Well, we made it. Sort of. I mean, it’s not like this arbitrary changing of the year is going to change, well, anything, but it still feels like we’ve crawled over some kind of finish line. As I say just about every year, what an incredible year of music. This list will be incomplete every year because there’s no way to know about all of it, let alone hear all of it. Throughout the year, I keep a running list when something strikes me in a certain way. I listen to a lot of music (obvious!), but this is the stuff that stood out in some ways or left certain marks. There are also a few things I left off because, yes, they were great, but I’ve seen them in all the places, and I want to use my space here to shine a light on things that didn’t get quite that level of coverage. So don’t come at me. Ha! Or do, really, I don’t care.
One thing I continually try to do with Foxy Digitalis is dig and find music coming out of places that don’t get enough coverage (i.e. outside of the US, UK, and Western Europe, mainly), and each year, it’s in the moments digging for those things and hearing gems like Nabalayo’s infectious songs or Bios Contrast’s effusive drones is a reminder why this work is so important to me. That being said, I can still do better and will try to in 2024 as I really hope to run more interviews with artists from outside the usual zones, and just dive deeper and deeper. Let’s see what happens.
Anyway, this list is different than the last two years. I almost did the superlatives again, but since, for me, the biggest happening of 2023 (well, maybe co-biggest with The Sound Leaves) was starting Songs of Our Lives. It’s been an absolute blast to make and next year is already looking to take it up a notch. Because of that, I modeled this year’s article on the questions I ask on that show. If you haven’t given it a listen yet, I hope you’ll take the time to check it out while Foxy Digitalis is on hiatus between December 23 and January 7.
I have covered a lot of this music and these artists on Foxy Digitalis already this year through various channels (reviews, interviews, podcasts, etc), but rather than link all of those in this article (and thus mucking it up), just use the tags at the bottom if you’re looking for something (I’ll include links to some of the bigger pieces, though – i.e. interviews, etc.) And with that, here’s some music that left a mark on me in 2023.
Mondoriviera Frenton Cantolay (Artetetra)
yaz lancaster AmethYst (people places records)
Katie Lou Mccabe innersense (Self-Released)
Nicol Eltzroth Rosendorf Internal Return (Negative Capibility)
Carla Boregas Pena Ao Mar (iDEAL)
Post Moves & The Sound Memory Ensemble Recall the Dream Breath (Lobby Art)
How did I quantify this? It’s all vibes. All of these records are ones that stuck with me for various reasons, but I didn’t see them covered extensively in any way (which is a bummer! Let’s do better, yeah?).
Mondoriviera is one of many Artetetra releases I dug, but this one is so immersive and fully realized that it’s unforgettable.
AmethYst is so rich and engaging, and the way they structured this record to heighten its impact always gets me. Listening again now, I am just struck by how absolutely incredible their violin playing is especially – a masterclass in pulling our focus inward so we lean toward the music. “of neither water nor land” has to be one of my favorite tunes of 2023.
And then Katie Lou McCabe’s innersense is so raw and moving – could have picked this for the ‘albums that make me cry’ category – but her voice amongst these skeletal arrangements is gold.
Internal Return is kind of the opposite in its maximalism and seemingly endless sonic layers, but the string elements absolutely gut me (amazing guest spots too!).
Carla Boregas’s Pena Ao Mar kind of cracked my head open. I love the label’s description of it because it’s more succinct than I could ever be: “a ghostly set of deep listening electronics that plays like a symphony for an imagined woodwind orchestra.” Yes!
And Post Moves’ music just makes me feel happy to be alive, basically. There’s this sense of appreciation nestled in the lapsteel flows and ephemeral horizons that are infectious.
Private Lives Hit Record (Feel It)
D1G Kilter Roll (Self-Released)
Green-House A Host For All Kinds of Life (Leaving)
Wheatie Mattiasich Old Glow (Open Mouth)
I always think it’s an interesting idea of how things sit as ‘favorite’ or ‘best’ compared to ‘played this the most’ – I don’t know what I think about it/ how I differentiate it exactly, but here we are (it also made sense from the Songs of Our Lives angle, okay?). But, there are albums in my favorites list that I only listened to a handful of times because they’re dense, deep listens and take a lot of focus and energy, whereas these records – which I adore, of course! – spent a lot of time in my headphones. (and of course, having the separate categories gives me a chance to shine a light on more wonderful albums, of which there were plenty in 2023!)
Private Lives continues to be one of my favorite bands in the world – it’s infectious, cathartic music.
