BUMP'S 20 OF 2020
It goes without saying that this year was a fucking mess.
Over 340,000 deaths in the U.S. thanks to the absolute incompetence of the Trump administration. Senseless killings of Black people by the police. The inability to spend time with friends and family. Small businesses, music venues, and nightclubs shuttered. Lay-offs, sky rocketing unemployment rates. Raging fires throughout California and Oregon. A presidential election whose results are being denied by half the country… the list goes on and on.
As society as we knew it crumbled before our very eyes, 2020 tested us day after week after month. In an effort to stay safe and sane, we used music to escape from this nightmare whenever possible. Here are the 20 albums of 2020 that got us through it all, in no particular order.
New Light
by Gidge
Gidge has always lived rent-free in our music queue. Ever since creating their 2014 debut album Autumn Bells, this Swedish electronic duo (Ludvig Stolterman and Jonathan Nilsson) continue to paint an elegant landscape of impending disaster with each release. Their latest album New Light arrived at the tail end of a catastrophic year on November 6th, 2020 and brought with it a complex sonic structure whose by-product is a sense of palpitating dread you can’t help but dance to. It's a story of finding beauty within a murky abyss. Our favorite tracks include: New Light, The Cascades, and Over. As always, we recommend you listen to the album in its entirety. Pairs well with morning routines, creativity, and night-time thoughts.
Virus
By Haken
London-based progressive rock band Haken formed in 2007 and have gradually expanded their sound into an amalgamation of churning metal riffs, jazz time signatures, chromatic synths and anthemic vocals that defy categorization. Their latest LP Virus is a sonic tour de force that traverses fiery chasms and pristine mountaintops, lyrically detailing a rise to power and beyond to tyranny, the virus of dominance invading all aspects of life.
The dexterity with which this sextet migrates from genre to genre and progressive passage to incendiary breakdown is astonishing and consistent. The 10+ minute Carousel envelopes so many unique sections it could be an EP all on its own - snd that’s before you get to the five-part track Messiah Complex that makes up nearly half of the album.
For metalheads like myself, this album is a beautiful conglomerate of styles anchored in highly-satisfying and crushingly heavy riff-writing. For the rest of the world, Ross Jenning’s always-clean vocals and the band’s wide-ranging sound make for an excellent entry point into the genre, laying a velvet runway from which to explore the worlds of progressive rock and metal without getting bullied by blast beats or agitated by screams. Simply put, this album has it all, and deserves the attention of at least one listen through with no distractions. So rich is the tapestry woven with word and string that I challenge anyone to absorb the whole thing in one sitting.
Night Melody/Articulation
by Rival Consoles
Our obsession with Rival Consoles knows no bounds, so it goes without saying that when Ryan Lee West unveiled a new album back in July we were floored. Articulation is the latest installment of a geometric saga wherein the main characters are all signature synth tones whose character arcs resolve into unparalleled melody. From the staccato beats of Forwardism (which reminds me of a techno-futuristic march into battle) and the pounding patterns of the album's namesake, Articulation, Rival Consoles has created another tableau of art that will forever sit atop my proverbial mantle. As a bonus, West re-released the album in November alongside his 2016 mini-album, Night Melody. The album, Night Melody/Articulation masterfully demonstrates West's talent of sound wave manipulation and I recommend listening to this double album if you haven't already listened to the standalone version of Articulation.
It Is What It Is
By Thundercat
Thundercat’s 4th studio LP is a triumph of sonic emotional duality. If you’ve been in the same room at Stephen Bruner or read any of the myriad interviews he’s done over the course of his legendary career, you know the man is at once fiercely honest about his feelings and unapologetically ridiculous, equally likely to crack a dick joke as to bear his broken soul after the death of his best friend Mac Miller.
It Is What It Is wraps this yin and yang within pearlescent petals of cosmic jazz, tigersilk soft R&B and the molten debris of lightspeed bassplaying. Convention fails to find purchase on much of Thundercat’s discography and this LP is no different, combining guest features like a stoned man doing refrigerator chemistry late at night. Steve Lacy, Steve Arrington (1970’s funk star of the band Slave) and Childish Gambino join forces on Black Qualls while Ty Dolla $ign and Lil B trade verses on Fair Chance. Jazz virtuoso Louis Cole graces the album on his own tribute track, I Love Louis Cole. Overall, It Is What It Is triumphantly swaggers forth, holding the banner of Bruner’s irresistible funk fusion high.
Conference of Trees
by Pantha du Prince
If serenity had a sound, Hendrik Weber's latest album Conference of Trees embodies it. This album is built on the sound of suns rising over foggy meadows, their many rays clutching the horizon like celestial fingers. pulling them up and illuminating the Earth before retreating back into darkness, afterimages dancing under eyelids.
