My favorite albums of 2023
I know. I’m late. 2023 was a weird year. Please give me some grace. // At least I didn’t cheat, again, in this list; there are only 10 albums below, as it should be. // I picked out my top three albums from 2023 a while ago, but narrowing the rest of the list down to just 10 records was a challenge. // As always, my top album is listed last. The other two of my top three come just before. The rest of the list is in no particular order. // I don’t have anything else remarkable to say. I’m late enough as it is — let’s just get into it. // Here are my 10 favorite albums from 2023.
1.) Lahai - Sampha
Let’s start this year’s this list in a dream.
That’s how I listen to Lahai (Young Records), the second full-length album from London-based musician Sampha. Maybe it’s because the first lyrics you hear on the 41-minute record are “Wake up…”, which come right before a disjointed voice cuts in, sharply, introducing a theme that’ll permeate throughout the rest of the album — time.
The first song, Stereo Colour Cloud (Shaman’s Dream), does also have “dream” in its title. The track ends by returning to that theme, with the same stark voice from the beginning returning to almost chant: “Time flies, life issues. / Back forward, I miss you.” The womanly voice chanting those words floats in-and-out with a male voice, almost like two people talking together but over one another.
Stereo Colour Cloud sets the tone, thematically and instrumentally, for the rest of Lahai. Intricate drum patterns cut through instrumentals built largely around the human voice, with Sampha’s own always leading the way. You’ll constantly hear subdued voices cut in at different parts of the record, like disembodied vocalists drifting through a dream, joined by full choruses that dominate certain parts of songs.
Sampha’s production layers all those different voices brilliantly throughout Lahai. Piano, of course, features prominently as well, most notably on the moody third song Dancing Circles.
There are some pop-leaning songs on Lahai, like the fourth track Suspended and the standout of the bunch (in my opinion) Only. Those are joined by more introspective tunes, heard mostly toward the end of the album, like the fully instrumental Wave Therapy and What If You Hypnotise Me?, featuring French-Martiniquan singer Léa Sen. The last song, Rose Tint, calls back to the sounds on the record’s intro.
Sampha is a singular songwriter and producer, and his dreamy Lahai is a standout work.
Favorite tracks: Suspended, Jonathan L. Seagull, Only
2.) 3D Country - Geese
I live in New Mexico. Does everyone know that? Well, now we all do.
New Mexico is a starkly Western state, known for its varied and rugged landscapes and singular laidback culture (Land of Mañana, yeah?). But advanced, world-changing technologies, most notably the atomic bomb, have put the state on the national map. It’s an interesting contrast, to say the least.
Geese, the Brooklyn-based rock band, plays on that contrast in 3D Country (Partisan Records), an album that attracted me in 2023 thanks in large part, I think, to my time spent living in the Land of Enchantment (another fun nickname, no?).
3D Country starts with a bang. We’re immediately introduced to the fantastical vocals of lead singer Cameron Winter. If you’re familiar with country singer-songwriter Orville Peck, Winter’s singing doesn’t sound too dissimilar — sort of like Peck turned up to 11.
Winter’s singing carries the album. That’s not surprising given how distinct it is. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve heard anything like it. Impassioned, cathartic, theatrical — I think the latter is the best way to describe the sound. The vocals let Winter play a character throughout 3D Country, a sort of lost, histrionic soul (think, maybe, Billy Crystal in the movie City Slickers), caught up in his own misconceptions and false idols. (Religion/idolatry is one theme on the record; alienation/love another.)
But just because Winter’s singing is the most prominent sonic feature on 3D Country doesn’t mean the prog-rock instrumentals don’t also kick ass. Third track Cowboy Nudes is possibly the most interesting one on 3D Country, given the punctuated groove that kicks off the song, the chaotic breakdown in the middle and return to the groove — this time with a cowbell! — to end. Undoer and Mysterious Love are other sonic standouts.
The record features some brilliant lyricism, as well. Take this line from Cowbody Nudes — “Honey, kick off your pants / We’re living in the future” — or this one from Tomorrow’s Crusades — “Even now, I remember, I can recall / Never can my hands forget her, taking it all / Teeth a-parted, eyes bianca, eating the world from her giant paws / Lightning struck your evil hunger, mother-of-pearl grow big and tall” — as two examples.
