Inside No. 9, Episode #25: The Best of 2023
So here it is, my best of 2023. I’m sure there will be loads I’ll miss during December, but I plan on being drunk and warm during advent, indulging in Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole and Guinness. Without any unnecessary preamble, here are my 24 doors of delight.
Best Vinyl Records
Door one
7038634357
Neo Seven
I didn’t know what to expect from this one having missed the digital drops that I now know were met with some fanfare. All I knew was that it had an incredibly awesome cover and it was on Blank Forms Editions (BFE). Having been a huge fan of the label and recently blown away by the incredible live recording from Charles Curtis, Alan Licht, and Dean Roberts that also came out this year, I took a punt and ordered it blind without hearing a beat. Upon first listening I was mesmerised. Warm pads, analog hiss, crunchy noise and sweet pop vignettes delighted my ears. As with all BFE releases the vinyl was cut to perfection and the record sounds deep and resonant. The record got me digging out old releases from Excavacations and Khonnor, and I’m grateful to have reconnected with some of my favourite hazy DIY pop moments from that sweet time in the mid to late 2010s. And as I said before; that album art.
Door two
V/Z
Suono Assente
I must admit I was swept up in the scarcity of this record upon its release. I had been enjoying Valentina Magaletti’s more avant-garde percussive explorations when I finally saw that this it was unavailable everywhere. Damn. I listened to the record via Bandcamp and was floored by its catchy melodies, warm goth signatures and metronomic drive. Plus it had the most ridiculous cover photo that I’m sure pulled many of us in. Dare I say it but there’s a bit of the Sleaford Mods atmosphere to these songs, albeit without the recent tepid trite that JW has been vomiting since the early heydays on Harbinger. Even within the seemingly simple parameters and short running time, this record delivers such a massive punch, even channeling those dreamy moments you find on the first few Sparklehorse records. I was visiting my favourite record shop in the UK, Elephant Records in Winchester (you have to go. It’s incredible and a gem in a guff of a city), when I stumbled across a physical vinyl copy at RRP and not the scalps prices it had been going for on Discogs. I bought it immediately. We were staying in a hotel room with a turntable (I know I’m a twat but it’s a nice hotel) and I played it at once. This has been on repeat a lot this year.
Door three
Flora Yin Wong
Cold Reading
I only got into Flora Yin Wong’s music this year and have managed to pick up almost everything she’s put out including her book Liturgy on Pan. Her approach to sound design and worldbuilding is awe-inspiring. However wanky it sounds, she paints pictures with sounds. You can’t have her records on as background music, you have to listen. She explores dissonance, tone, musique concrete, rhythm, ambient, and field recordings in a way that feels deliberate and considered rather than beholden to chance or a disparate concept. There aren’t many people making music this good. The only other I can think of injecting a similar avant cinematic scope is Pan Daijing or Pavel Milyakov. Modern Love has done an incredible job of supporting her artistic vision and has produced a couple of beautiful objects in her recent releases. She is an artist I will follow closely and I look forward to everything she creates.
Door four
Jessika Kenney & Eyvind Kang
Azure
I first discovered this duo through an incredible intricate and out-there work via Black Truffle back in 2016. I haven’t heard too much else, but when I heard this record announced and saw the sublime artwork, courtesy of Kali Malone, I was sold. Released on Ideologic Organ I knew that this was in good hands. For my money, this is the best sounding vinyl I’ve picked up this year. It’s crystal clear and deep. The music is utterly spellbinding. It reminds me of Amelia Cuni, and a little of Alice Coltrane’s spiritual vocal works but has something uniquely subtle and light that makes it both deeply moving, enriching and enlightening. It’s elementally simple but incredibly rich and almost overwhelmingly devotional. If you want to be transported to another place then pick this up. Listen in full and be transported beyond. The next record on this list is powerful in its ability to take the listener to places beyond the realms of consciousness, but this does it with gentler hands. Yet the power is striking; like Grouper or Arvo Part at their most captivating.
Door five
Catherine Christer Hennix
Solo For Tamburium
This is an incredible piece of work and the sound is so rich and intoxicating it can leave you breathless, discombobulated and awestruck. It feels like time itself has warped; everything has gone plaid. I have tried to read to this record, as is often my want, drowning the incessant ruminations in my mind, allowing me to focus on the text, but I can’t help but get carried into a spectrum of light and sound. I was tempted to pick this up on CD so as not to miss a beat as it’s one long composition, but the double LP suited me much better as my anxiety can make listening to intense music in one long sitting quite difficult. Yet, every time I put this record on I listen in full, never able to break from the piece itself and needing to hear every glistening note. And glisten it does. This is the sound of ascension and captures the event horizon as light and time dance to the void. And with that, I’m sad to hear of Catherine’s recent death. This is a fitting soundtrack to oblivion and a document that will leave her mark entrenched in my heart as well as the ears and minds of many.