Weber released Conference of Trees following 2016's The Triad and its subsequent remixed and ambient versions in 2017. Combining his signature production style and an array of wooden instruments (some of which are homemade), the German producer delivers yet another paradigm of the minimal techno genre. Overall this album is a slow-burning atmospheric fuse that eventually erupts into Pantha du Prince’s unique blend of emotion and texture. It's some of the prettiest electronic music you'll ever hear.
Oasis Nocturno
by TOKiMONSTA
This album features 8 guest artists but still feels very much TOKiMONSTA at heart - serene, layered melodies give hints of eastern places, an exoticism dancing on the edge of your ears that you can’t quite place. Imaginative percussion and emotive melodic styling make Oasis Nocturno a diverse and engaging listen through and through.
From the jazzy shuffle and soulful vocals on Get Me Some featuring Drew Love and Dumbfounded to the snappy, pointed delivery of Bibi Bourelly on One Day, this album is chameleonic in its mood while remaining tethered to a few central arteries. The yearning, twisting hook on Fried for the Night, delivered by EARTHGANG, is the sonic equivalent of hanging out the passenger window of a car drifting by at reckless speeds. Phases is sad and beautiful but doesn’t release your hips from swaying either, a great example of TOKiMONSTA’s masterfully toeing of the line between turnt and touching. Come and Go gives major Pyramid Song vibes with its melancholic piano progression.
Some of my favorite instrumental moments include the drunken spirit-dance of Renter’s Anthem, the koto-like stabs throughout House of Dal or the questing, mythical soundscape of the very aptly-named To Be Remote - but the closing track For My Eternal, Oh Dream My Treasure holds a special place for me. It features meditative echoes overlaying each other like ripples in a moonlit pond, chimes and woodblocks mingling freely in a warm mountain breeze high above all earthly concern.
Blizzards
by Nathan Fake
In one silver lining of 2020, British producer Nathan Fake released his higly-anticipated fifth studio album this year. Blizzards is one of those albums that make me want to wipe my own memory just so I can have an opportunity to listen to it for the first time again.
The sounds on Blizzards open you up, voiding your body of every bit of energy, negativity spilling like sweat from your pores. While the album contains a few heavy techno tracks like Tbilisi, Stepping Stones, and Vectra (one of my absolute favorites), there are also smooth, contemplative numbers sprinkled throughout, which ease each transition from chaos to order. Tracks like Ezekiel, Torch Song, and Pentiamonds give opportunities to catch your breath before catapulting you back into the pounding beats of Firmament or Eris & Dysnomia. Don’t sleep on this album.
What Kinda Music
by Tom Misch and Yussef Dayes
Tom Misch is becoming something of an icon in the UK music scene, effortlessly jamming funk, soul and jazz into anything he touches. Previous releases from the 26-year old have featured upbeat vocals over minimal groove-based songwriting, sunny and pure and catchy as all hell. However, the new full-length LP on which Misch has teamed up with drummer/producer Yussef Dayes takes things in a very different direction.
What Kinda Music is heavy on jazz and less focused on Misch’s buttery vocals, instead exploring longform drum patterns and wide open space that feels melancholic and transcendent, mature and elegant. Tracks like the instrumental Lift Off feel like Tom stepping into his Jimi Hendrix moment, spreading his wings and unleashing his full talent, taking his minimalist approach to new heights of cosmic jam nirvana alongside bass player Rocco Palladino.
Others, like Festival, feature layers and layers of guitar, strings, bass and synth floating over one another in a gentle ripple, driven forth by Dayes’ ever-engaging drumming. There is a lot of instrumentation on this LP, but in a herculean feat of sound engineering it doesn’t feel busy, but rather full, evolved. What Kinda Music is everything I never knew I wanted from Tom Misch and more, and his collaboration with Yussef Dayes is truly a match made in heaven.
acts of rebellion
by ela minus
Take a peek at Ela Minus' biography on Spotify and you'll find a cryptically singular line that reads, "bright music for dark times". acts of rebellion encompasses the sentiment completely, containing ten tracks to simultaneously fill you with rage, elation, and kinetic energy during a time when outlets are a precious resource. This is an album to dance out your frustrations to, an album to throw on when the outside world becomes too much to bear.
We first heard of Ela Minus as the featured vocalist on Populous' 2017 LP, Azulejos - we also had the opportunity to catch her open for Shigeto in the same year; was great - and have followed her ever since. Where we once associated her with cheery, awestruck dream pop (with the exception of 2018's single So,), we see that this new album characterizes a darker world. Harnessing her inner-goth, Ela Minus has entered the darkness of the minimal techno scene like she owns the place.
