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Austin B. Harvey presents: The Liquid Diet writesCHIRP Radio Best of 2020: Austin B. Harvey
Throughout December, CHIRP Radio presents its volunteers’ top albums of 2020. Our next list is from DJ/Assistant Music Director/Softball Team Manager-in-Exile Austin B. Harvey.
Little souvenirs of a terrible year. Let's boogie.
#1 Heaven to a Tortured Mind by Yves Tumor (Warp)
The Turin-by-way-of-Miami artist’s fourth album is a stunning revelation, a leap forward relying less on noise and electronic experimentation, instead leaning more into rock and psychedelic soul. Prince, TV on the Radio, The Veldt, and Shuggie Otis can all be heard as forebears on Tumor’s most concise and unified artistic statement.
From the fractured, sample-based anthemic pop of “Gospel for a New Century” to the bombastic come-ons of “Kerosene!”, Yves Tumor has set a remarkably high bar for classic albums for the rest of this decade.
#2 UNTITLED (Rise) by SAULT (Forever Living Originals)
The British collective’s fourth album in two years continues their journey from the post-punk, funk, and disco ideations of 2019’s 5 and 7 albums to maximalist R&B jams informed by Afrobeat, gospel, and neo-soul on bangers like “Strong”, “Fearless”, “Free”, and the 90’s-dance haze of “I Just Want to Dance”.
More assured and realized than their earlier album UNTITLED (Black Is), (Rise) melds influence and activism in equal and multiplicative measure. Drawing lyrics from the militant and insurgent Black movements of the past and present, SAULT became the essential band of 2020. Don’t just tell your friends about SAULT once we can socialize again, actively put the headphones on their ears.
#3 Ajai by Serengeti (self-released)
‘Geti’s collaboration with Kenny Segal is a masterpiece of rap storytelling, revealing the tale of a streetwear-obsessed sneakerhead’s nearly self-destructive apparel habit bringing him into contact with Chicagoland official-character Kenny Dennis. The ability to shift character and dive deeper into an already-rich storyline is impressive enough, but the addition of Segal’s earworm beats make this one of the year’s best.
#4 Violence Against STAR by STAR (Half a Cow)
Shannon Roberts, Theodore Beck, and Scott Cortez of Astrobrite and loveliescrushing join up for the STAR project’s first album in 13 years and second overall. Noisy, psychedelic pop-rock that recalls Sixteen Deluxe, The Fireworks, and early work from The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, STAR alternate between dreamy haze and pummeling furor on these 14 tracks. Gooey, dreamy, sticky, shoegazey goodness that will envelop your entire being.
#5 Working Men's Club by Working Men's Club (Heavenly/[PIAS])
Drawing on the sound of Mancunians past, WMC marry New Order’s cold, exacting dance-pop with hints of Madchester, synthy new-wave, and minimal house. Think Factory Floor meeting the Happy Mondays at a concert by The Fall. Frontman Sydney Minsky-Sargeant uses his Yorkshire sprechgesang to a Mark E. Smith-like effect on a brash set of tunes that will fill the dancefloors of Rust Belt hovels on both sides of the Atlantic.
#6 Róisín Machine by Róisín Murphy (Skint)
The Irish singer goes full disco on her fifth full-length, a shimmering journey through a night of heartbreak and self-discovery. Come for the front-loaded chillout anthems, and stay for the six extended mixes at the end, all of which are spectacularly breakneck.
#7 Hunger for a Way Out by Sweeping Promises (Feel It)
Boston post-punk band teeters on the point of disaster for the entirety of their debut and instead emerge victorious, stronger from the battle. The guitar-bass-drums formula has seemed tired for the entire century, and yet here Sweeping Promises are, marrying the sounds of early The Rapture EPs, KLEENEX, and The Vaselines all together into a primordial stew of rhythm and tune. I can’t wait to get into a fight with a stranger seeing this band live in hopefully a few months.