Door six
Lee Gamble
Models
I have been a bit of a Gamble fanboy for some time. I have followed his output since Diversions 1994-1996 came out back in 2012. His music is important to me, and I find myself excited with each new release in a way I used to be back in the 1990s and 2000s with Aphex Twin and Squarepusher. His approach to sound is inquisitive, thoughtful and emotive. He is a rarity in that place between the electronic avant-garde and EDM. I didn’t know what to expect with this record after the drip-feed of the incredible three EPs that came out on Hyperdub from 2019-2021. It definitely wasn’t Models. But I’m so happy he has kept me on my toes and produced something modern, innovative, moving and surreal. Some comments have found the AI-enriched sounds cold, but I only hear warmth, humanity and a soundscape forged in both digital and analog colours. There is a dark undercurrent to sections of the record, but it only adds to the resounding fullness of the sound and varied states of consciousness on offer.
Best Cassette Tapes
Door seven
Christoph De Babalon
Vale
I hadn’t picked up a CDB record for a while. I had enjoyed, along with everyone else, the reissue of his classic 1997 record If You’re Into It, I’m Out Of It, and more recently the weird and wonderful Teyas tape on Archaic Vaults with Antonina Nowacka, who lends her strange vocals to this double cassette. I love the way he explores ambient sounds and then dives into classic drum and bass with a cold European pallet. Where Burial hits the late-night spins in a smoky house party, CDB finds you lurking in an icy walk down the backstreets of a bleak city; the spy who never came in from the cold. This is heavy concrete, brutal and bleak music but never feels nasty like the worst of power electronics. It teeters on that realm of drum and bass I love, taking the collective glee of rave and dance parties to the shadows of a cold lonely heart. This is what a group of vampires would get down to in Fabric, glued to the subwoofers while sipping the blood of junkies.
Door eight
Tujiko Noriko
Crépuscule I & II
Wow. This record is perfect. Noriko has always had a way with sound, forging heartrending movements, but here she channels some of her pop sensibilities alongside her instrumental compositions. This is music that glimmers like neon lights refracting through glass, whilst shadowed with hard steel lines. It plays like Arca without the glorious pomp, like Bjork without the kitchen sink approach. It’s quiet/loud without falling into cliché. I mention these other artists with no contempt, just as benchmarks. I think a dream collaboration would be between Noriko and Fennesz. This record has some of the glorious emotional resonance as captured on the flawless Venice, and also holds a space so uniquely its own that it’s hard to grasp. Niecy Blues has captured that wonderful realm of quiet intensity mastered by the likes of Loren Connors and Grouper, and Noriko has done the same but in a very different way. Although often sounding as light as a feather there is a deep foundation of strength beneath these songs that makes this such a phenomenal record.
Door nine
Chantal Michelle
Broken to Echoes
It’s interesting listening back through this record directly after hearing Tujiko Noriko’s masterpiece. There are most definitely similarities in the delivery of glowing synthesized sounds and haunting vocals. But there is a tinge to this record that pulls it apart and lets it exist in its own unique space. You can hear moments of Eliane Radigue, Perila and even Biosphere. She skirts around experimental electronic music and new-age synthesis to create something quite incredible. The record also traverses many moods, from blissful tones to unnerving dissonance. Although often grand in scope I love the way the record always rests just enough on a grounding pivot, never reaching cliched heights at the expense of surprise. I want to hear more from this artist. I feel that she has a lot to say and that this is just the first part of a deeper journey. There is a nativity to this tape that I love, yet it still feels lightyears ahead of a lot of contemporary non-classical experimental electronic music out there.