Punisher
by Phoebe Bridgers
Sunny places have a strange penchant for creating somber souls. Los Angeles-born Phoebe Bridgers wields a delicate voice and dreamy, degraded production on her latest LP Punisher - and the combination forms a perfect vessel for darkly funny and starkly honest poetry. Infinitely and effortlessly quotable, this lean-in-to-listen album exists mostly as in intimate conversation amongst scraps of radio static and a guitar that sounds equal parts underwater and acoustic.
There are moments of splendor and scope to be found - Kyoto features a full band with brass section and strings, and Bridger’s feather-light vocals don’t sound out of place as they soar high and bright. ICU also gets the symphony treatment while remaining a bit more muted, and Chinese Satellite takes off in the second half, but this album is at its best on tracks like Garden Song, Savior Complex and Moon Song, when you feel alone with Phoebe, no filter between you and her. Quiet and warm in the beginning, I Know The End is the longest track on the album, giving ample runway to build to a majestic crescendo just where you’d hope. A last minute hairpin turn sends the song into a minor key and Bridgers’ sweet voice becomes unhinged, a primal scream, a jagged hook at the terminus of the delicate fishing line that is Punisher, yanking you back to the start for another listen.
Fearless lyrics and an unflinchingly unique approach to the album’s production keep me coming back to find more secrets tucked amongst this album’s many faded layers. Bridger’s enigmatic persona doesn’t hurt at all either.
Deleter
by Holy Fuck
Toronto-based electronic/rock/pop band Holy Fuck stepped into 2020 like they owned the place with their release of Deleter in January. From smooth bass lines to abstract instrumentation, melodic vocals, and a possessive drum beat that moves the bones of album, each track is uniquely crafted to keep you moving.
Featuring vocals from Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip, Luxe sets up a foundation on which the album builds. The opener begins as a minimal combination of vocals and arpeggiated synths that gradually introduces percussion, wandering bass and an unidentifiable sound that mimics the thrumming of stringed instruments until it finally evolves into a locomotive engine endlessly charging forward. Free Gloss sets up a hall of gilded mirrors in which psychedelic refrains and a serpentine bassline flow like a river of glitter, pooling for an extended bridge that lapses meditative before starbursting into kaleidoscopic distortion. Deleters marches determinedly forward as urgent, watery warnings bubble in the periphery and slapped and synth basslines overlap each other.
This is an album to which you cannot sit still, infectious kinetics refracted off every glittering surface, picking your feet up for you and moving them in patterns you can’t replicate with other music.
RTJ4
by Run The Jewels
El-P and Killer Mike have been decrying the dystopian state of things for 7 years, but when 2020 came knocking they bumped up the release date of their 4th feature-length and dropped it for free on Twitter, donating a pay-what-you-will price to the Mass Defense Program.
The on beats on RTJ4 are cloaked in cinders and industrially serrated, eclectic of influence but united in their darkness and urgency. These rising star MCs dazzle endlessly as they weave together clever critiques of police brutality and wealth disparity with comic metaphors and ridiculous entendre. The golden fringe on this masterwork of socially-conscious rap is an expansive guest list including legends from every corner of the music tapestry - Zack de la Rocha (Rage Against the Machine), Mavis Staples, Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), Pharell, DJ Premiere, Greg Nice and 2 Chainz all step into the arena to lay a massively satisfying sonic beatdown to 2020. This is required listening whether you’re despairing and disenfranchised or raising a fist to rage on the street.
2017-2019
by Against All Logic
Nicolas Jaar released a staggering 3 albums this year, and while Cenizas and Telas are both beautifully cryptic and deliver visceral auditory experiences in their own way, nothing moves us (physically and emotionally) more than the latest album under his side project Against All Logic.
2017-2019 is the soundtrack of a dystopian warehouse rave where everyone is moving and you're unable to tell whether your clothes are drenched with your own sweat or someone else's. It’s the perfect follow-up to the soul and funk-inspired sounds of 2012-2017 in the sense that it takes those inspirations and replaces them with straight-up electro-futurstic beats and samples. This is the music of the future, and Jaar still manages to sound ahead of his time, every time. You won’t be disappointed.
Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios)
by Kali Uchis
For a proud Columbian like Kali Uchis, creating her first album sung primarily in Spanish felt like an act of honesty with the world. While her previous body of work has been uncompromisingly english, Sin Miedo sets a stage on which this rising star can finally share the riches of her mother tongue and the wide-ranging influences Latin music have had on her development as an artist.