I love over-the-top, theatrical records. (See Spelling’s The Turning Wheel from 2021 or Jens Lekman’s The Linden Trees Are Still in Blossom from 2022 as examples) 3D Country is just that. I’ll use the phrase again — this record kicks ass.
Favorite tracks: 3D Country, Mysterious Love, Tomorrow’s Crusades
3.) Dogsbody - Model/Actriz
Let’s stick in the rock-esque genre for our next record, Dogsbody, the first full-length album by another Brooklyn-based group, Model/Actriz.
As soon as I listened to Dogsbody (True Panther Records), I knew it’d find a place on this list. Released in late February, Dogsbody is another theatrical record, this time with a clearer through-line.
Iin its near 40-minute run time, Dogsbody is a dramatic sonic exploration of an anarchic night out. It’s intense, almost suffocating at times, evoking a mass of throbbing sweat-drenched bodies stuffed into a dark room that’s pulsating with energy. (OK, calm down Jacob. Christ.)
The transition from Crossing Guard, the album’s third track, into Slate, is maybe my favorite of the year. Crossing Guard builds and builds and builds — that sense of suffocation — before releasing into a chiming, repetitive drum and guitar pattern that carries Slate throughout its three-minute-and- 23-second run time.
Divers, the fifth track, and the two final songs, Sleepless and Sun In, are the only respites we get from the pulsating energy that starts about one minute into the album. They’re welcome respites, too; the intensity of Dogsbody might be too much without.
Speaking of the record’s last song, Sun In is one of my favorite closers of 2023. There’s a grating, almost blade-like guitar sound amongst a series of twinkling bells, high-up in the air. Vocalist Cole Haden then comes in, after a deep breath, almost speaking: “The city put itself together / Today I went so far across it / Passing through the places we went / I followed them to the river’s edge”; it ends with Haden speaking, again, repeatedly: “So bright with the sun in my eyes.”
The super calm, hangover-like Sun In sharply contrasts the rest of Dogsbody, what is an intense, “bacchanalian” (please look that up), lustful album. “Pulsating,” again, might be the best way to describe it. It’s a really engrossing listen that pulls you in to a heavy, HEAVY night out.
4.) The Omnichord Real Book - Meshell Ndegeocello
Unlike Dogsbody, which I immediately knew would be a favorite, Meshell Ndegeocello’s The Omnichord Real Book took some growing on me. And, hey, that’s OK.
Ndegeocello’s Blue Note Records debut, The Omnichord Real Book is — by some distance — the longest album on my list at just under one hour and 15 minutes. Maybe that’s why it took me comparably longer to digest.
It’s also the most sonically unique record on here. It’s definitely jazzy and features a number of my favorite contemporary jazz artists — Jeff Parker, Josh Johnson, Brandee Younger, to name a few. But it incorporates spoken word, soul, bits of R&B and funk, orchestral arrangements. Jazz is one of the most categorically flexible genres, and The Omnichord Real Book is a true testament to that.
When I say this album took me a while to digest, it’s in part because of its sonic range, in part because of its length, and in part because jazz — or jazz-encompassing — records always take me a while to wrap my arms around. That’s often what makes reaching a point of understanding with certain jazz-like albums so rewarding.
Once you dig into it, you find The Omnichord Real Book has some excellent nuggets. What it lacks in one clear thematic throughline, it more than makes up for with countless bits of instrumental flourishes or sage lyrical wisdom. Noticeable themes that do emerge throughout the record are Afrofuturism (i.e. Virgo, The 5th Dimension), sex and love (i.e. Good Good), and growth and learning (i.e. ASR, Towers).
It’s no surprise The Omnichord Real Book took home the Grammy award for Best Alternative Jazz Album. It’s more than deserving, a record equally enticing when listened directly through or on shuffle.
