Albums of the Year

For roughly half of the year I listened to everything, almost or near enough. Then I wilted, or the opposite of that, for come the summer I perked up in my stool and began to listen to summer ambiances like the chirping of birds, the splashing of hose pipes and water pistols or the sizzling of a barbecue. As...

The vault might seem to connote a sense of authority, visions of round doors, time locks and bank currency or rows of booklets and stacks of boxes whose contents have been carefully packed away. Yet musically the prising open of a vault can prove a cacophonous and contentious affair. What should be scrapped or saved for posterity, who gets...

In the year of 2023 artists from Tyla, Bad Bunny and NewJeans to Vagabon, Tems and Sofia Kourtesis continued to redefine the borders of contemporary pop, while Cassandra Miller covered Beethoven's 'Heiliger Dankgesang' and Arvo Pärt looked back a couple of centuries to a 'tiresome footling little Anglican parson' as the Estonian minimalist reworked his Littlemore Tractus. Familiar faces...