Door ten
Charlemagne Palestine
The God Bear Archives I
My first experience of Charlemagne Palestine was way back when he played a six-hour organ recital in London. It was intense, and his glowing personality and an entourage of stuffed toys and brandy added a nice touch to the minimal monster of the show that unfolded. Let’s just say I’m glad I bought a book with me. I have always found it difficult to find recordings that do justice to his work, much like Ghédalia Tazartès, who has delivered the best live shows of my life, yet no recording does them justice. The wonderful Matière Mémoire released this double cassette of archive recordings which truly capture the majesty and magic of his live performances. The vocals on this tape are simply jaw-dropping. The Chassidic Etudes are a wonder to behold. I wish someone had captured Tazartès like this. Never has a recording sounded so akin to the live performances of both artists. There is something about the wobbly, and at times damaged, synths that sound so good. And the cassette is the perfect medium for this music. This has a devotional feel to it, but unlike the Jessika Kenney & Eyvind Kang record its music playing from the heart rather than building the bridge to somewhere else. This is stargazing by a fire in the midst of nothing but stones and stars, yet a passing police siren wouldn’t sound out of place. Brings to mind Bruno S.
Door eleven
more eaze
songs of luv + h8
Oh more eaze. What can I say? It’s hard not to have one of Mari’s releases in my best of the year every year. Talk about having a unique frequency to my heart. Last year’s oneiric blew me away. This year I’ve been obsessed with songs of luv + h8. I mentioned Khonnor in one of my previous reviews and his work springs to mind once again when hearing this tape. A lot is going on here, and all of it is wonderful. The record manages to hold your hand like one of Dickens’ spirits and guide you through the bedrooms of various stargazing youths. I feel like I’m 12 again, looking out my bedroom window, the cold air hitting my face as the radiator burns my legs. I remember looking at the lights from houses around my estate and wondering what was happening in each home. I’d carve stories out of the surroundings, imagining the dramas of suburban life. I’d feel weightless and traverse the allotments and alleyways of my mind. This record makes me feel like that boy again. The full fruit of imagination and exploration. A daydream at night. The mountain bike of my daily excursions with friends is replaced by the flying broomstick of my imagination. A thousand stories to discover; a dreamer seeing paintings in the shapes of the anaglypta wallpaper. Music to dream.
Door twelve
Food People
Luminous Immediate
Every year a tape lands that is steeped in the DIY goodness that got me into outsider and experimental music back in the early 2000s. Last year I was knocked for six by Space Food, and this year Food People have floored me. I did not buy this tape thinking it was a new Space Food record, how dare you think that someone as on the musical ball as me could do that? What a muppet. However, the surprise was a good one and the synergy written in the felt tips used to adorn the release. I’m really missing live music at the moment, and I’m especially pining for the likes of Ashtray Navigations, Flower-Corsano Duo and Jackie-O-Motherfucker. Those heady psych days. Well, it’s all on here; in tape form at least. This is a little gem that is packed with classics. It’s not long out and jumped straight to the top of my pile of tapes.
Best Singles
Doot thirteen
Animal Collective
“Defeat”
This came at me like a bolt from the blue. I’d given up on Animal Collective years ago, feeling like they’d become the hipster, George Bernard Shaw beard of music. One of the most touching moments of their back catalogue, at least for me, was Loch Raven, and to this day the song moves me so much. I remember hearing it back in 2005 when I worked as an intern at the wonderful Fat Cat Records in Brighton. The record Feels for me was when everything came together for the band. Post Merriweather Post Pavilion I’ve not been interested or engaged. Then Defeat came out. This had the sublime sound of Panda Bear as he delivered Person Pitch onto the world. But it has so much more. It’s a 22-minute song and for me is the best ‘pop’ song of the year. I’ve played this on repeat like it’s a 3-minute 7”. There isn’t one note or tone of this track that I don’t love. I think this might be my most-played track of the year. I love that a band I fell out of love with over 15 years ago can deliver something that changes my mind and reconnects the love. Defeat makes me happy, sad and inspired. What more can you ask for from music? Even when it turns into an Adams Family pajama party it still sounds sublime. If I could write a piece of music this good I’d die happy.
Door fourteen
Blood Incantation
“Luminescent Bridge”
How the hell could I not put a new Blood Incantation record on here? And with a glimpse of Werner Herzog’s voice to boot. This is such a glorious 12” capturing the blistering metal and grandiose synth-scapes that have made up the last two records. Rather than a fan-pleasing piece of filler it fucking slays. But I’m sure it also satiates the fans too. On repeat listens it never quite reaches the delicious majesty of Hidden History of the Human Race but it’s not far off the mark and makes me excited to hear what’s next. This lands on the right side of prog and you can hear a lot of their influences creeping through. The heavier side is blindingly good though. A peak of metal marvel. The transitions between light and dark are simply perfect. I feel we’re on the precipice of one of the greatest metal double albums of all time. I hope to finally see these guys live soon. I can imagine I’ll need a change of underwear.