From the onset, la luna enamorada makes clear that this album is something new - accordion, bongo and spoken word roll forth a rich scarlet carpet onto which Kali slinks in full ballad, the rarely-heard lower registers of her vocal range lush with passion. vaya con dios is another departure, immediately Latin and super-spy-sexy, with sweeping strings, twanging guitars and a dry snare right out of a Portishead album. Club bangers are also available to satisfy one’s need for dancefloor release - ¡aquí yo mando! and fue mejor (featuring Rico Nasty and PARTYNEXTDOOR respectively) both bring trap back into the mix, lending some low end appeal amongst the more traditional stylings thus far - the former is contender for best track on the album, thanks in no small part to Rico Nasty’s incredible Spanish verse, something she learned just for this track.
ángel sin cielo concludes this soulful, eclectic and emotional journey with a lavish solo from Kali that swirls and drops in pitch, slowing to a hypnotic vocal nebula amidst melancholic flamenco guitar. This final nod to Uchi’s Columbian side cements the success of an album that defies the instinct to cater to the English speaking world.
Sixteen Oceans
by Four Tet
Legendary British electronic producer Kieran Hebden, stage name Four Tet, released his tenth studio album on March 13, 2020, but only his first album of 3 that would drop during 2020. Sixteen Oceans is a paradigmatic piece of electronic dance music that spans a diverse biome of rhythm, texture and melody. Harps, flutes and eastern instruments that defy easy characterization join nuanced minimal beatmaking to embody the sound of physical and psychological exploration - through flourishing landscapes and twisted dance floors alike.
Standout single Baby is all ripples and light, warm pads and distant chimes setting up a chopped vocal hook that carries us on a world-tour powered by the simple but bone-deep beats Four Tet has become known for. Teenage Birdsong finds a more placid groove amongst buzzing antiquated synth tones and a tropical pan flute motif that wanders and trips into and out of time. On Green Hebden feeds reversed piano and modulating arpeggios into a twinkling atrium of crystal and color, a more sedate meditation that still manages to pull your attention 3 directions at once. Since its release, these 16-tracks of dreamy downtempo booty-shaking club beats and mesmerizing soundscapes have found its way onto our daily queues over and over.
Violent Portraits of Doomed Escape
by Black Crown Initiate
Hailing from Reading, Pennsylvania, the five members Black Crown Initiate have proven themselves fearless trailblazers in a genre already known for its endless subcategorization. The group’s 3rd full length album, Violent Portraits of Doomed Escape has seen these already impressive skills honed to a razor edge. The album opener, Invitation, is a clear calling card, a bleak medieval mix of plucked acoustic guitar and stately cleans which breathes for a moment before crashing and swelling suddenly. Emerging from a malevolent cloud of black metal that evokes the cold threat of Scandanavian forests under a moonless sky, James Dorton’s regal vocals are replaced with a feral roar that manages to hit a very small target between witch scream and guttural growl.
Years in Frigid Light comes out of the gates on black-shod steeds with a sadistically catchy riff and a bassline the sounds like descending castle steps. Dorton’s two-faced vocal performance once again takes center stage, leading the charge with phlegmy vitriol before ascending to the pinnacles of some dark tower to lament the sky with pristine melody and impressive range. Bellow is one of my favorite metal interludes of all time - 2 minutes of feral throat singing that absolutely precludes the summoning of a lovecraftian horror. Death Comes in Reverse features a psychedelic medley of dark murmurs over a macabre bassline and swirling arpeggios that break off into a sludgey chorus over which Dorton once again sails in dark majesty.
Full of sorrow and sadism at the same time, this album is incredibly progressive in its songwriting and its application of mirror-edge segments that spell doom and despair with entirely different faces.
W
by Populous
Italian electronic producer Populous has unveiled his latest album, W - 10 tracks of Populous' characteristic blend of electronica and Latin American-inspired beats and timbres. Enlisting the collaboration of woman-identifying Italian, Latin-American, and Japanese electronic artists, this LP rises triumphantly to celebrate queerness, movement, femininity, vulnerability, and the raw strength of women.
Meticulously produced, W is a lush jungle of engaging, twerk-worthy beats that challenges the tropes and stereotypes of womanhood. This elegant, danceable album is fluid, evolving track-to-track from Reggaeton to Cumbia to techno. Populous consistently subverts expectation while simultaneously introducing us to singers, writers, composers, and producers that deserve our undivided attention. Our favorite tracks include: Banda, Petalo, and Roma.
Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm!
by Vile Creature
“The most metal thing that you can do is care about other people and the community at large.” This touching sentiment lies at the foundation of Vile Creature, a non-binary, queer doom-metal duo from Hamilton, Ontario. Partners and bandmates KW (he/him) and Vic (they/them) started playing and writing tar-pit-heavy riffs and grooves together in 2014, but the lyrical content of their music has always centered on their experiences of queerness, veganism and caring about others in an uncaring and violent world.
Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm! is a 5-track, 40-minute LP with the gravitational density of a dying star and the tempo of a death march through quicksand. Black tides of distortion wash over and around simple, but achingly heavy drums, and the vitriolic riffs that anchor each track fall with the inevitable pace of a grave being dug. Shredded-throat vocals are unidentifiable as male or female, each beautifully penned word is given an entire, screaming breath - with the exception of Glory! Glory!, a 6-minute choral arrangement that elevates the listener from the noxious mire. The transition to the album closer, Apathy Took Helm! is nothing short of genius, the last few moments of grace shining in a clean atmosphere before we are dragged, kicking and screaming, back to Earth. Once again amongst the violence and abomination, baptized in venomous feedback and bludgeoned by megaton riffs, we catch glimpses of the heaven we nearly reached as choral stabs punctuate the encroaching sludge, the album ending much where it began but with a beautifully deepened sense of loss.
Buy Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm! on Bandcamp, and check out the incredible band website.
If Not Now When
by Kelpe
If Not Now When is the tenth album from London-based electronic producer Kelpe (Kel McKeown). It's a collection of unreleased music made between 2010 and 2020 which, according to Kelpe's Bandcamp page, "almost never saw the light of day".
Released in August 2020, If Not Now When is doesn’t feel like a summer album. Arriving during a void of human interaction, it hits like a pensive, lonely drive along chilly coastlines, melancholy and curiosity mixing in streaks across the windshield. The windows are rolled down slightly, and while the breeze makes you shiver, there's a fire set within you from the tap your feet, the bob of your head to the overlapping rhythms. You know exactly where you're headed in the moment, but when alarm-like synth samples bellow throughout the track To Leave a Note, you're struck with a jolt of self-doubt. Suddenly this coastal joyride is without destination. Bad Münstereifel adopts a hip-hop feel with chopped vocal tidbits and staccato jabs that just might have been strings once upon a time, while Why Don’t You Believe hits a jazz pocket rhythm and spawns ever-blossoming and ever-wilting synth lines that feel warm and sad at the same time.
If you want something playful and chaotic yet nostalgic and moody throw on this album. It’s a delightfully unique collection of endangered tracks we almost never got.
It Was Good Until It Wasn’t
by Kehlani
Oakland-born R&B singer Kehlani Parrish has existed in challenge, and it has made her strong. From a childhood destabilized by addicted and absent parents to toxic relationships and attacks from fans that engendered a suicide attempt in 2016, all is laid bare on the deceptively smooth It Was Good Until It Wasn’t, an album about problematic love, motherhood and the female experience. Guest artists Jhené Aiko, Masego, Lucky Daye and James Blake join forces in one of the most ear-watering R&B bills we’ve ever seen, folding satin voices, saxophone and melancholic piano into already-lush atmospheres.
Album opener Toxic floats placidly over a minimal beat and mesmeric chiming synths that evoke a lighthouse lost in fog, an SOS beacon alone in vast darkness. Kehlani’s chops are on full display, accompanied at times by affected male vocals that mirror her ascending melodies. A garden of aural roses unfolds by moonlight and 808s on Change Your Life as Kehlani and Jhené trade lines, draped in layers and layers of velvet backing vocals. Serial Lover stops and starts, a tidal rhythm intertwined with acoustic guitar buoying lyrics hinting at Kehlani’s pansexuality while decrying the all-too-common struggle of being alone for long enough to heal. Lexii’s Outro is the last track and the last of several skits on the album, but holds special weight. A tribute to Kehlani’s friend Lexii Alijai, the late Minnesota rapper who tragically passed away earlier this year, this short track opens with Alijai’s voice alone in space before a gorgeous backing track of guitar, flute, piano and a tuned bassline suddenly rise to join her. Tight verses on the necessity of self-confidence in the male-dominated rap space, self-actualization and pride hit extra hard with the knowledge that this talented young person is no longer with us.
If you made it this far (through the year or the article) you deserve a high-five and a hug.
We’re looking forward with hope and back with sadness, but also determination. 2021 will be better not because a neatly-package dumpster fire has expired on the calendar, but because people will make it better. And until it does get better, music will be there to cushion us, help us feel, and inspire us to change tomorrow.
Thanks for supporting us this year, and here’s to what comes next.
