My Favorite Records of 2023



Ángeles Rojas "breath into the forest, into the bird, into the song"


Armand Hammer "We Buy Diabetic Test Strips"


Bar Italia "Tracey Denim"
File under: three singers but none of them can sing, imaginary nostalgia, guy necklaces


Bill Orcutt "The Anxiety of Symmetry"
File under: horseshoe theory but with beautiful music and annoying music at either end


Billy Woods & Kenny Segal "Maps"


Blake Mills "Jelly Road"
File under: middle-class music, soft Los Angeles cowboy aesthetic


Catherine Lamb "parallaxis forma"
File under: the mathematics of sound


CIA Debutante "Down, Willow"
File under: resin hits, bunker punk


The Crying Nudes "angel heart"
File under: bands that probably don't exist, Dean Blunt's latest whispery girlfriend


Fire! Orchestra "Echoes"
File under: chaotic big band groove, Joe McPhee hollerin' about jacking off


Graham Lambkin "Aphorisms"


Graham Lambkin & James Rushford "Gondolas"


Henry Birdsey "Laments for Rhodes Piano"
File under: Angelo Badalamenti falling asleep to La Monte Young


Irreversible Entanglements "Protect Your Light"


Joanne Robertson "Blue Car"


Josiah Steinbrick "For Anyone That Knows You"


Julie Byrne "The Greater Wings"


Julius Aglinskas performed by Apartment House "Blue Dusk"
File under: concussion music, moving toward the light


Kali Malone with Stephen O'Malley & Lucy Railton "Does Spring Hide Its Joy"


Karenn "Everything is Curly"
File under: squiggly dancing, music to make your wife mad


Keith Fullerton Whitman "A Stable Environment"
File under: magnetic levitation, strange cloud formations


Khanate "To Be Cruel"
File under: not too old that they can't still beat your ass


KOU "KOU"
File under: not overthinking things, confusing but familiar, drunkenly riffing on Lucier


Krano "Lentius Profundius Suavius"


Lana Del Rey "Did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd"
File under: Seth Rogen's handmade ash trays


La Tène "Ecorcha​/​Taill​é​e"
File under: playing D&D on LSD


Laurel Halo "Atlas"
File under: club drone, orchestral screw tapes


Maria W. Horn & Mats Erlandsson "Celestial Shores"


Mark William Lewis "Living"
File under: drugged driving, rainy cities, moody guys who still smoke cigs


Mary Jane Leach "Woodwind Multiples"


Melaine Dalibert "Magic Square"


Michiko Ogawa & Lucy Railton "fragments of reincarnation"


Perila "On the Corner of the Day"


pmxper "pmxper"
File under: Russians in Berlin, women talking, sketchy drums


Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band "Dancing on the Edge"
File under: the spirit of DCB, Kentucky soul, peanuts on the floor


Sarah Davachi performed by Quatour Bozzini "Long Gradus: Arrangements"
File under: waking up before everyone else, feeling the temperature change as the sun rises


Stephan Mathieu "Mauve District"


Theodore Cale Schafer "Trust"
File under: forgetting the camera is on, reminiscing, texting an ex


Uranium "Pure Nuclear Death"
File under: Kaczynski metal, laptop industrial, back patches