Favorite tracks: Clear Water (feat. Deantoni Parks, Jeff Parker, Sanford Biggers), ASR (feat. Jeff Parker), Virgo (feat. Brandee Younger, Julius Rodriguez)
5.) O Monolith - Squid
Squid. Squid!
Squid finally gets its moment on one of my favorite albums lists. That’s not because I’m not a big, big fan of previous Squid albums. Bright Green Field is excellent. Narrator, the choice cut off Bright Green Field, found its way onto my Spotify Wrapped in 2021. I’ve listened to — and thoroughly enjoyed — a lot of Squid.
But O Monolith (Warp Records) pushes the Brighton-based band into a new level for me. In my favorite albums of 2021 list, when writing about Black Country, New Roads’ For the first time, I grouped Squid alongside the aforementioned BC,NR and Black Midi — all post prog rock-sounding outfits from the U.K. with distinct but overlapping sounds. That association is fine, for what it’s worth, but with BC,NR on a seeming hiatus and with Black Midi reaching for a more avant-garde style with recent releases, Squid have stepped squarely into an art rock sound that O Monolith captures excellently.
How do I define art rock? I don’t know. Most of my definitions are either borrowed directly from someone or from somewhere, or constructed from an amalgamation of different sources. Some of the albums Rate Your Music groups into the genre include Radiohead’s OK Computer, Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden, and Brian Eno’s Another Green World. Another is King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King, the 1969 record I think most resembles O Monolith.
Enough definitions by way of comparison. O Monolith, of course, stands distinct among its rock counterparts. It’s built around a clear theme: A theatrical descent into Hell, or into some sort of visceral nightmare. Driven at times by lead singer and drummer Ollie Judge’s punctuating rhythms and vocals, the record ebbs and flows. It reaches in more sonic directions than Bright Green Field, but doesn’t lose itself down one path. It comes back together, centered around a punk, almost funk rock sound.
The crescendos throughout several songs on O Monolith (most notably Siphon Song and The Blades) give the album some absolute moments. I don’t have a better word to describe it. Just moments. Seriously, the transition from Siphon Song into Undergrowth is one of the best musical moments of the year for me. So too is the entire musical journey on which The Blades takes the listener.
I could go on about O Monolith. I’m really glad it exists. And maybe there’s a more apt genre description for Squid, per the artist’s Spotify page: Anxiety rock. (No wonder I love this album so much, right?!)
Favorite tracks: Siphon Song, Undergrowth, The Blades
6.) Javelin - Sufjan Stevens
What to write about Javelin?
Sufjan Stevens, an artist I’ve long loved and admired, released the 42-minute album shortly after undergoing treatment for Guillain-Barré Syndrome, a type of autoimmune disorder that caused Stevens to have to learn how to walk again, according to the artist.
And then, shortly after Javelin’s release, Stevens wrote that the album is dedicated to his late partner Evans Richardson, who Stevens said passed away in April 2023.
“He was an absolute gem of a person, full of life, love, laughter, curiosity, integrity, and joy. He was one of those rare and beautiful ones you find only once in a lifetime—precious, impeccable, and absolutely exceptional in every way,” Stevens wrote about Richardson.
Listening to Javelin (Asthmatic Kitty Records) with that context grants the record a sort of grandiosity. It’s a triumph, a moving exploration of what it means to love and what it means to lose — two themes Stevens certainly isn’t new to — over the course of 10 excellent songs.
Songs that don’t, in any way, wallow. They’re full of warmth and purpose, intricately composed with layers of light orchestral strings, plucky guitar and piano melodies, Stevens’ characteristic light and airy vocals, and an accentuating chorus of voices.
No single song better shows these layers of composition than Everything That Rises, Javelin’s fourth track. It starts with a very basic, very plucky guitar before Stevens starts singing: “Can you lift me up to a higher place? Forget everything that was before.” After a few more lines we hear the song’s chorus, which repeats three more times. Immediately after the first chorus ends, the orchestral strings join in. Then, in the second verse, the vocal chorus, a piano, and more extended strings join to create a more filled-out sound. But the third chorus pulls everything back. We return to just Stevens and a guitar, playing the song’s simple melody. Then, for the last one-and-a-half minutes or so, we hear a quirky mix of instrumentation and vocals, somewhat disjointed but pulled together by a repeating line — “Everything rises.”
