funk

60 Best Albums of 2023

/ David James / 9 Comments

Like every year, 2023 was full of incredible music, a mountain of new releases so high that I could never climb it, a weekly firehose of albums, singles, soundcloud, bandcamp, trips to the record shop and adventures in discogs. I can’t keep up, but I try. There will never be enough time in my life to listen to all the brilliant music made in any given year, and that’s kind of amazing to consider. There are many things to feel pessimistic about in this world today, and I can give in to the dread when I read too much news or spend too much time on social media. But music is an unending source of joy and community and pure human expression. Like Vonnegut said, music is sacred. And despite the constant news about AI taking over everything, music like this will never be replaced. Music is vital, it’s part of who we are as a species and we make it because we are compelled to create. I feel blessed to live at a time when I can experience so much incredible beauty from across the world while sitting at my desk, buried in my headphones.

So, let’s get on with the list. I couldn’t settle on just fifty again, or close to it, so here we are. I enjoyed and loved a lot more than sixty albums in 2023, but I spent the most time and gave the most of my attention to these ones listed below.

I know I missed a bunch of great stuff, so let me know in the comments or on twitter @funkentechno. I’ll never catch up, but it’s always fun to try. Here we go, in the order I heard them, plus my super special top 20 at the end:

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54 Best Albums of 2022

/ David James / 5 Comments

Here we are, ending one of the toughest years of my life – a year nonetheless filled with incredible music. It always bears repeating: every year is great for music as long as you’re open minded, especially if you’ve got a good circle of friends out there exploring and listening too. I’d like to thank all those friends for filling my life with achingly beautiful music every day, helping me through some of the roughest times I’ve ever known.

I was actually thinking of abandoning the annual list because of everything else going on, but I was convinced by a few friends that it’s worth setting aside the time to share, even if I can’t devote as much as I have in prior years. So, here we are. I’ve got fifty four albums that really lit up 2022 for me, gave me life, kept me going. You’ll find out why there’s an odd number on the final page.

I know I missed a bunch of great stuff, so let me know in the comments or on twitter @funkentechno. I’ll never catch up but it’s fun to try. Here we go, in the order I heard them:

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50 Best Albums Of 2021

/ David James / 22 Comments

Well, we survived another year of this pandemic and things seemed to get progressively worse and weirder as the months rolled on. But in 2021 as in every year, there’s always such an overabundance of brilliant music that I’ll never, ever get around to hearing half of it even if they stopped making the stuff after the calendar rolls over this time. But I always make sure to share the stuff that made a big impression on me, the stuff that moved me and opened my mind, the stuff I love. So here we are, with fifty incredible albums that everyone needs to hear.

Just like last year, this list is unranked. Albums appear in the order I discovered them, whether at release or months later. Except for the top ten, which appears on the last page – that’s a small group of albums that touched me just a bit deeper, spending significantly more time playing than the rest. I really can’t emphasize enough how everything here is fantastic, but I felt compelled to highlight a handful that totally ran me over in 2021, because there were definitely some artists who destroyed me in the best way possible.

But seriously, everything here is incredible and worth your time. Let’s go:

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Meltdown [mixtape]

/ David James / 3 Comments

Meltdown may come as a surprise to a lot of listeners. It’s not ambient, it’s not techno, it’s not modern, and it’s not really all that cosmic. But this set of disco-funk-electro-synth floor stompers has a lot in common with the type of music typically shared here. The relentless dance pulse, the future-synth textures, and the lonely nighttime neon vibes are all here. And like all great music, it is deeply psychedelic.

Because a large part of my musical heart belongs to house music and its endless permutations, I always wanted to explore some of the genre’s roots in a mixtape. Especially because it’s long since become sort of synonymous with a white, European audience, I wanted to emphasize the distinctly black and queer origins of the sound. That doesn’t mean there are no white folks in this set; some of the funkiest musicians to play were caucasian as can be. It just means that my ears were focused most directly on the space where disco and funk met Hi-NRG and synth pop, where artists of color were pushing music production forward in a way that the wider world wasn’t always ready for. The tracks here, for my money, feel utterly fresh while undeniably evoking their era: the years surrounding 1982, when I was born.

