Jon Hopkins – Immunity: There are points on this record where the sound is like walking out of a crowded club and stepping into the open night, where the air is cool and the streetlights glow against the black sky and the extroverted expectations of the club deflate like an exhalation of air.
Danilo Plessow – Fabric Presents Danilo Plessow MCDE: No strong impression on my first listen, other than I like the pacing of how it opens and I hate the closing track.
Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, & The London Symphony Orchestra – Promises: Despite my dislike for Sanders’ sax on this record, I keep getting drawn back to the hypnotic sounds of Promises. And maybe I need to move beyond what I hoped Sanders would play and focus more on what he did play.
William Basinski – The Disintegration Loops: The first track is a six-second snippet of music looped roughly 3,800 times, until the physical tape deteriorates so completely that the music is unrecognizable. This is what Ozymandias sounds like.
Darren Emerson – Global Underground 020 Singapore: I’ve listened to this numerous times over the past 20 years, yet I’m hearing it for the first time. I’m enthralled. The flow and energy are working on my brain in a way that caffeine can’t even touch.
King Tubby & Friends – Dub Like Dirt (1975-1977): I picked this to accompany some tedious chores, and I completely forgot that one of my favorite reggae singers, Horace Andy, is on a bunch of these dub versions. It’s amazing how good music can immediately lift the weight of tedious chores.
Kimbra – Vows: I hate reviews where the star rating and the written words don’t line up. Jon O’Brien at Allmusic gave this 3.5 stars, but the only remotely negative comment is that her “chameleon-like” tendencies sometimes lack focus. So why am I reading a review of an album I own? Because I have no idea how I got this or why, and I have no recollection of who Kimbra is. It’s solid though. Reminds me a bit of that Sia/Labrinth/Diplo collaboration from a few years back. Plus, the cover of “Plain Gold Ring” is absolutely on fire.
Taylor Swift – Reputation: Change is hard, and most great artists who underwent significant changes in their career have a version of Reputation: think Help! or Rattle and Hum. Listening to it now, five years later and on the cusp of Midnight’s release, it reminds me how much I like the vulnerability of grown-up Taylor.
Taylor Swift – Midnights: If the past seven years are any indication, Midnights might be the only thing on this list for a few months.