That D1G album was played at least twice a week from the moment I learned about it (thanks Tony Surgeon!), and it’s such a warm, wistful album. I always feel a little starry-eyed and slightly melancholic listening to it – it evokes such powerful emotions but does so in this gentle, heartfelt way that makes it so listenable and approachable. Highest recommendations to all of his work, honestly.
A special record. Green-House has been a favorite for years, but A Host For All Kinds of Life is on another level. The concepts and ideas behind it get straight at my core, and chatting with Olive Ardizoni about it on The Seltzer Salon was a thrill for me. They are really onto something with their work.
And Wheatie Mattiasich… the first album I covered on Foxy Digitalis Daily for a reason. It’s such a special record and her voice – I just sit listening with hearts in my eyes.
Amor Muere A time to love, a time to die (Scrawl)
Lau Nau Aphrilis (Beacon Sound/Fonal)
I didn’t even realize it until I started writing this paragraph, but I love that two of the three albums with lyrics/singing that stayed with me most aren’t in English. I don’t really know what’s being said (though I have translations for each), but the spirit of these songs is so embedded in the music and the world that music creates that it’s impossible not to be drawn in. All three of these got featured on Foxy Digitalis (Amor Muere was the only longform review I wrote in 2023, fibril was album of the day during Foxy Digitalis Daily’s run, and Lau Nau’s newest was album of the week on the Foxy Digitalis Podcast), so I won’t repeat what I said in those pieces.
Maya Al Khaldi عالم تاني – Other World (Tawleef)
ellen o sparrows and doves (Gold Bolus)
Yellow Eyes Sick With Bloom (Gilead)
Sure, there’s enough music each year to drown us all, but that simply means that there’s always something to discover from other times. All three of these came to me in different ways.
Maya Al Khaldi is a Palestinian singer and musician who completely blew me away with Other World. Within the current context, its emotional heft has even more gravity. Vital music.
ellen o was somehow never on my radar and I very much regret that, but sparrows and doves found its way to me at the right time. It’s such a beautiful piece of work, carving out a unique space in the vast corridors of electronic pop. ellen’s songwriting is immersed in wonder and intricate harmonies – it’s utter magic. She is missed. I’m currently planning a Foxy Digitalis Podcast episode about her work and this album.
I am usually not much into black metal, but thanks to Patrick Shiroishi via Songs of Our Lives, I’ve become obsessed with Yellow Eyes – Sick With Bloom in particular.
Carmen Jaci Happy Child (Noumenal Loom)
Ki Oni A Leisurely Swim To Everlasting Life (AKP Recordings)
Thandi Ntuli with Carlos Niño Rainbow Revisited (International Anthem)
Nick Millevoi Digital Reaction (Ropeadope)
If we’ve had a conversation about music and art this year, I’ve probably talked to you about the transgressive power of joy and whimsy and earnestness (and if I haven’t, you’re welcome? I’m sorry?). I think those emotions are real focal points in these four albums and a big reason why, whenever I put them on, it brightens the world.
Carmen Jaci’s Happy Child is so utterly intricate and delightful.
Ki Oni creates the loveliest, softest spaces that I never want to leave.
For all the incredible things Carlos Niño was involved in during 2023, Rainbow Revisited is my favorite because Thandi Ntuli’s infectious aura is palpable and engrossing (loved chatting with Carlos about making this record!). There’s such a pure, joyful spirit to this music.
And of course Nick Millevoi, one of my fellow travelers in this search for joyous, experimental weirdness. Digital Reaction certainly captures that and more, and when Jamaaladeen Tacuma is laying down some of the sickest basslines of 2023 on these songs, I am floating.
Lonnie Holley Oh Me Oh My (Drag City)
Lucy Liyou Dog Dreams (개꿈) (American Dreams)
Dorian Wood Philomeno (Self-Released)
Ned Milligan Considerable (laaps)
Some of these are no surprise, some of them were a surprise even to me.
Lonnie Holley’s Oh Me Oh My is one of the most moving pieces of music I’ve heard in years. I feel lucky to live in a world where he is creating things like this album (or his painting, They Never Saw Our Faces (2021) that hangs in Tulsa’s Philbrook Museum – my favorite piece they own).
Lucy Liyou’s music is unlike anything else, and Dog Dreams (개꿈) is possibly the album I find the most difficult to listen to in 2023.
And Dorian Wood – her vocal power is so visceral and moving that whenever I play Philomeno, I can’t move. She is a force. I love her.
