden age of synthpop. What's more, the vocals are consistently impressive. Particularly notable here is they seem to have stuck vocalist Ian in the biggest cathedral known to man to record his parts, as they are echoing wonderfully. Yes, I do know how post-production works. Have a listen to Weak in Your Light if you want to see what I mean. It's my favourite track on the album, in part because of its bittersweet lyrics and the emotive way they blend into the synth. The track that lends the album its title, Sole Obsession, is also excellent. It exhibits a different kind of nostalgia to WRNTDP; very much playing off the masterworks of the 80s, but in a much rosier sense. These guys are from Brooklyn, you see, which is crucially not the back end of Cheshire.

5. Bunny by Beach Fossils

    Man! It's been years, six of them in fact, since we had a Beach Fossils record. In fact, the last one they came out with was on my list from 2019, which I don't really want you to re-read so I'm not linking it here. But look, look at this text here, which is about the new BF record, which is called Bunny. The first time I listened to it, I... didn't really get it. I thought: this isn't very clever. And, as evidenced by the previous paragraph or two about Nation of Language, I like to pretend that I'm clever. So I didn't think this was for me! Ah! Woeful stuff. Interestingly, Anthony Fantano felt the same about their last record; the one I thought was great. And as soon as I hear that I'm veering towards the opinions of "the internet's busiest music nerd", I know I have to reconsider. No, that's not really what happened. I just listened again; I listened harder. Grrrr. And it jumped out at me; this album has some great singles. Eminently listenable numbers, of which the best is likely Don't Fade Away. It's like this wonderful synthesis of the whole Beach Fossils back catalogue; no one note feels out of place. And while some might say it's a touch Eels-adjacent in its embracement of over-the-counter drugs, I couldn't really give a shit. Most of the album is along these lines; it might be a bit simple, a touch redundant, a not-quite Real Estate of dreampop pastiche. But, as I just noted, I couldn't really give a shit. So thanks for coming back, boys.

6. Gigi's Recovery by The Murder Capital

    Can I be honest with you? I plucked this one out of thin air because I've been listening to The Murder Capital's single Ethel for roughly a year and a half. It appears now on this album, and it's as good as it's ever been. The LP on the whole cuts just the right line between melancholy and drive, pushing you through a series of post-punk beats and troubled lyrics. But I think the main reason I wanted to choose this album was because there were others I really didn't want to choose. I like Shame's new direction, but I don't understand why their new album is so placid. Squid, meanwhile, are still one of the darlings of the post-punk scene, but I genuinely can't tell why. And Black Country New Road isn't the same since their sudden change in line-up. What's more, they don't cash the GEOGRAPHICAL cheques their name suggests. Step it up guys; write a song about Dudley, or get off the fucking pot. Okay, but back to The Murder Capital; I think the reason why this album sat well with me was because it's not only post-punk but nicely orchestral, which inadvertently makes it a sound example of Adele's (yes Adele's) insistence that albums should be played in order. The run from Existence into Crying is particularly ace. So at once, I like The Murder Capital for what they are and what they're not. But mostly because Squid can fuck off. Soz Squid.

7. Five Easy Hot Dogs by Mac DeMarco

    Uhhh, this is slightly comical really; I have Spotify Wrapped to thank for this one. You see, I'd completely forgotten that I'd been listening to this album on repeat this spring until DeMarco came in 4th on my artists of the year list. It was cold in London back then, but Five Easy Hot Dogs immediately takes you to a sleepy day in the middle of the Californian summer. Some people think this album is lazy; that it's a rehash of some of the choice cuts from Mac's much longer indeed epically long album of loose ambient ideas he came up with on tour. But I think Five Easy Dogs is more than that; it's refined, and, crucially, it takes you places. I've already spoken about a sleepy day in the Californian summer; it also evokes wandering around a mincing main street in the back end of Oregon, or drinking an overpriced coffee roughly anywhere. And the polar opposite of The Murder Capital, this album works incredibly well whether you listen to it in order or not. That isn't to say it's not crafted, curated; more that it's so well put together that it can be consumed without a second thought. And then, there you are, in a hammock next to a prickly pear on some outcropping beside the Pacific, with DeMarco playing a strange synthesiser in your face. Nice one.

