Review of 2020

Dan Trubridge

I\’ll start with a snippet from the email for my 28th March 2020 CWMP3s show:

\’My last show now feels like the distant past: there I was breezily picking over the highlights of 2019 not knowing we\’d all be living in a mildly Mad-Max-esque future where a toilet roll based currency is looking increasingly likely.\’

In the intervening period spirits have been kept up by:

• My local venue starting to live-stream performances
• The local record shop starting home delivery – obviously to a safe distance from the front door
• The joy of records ordered late at night, forgotten about, then unexpectedly turning up – our post lady has risen admirably to the challenge of increased vinyl deliveries

Anyway back to the point, my top ten of the year:

1. Heaven To A Tortured Mind by Yves Tumor
2. Nothing as the Ideal by All Them Witches
3. I Am Moron by The Lovely Eggs
4. FREE I.H- This Is Not the One You\’ve Been Waiting For by illuminati hotties
5. Sugaregg by Bully
6. Stray Fantasies by Mint Julep
7. New Light by Gidge
8. Sprawling by Happy Accidents
9. Working Men\’s Club by Working Men\’s Club
10. This Place Sucks Ass by PUP

Honourable mentions..

Lots of great releases from artists and venues doing their best to keep themselves or others going due to lack of touring, here\’s a couple:

• Torche – Part Time Punks Session
• Various Artists – Live At Windmill Brixton – In Between The Lockdowns

Also of note:

• Compilations and singles on the Future Disco label
• EPs by Llewellyn (Lake People) on the Riotvan label
• Citizen Bravo, Raymond MacDonald & Friends: Return To Y\’hup – The World of Ivor Cutler

Dishonourable mention..

• If you want to stoke the fires of raging debate within the CWMP3s team do a covers show. Favourite from my covers special was The Fall\’s cover of Lost In Music.

Glen Wiffen

Not a year for diggers of obscure recordings from the dusty corners of shops I could have sworn were not on such and such a road the last time I passed through, but in those brief moments we were allowed out I made up for it.

Not least when John Parsons & family came calling and he and I went in search of records. We did not find many, but did manage to stagger home with armfuls of discounted CD’s from over the past few years. Being new to me I have allowed one of these to enter my Top Ten of the year – The American band Euphoria is a tragic tale of that inspired ‘lost’ album that got rejected, bogged down in red tape, a fantastical advance recalled by the label and a final backwater release before the musicians returned to the day job. Eventually being found and reissued on CD some years later.

In truth I have not bought many ‘new’ albums this year, preferring instead to explore all that I had not gotten around to from previous years. I have though indulged myself in a few box sets, most noticeably King Crimson’s ‘1969’ Archive and Neil Young’s long awaited second set Archives II covering 1972 – 1976

I have chosen to exclude these from my Top Ten of the year though, so that I can focus on new releases that will hopefully inspire some of you to purchase and support these wonderful musicians. It would be nice to think they will still be there for us in the ‘live’ arena when this Pandemic is behind us. 

10. The Waterboys – Good Luck, Seeker

9. Euphoria – A Gift From

8. Dan O’Farrell & The Difference Engine – Richard Scarry Lied To Me

7. El Goodo – Zombie

6. Hawkwind – All Aboard The Skylark

5. Run The Jewels – RTJ4

4. Phillip Sollman – Monophonie

3. Quint – Forever

2. Kavus Torabi – Hip To The Jag

1. Rael Jones – Mother Ech0

Matthew Martin

Wow! This was hard work. Not including reissues, I purchased forty new releases this year. That is a lot for me and definitely indicative of a lockdown spent going down the Bandcamp rabbit hole and making a lot of purchases online. It also shows what was a great year for new music and album releases. 

A lot of great albums missed out on the final picks which I almost feel guilty about. Exciting , creative and innovative albums by Jarv Is, Working Men’s Club and Ultraista. 

In keeping with my passions for the genre, some outstanding albums in Punk and it’s many sub-genres fell by the wayside too. Chemtrails, Sweet Reaper, Jehnny Beth and the outstanding debut by Ganser all missed the cut. 

Most painful of all was not finding a place for some sublime recordings from Soccer Mommy or Bdrmm. 

But the final list, I think, is a good representation of my year in music and the albums that truly stuck with me through the year that felt like a decade that has been 2020. It is a mixture of music from favourite returning artists, debuts from new bands and bands new to me. So without further ado here are my ten best albums of the year. 

#1 Porridge Radio – Every Bad

#2 Waxahatchee – Saint Cloud

#3 Cable Ties – Far Enough

#4 Pillow Queens – In Waiting

#5 Dehd – Flower of Devotion

#6 Laura Marling – Song For Our Daughter

#7 Beach Bunny – Honeymoon

#8 Clem Snide – Forever Just Beyond

#9 Ohmme – Fantasize Your Ghost

#10 IDLES – Ultra Mono

Andrew Kingston

So, it seems like it\’s not been quite as difficult for me to compile this list as some of my Comes With MPs colleagues.  Invariably when it comes to the end of the year I haven\’t bought as much new material as I thought I might have.  So, out of the 30 or so records from 2020 that I bought, there were a chunk of re-issues, including a number of the PJ Harvey re-issues which I wanted to get on vinyl. Her demos albums (apart from 4-Track Demos) could have been considered new, but I don\’t consider any of those better than the studio albums, so it seemed wrong to include them.