#8 Inlet by Hum (Polyvinyl)
The Champaign metalgazers get extremely sludgy on their first album in two decades. The melodies hearken to third-wave emo while the lyrics thankfully do not. Brutal and hazy in equal proportion.
#9 Juillet by En Attendant Ana (Trouble in Mind)
The Parisian quintet does it again with a brassy mix of lo-fi twee and melodic savvy. Earworms galore in this unassuming but enrapturing sophomore release. Are they the best European band going right now? Considering Brexit (and thus SAULT’s exclusion), it’s an easy argument.
#10 We Will Always Love You by The Avalanches (Modular)
Adorno and Horkheimer would have a field day with this, a masterful meditation on death and impermanence compiled from samples and guest spots from all over the world of English-speaking popular music. A valiant and moving piece on our attempts to find permanence in a world that is anything but.
Honorable Mentions
11. Waxahatchee -- Saint Cloud (Merge) Katie Crutchfield's most-realized work recalls early Lucinda Williams, nodding at the sunny production and dark content of Car Wheels on a Gravel Road with a shared understanding.
12. Kelly Lee Owens -- Inner Song (Smalltown Supersound) The former History of Apple Pie bassist creates another cool, minimal set of techno tunes that places her own voice front and center.
13. KeiyaA -- Forever, Ya Girl (Forever) KeiyaA's production style incorporates elements of found sound, hip-hop, and electronic trickery to form a tripped-out stew of elements that become greater than the sum of their parts. Delightfully weird music for a less-than-delightfully-weird time.
14. Dehd -- Flower of Devotion (Fire Talk) Sounding like a band twice their size, Dehd incorporate echoing production, chorus pedal, and Emily Kempf's howitzer of a voice to make a surprisingly delicate monolith of a rock album.
15. Jeff Tweedy -- Love Is the King (dBpm) This is the closest a Tweedy-helmed project has sounded to Wilco's A.M. this century. We were due.
16. Le Couleur -- Concorde (Lisbon Lux) The Montréal band took some advice from Giorgio Moroder before recording their second album, a sleek, metropolitan pop record that lilts with a self-assured strut.
17. Ganser -- Just Look at That Sky (Felte) The noisy Chicago rockers uncork a scorcher of a record of "dissociative shouts and murmurs", but believe them when they say "I know how it works."
18. Crack Cloud -- Pain Olympics (Meat Machine) The Vancouver art collective's second album finds victory and hope among recovering addicts and social service workers, with an art punk base seeing flourish with strings, choir, horns. Devo through the lens of This Heat.
19. Protomartyr -- Ultimate Success Today (Domino) The Detroit post-punk miscreants bring wind instruments into the mix, creating a technicolor sort of chaos, drawn onto the greyscale of the band's normally combative rock.
20. HAIM -- Women in Music, Pt. III (Columbia) The LA trio drop their best album yet with this set of heart-weary, sun-soaked, pop-rock jams.
21. Shamir -- Shamir (self-released) The singer-songwriter's seventh album leans more on the pop-inflected alt-rock of the 90s than the dance-pop that first gained Shamir critical acclaim. But Shamir has never sounded more confident than on this eclectic record.
22. Jeff Parker -- Suite for Max Brown (International Anthem) The first great album of 2020 was from the Tortoise guitarist, who created a moving tribute to his mother with this forward-thinking jazz album.
23. Porridge Radio -- Every Bad (Secretly Canadian) I think about how Dana Margolin takes the phrase "Thank you for making me happy" from a tossed-off, sarcastic acknowledgment to a throat-shredding howl of primal release within the course of a minute often these days.
24. U.S. Girls -- Heavy Light (4AD) Meg Remy slows things down on the follow-up to her magnum opus, In a Poem Unlimited. "4 American Dollars" is still one of the best songs of 2020 and the rest of the record has plenty of great moments sprinkled throughout.
25. Slow Pulp -- Moveys (Winspear) A lot of bands aimed for the fuzzed-out, kinda-folkie sound of 90s-Buzz-Bin rock in 2020, but few hit the target like these Chicago transplants from Wisconsin.