Most of the songs follow a similar pattern — a simple opening, slowly building with added layers. Everything That Rises is the album’s second longest track at just under five minutes. The longest is Shit Talk, eight-and-a-half minutes, another standout composition on the record.
Javelin is Sufjan Stevens’ first full-length solo project since 2020. It’s shrouded in pain and loss, but always bright, almost buoyant, in its musical compositions and thematic explorations. It’s an invigorating listen that reminds me why I love and admire the songwriter so much.
Favorite tracks: Will Anybody Ever Love Me?, Everything That Rises, Shit Talk
7.) Alchemy - Disclosure
Music has the ability to rip you back to very specific moments in your life. When I hear certain songs I’m immediately transported to time spent biking through Chicago (see: Vince Staples by Vince Staples review from 2021), sitting on a beach by Lake Michigan (see: Lianne La Havas’ self-titled review from 2020), or driving on a two-lane highway through southwestern Kansas (sorry, no previous review here. the album that comes to mind with this setting, though, is Rachel Baiman’s Common Nation Of Sorrow).
Alchemy by Disclosure (Apollo Records) does the same thing for me, but with flying in particular. I traveled a decent bit last summer, a total of eight flights going between Albuquerque and Chicago and then Albuquerque and San Francisco. Alchemy, which was released on July 14, was my go-to takeoff soundtrack. I’ll always remember listening to Simply Won’t Do, the album’s second song, while watching the ground slowly peel farther and farther away, the aircraft accelerating faster and faster upward as the pulsating drum and bass thumped in my earbuds.
Alchemy’s third track, Higher Than Ever Before, does sort of hit the whole “flying” theme right on the head. So too does the brief interlude at the end of Looking For Love, the album’s first song, where you can hear a fictional flight attendant say, “Alchemy Airlines flight 369 is now ready to depart from gate 49 to Los Angeles,” before the sampled sound of an aircraft taking off transitions the song into the next. More justification for Alchemy being a great in-flight record.
But that doesn’t mean Disclosure’s standout electronic album is only good for those fifteen-odd minutes you’re soaring up to cruise altitude. The record is full of high-energy, scintillating tracks that flow together for a solid 37-minutes of listening time. The build up and drop after the third chorus of Go The Distance, for example, is brilliant. Alchemy’s last song, Talk On The Phone, is an absolute earworm, a feel-good sendoff to the album. Sun Showers, one of Alchemy’s few instrumental-only tracks, is full of spirit.
Alchemy is a wonderful listen for whatever space you find yourself in, really. But, I do heartily, heartily recommend, the next time you find yourself ready for takeoff, putting on the record and embracing the moment, forreal.
Favorite tracks: Looking For Love, Simply Won’t Do, Go The Distance
8.) I Killed Your Dog - L’Rain
In a late August interview with Pitchfork, the interviewer, Clover Hope, rightfully asks Taja Cheek — the name of the artist behind L’Rain — about the album title.
“It’s immediately jarring,” Hope says, rhetorically.
“I mean, it’s horrible, it’s horrible,” Cheek laughs in response. “But it also evokes so many things that I’m thinking about all at once. Like, is it empowerment? Is it like, you wronged me and I’m going to wrong you? Do I feel sorry about it? Do I not feel sorry about it? Am I evil? Am I not? Was it a mistake? We’ll see if people respond to it. Even if they don’t, I don’t want to be in a precious space as an artist.” (I’d recommend reading the full interview for more on that latter sentiment here.)
I Killed Your Dog (Mexican Summer), L’Rain’s third full length album, asks all of those questions and more in a 35-minute look into the confusing emotions that come with relationships, of any kind, whether it’s with an intimate partner or a school friend.
Musically, the album is guided by a sort of airy funk groove on most of the tracks, a soundscape that envelops, punctuated by harrowing synths and punchy drums. I find myself bobbing my head along to the groove on songs like Uncertainty Principle and 5 to 8 Hours a Day (WWwaG), for example.
