Ian William Craig - Red Sun Through Smoke (FatCat)
A characteristically moving and coherent set of music centred around the piano and Craig's extraordinary voice, informed by the tumultuous personal and environmental factors surrounding its creation.
Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids - Shaman! (Strut)
The third in a superb series of comeback albums blending Afrobeat, funk and burning improvisation, this time with Pyramids founder member Dr. Margaux Simmons returning on flute.
India Jordan - For You (Local Action)
Irresistible EP of insistent rhythm and deconstructed disco.
Ingrid Laubrock - Dreamt Twice, Twice Dreamt (Intakt)
Ingrid Laubrock and Kris Davis - Blood Moon (Intakt)
A fascinating exercise featuring two very different approaches to the same set of compositions. The first disc features the EOS Chamber Orchestra and the second disc features a bespoke smaller ensemble. Laubrock has a unique voice both as composer and improviser.
The duo album with Kris Davis combines two of the best improvising musicians currently at work.
Irma Vep - Embarrassed Landscape (Gringo)
Ramshackle, noisy garage psychedelia that is highly invigorating.
Irreversible Entanglements - Who Sent You? (International Anthem)
Brilliant, fiery combination of propulsive, sometimes hard swinging avant garde jazz and politically righteous texts from Camae Ayewa (Moor Mother).
Ivo Neame & Jim Hart - Multiverse (Edition)
Also featuring a crucial contribution from Matt Calvert on electronics, this extension of Ivo Neame and Jim Hart's duo project is one of the best, most otherworldly sounding jazz releases of the year and also features the kind of attuned, insightful playing that you would expect from these two great musicians.
Jabu - Sweet Company (Do You Have Peace?)
A quietly evocative and intimate album of electronic soul capturing a connectedness that could only be replicated on screens this year.
Jackie Lynn - Jacqueline (Drag City)
Hayley Fohr's bizarre alter ego adopts a new and surprising identity as this latest album relates the inner life of a long haul truck driver. Musically, this combines the driving qualities of modernised disco and new wave.
Jacob Collier - Djesse Volume 3 (Hajanga/Interscope)
The Quincy Jones-endorsed multi-instrumentalist and vocalist continues his odyssey with an R&B focused offering that not only afford the opportunity for myriad special guests but emphasises where Collier's considerable skills can be most well directed - expanding the harmonic and rhythmic possibilities of contemporary pop.
Jacob Cooper - Terrain (New Amsterdam)
Compelling blend of fragmented electronic sound collage and meditative vocal pieces.
Jaga Jazzist - Pyramid (Brainfeeder)
A move from Ninja Tune to Brainfeeder seems to make sense for Jaga Jazzist, who continue to make thoughtfully realised, expansive and precisely articulated modern fusion.
Jake Blount - Spider Tales (Free Dirt)
In a similar manner to Rhiannon Giddens, Jake Blount combines adroit musicianship with careful research, unearthing a vital and fascinating history of black folk music.
Jam City - Pillowland (Earthly)
Quite a way from the intoxicating serenity of Dream A Garden, Pillowland is a bustling set of scorching, garish, sometimes frenetic electronic pop constructions.
James Copus - Dusk (Ubuntu)
Bright, melodic, thrilling and well structured debut album from the young trumpet player and composer. The excellent ensemble also features the talents of pianist Tom Cawley, in demand bassist Conor Chaplin, and drummer Jason Brown.
James Elkington - Ever-Roving Eye (Paradise Of Bachelors)
The opening Nowhere Time's sudden lurch from contemplative solo guitar piece to freewheeling full band work sets the tone for this repurposing of Elkington's idiosyncratic songwriting. Recorded at Wilco's Loft Studios with Spencer Tweedy on drums.
JARV IS... - Beyond The Pale (Rough Trade)
This new project from Jarvis Cocker is most welcome, offering as it does a refreshingly new context for his sleazy sprechgesang. At times here, he seems to resemble Leonard Cohen, particularly with the responding chorus of female vocalists. The excellent band includes Adam Betts (Heritage Orchestra, Three Trapped Tigers) on drums and Emma Smith (Elysian Quartet, Hot Chip) on violin. It's comfortably his most effective work since the end of Pulp.
Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit - Reunions (Southeastern/Thirty Tigers)
Soulful and honest songwriting with a defiantly personal perspective.
Jason McMahon - Odd West (Shinkoyo)
Brilliantly arranged and entrancing solo project from the former Skeletons member, threaded like an intricate tapestry.
Jason Molina - Eight Gates (Secretly Canadian)
Powerful and moving posthumous solo album from the Songs:Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co. leader, giving some fascinating hints at new directions he might have taken. I reviewed it for musicOMH here.
Jasper Høiby - Planet B (Edition)
With Phronesis currently on hiatus, this is the first in a planned four part series over the next four years (although it's entirely possible that Covid-19 might delay the timetable of course). First, it's really exciting to hear Høiby's playing and compositional voice in a different context - this time in a very different trio set up with saxophonist Josh Arcoleo and drummer Marc Michel. It's bold and adventurous music and, in part through choice use of speech samples, politically and environmentally engaged.
Jeff Parker - Suite For Max Brown (International Anthem)
The Tortoise guitarist's most effective integration of improvisation and production techniques to date. The mostly brief pieces (sometimes referencing each other) are integrated together into a cohesive work around the theme of family (the dedication is to Parker's mother, and his daughter provides the vocals on the Dirty Projectors-esque opener Build A Nest).