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50 Best Albums of 2018

/ David James / 12 Comments

I say it every year because it’s always true: this year has been great for music. All it takes to find the greatness is an open mind and a set of ears. And a little help from your friends. So to begin, I want to thank all my friends around the world for the tips and the tunes.

More than any recent year, in fact, I had a tough time sorting out all my favorites and cutting them down to only fifty for this list. It’s tough, but it’s also fun. Weighing these pieces of music against each other feels so unfair, but so personal. Deeply personal, in fact. There’s no one here but me, so keep in mind that everything is here because of one man’s opinions. Naturally, I’ll miss some things – so as always I welcome suggestions. Soon I’ll have a secondary list of all the other great albums I heard this year. In the meantime, I hope you read and enjoy and find some new stuff to enjoy here. This is a labor of love, and I just want to share the joy.

Speaking of joy, the header image is a photo I took of my son on one of the last warm-enough days before winter. I love being a dad, and I can’t wait to share music with my kid. For now he mostly just spazzes out to anything I play. Kids are great because they don’t have any prejudices about music. If it moves them, it moves them.

In the past I’ve gotten too verbose with these intros, so I’m keeping it short and sweet. Thank you for reading. These are the best albums of 2018.

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50 Best Albums of 2017

/ David James / 21 Comments

2017 was easily the most definitive year of my entire life. This year, I became a father. I got married. Everything changed, including the way I appreciated music.

It wasn’t my tastes; I didn’t suddenly drop my love for techno and weird jazz to become a dad rock connoisseur, despite in fact making a dad rock mixtape. No, it was a subtle shift in weight, a slight refocusing on what aspects most affect what I love about music. I’m still largely into the same genres and artists as before, but I now feel drawn to facets of sound and meaning that I shied away from before. I’m more interested in peeling back the meaning behind what I’m loving, searching for a thread to pull, an arc to follow. Slowly but surely, I recognized the colors emerging from the stories that built these pieces of art.

It’s not that I wasn’t interested in the behind-the-scenes or the history before becoming a dad; it’s simply that I now find myself automatically working recursively when I’m emotionally struck by something, running down the fibers of time that brought it to my attention, trying to work out a map for my own journey forward in this new life role. I’m living for more than myself finally, and although it feels vulnerable to have my heart living outside my body, it’s incredibly rewarding. I’ve felt more energized, more creative than I have in years. I made five new mixtapes between winters. I began running for the first time. I started writing fiction again. Oh and, along with my wife, I’ve been raising a child pretty successfully for half a year so far. Even more than ever before, I can’t wait to experience what happens next.

Speaking of my wife, that’s her in the header picture above. I thought the image of her, pregnant, hiking in the late winter sunset, encapsulated the way I felt about 2017. All that nervous possibility and raw beauty surrounding the long shadow down the path ahead, feeling real warmth after too many frozen months.

This year, like every year, was bursting full of new, exciting, brilliant music. It only takes some effort and desire to find it all. In another first, I barely read any music journalism, kept up with no major release schedules, and missed out on most of the hype 2017 had to offer. I have only the faintest ideas about what other people hold up as the best music of the year. To me, these 50 albums mattered more than anything else I heard all year, give or take a few. For a more comprehensive picture of the year, be sure to check out 50 more must-hear albums of 2017.

Let’s begin the countdown. These are the 50 best albums of 2017.

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Deep Future [mixtape]

/ David James / 9 Comments

I’ve been thinking even more about the future since my son was born. Considering that science fiction and futurism are some of my biggest passions, that means a lot. I’ve curated this focused mindset with the help of some very specific sounds along the way, and I decided it’s time to share them.

This might be my best mixtape yet. Each one has been a self portrait of a specific slice of my life, and Deep Future is no exception. It is simply the most accurate reflection of my own private future. This is an adventure under hazy cyberpunk sunsets and new age neon skylines. A glowing mesh of deep house beats and world music textures cocoon the listener. It’s the sound of tomorrow’s dreams.

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