2020 In New Music Part 2

 Badge Epoque Ensemble - Self Help (Telephone Explosion) 

A curious, genre-straddling and mostly successful set from the Toronto group, joined by a raft of guest vocalists sometimes operating outside their own comfort zones (Meg Remy and Jennifer Castle among them). 

Badly Drawn Boy - Banana Skin Shoes (AWAL Recordings)

The artistic and personal rehabilitation of Badders has been one of the delights of 2020 - and this is the first album of his I’ve connected with in quite a while. Once again foregrounding his melodic sensibilities and his skills with arrangements (alongside some intriguing production choices) - the optimism here proved quite infectious in a year that few avenues for positivity. 

Bartees Strange - Live Forever (Memory Music) 

A thrilling, inventive and brilliantly executed synthesis from the impressive multi-instrumentalist. 

Basia Bulat - Are You In Love? (Secret City) 

Opulent and melodic torch songs and classic pop confections. 

Beatrice Dillon - Workaround (PAN) 

A coherent minimalist suite of music, with rhythmic integration at the foreground, Workaround feels crisp and kinetic, sensory and tactile. 

Becca Stevens - Wonderland (GroundUP Music) 

The ever excellent singer-songwriter Becca Stevens makes her biggest leap for a wider pop audience here - but, of course, she does it with finesse and musicality in abundance, co-producing and engineering the project herself. 

Bellows - Undercurrent (Black Truffle) 

The Black Truffle label has provided some of the most compelling music of 2020, and the Milanese duo’s tape loop manipulations are brilliantly woozy and refracted.  

Ben Lukas Boysen - Mirage (Erased Tapes)

A lush, detailed and enriching sound collage from the Berlin based composer.

Ben Wendel - High Heart (Edition) 

A varied set veering from the elegiac to the urgent, but always richly melodic. High Heart also features a fine band including Gerald Clayton, Shai Maestro and vocalist Michael Mayo.

Bettye Lavette - Blackbirds (Verve)

More gritty and earthy interpretations from the outstanding singer. 

Bill Callahan - Gold Record (Drag City) 

I have to confess that I haven't been quite as sold on Bill Callahan's two most recent albums as some (the aura of contentedness makes them drift over me somewhat), but the soft textures and gentle enchantment of Gold Record have their own appeal. 

Bill Fay - Countless Branches (Dead Oceans) 

By some distance my favourite of Bill Fay's comeback albums - this has his questioning spirituality and yearning in abundance and, delivered in his now softer and frailer voice, it is often deeply moving. 

Bill Frisell - Valentine (Universal) 

Working in the trio format in which he so often sounds so luminous (this time with bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Rudy Roystan), Frisell explores a range of standards, traditional folk songs and original compositions with sensitivity and a keen awareness of sound and texture. 

Bill Laswell - Against Empire (M.O.D. Reloaded) 

A productive release schedule for the bassist and producer (see also a fine trio recording with Mike Sopko and Tyshawn Sorey and an orchestral work called The Acid Lands). As one might expect given Laswell's tendency not to fit into a genre box, Against Empire features a fascinating range of musicians (especially drummers - Jerry Marotta and Chad Smith!). It's murky but mesmerising music. 

Bill Nace - Both (Drag City) 

Abrasive, provocative and compelling electric guitar improvisations. 

BK3 - Think About It! (Thick) 

Scottish trio lead by Brian Kellock on piano tackle a set of standards on this concise but hearty mini album. 

Blake Mills - Mutable Set (Verve) 

It's hard not to feel Blake Mills' contribution to Bob Dylan's Rough & Rowdy Ways was more than that of a credited 'guest' musician (the album was recorded at Mills' studio), and Mutable Set provided further evidence of Mills' malleable skills. His most sonically agile album, and also featuring some very fine songwriting too (particularly 'Money Is The One True God' and 'Vanishing Twin'). 

Blitzen Trapper - Holy Smokes, Future Jokes (Yep Roc) 

Always a tricky band to get a handle on, Blitzen Trapper's music is dense and idiosyncratic but it also has a shimmering and infectious quality. Apparently inspired by George Saunders and the Tibetan Book of the Dead, this is a fun and freewheeling look at death and spiritual concerns. 

