M Ward - Migration Stories (Anti)
More timeless, laconic songs that gently unwind.
Machinedrum - A View Of U (Ninja Tune)
Frenetic and stimulating dance-soul fusion.
Madeleine Kenney - Sucker's Lunch (Carpark)
Working with Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack of Wye Oak, Madeleine Kenney has fashioned a lush sounding, absorbing context for her songs.
Magik Markers - 2020 (Drag City)
Distinctively scuzzy - an imaginative approach to rock band music.
Makaya McCraven - Universal Beings E & F Sides (International Anthem)
Makaya McCraven - We're New Again - A Reimagining (XL)
Addendum to Universal Beings provides evidence of the drummer and serial collaborator's generous bounty of ideas.
Perhaps there have already been too many versions of Gil Scott Heron's final album, but McCraven's groove heavy take proves gripping and empathetic.
Margo Price - That's How Rumours Get Started (Loma Vista)
Slicker and sometimes rockier than its predecessors, but still engaged with the grit and determination in the face of adversity that characterises Price's country troubadour approach.
Maria McKee - La Vita Nuova (AFAR)
An extraordinary, dramatic, opulent and grandiosely swooping song cycle embracing McKee's new life as a queer artist and activist.
Maria Schneider - Data Lords (ArtistShare)
A masterful double set exploring the evils of the modern corporate internet, and contrasting it with a sense of awe for the natural world. Yet, amongst her railing against exploitative technology and her passionate advocacy for artists' rights, Schneider does also find the space and time to explore the positive aspects of our connectedness when used responsibly. The articulate writing and precisely established moods are perfect for conveying her concerns clearly. Schneider's projects are immense undertakings, and they do not appear too frequently - but when they do, the level of dedication, craft and ingenuity that has gone in to making them is immediately evident, and they keep yielding further, deeper rewards with every listen. No embed here due to aforementioned objection to all streaming services!
Marius Neset - Tributes (ACT)
Thrilling, elaborate and dazzling work for the Danish Radio Big Band. There's an agility and sense of jubilation to this complex music.
Martin Pyne - Spirit Of Absent Dancers (Discus)
The percussionist Martin Pyne, who works extensively with dancers in more normal circumstances, fashioned this resourceful and moving response to lockdown conditions, celebrating the spirit of movement and connection in its absence.
Mary Halvorson's Code Girl - Artlessly Falling (Firehouse 12)
The ingenious and forward thinking guitarist and composer focuses on curious songs - incorporating a guest appearance from Robert Wyatt.
Mary Lattimore - Silver Ladders (Ghostly International)
Mary Lattimore & Mac McCaughan - AVL (Bandcamp)
With Neil Halstead producing, Mary Lattimore both expands and refines her serene, captivating harp excursions on Silver Ladders.
AVL offers an addendum to her previous collaboration with Mac McCaughan on New Rain Duets. When touring that record in 2019, they opted not to attempt recreations of those structured improvisations, but instead to play newly created in the moment pieces, working from a blank slate. One such performance is captured here.
Masma Dream World - Play At Night (Northern Spy)
Pulsating heartbeats, snap and crackle percussion and disorientating manipulated voices.
Matmos - The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises In Group Form (Thrill Jockey)
More of a document than an album, with three hours worth of musical experimentation, with 99 musicians requested to contribute at a strict 99 Beats Per Minute.
Matt Kivel - That Day, On The Beach (Pedro Y El Lobo)
A low key but affecting ambient release, named after Edward Yang's debut feature film.
Matthew 'Doc' Dunn - Rain, Rain Rain (Cosmic Range)
Sublime, lovingly arranged, vintage sounding Canadian take on American song craft.
Max De Wardener - Music For Detuned Pianos (Village Green)
Compositions for detuned pianos drawing from minimalism and contemporary electronica. Played by Kit Downes.
Maxwell Sterling - Laced With Rumour: Loud-Speaker Of Truth (Ecstatic)
Fluid, shifting sound collage commissioned as an installation.