Door fifteen
The Beatles
“Now & Then”
I got far too emotional when watching the featurette of the making of this record. I was likely channeling the fact that it was my Dad’s 70th birthday this year. He is incredibly sprite and fitter than me but knowing that your parents are now past the age of 64 is always a shock (unless you’re Al Pacino’s offspring). Seeing footage of George really got me. He looked like he just walked into the studio and I couldn’t believe he was gone. Not to mention John and then the change in Paul and Ringo as they are now after so many years. This single was more than the incredible work of the engineers. Not only did they capture The Beatles, but they managed to get the spirit of George Martin as well. The production has brought back the dead. I grew up listening, to and often hating The Beatles. I only really ever got into Revolver when I was older as Dad had saturated us with the hits. As I turn 40 and hit the hardest time of my life John’s words tug at my heart. It’s a song for my Dad and also about my Dad. The words destroy me. I cried for the first time in an age when I first heard this and that highlights the importance of legacy and family.
Best CDs
Door sixteen
Yann Novak
The Voice of Theseus
I first heard Yann’s music on a tape from The Tapeworm. Then I sought out his back catalogue and fell for his sound. Room40 is a remarkable label and the output this year has been overwhelming. I wish I had enough money to collect them all. This record stood out and has stayed with me. It’s very grand but at the same time demure. Moments make me think of the movie The Keep, others I’m floating in a ship from Inception looking into another dimension. Some signatures follow through the lines and lead to new vistas. It’s like walking the same path again and again and having shards of light and memory rain in varied intensity at every corner. Then it dips to deep introspection placing you in a bubble of thick gloop. Only to release you skyward again. And who doesn’t want to fly amongst the stars?
Door seventeen
Claire M Singer
Saor
Touch has been on point recently with so many good records and I love the DVD-style pack they’ve employed with the recent CD releases. My collection looks lovely! Reading the notes for this record one could be forgiven for being underwhelmed. Another organ composition from a modern composer, blah blah blah. But this is far from paint-by-numbers minimalism. This is soulful music that tears at the heart and sings loud and proud. Every track on the record is a world. It builds, it grows, it sings, it bursts, it weakens, it dies. The formula is familiar but is handled by an expert hand. Listening to the song Forrig I find myself reaching for answers, calling out to be heard and wrapped in a blanket of the most incredible sound. Other times the record has you puzzling over intricate drones only to be lifted into clarity in waves of wonder. This isn’t groundbreaking music but it is passionate and awesome. This is a record that I will return to again and again and has been the soundtrack to Jon Fosse’s Septology. Two works of art singing to one another from the heights.
Door eighteen
Arvo Pärt
Tractus
When a new Arvo Pärt CD is released on ECM you have to listen. Tõnu Kaljuste, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Tallinn Chamber Orchestra are astounding. I was lucky enough to hear Paul Hillier conduct the EPCC at Tewkesbury Abbey, and to this day it is one of the best live performances of my life. This is one of several devotional pieces I’ve included this year, although this is the only one connected to organised religion. Having grown up in a country with some of the most incredible churches and cathedrals in the world, as well as having Europe on my doorstep and seeing these wonders in France, Italy and Germany, I have a deep affinity to religious music of this ilk. I am an atheist but an avid reader of theology and history. Pärt was the first composer to connect me to a sense of wonder beyond the glorious sounds of traditional Gregorian chanting. The huge difference with the ECM recordings is the quality. It’s untouchable. It’s so huge in scope and precision it’s unmatched. Play loud. I mean you really have to as the range is crazy!
Best Reissues/archive
Door nineteen
Sonny Sharrock
Black Woman
It’s hard to say anything about this album but listen to the opening track and then tell me you don’t feel different. Transformative isn’t the word. This is a rare record that feels like it’s live every time. It’s raw, powerful, off its tits, and just so deeply evocative it hurts. I came to this record later in life after hearing the Directing Hand and reading about their influences. Then I discovered Linda. Then I discovered Sonny. Then I discovered music. This is so unhinged and brutally intoxicating that it’s almost obscene. I have been after this record on vinyl for so many years and thank God it’s now available again. And Superior Viaduct are the best hands to have it. It keeps all its majesty with no added fluff. There are so many incredible moments, and then Blind Willy hits and your jaw is left on the floor again. I am unable to sing the glory of this masterwork so please just listen to it. Sonny and his team of musicians deliver one of the most profound moments in musical history and Linda sings like she’s connected to the arteries of the earth.