While an exploration of relationships and the feelings they illicit ties I Killed Your Dog together thematically, each track on the record explores that theme in a unique way. Take Pet Rock, the album’s third song, for instance. Hope, in the story on their interview with Cheek, writes that it sounds like a “skewed Strokes song.” That’s spot on. “You know I’m invisible,” Cheek sings to open the song. “Cut the bullshit and make me into something else.”
“Like a dead girl with shades on / Propped up by captors / I’m fine,” Cheek sings, later on. “I’ve got no one to talk to / It’s all my fault, I know.”
The next song, I Hate My Best Friends, plays like an angsty, overly dramatic teenager, with Cheek crooning, “I hate my best friends / ’Cause they want to fix me / I cannot be fixed, you see / ’Cause I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Then we head straight into the title track, I Killed Your Dog’s fifth song, and an immediate, much more serious tone. It’s an eerie, almost gut wrenching composition, sparse in its instrumentation, with Cheek repeating over and over “I killed your dog,” greeted with a horrific chuckle after she sings “It made me happy.” Then, at the end of the song, we hear Cheek sing, “I am your dog,” before returning to say “I killed your dog” twice more.
Those are only three choice songs from the total of 13 on the album, not counting the three interlude tracks that are all less than thirty seconds. You get a glimpse, just from those three, into the sonic and thematic territory I Killed Your Dog covers.
It’s not an easy listen. But it is an enthralling, introspective, at times scary, at others exhilarating (not necessarily mutually exclusive, I know) listen. For everything I Killed Your Dog packs into 35 minutes, it’s surprising the record didn’t land as my favorite this year. It was really close. Unfortunately — or fortunately, depending on how you look at it — a pair of pure hip-hop records just edged it out. And I mean just edged it out.
Favorite tracks: I Killed Your Dog, Uncertainty Principle, New Year’s UnResolution
9.) Burning Desire - MIKE
I slept on MIKE for a while. That wasn’t 100% intentional. I had listened to plenty of tracks either featuring the New York City rapper or by the New York City rapper featuring other people. Lossless, a The Alchemist-produced track with MIKE from 2021’s This Thing Of Ours 2, comes to mind.
But Burning Desire was the first full-length album by MIKE I listened through, intentionally. I had heard great things about his 2021 album Disco!, and even better things about his 2022 record Beware of the Monkey. It took until mid-November of last year until I finally made myself check out MIKE for real.
I’ve quickly come to realize that, besides this list’s tenth and final artist, there’s no other rapper producing music right who’s as prolific as MIKE.
He fosters a completely unique and distinct sound on Burning Desire (10k). The whole album, including MIKE’s vocals and the sample-heavy, oftentimes stuttering beats, sounds muffled, almost like it’s playing from the inside of a car you’re standing a few feet away from. But the songs retain their sonic quality, making that unique sound seem wholeheartedly intentional. Of course it is.
I’d be lying, though, if I said MIKE’s lyrics were always perfectly clear and easy to understand. They’re not. It takes, or at least it took for me, several listens through each song to pick out and appreciate what MIKE is saying. Does that make Burning Desire better? It certainly gives the listener more incentive to listen again.
And that’s partially what happened with me. I was struck at first by the unique sound described above. That made me want to come back. And then each time I did come back, I picked out more and more tidbits of lyricism, little turns of phrase I hadn’t noticed before. That’s the wonderful thing about most hip-hop records, especially those as dense as MIKE’s 50-minute-long Burning Desire.
I’ll pick out one example, because there are countless throughout the record. Below is the majority of the title track’s 30-second-odd verse.
“My Mama told me ‘bout this curse, how I was not above it / I honor her with every word and never swap the subject / Bottles clinking on the curb, think I’m out of budget / Naavin got me with the purse, think I gotta buzz him / The silent grieving never work why I reside to puffin’ / Just so I could be your person when I’m out in public / Someonе remind me that therе’s purpose in this life of wanting / All that whining be a burden or a sign we flunking / Ain’t been so hard to see my verdict was to die with nothin’ / Seen the worse from this service of my guideless loving / When we was huddled in this church where most had lied and fronted / All this time that I spent searching was the diamond cutting / Used to coddle up at Vernon like I’m dodging summons.”