Ned Milligan’s Considerable is perhaps the strangest addition to this list, but a few months ago as I was listening to it, I experienced connections to the album’s sound world that came from a place where I simply felt so appreciative of the small things that held hidden meaning in my life. A beautiful record indeed.
Plume Girl In the End We Begin (mappa)
Lunar Corp Tourism (Dragon’s Eye Recordings)
Stella Kola s/t (Self-Released)
Flesh & The Dream Choose Mortality (Everything Forever)
MIZU Distant Intervals (NNA Tapes)
I love a debut album that comes out of seemingly nowhere to basically break me into bits. There were some incredible ones this year that also appear elsewhere on this list, but part of why these were exciting is first forays are an important part of why they stuck with me.
Plume Girl combines sonic frontiers in ways I’ve never heard, and this amalgamation of sounds feels like such a fertile space to explore. Considering how great In the End We Begin is, I can only dream about what will come in the future.
Lunar Corp shows such restraint in his work. It’s remarkable. Tourism is also such a joy to listen to as it takes us on an unexpected journey. Check out this interview I did for the site earlier in the year.
Stella Kola is a bunch of old heads weaving new golden strands into something so beautiful and expansive. Each time I listen to it, I find something else to love.
Flesh & The Dream brings two absolute heavyweights together for a dark space, deep jungle brain scrape. Shackleton’s production is the perfect foil for Heather Leigh’s incantations – it’s such a match that I can’t believe it’s taken this long to happen, but the way Choose Mortality slithers across the skin and soaks into our bloodstream, it’s as though this music has always been part of us.
MIZU’s Distant Intervals kind of tore my heart out in the best way possible, though. She builds magical, emotive worlds with her cello.
SG For Lovers Only / Rain Suite (Faitiche)
I am glad that Andrew Pekler shared his romantic side with us through these two side-long suites of tender guitar explorations. It’s so lovely and sentimental. Check out Andrew’s episode of Songs of Our Lives – he has so much insight with his picks and genuinely blew my mind at least once.
Tristan Allen Tin Iso & The Dawn (RVNG Intl)
Madison Greenstone Resonance Studies in Ecstatic Consciousness (Relative Pitch)
Alright, these are kind of random, but let’s go with them.
Tristan Allen’s album (and our conversation on The Seltzer Salon) really unlocked this idea of world-building on a grand scale through music. And their plans to further expand this world and tell stories within it through sound (and their incredible puppetry practice!) is so incredible to me. I am genuinely in awe of the whole thing. Tristan was one of the last guests on The Seltzer Salon before it was absorbed into the Foxy Digitalis Podcast, and we had such a delightful conversation.
With Madison Greenstone, they completely shattered my ideas of what a clarinet is? Can do? I don’t even know, but Resonance Studies in Ecstatic Consciousness expands the instrument’s sonic landscape so much for me that it has completely blown my mind. The conceptual framework and sonic effects are fantastic.
Each year, this list becomes harder to do. I overthink it and then overthink it some more, and ultimately, basically, went with vibes. When looking back at the year, these are the records I find myself thinking about the most (not necessarily listening to the most, as previously mentioned). Every one of them is gargantuan in its own way, a resonant force that once unlocked was lodged firmly in my gray matter. Each one of these (and the next one) is crucial.
Mayssa Jallad Marjaa: The Battle Of The Hotels (Ruptured)
Chief Adjuah Bark Out Thunder Roar Out Lightning (Ropeadope)
Nyokabi Kariuki Feeling Body (cmntx)
Matana Roberts Coin Coin Chapter Five: In The Garden... (Constellation)
Ben Vida w/ Yarn/Wire and Nina Dante The Beat My Head Hit (Shelter Press)
David Toop & Lawrence English The Shell That Speaks The Sea (Room 40)
Meshell Ndegeocello The Omnichord Real Book (Blue Note)
Lucy Railton Corner Dancer (Modern Love)
Réservoir La pêche aux ondines (Jeunesse Cosmique)
Colin Stetson When we were that what wept for the sea (Self-Released)
Niecy Blues Exit Simulation (kranky)
Y’all know me and know I usually don’t rank things or anything like that, but Niecy Blues’ Exit Simulation hit me in such a way that I have to call it out specifically as my favorite record in 2023. There are so many twisting personal narratives intertwined throughout the album find universal observations within otherworldly resonance and ephemera. Niecy controls the mood, keeping all eyes pointed at the prize, while constantly opening new windows to inner spaces. Smeared gospel melodies bleed into snaking R&B-infused rhythms, all of it blurring into cosmic silhouettes to give their voice a platform to shine above it all. An amazing, amazing album, and one that will stay with me for a long time.