A couple of albums may have missed out due to not including downloads.  Bill Callahan\’s, Gold Record, which has sounded pretty good the bits I\’ve heard, but it\’s not had enough play to be properly digested.  The other one is Stephen Malkmus\’, Traditional Techniques, which sat ignored in a pile for quite a while because I\’d forgotten I had it & I\’m still not sure yet what it really sounds like.  I also got the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Live In Maui as a Christmas present which going by initial listens could have made it into the top 10 had I got it earlier in the year.

A couple of records narrowly missed out because they didn\’t fit the criteria – NOBRO\’s debut, Sick Hustle is a brilliant pop-punk 4-track EP.  And Idaho remastered and reissued Levitate, an album of theirs I\’d not heard before , but is gorgeous.  Then there were those that were very close to making the top 10: Dogleg, with Melee, Bob Mould, with Blue Hearts, and Osees, with Protean Threat.  Here\’s what did make it:-

Katie Malco – Failures

Coriky – Coriky

Pinegrove – Marigold

Illuminati Hotties – Free IH: This Is Not The One You\’ve Been Waiting For

Owen – The Avalanche

Carla Geneve – Extended EP

Hey Colossus – Dances / Curses

Mint Mile – Ambertron

June Of 44 – Revisionist: Adaptations & Future Histories In The Time Of Love And Survival

Into It Over It – Figure

Alan Devey

10. Waxahatchee – Saint Cloud

9. Retirement Party – Runaway Dog

8. William Elliott Whitmore – I’m With You

7. Juniore – Un, Deux, Trois

6. Ariel Sharratt and Mathias Kom (The Burning Hell) – Never Work

5. Beach Bunny – Honeymoon

4. The Bitter Springs – The Odd Shower

3. The Lovely Eggs – I Am Moron

2. Pinegrove – Marigold

1. Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher

John Parsons

I found it very difficult to make time to listen to music this year since working in Education proved even more challenging than usual.  This did not affect my appetite for new music and below my top ten is a list of all the vinyl I bought this year that was released this year because I may not have done some of it justice.

I have not bothered to list reissues since that is cheating.

For my top ten, I excluded any record that either came without a download or for which I was unable to get one from the artist.  That culled a few key players, Beach Bunny and notably Bill Callahan, who really got it right this year.  I was unable to play them on the show because of this.

I tried to tend towards new bands or new collaborations, so strong albums like Rolling Blackouts CF and Atmosphere fell by the wayside, again – brilliant records.

I excluded live albums and things that were kind of reissues which got rid of Belle and Sebastian and FSOL (Cascade for RSD) amongst others.

There were also two really good posthumous releases, one from Jason Molina and one from Gord Downie which I left out as I am massively biased when it comes to them.

So here is the final list:

1. Coriky – Coriky
2. RVG – Feral
3. Snails – Hard-Wired
4. Fiona Apple – Fetch The Bolt Cutters
5. Jens Lekman and Annika Norlin – Correspondence
6. Landowner – Consultant
7. Man Man – Dream Hunting In The Valley Of The Inbetween
8. White Denim – World As A Waiting Room
9. Public Practice – Gentle Grip
10. Seazoo – Joy

All the New releases from this year, not including albums released in previous years, reissues, second-hand and ones I have forgotten…

• Adam Franklin – Drones & Clones
• Aesop Rock – Spirit World Field Guide
• All Them Witches – Nothing As The Ideal
• Amorphous Androgynous – We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal Remixes
• Atmosphere – The Day Before Halloween
• Beach Bunny – Honeymoon
• Belle & Sebastian – What To Look For In Summer
• Bill Callahan – Gold Record
• Brendan Benson – Dear Life
• Canshaker Pi – Okay Decay
• Car Seat Headrest – Making A Door Less Open
• Clem Snide – Forever Just Beyond
• Crack Cloud – Pain Olympics
• Craig Finn – All These Perfect Crosses
• Disheveled Cuss – Disheveled Cuss
• Field Music – Making A New World
• Ganser – Just Look At That Sky
• Gordon Downie – Away Is Mine
• Happy Accidents – Sprawling
• Hello Forever – Whatever It Is
• Howlin Rain – Under The Wheels, Vol 2
• Human Impact – Human Impact
• Idles – Ultra Mono
• Illuminati Hotties – Free I.H: This Is Not The One You\’ve Been Waiting For
• Jaga Jazzist – Pyramid
• Jason Molina – Eight Gates
• Jim Bob – Pop Up Jim Bob
• King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard – Chunky Shrapnel
• Landshapes – Contact
• Long Teeth – White T-Shirt
• Margaret Glaspy – Devotion
• Mint Mile – Ambertron
• Modern Studies – The Weight Of The Sun
• Neil Young – Homegrown
• Ohmme – Fantasize Your Ghost
• Okkervil River – A Dream In The Dark: Two Decades Of Okkervil River Live
• Once & Future Band – Deleted Scenes
• Osees – Protean Threat
• Osees – Panther Rotate
• Pearl Jam – Gigaton
• Porridge Radio – Every Bad
• Pottery – Welcome To Bobby’s Motel
• Pup – This Place Sucks Ass
• Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever – Sideways To New Italy
• Snowgoose – The Making Of You
• Sports Team – Deep Down Happy
• Squarepusher – Lamental EP
• Steve Earle & The Dukes – Ghosts Of West Virginia
• The Future Sound Of London – Cascade 2020
• The Mountain Goats – Getting into Knives
• The Pogues – BBC Sessions 1984-1985
• The Winter Passing – New Ways Of Living
• Throwing Muses – Sun Racket
• Wares – Survival