Half-Year Roundup

The 50 best albums I've heard since January

The hard drives where most of my music lives

Can you believe the year’s half over already? I can’t, but it is, which means it’s time to take stock of things. I’ve been doing these lists since 2022, and the methodology hasn’t changed: every January, I start an Excel spreadsheet that I call “INCOMING MUSIC.” I organize it by Artist, Album Title, Release Date, Genre, and whether it’s a Promo, a Purchase, or just a Download from somewhere. I also make notes on Coverage: whether I include it in my Stereogum jazz column, review it for The Wire or DownBeat, or write about it for Burning Ambulance or the Shfl.

It’s either been a slow year or I’m being more selective about which promos I even bother to download, because my spreadsheet is only 235 albums deep so far. (Box sets count as a single entry.) Despite that, it’s been a pretty good year: The first draft of this list had more than 70 entries, which I whittled down to the 50 that have given me the most pleasure. They’re listed below, unranked, in alphabetical order. A lot of them are part of my Bandcamp collection, so feel free to check that out, too.

Yazz Ahmed, A Paradise In The Hold: Thrillingly exotic jazz moods from a British/Bahraini trumpeter.

Ancient Death, Ego Dissolution: Soaring progressive death metal with an old-school feel and unexpectedly beautiful clean vocals.

Benediction, Ravage Of Empires: Floor-punching death metal from a grizzled squad of British veterans.

Bombardement, Dans La Fournaise: Absolutely furious, shrieking French D-beat hardcore.

Peter Brötzmann, The Quartet: The legendary saxophonist’s final live performances, with vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, bassist John Edwards, and drummer Steve Noble.

Chaos Magick, Through The Looking Glass: Psychedelic jazz fusion from this John Zorn-assembled group with Matt Hollenberg on guitar, Brian Marsella on Fender Rhodes, John Medeski on organ and Kenny Grohowski on drums.

Chris Cheek, Keepers Of The Eastern Door: A warm-hearted, relaxed jazz session featuring Cheek on saxes, Bill Frisell on guitar, Tony Scherr on bass and Rudy Royston on drums.

Isaiah Collier/William Parker/William Hooker, The Ancients: A cross-generational free jazz summit; saxophonist Collier is barely 30, while bassist Parker and drummer Hooker have been active since the ’70s.

Ensemble Nist-Nah, Spilla: A fascinating post-gamelan collection of percussion pieces that create a hypnotizing, all-encompassing world of sound.

Sullivan Fortner, Southern Nights: A deceptively simple piano trio record with bassist Peter Washington and drummer Marcus Gilmore; give it time to let it get its hooks into you.

Fractured Insanity, Age Of Manipulation: Pounding, Deicide-esque death metal from Belgium; blast-furnace vocals, furiously riffing guitars and machine-gun drums.

Sinsuke Fujieda Group, Fukushima: Progressive jazz fusion from Japan with plenty of sax and violins, LOL; may remind you of early ’70s King Crimson.

Muriel Grossmann, MGQ Live Im King Georg, Köln: The cult spiritual jazz saxophonist releases her first live album with longtime collaborators Radomir Milojkovic on guitar, Abel Boquera on Hammond organ and Uros Stamenkovic on drums.

Gruesome, Silent Echoes: Basically a Death tribute act, and this album is basically a tribute to their 1991 album Human; you’re either in or you’re out, and I am very much in.

Mary Halvorson, About Ghosts: The third album by her Amaryllis ensemble (Adam O’Farrill on trumpet, Jacob Garchik on trombone, Halvorson on guitar, Patricia Brennan on vibraphone, Nick Dunston on bass, Tomas Fujiwara on drums), now with added saxophones (Immanuel Wilkins on alto, Brian Settles on tenor) to give the intricate compositions extra punch.

Gilad Hekselman, Downhill From Here: A simple but imaginative guitar trio album, with Larry Grenadier on bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums.

The Hemphill Stringtet, Plays The Music Of Julius Hemphill: Curtis Stewart and Sam Bardfeld on violins, Stephanie Griffin on viola, and Tomeka Reid on cello, performing arrangements of World Saxophone Quartet tunes and some Hemphill arrangements of Charles Mingus pieces.

Vijay Iyer/Wadada Leo Smith, Defiant Life: Their second album of trumpet/piano duos, more intense and sharp-eyed than its predecessor.

Kuunatic, Wheels Of Ömon: A Japanese trio whose music combines prog-rock, hypnotic chanting, traditional instruments and ritualistic drumming in service of a Magma-like mythology about an imagined cult(ure).

Catherine Lamb x Ghost Ensemble, Interius/Exterius: A six-movement work for flute, oboe, accordion, harp, hammered dulcimer, viola, cello, and two basses; long tones, sudden pings, groans and exhalations, uncertain but more beautiful for it.

Steve Lehman Trio + Mark Turner, The Music Of Anthony Braxton: A high-energy live album — two saxes, Matt Brewer on bass and Damion Reid on drums — that does what it says on the label (there are also versions of two Lehman originals and Thelonious Monk’s “Trinkle, Tinkle”).

El Léon Pardo, Viaje Sideral: A psychedelic, spiritual electronic jazz journey that combines trumpet, a pre-Columbian flute called a kuisi, percussion, synths and more into a cosmic suite that’ll make your head spin.

James Brandon Lewis Quartet, Abstraction Is Deliverance: The latest album by the saxophonist’s most magisterial group; contains a track dedicated to the late David S. Ware, and honors him well.

Lei Liang, Dui: A highly varied but intensely beautiful collection of five pieces by the composer, for ensembles ranging from solo cello and solo bass to two different duos and a set of three wind instruments plus vocalist.