    That's seven albums from 2023 done with; there were a few albums I listened to rather a lot that didn't come from this year, and I'll give them a quick run-down now.

8. Romance is Boring by Los Campesinos! (2010)

    Ah, my artist of the year. A not-for-everyone band with punkish pretensions, I fell increasingly in love with LC! for reasons that elude me around April-time. Angst and that. And this was the album that really did it, not just carrying unbridled emotional fortitude but also gentle beauty, something you rarely see in this genre. For example, I Just Sighed, I Just Sighed, Just So You Know: "Just let me be the one that, keeps track of the moles on your back"; There is a Flag, There is No Wind: "There are photos of us holding hands outside of the frame, I was there but wonder where our fingers were all the same, it's like our self-restraint is the size of a fingernail". And of course, In Medias Res, where vocalist Gareth explains how, after he throws himself out of a plane, his ex-lover can determine her next partner's initials based on the shape his lifeless body makes when it his the ground. Gareth (Gareth Campesinos!; it's one of those bands) has gone on the record to say he always writes these lyrics either after a breakup, or a bout of depression. That's pretty clear, and sometimes it's just a touch too on the nose, but for me, this year, it was just right.

9. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap (2022)

    I mean, for goodness's sake, we're almost there with the year and all! I remember how it happened, though; I was stood there in the crowd for The Cool Greenhouse with my mate, and a particularly fun post-punky number comes on the stereo between the acts. I say, hey! I really like this! What is it? Shazam comes out (he's one of those Shazam guys) and we determine, yes, it's Concrete Over Water. Well, no shade to it, it did have all year to compete and was the only non-LC! number to rank in my top 5 songs (it was a difficult year). Previously, I'd told my flatmates Jockstrap really wasn't for me; I'd been forced to listen to City Hell, their most ""intense"" number, more than once while trying to eat pesto pasta. But that's not fair on Jockstrap; they run the range from experimental bit-too-edgy-for-a-boy-with-two-middle-names stuff to, well, I Love You Jennifer B.  Georgia from BCNR and Taylor from "I saw him watching BCNR at Wide Awake 2022 and he didn't look very impressed" come out fighting with this one. Seriously, though, two kids from a conservatoire and an already-impressive back catalogue pump out everything from lovelorn self-reflective folk to 00s-esque breakbeat and never miss. They're also fantastic live.

10. Era Extraña by Neon Indian (2011)

    Last one. Neon Indian was an artist that was reintroduced to me by one of those recaps of "blog rock", another made-up genre that probably exists inside a Spotify algo somewhere. I don't especially believe in it, but it was lovely to have a reminder of some of the music of the 10s that gets lost nowadays, a bit like the stuff in the "Sixth Form Classics" playlist. Anyway, Neon Indian exists, or existed, and continues to exist (collaborating with Mac DeMarco in fact). One of the songs from this album - Polish Girl - became particularly famous after appearing on the radio soundtrack for GTA V, guaranteeing it streams for as long as people were playing that game, which, it transpires, they still are. But I think it's a crime to deprive that single of its context. Era Extraña is a fantastical album, and you can sense right from the off what it's trying to do; to capture that wayward feeling you might get in the golden hour; oh crap, I'm going to catch feels now. And maybe that means more for someone who's already been exposed to this particular Myspace-caché brand of synthpop electronica, but it really carries well here. Alan's muted vocals make sure that the synths stay the focus, and the fun, diverse set of melodies and motifs at play in this album never really stop being exciting. Moreover, it's sort of set up to have moments of pause, so that when it goes, it really does go. It all seems simple enough, but all you really need for something like this to matter is for the right song to come on just as you're leaving the pub, wondering about what will happen next, wondering if it will ever happen, looking towards the future and being so inclined to just say "ah, feck". Well Neon Indian at least persuades me not to think "ah feck" just yet.