26. Julianna Barwick -- Healing Is a Miracle (Ninja Tune) Sounding like the creator moving over the face of the waters, Barwick's latest is a gorgeous slice of new age that soars above the heights.
27. Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou -- May Our Chambers Be Full (Sacred Bones) Maybe the most Sacred Bones of Sacred Bones albums ever is this inspired collaboration between the prolific Louisiana sludge masters and excellent Kentucky folk singer. The combination is natural and seamless from the start.
28. Moodymann -- Taken Away (KDJ) The mysterious Detroit techno-master's latest explores heartache, illustrating a soul yearning for romantic love and justice. It finds inspiration in funk, minimal, blues, and techno, and is excellent.
29. Fiona Apple -- Fetch the Bolt Cutters (Epic) Apple's best album yet is a deconstruction of piano-driven pop as a concept, teetering on the edge of chaos without succumbing. As confessional as it is accusatory, it's an airing of grievances public and private.
30. The Twilite Tone -- The Clearing (Stones Throw) Anthony Khan's debut full-length is a self-assured platter of instrumental pastiche hip-hop. J Dilla and Madlib are both signposts here as Khan deftly turns funk and R&B samples into catchy, original earworms.
31. Boundary Waters -- Atalanta (self-released) Sometimes-brutal, sometimes-jazzy, sometimes-post-rocky emo from a Chicago band who've had nearly a decade of life to draw upon between a promising EP release and now.
32. Jessie Ware -- What's Your Pleasure (PMR/Friends Keep Secrets/Interscope) The English singer's fourth album is a disco stunner. Makes you pine for the dancefloors we have yet to fill.
33. Fire-Toolz -- Rainbow Bridge (Hausu Mountain) Angel Marcloid's new-age/metalcore/don't-call-it-vaporwave project melds soothing synths with hardcore growls and stop-on-a-dime mood shifts. It's an exhilarating romp that also reflects on the death of Marcloid's beloved cat, Breakfast.
34. Lonnie Holley -- National Freedom (Jagjaguwar) Recorded in 2014 with the late Richard Swift, Holley's slow-building, haunting EP claws at the walls with the singer's aching baritone. Explores the limits of the blues while expanding their reach.
35. Moses Sumney -- græ (Jagjaguwar) Soaring, arty R&B from one of pop music's most beautiful and singular voices.
36. Thundercat -- It Is What It Is (Brainfeeder) I watched the video for "Dragonball Durag" more than any other video this year. I'm not going to spoil it for you.
37. Ohmme -- Fantasize Your Ghost (Joyful Noise) The Chicago duo meld Aldous Harding weirdness with Dirty Projectors' harmonies for a charming pop-rock album.
38. Ratboys -- Printer's Devil (Topshelf) The Chicago post-country favorites lean into the influences of tourmates like Pet Symmetry and Diet Cig and get just a little more emo on their latest. They wear the influence well.
39. Bartees Strange -- Live Forever (Memory Music) From DC, Bartees Cox Jr. weds his lovely voice with rap, folk, and rock to create a wholly singular sound and album for 2020. Seriously unlike anything else I heard this year.
40. Locate S, 1 -- Personalia (Captured Tracks) Christina Schneider's second album sees her pairing with of Montreal's Kevin Barnes for a rich, dance-y album that combines off-kilter experimentation with huge choruses.
41. Boris -- NO (Fangs Anal Satan) The versatile Japanese metal legends hearken to their legendary PINK LP with an exciting LP of doom, skronk, and growls.
42. SAULT -- UNTITLED (Black Is) (Forever Living Originals) The first of the British collective's two albums of 2020, this one found them not dipping their toes, but going from the hi-dive into the deep end of exploring issues of racial and social justice. Samples of children's choirs, spoken-word interludes, and exceptionally frank lyrics helped pave the way for the masterstroke of UNTITLED (Rise).
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