Hampus Lindwall, Brace For Impact: A collection of at times punishingly aggressive organ (as in cathedral) compositions, one of which also features Sunn O))) guitarist Stephen O’Malley.

Intermission! Here’s 35 minutes of Motörhead, live in 1980:

Masma Dream World, Please Come To Me: Creepy electronic dirges made from warped field recordings, amniotic sub-bass frequencies, and harsh whispers and moaned lamentations coming from corners of the sonic field; beautifully disquieting.

Mean Mistreater, Do Or Die: A half-hour dose of bar-fightin’ punk metal from one of Texas’s best bands; sounds exactly like their first album, which is why it rules.

Messa, The Spin: Adventurous psychedelic doom from an Italian group who incorporate jazz, ’80s AOR, and anything else that strikes their fancy.

Myra Melford, Splash: A trio album from avant-garde pianist Melford with bassist Michael Formanek and drummer/vibraphonist Ches Smith, inspired by the work of painter Cy Twombly.

Hedvig Mollestad Trio, Bees In The Bonnet: The seventh studio album and eighth release overall by this headbanging jazz-rock unit featuring Mollestad on guitar, Ellen Brekken on bass, and Ivar Loe Bjornstad on drums.

Molvær/Laswell/Aarset/Drake/Dieng, Moers: A trance-inducing global dub-jazz excursion, only available to subscribers of Bill Laswell’s Bandcamp page, with Nils Petter Molvær on electronic trumpet, Eivind Aarset on guitar, Laswell on bass, Hamid Drake on drums and Aiyb Dieng on percussion.

Neptunian Maximalism, Le Sacre Du Soleil Invaincu: A 3CD set featuring three long compositions blending doom metal, free jazz, raga and drone into an indescribable, mind-warping whole.

Nortt, Dødssang: Ultra-gloomy, dead slow one-man black metal from Denmark.

PainKiller, The Equinox: The second and best album in a trilogy featuring the reunited trio of alto saxophonist John Zorn, bassist Bill Laswell, and drummer-turned-beatmaker Mick Harris; a surprisingly varied collection of dark, intense grooves used as platforms for wild sax improvisations.

Jeremy Pelt, Woven: A superficially traditional jazz quintet — Pelt on trumpet, Jalen Baker on vibraphone, Misha Mendelenko on guitar, Leighton Harrell on bass, Jared Spears on drums — that occasionally swerves sideways with the addition of Marie-Ann Hedonia on modular synth.

Ivo Perelman/Tyshawn Sorey, Parallel Aesthetics: A two-disc collection of improvised duos between Perelman, on tenor sax as always, and Sorey, who switches between drums and piano.

Phantom, Tyrants Of Wrath: Furious retro thrash metal from Mexico that occasionally has a punk-rock flavor, like Show No Mercy-era Slayer crossed with Damaged-era Black Flag.

Premazzi/Nasser Quartet, From What I Recall: A collaboration between saxophonist Kyle Nasser and pianist Simona Premazzi, with bassist Noah Garabedian and drummer Jay Sawyer; the tunes have a lush romanticism set to a swinging backbeat.

Relics Of Humanity, Absolute Dismal Domain: Death metal simultaneously so dissonant it’ll make your eyes water, and so heavy it’s like trying to push an idling bulldozer off your chest.

Ritual Ascension, Profanation Of The Adamic Covenant: Very serious, ritualistic doom metal; close your eyes and imagine yourself in a cave observing the initiation rites of a dark and mysterious cult.

Matthew Shipp, The Cosmic Piano: The latest in a series of beautiful, meditative solo albums by the most important avant-garde jazz pianist since Cecil Taylor.

Luke Stewart Silt Remembrance Ensemble, The Order: Bassist Stewart combines his Remembrance Quintet and Silt Trio and some poets for a live-in-the-studio session.

Surgeon, Shell~Wave: a pounding, occasionally assaultive album from a UK techno legend.

Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, UBIQUE: An extremely heavy piece for multiple flutes, cello, piano and electronics; mostly doomy and forbidding, with a few moments of light peeking through.

Trichomoniasis, Harvest Of The Killing Fields: Brutal death metal so dissonant and ugly it’s almost noise-rock; like sharpening tinfoil with your teeth, then jabbing it in your ears.

Venator, Psychodrome: Retro headbanging from Austria with the head-down gallop of pre-thrash metal, when bands like Judas Priest and Scorpions were still just the next step after bluesy hard rock.

Vibration Black Finger, Everybody Cryin’ Mercy: Lascelle Gordon is a DJ and producer who occasionally makes albums as VBF; 2017’s Blackism was a meditation on ’70s Miles Davis, while this one dabbles in postpunk and soul, so RIYL if you like Sault or Algiers.

Kamasi Washington, Lazarus: The soundtrack to an animated series I haven’t watched, but it functions beautifully as a double LP’s worth of Washington’s usual lush spiritual jazz-funk.

Wolf Eyes/Anthony Braxton, Live At Pioneer Works 26 October 2023: Braxton and the Michigan noise duo Wolf Eyes first collaborated in the mid-2000s at the Victoriaville Festival in Canada; they’ve bounced off each other a few times since, and this is a particularly squonky encounter.

Brandee Younger, Gadabout Season: Jazz’s foremost harpist is playing Alice Coltrane’s old instrument on this album, but her compositions are more earthy and sensual than spiritually blissed-out; this is urban hangout music built for summer.

That’s it for now! See you on Friday, when I’ll be telling you about a bunch of newly reissued albums by Ivo Perelman. In the meantime, why not buy Mama Killa, the debut album by guitarist Ava Mendoza, violinist gabby fluke-mogul, and drummer Carolina Pérez? It’s officially out next Friday, July 11, but I’ve got CDs ready to ship right now!