Jeff Tweedy - Love Is The King (dBpm)
Another musician who bossed lockdown - Jeff Tweedy broadcasted The Tweedy Show along with his family on Instagram, incorporating their idiosyncratically comic family dynamic as much as live performances. He also this unassuming but quietly effective solo album (also recorded with sons Spencer and Sammy). There seems to be less tension in his writing now, but the comforting nature of this music proved helpful for the times. It has an effortless quality.
Jennifer Castle - Monarch Season (Paradise Of Bachelors)
A fully solo album, recorded at home, yet full of interesting textures and sonic manipulation to accompany its stark, direct and beautiful songs.
Jennifer Curtis and Tyshawn Sorey - Invisible Ritual (Tundra)
This is a fascinating recording and very hard to describe. First of all, a percussion and violin duo sounds pretty unusual simply by definition. The pieces are improvised but it doesn't feel anywhere close to a cliche of free improvisation. Instead, it draws from contemporary classical music and folk traditions to create something bristling with life and inspiration.
Jeremy Cunningham - The Weather Up There (Northern Spy)
So many great musicians are involved in this superb record - Jeff Parker, Ben LaMar Gay, Makaya McCraven, Tomeka Reid, Mike Reed, Josh Johnson and others. It joins a number of other 2020 albums in being a jazz work equally committed to exploring production and the resources of the studio. It's also a moving tribute to Cunningham's brother Andrew, who died in unfortunate circumstances in 2008. Voice samples on the recording directly confront these events.
Jess Williamson - Sorceress (Mexican Summer)
Dusty, wise and curious songs.
Jessie Ware - What's Your Pleasure? (Universal)
One of 2020's biggest pop triumphs - silky and sophisticated late night club vibes, with Fern Kinney's emotional disco classic Love Me Tonight cited as a key influence.
Jessy Lanza - All The Time (Hyperdub)
Again collaborating with Jeremy Greenspan, Jessy Lanza's third album of thin but crisp electropop is minimal and spellbinding.
Jim White and Marisa Anderson - The Quickening (Thrill Jockey)
Compelling, untethered duo album with impressive dynamic range from the great drummer and guitarist.
Joan Shelley - Live At The Bomhard (Absolute Anthem Music)
The gloriously pure sound and measured phrasing of Joan Shelley's vocal delivery, captured in live performance.
Joel Ross - Who Are You? (Blue Note)
Subtle and elegiac jazz compositions from the vibraphone player.
Johanna Burnheart - Burnheart (Ropeadope)
Agile rhythms, insidious melodies and intriguing textures from the improvising violinist and composer.
John Kolodij - First Fire/At Dawn (Bandcamp)
Two long, transporting pieces by the High Aura'd composer with Sarah Hennies on percussion and Anna Rg on fiddle.
John Scofield, Steve Swallow, Bill Stewart - Swallow Tales (ECM)
Longstanding musical relationships here, still sounding fluid and responsive.
Jon Collin - Backporch Fågelsundet Midsommar 20/20 (Bandcamp)
Jon Collin and Demdike Stare - Sketches Of Everything (DDS)
The first record is a quiet, considered lockdown beauty - the guitarist playing out among nature on the back porch of his home in Sweden.
The second is an empathetic collaboration with the Manchester hauntological electronic duo.
Jon Hassell - Seeing Through Sound (Pentimento Volume Two) (Ndeya)
The second volume in Hassell's Pentimento (sound painting) series is airy, spacious and haunting.
Jon McKiel - Bobby Joe Hope (You've Changed)
Dreamlike psychedelic pop songs weaving in samples from an unknown artist whose work McKiel found left in a reel to reel tape recorder he purchased.
Jordan Reyes - Sand Like Stardust (American Dreams)
One day in the myth and the reality of the American west via a careful integration of folk music and electronics.
Joseph Allred - On Whatever Ground (Meliphonic)
Joseph Allred - Pentecost (Meliphonic)
Distinctive and challenging solo guitar work.
Josephine Davies - Satori: How Can We Wake? (Whirlwind Recordings)
Beautiful suite of contemporary jazz compositions played expressively and freely live at The Oxford in Kentish Town in the before times.
Josephine Foster - No Harm Done (Fire)
Foster's curious approach to folk music continues to sound both abrasively modern and old as the hills.
Josh Kimbrough - Slither, Soar & Disappear (Tompkins Square)
Circling and swooping finger picked guitar pieces, also featuring the brush stroke support of some sensitive small ensembles.
Joshua Massad & Dylan Aycock - Joshua Massad & Dylan Aycock (Scissor Tail)
Massad is an Indian classical musician who studied tabla with Zakir Hussein, Aycock is a twelve string guitarist and multi instrumentalist. Their improvised collaborations are committed and immersive.
Judith Hamann - Peaks (Black Truffle)
Two captivating, long cello and electronics meditations.
Juliana Barwick - Healing Is A Miracle (Ninja Tune)
Dependably stirring and beautiful layered choral, sometimes with supporting instrumental textures.
Junk Magic - Compass Confusion (Pyroclastic)
Craig Taborn's Junk Magic album is one of the pioneering documents of merging a human, interactive jazz ensemble with electronics. Compass Confusion returns to the project and continues to yield forward thinking, imaginative approaches to ensemble jazz.
Jussell, Prymek, Sage, Shiroshi - Fuubutsushi (Cached)
Part of a series of socially distanced collaborative recordings - again demonstrating just how empathetic and connected it is possible to sound while still apart.
Jyoti - Mama, You Can Bet! (eOne Music)
Glorious, no boundaries alter ego project from Georgia Anne Muldrow, incorporating spiritual jazz, funk and hip hop.