Melt Yourself Down - 100% Yes (Decca/Universal)
Pete Wareham's percussive, abrasive, full throttle approach to the saxophone and Kush Gaya's urgent vocals create a distinctively modern, multicultural punk vibe. Exhilarating and exhausting.
Methods Body - Methods Body (New Amsterdam)
Drones meet driving polyrhythmic experimentation.
Mica Levi - Ruff Dog (Bandcamp)
Billed as Mica's grunge album in the press, but actually something more confrontational and provocative than that. A compelling experiment in abrasion and noise.
Michael Rother - Dreaming (Groenland)
Rippling textures and vivid colours in this new work from the New and Harmonia founder.
Michael Vallera - Window In (Denovali)
Guitarist from Chicago crafts ambient pieces with a sinister, mechanistic edge.
Michael Wollny - Mondenkind (ACT)
A beautiful, intelligent, thoughtful solo piano work.
Michel Benita - Looking At Sounds (ECM)
The Algerian born French bassist leads a new European quartet creating floating, richly melodic jazz compositions. Plenty of washy ECM reverb on this recording.
Mike Cooper - Playing With Water (Room40)
Cooper continues to address one of his long term career concerns - climate change and the devastating effects of rising sea levels. The album mixes his distinctive guitar playing with field recordings.
Mike Polizze - Long Lost Solace Find (Paradise Of Bachelors)
Purling Hiss frontman collaborates with Kurt Vile on solo album that succeeds in being simultaneously bright and laconic.
Mike Sopko, Bill Laswell, Tyshawn Sorey - On Common Ground (M.O.D. Reloaded)
A really fascinating combination of musicians. Essentially free jazz with a heavy metal perspective.
Misha Mullov-Abbado - Dream Circus (Edition)
Third and most successful album of melodic, playful, sometimes elegant contemporary jazz from the bassist and composer.
Modern Nature - Annual (Bella Union)
EP serving as a pastoral companion piece to last year's How To Live album. Hints at the Talk Talk of Laughing Stock at times here.
MoonMot - Down In The Well (Bandcamp)
Excellent UK/Swiss collaborative improvised music project - Dee Byrne, Cath Roberts, Seth Bennett and Johnny Hunter combine with Simon Petermann and Oli Kuster, with each band member bringing a distinctive composition.
Moor Jewelry - True Opera (Don Giovanni)
Moor Mother - Circuit City (Don Giovanni)
Moor Mother - Clepsydra (Bandcamp)
Moor Mother & Billy Woods - Brass (Backwoodz Studios)
2020's most prolific and productive artist, Moor Mother's righteous, combative poetry found a range of compelling contexts, from the rock and metal settings of Moor Jewelry (a collaboration with Mental Jewelry), to the radical soundscapes of Clepsydra, via the freeform jazz energy of theatrical project Circuit City and the excellent hip hop collaboration with Billy Woods of Armand Hammer.
Moses Boyd - Dark Matter (Exodus)
This Mercury nominated album is quite some distance from Boyd's drumming work in jazz ensembles or his remarkably lucid, free flowing improvising in the duo with Binker Golding. Instead, this feels very designed and produced - combining Boyd's interest in jazz with his interests in recorded musical forms - drum and bass, dub, R&B, hip hop.
Moses Sumney - Grae (Jagjaguwar)
Grandiose, epic, two part monolith.
Mosses - TV Sun (Anyway)
Experimental, psychedelic rock from Ryan Jewell.
Mourning [A] BLKstar - The Cycle (Don Giovanni)
As good as the two Sault albums are, the focus on them has maybe lead to this outstanding, brilliantly coherent statement from the large, genre-crossing collective being overlooked as a record very much speaking to the current moment, the history of black civil rights movements and black music and also to the future.
Mute Duo - Lapse In Passage (American Dreams)
More Chicago brilliance, this time patient, gracefully unfolding music for drums and pedal steel guitar.
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