Doing an episode of Songs of Our Lives with Niecy was an early highlight of the series for me.
Obviously, I am going to take every opportunity I can to throw some light on more great music from this year, so here’s a handful of others that stayed with me. I could probably list twice as many, but let’s be honest – this piece is already unwieldy as it is. I do not apologize, it’s just the way I am.
Angel Bat Dawid Requiem for Jazz (International Anthem)
Madhuvanti Pal The Holy Mother (Plays The Rudra Veena) (Sublime Frequencies)
Matt Weston Embrace This Twlight (Self-Released)
Lord Spikeheart & Elvin Brandhi Drunk in Love (Hakuna Kulala)
Adela Mede Ne Lépj a Virágra (Warm Winters Ltd/mappa)
Aho Ssan Rhizomes (Other People)
Svitlana Nianio & Tom James Scott Eye of the Sea (Skire)
Ilyas Ahmed A Dream of Another (Geographic North)
Sam Dunscombe Two Forests (Black Truffle)
Heejin Jang Me and the Glassbirds (Doom Trip)
Mary Jane Leach Woodwind Multiples (Modern Love)
Gregg Kowalsky Eso Es (Mexican Summer)
Ale Hop & Laura Robles Agua Dulce (Buh Records)
Karen Vogt Le Mans (Waxing Crescent)
Linda Smith & Nancy Andrews A Passing Cloud (Grapefruit)
Jacques Puech Gravir / Canon (La Nòvia)
BLAKMOTH Hissing Silence (Errorgrid)
Charbel Haber and Fadi Tabbal Enfin La Nuit (Ruptured)
Some various bits here, just to wrap up any loose threads.
A special mention to RVNG Intl for all the incredible work they did this year (Tristan Allen, M. Sage, but especially the Pauline Anna Strom boxed set). There was such a wonderful throughline with their releases this year that told some kind of story I’m still deciphering. I also really enjoyed my conversation with Matt Werth about Pauline Anna Strom – a highlight this year for me as it is music that means a lot.
Track
Proteins of Magic “Divine Physics”
This song lives rent-free in my head. I think about it at least once a week at minimum. I really hope she puts out a new record next year.
Podcasts
As I’ve dug myself further into the world of producing podcasts, I have also listened to more podcasts. Anyone with good gardening/nature or cooking/food podcasts hit me with those recommendations! Otherwise, here are some favorites from this year:
Aquarium Drunkard’s Transmissions
By-The-Bywater: A Tolkien Podcast
Books
I feel like I read very little from this year during this year (still catching up from three years ago or something), but here are three that everyone should check out. I’m not just saying this because Marc Masters and Natasha Pickowicz were on Songs of Our Lives, either! (plus, the latter has me excited to try baking things that are way above my paygrade (like this black sesame chiffon cake I’m going to attempt for New Year’s), which is saying A LOT)
High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape by Marc Masters
The Ferguson Report: An Erasure by Nicole Sealey
More Than Cake by Natasha Pickowicz
Video Game
Look, I’m basic perhaps, but it’s obviously Tears of the Kingdom, and my kid and I are still having a blast trying to find all the caves.
Special mention to Louis Carnell’s 111 series as it continues towards a conclusion in spring. It’s such a great project with so many incredible collaborations – it’s hard to get my head around it, honestly, but that’s a huge part of the appeal. And then there’s all of these absolute gems – and that’s just things that have been announced! It’s already looking like a stellar year.
Disfig & The Body Orchards of a Futile Heaven (Thrill Jockey)
Ariel Kalma, Jeremiah Chiu, & Marta Sofia Honer The Closest Thing to Silence (International Anthem)
DJ Anderson do Paraiso Queridão (Nyege Nyege)
Concepción Huerta The Earth Has Memory (Elevator Bath)
Jamaaladeen Tacuma & Odeon Pope The Lighthouse (Jam All Productions)
And lastly, reader support goes a long, long way to keeping Foxy Digitalis functioning and, well, existing. I appreciate everyone who has signed up for Patreon, a Bandcamp subscription, or thrown a few bucks FD’s way. If you like what Foxy Digitalis does, consider the following:
Dear Brad your link to Fibril rot leads to Amor muere Thank you for work Best Philippe