If we had more time it’d be a fun exercise to dissect all the different rhyme patterns throughout just these eight lines, about half the song in its entirety. Suffice it to say, Burning Desire is packed full of similar rhymes, lyrics that twist together to spin tales of life in New York, family, friends — you name it, really.
The album even features Earl Sweatshirt. Need I say more?
Favorite tracks: plz don’t cut my wings - feat. Earl Sweatshirt, Burning Desire, Mussel Beach feat. El Cousteau and Niontay
10.) Maps - billy woods & Kenny Segal
Let me echo a sentiment from last year’s year end list here: billy woods is remarkable.
Aethiopes, one of two albums woods released in 2022, made its way on to that year’s list, although not near the top. woods released another two albums in 2023, and the first of those, Maps (Backwoodz Studioz), a collaboration with producer Kenny Segal, is my favorite record released last year.
billy woods has an almost uncanny ability to paint vivid scenes through his lyricism. I referenced that writing about Aethiopes last year, and Maps accentuates the point even clearer. Thematically, Maps, as the album’s name implies, is about travel and the psychology of an artist on the road. That theme is played out through the scenes woods paints throughout the record. Two in particular come to mind.
The first is on the song Soundcheck, the album’s third, which features Quelle Chris.
“I will not be at soundcheck / I will not be in the green room if it’s too lit / Could be at the local greasy spoon or Szechuan establishment / Courtyard by Marriott bathroom, blowing marijuana through the vents / Shower on, weed sauna, I will not be at soundcheck / But I might check in to keep ‘em honest.”
Another is on FaceTime, a track later on in the album that features Samuel T. Herring, lead singer of pop group Future Islands. (I’ll write the verse in full, it’s that good.)
“Three oboes, one clarinet / Black rainbows, the night wept / The room smelled like Marrakesh / Dubstep drift in the window, I sit at the desk / It’s a party outside, some half, some overdressed / They was goin’ off during Playboi Carti’s set / Now they in the halls, partyin’, checkin’ they phones / Bass shake the walls, I’m smokin’ alone in a cardigan / Thinkin’ of home / The cannabis single origin, waffle cone / Went back down to the bar again, wig blown / Afterparty packed like Parliament / Ass cheeks and cheekbones, lips slightly parted / Butter wouldn’t melt so I gave her margarine / I’m lookin’ like the help or someone who just wandered in / The vibe is animal pelts, chunky rings, clunky shoes, lots of ink / Dudes who order everybody’s drink / Really I’m just waiting for my phone to ping / I’m thinkin’ ‘bout you when I’m supposed to be thinkin’ ‘bout other things / I don’t go to sleep, I tread water ‘til I sink.”
The whole verse is a story. Especially that last line. The last couple of lines, really, which tie the whole story together. Put a bow on it, if you will.
billy woods is a masterful lyricist. Maps explores a clear theme that woods is able to enunciate excellently. It is, in my opinion, woods’ best project, and it’s the album I listened to the most in 2023. woods’ lyrics, Kenny Segal’s instrumentals, the story, the allure of the whole thing — there’s no doubt that Maps is my favorite record of 2023.
Favorite tracks: Soundcheck, Babylon By Bus, FaceTime
Honorable Mentions
Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? - McKinley Dixon
Shook - Algiers
Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) - Yves Tumor
After the Magic - Parannoul
Raven - Kelela
Sundial - Noname
STRUGGLER - Genesis Owusu
Powders - Eartheater
Ooh Rap I Ya - George Clanton
Heavy Heavy - Young Fathers
The Beggar - Swans
Space Heavy - King Krule
Ways of Knowing - Navy Blue
SCARING THE HOES - JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown
Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)) - jaime branch
Black Classical Music - Yussef Dayes
Volcano - Jungle
I appreciate everyone’s patience this year. Hopefully you find a record or two, or at least a song or two, you really vibe with above. Regardless, thank you for reading, and I’ll see you in 2024!