Door twenty
David Pajo
Scream with Me
I was a teenager when I fell for David. Slint, Tortoise and then his solo work. I remember finding a 3” CD of his in the flat of a record label owner when I was in my early twenties. It was one of his Drag City singles. I then picked up everything I could of his but somehow missed this record when it cropped up on Volcanic Tongue way back when. Likely I was skint. It went out of print and I could never afford it. Then it landed this year on uSuper! and I had to get it. This was a bit of a grail record for me. I must admit I wish I had the original LP as the sleeve was so much better. I have seen him play a few times, and he has always melted my heart. Those early Pajo records are so special to me and I hope they get a vinyl issue soon. Bless My Pajo, a unique and beautiful human.
Door twenty one
Annea Lockwood / Ruth Anderson
Tete-a-tete
This record is a trip to tears. It’s one of the greatest love songs ever made. Particularly Annea Lockwood’s composition ‘For Ruth’. This might be one of the most glorious depictions of love on tape, wax, CD, DL, whatever. Hearing the lovers’ phone conversation amongst the recordings of nature and ethereal tones is just so moving. There is something so special about listening in, being a welcome visitor to private moments. Not a voyeur but a ghost drifting into moments of real life devoid of temporal constraints. This is what makes this a wholly unique record and one of the most special and emotive things I’ve ever heard. Never have I heard love so accurately conveyed and it’s just an honour to be a listener and observer of something so special. Even though one of the voices comes from beyond the grave the sound is alive and this is something that will never die. It’s immortalised love and so rich in the world that Annea has edited from her lover’s recordings.
Best Discoveries
Door twenty two
Niecy Blues
Exit Simulation
I was turned on to Niecy Blues by Foxy D head Brad Rose. I then picked up the EPs and then this record on Kranky. Like all the best music it took me a while to truly appreciate the genius of it and it is genius. This is a rare moment for music, the coming together of different genres and fusing seemingly unweavable elements into a glorious tapestry of sound. Grouper and Sade collide, as they both explore a linear palette to create expansive worlds. There is such a lot of restraint here that the quiet can seem suffocating, but the rich production elevates things to become a wondrous vista. There are elements of Kath Bloom that entangle with artists like MIKE and even early Seprentwithfeet. Soul music chops itself up with deep ambient and even the avant-minimalism of Loren Connors. There’s even a bit of Lonnie Holley, William Bassinski and Robert Aiki Aubrey. All beautiful people and yet Niecy lays down something so new and astonishing that I can’t even imagine listening to anything else.
Door twenty three
Agriculture
The Look Pt. 1
This record hit hard and hit a fresh vein. I had been going off metal, just kept in by a few bands and then these guys opened up a new world. They shout to the heavens in grand sheets of noise, underpinning things with a hopeful romanticism not heard since the early days of post-rock. And they still scream, drone, riff, and thrash. They do not shy away from the big screams and double-kick mayhem but keep nodding to the softer sounds of emotive metal and rock.
Door twenty four
Ann Eysermans
Moonlight Shadoh
There’s always a record that sneaks up towards the end of the year and takes you by surprise. Ann Eysermans’ record was just that, and it was the knowledge that she’d collaborated with her dog that drew me in. Rather than a silly gimmick, she wields her canine counterpart in a stunning display of atmosphere, passion and artistry. The music is broad, exciting, daring and kinetic. It’s a record you can trip to, run to, or send the world into a rainbow of saturated hues while out walking; like the reverse of the They Live glasses. Rich human breaths are often met with deep skewed barks and whines. The balance between vocals, dissonance and melody is pitch-perfect, hitting the playful dada side of musique concrète, without being suffocated in the abstract. Going out with a bang on this one.
Finally, here are some other notable artistic endeavours from 2023. Alas, my anxiety has kept me indoors for the last few years, apart from the cinema, so no live gigs or exhibitions sadly.
Best new film
Medusa Deluxe
Thomas Hardiman
Best restored film
Pressure
Horace Ové
Best book
Brian
Jeremy Cooper
Best video game
Blasphemous 2
The Game Kitchen
Inside No. 9 is an attempt to share unique narratives through the mixing of 9 songs. Every episode will showcase a new theme, opening up new tributaries of discovery. Inside No. 9 is presented by Peter Taylor, a former features writer for Foxy Digitalis from back in the late 2000s. Peter is a visual artist and musician and has been creating music as MAbH since 2008.
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