Bob Dylan - Rough & Rowdy Ways (Columbia) 

Comfortably Dylan's most successful and distinctive album since Love & Theft, Rough & Rowdy Ways gleefully develops the blues and ballads template he has now been exploring for more than 20 years. The time spent focusing on the American Songbook has made his ravaged voice more malleable and affecting - and there is so much wit, imagination and playful insight and imagery on display here (although the critical focus has understandably been on the subject of mortality). 'Murder Most Foul' understandably won the most plaudits, but 'Key West' is also one of his best late period songs (a worthy companion piece to 'Not Dark Yet'). Its subtitle ('Philosopher Pirate') perhaps provides the most honest and accurate description of Dylan's approach to songcraft too (there are no doubt as many appropriations and borrowings here as ever). 

Bob Mould - Blue Hearts (Merge) 

Always pretty much there (and as a solo artist, considerably more enduring and prolific than either of his more celebrated bands), Bob Mould's striking power pop melodicism tends to get a little taken for granted. There's also a visceral urgency to fit the American moment here too. So while there is little here that we haven't heard before from Mould, his continued ability to reproduce it so enthusiastically is impressive in itself.  

Bohren Und Der Club Of Gore - Patchouli Blue (PIAS)

More slow, simmering and cinematic dark lounge cabaret jazz - perfect for these apocalyptic times. 

Bonny Light Horseman - Bonny Light Horseman (37D03D) 

An understated triumph of a collaboration between Anais Mitchell, Eric D Johnson (Fruit Bats) and Josh Kaufman, with memorable, ageless and stirring takes on folk music from the British Isles. Also one of only a small handful of artists I managed to see live before the first lockdown kicked in. 

Boof - Rebirth Of Gerberdaisy (BubbleTease Communications) 

Maurice Fulton remains one of my favourite electronic music producers - this is a vibrant, technicolour celebration of sound. 

Boris - No (Bandcamp) 

You may feel you have had enough of the name 'Boris' (and indeed googling this album today brings up 'no deal Brexit' as the top item) - but this art-metal band remain a gloriously uncompromising and exciting proposition. 

Brad Mehldau - Suite: April 2020 (Nonesuch) 

One of the richest and most powerful artistic creations in lockdown - a beautiful and yearning solo piano work. 

Bright Dog Red - Somethin' Comes Along (Ropeadope) 

Improvised music with hooks and grooves in addition to a loose jam spirit from the Albany, NY based collective - tremendously enjoyable. 

Brigid Dawson & The Mothers Network - Ballet Of Apes (Castle Face)

I couldn't really keep up with the glut of releases from Osees, but this incantatory and mesmerising album from their associate makes me want to explore this scene more.  

Brigid Mae Power - Head Above The Water (Fire)

Brigid Mae Power has so far been dependable in releasing an album every two years more or less like clockwork, a pretty prolific work rate by today's trends. Head Above The Water is her lushest and most romantic sounding work yet. 

Bruce Hornsby - Non-Secure Connection (Thirty Tigers) 

Proving that Absolute Zero was no one-off, the late career renaissance of Bruce Hornsby is now very much a phase. Combining his melodic and harmonic gifts with ingenious arrangement, dark narratives and inventive production, Non-Secure Connection is vivid and progressive, with an intriguing range of guests including James Mercer of The Shins, Jamilla Woods and Leon Russell. 

Bruce Springsteen - Letter To You (Columbia) 

Springsteen pulls off a neat trick here in reflecting on mortality and a life in music but making it sound euphoric and uplifting. This is the E Street Band sound in excelsis, and Springsteen-phobics will no doubt find the level of sheer earnestness on display intolerable. But, for me and many others, the mere existence of this album provided a source of great joy in the home straight of a year largely lacking in cause for celebration. Big bonuses were that the sympathetic production brilliantly captured the live sound of the band, that the three newly completed 1970s tracks worked so well (particularly the superb If I Was The Priest) and that the newly written songs had a seriousness and depth of feeling. Now we only have to hope that the pandemic can be brought under control in sufficient time for these songs to be performed live to packed stadiums (and maybe even a warm-up 'small-town bar') as they were so clearly intended to be. 

Please forgive the indulgence of two videos - I wanted to share the best song alongside something that gives a sense of the accompanying film too. 

Bryde - The Volume Of Things (Easy Life) 

One of the more conventional, direct and bright albums on this list, but no less valid for that - this is a satisfying slice of indie pop songwriting. 

Butcher Brown - #KingButch (Concord Jazz) 

This is Butcher Brown's eighth record, but the first that I have heard, and an enjoyable funk/hip hop/jazz hybrid.