Thread by @peterhemminger

I think this is about where I'll end up for my year-end playlist. 100 songs from 100 artists, all released in 2020, all of which resonated in one way or another. AM Gold 2020

open.spotify.com/playlist/4cE0n…

Next goal will be writing/saying something about them instead of just listing them.
Plus including the ones that aren't available on Spotify, because it's leaving out some absolute marvels. But, time and all that.

OK. I'll be using this thread to chip away at writing about the 100 artists on this year's AM Gold playlist. FWIW, I've taken the playlist out for a walk a few times this week and I'd highly recommend throwing it on shuffle and taking it outdoors on the next sunny day.

Light Being - @10thxLetter
10thletter.bandcamp.com/album/primitiv…
One of the more uplifting moments on the Atlanta producer's 2020 full-length, an album that distorts deep grooves through a fractured sci-fi lens.
1/100

Gravity - @AdrianYounge, @AliShaheed, Roy Ayers
royayers.bandcamp.com/album/roy-ayer…
Consider this an endorsement of the whole Jazz is Dead series. Picking a single track from a project that excels so consistently isn't easy, but Ayers' warmth feels especially necessary right now.
2/100

Suite Pour L'invisible - Ana Roxanne
anaroxanne.bandcamp.com/album/because-…
Melancholy and meditative, Ana Roxanne's songs don't build so much as they billow, slowly expanding like smoke filling a room. Ambient, ethereal, and utterly lovely.
3/100

Feeling Light - @theanaloggirl
theanaloggirl.bandcamp.com/album/awe
Like "I Feel Love" spun through a Cocteau Twins dream-pop filter, this breathy anthem blends swooning sounds and a touch of icy anxiety to capture a very 2020 sort of mood.
4/100

Neon Skyline - @andyshauf andyshauf.bandcamp.com/album/the-neon…
The title track to Shauf's latest is a sublime example of his meticulous pop. Polished melodies, tasteful horns, just a hint of Thin Lizzy swagger; it's invitingly loose, without a single detail out of place.
5/100

The Sound Where My Head Was - @Badgeepoque
badgeepoque.bandcamp.com/album/self-help
Max Turnbull's jazz-funk odyssey has yet to take a misstep. The textured clavinet here that sets the stage for a voyage into the mystic before the band steps in to swing into the stratosphere.
6/100

Ritual - @baechulgi
baechulgi.bandcamp.com/album/mobius
Chill beats for inward journeys, a gorgeous intersection of new age ambiance and lo-fi hip-hop that pulls you in deeper with every too-short listen.
7/100

Clarion - @BenLukasBoysen
benlukasboysen.bandcamp.com/album/mirage-2
Maybe the most transcendent musical experience of the year, Boysen's Mirage layers organic sounds behind layers of textured processing, creating something at once otherworldly and undeniably, achingly human.
8/100

The Fool - Brigid Dawson & the Mothers Network
brigiddawson.bandcamp.com
What you get when you give the most melodic moments of Thee Oh Sees more room to breathe and let them soak in spacious arrangements. The loping cadence of The Fool's bass line is pure joy.
9/100

Stretched to Our Thoughts - @BuildingsFood_
buildingsandfood.bandcamp.com/album/up-down-…
What seems almost like a music-box melody on the surface keeps revealing new depths on each re-listen. A collection of electroacoustic rabbit holes, best explored with headphones cranked and eyes closed.
10/100

Yawn - @BullionNess
bullion.bandcamp.com/album/heaven-i…
Joyfully inventive pop that updates the wonder and creativity of artists like XTC and Eno's early solo work for the new millennium. Warbly and offbeat in all the best ways.
11/100

Gabor's Path - Causa Sui (on @El_Paraiso_Rec)
album.link/i/1533904147
The hat-tip to jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo came as a surprise from a group known for soaring psych jams. Szabordelico is still headier than its namesake, but the melody and groove do the Gabor proud.
12/100

Ancient Future - Captures
capturesofficial.bandcamp.com/album/ancient-…
Globally minded electronica that integrates samples of the Chinese ghuzeng into a quietly propulsive sonic palate, ebbing and flowing like the tides.
13/100

Light in Yr Eye (I Loosened Up on You) - Cedric Noel
cedricnoelmusic.bandcamp.com/album/nothing-…
Nothing Forever, Everything is a bear-hug of an album, where even the saddest songs come across like invitations to uplift. Noel is an incredibly welcoming performer, effortlessly drawing you in.
14/100

Plant Care - Chris Mazuera & tender spring (on @memoir_music
memoirlabel.bandcamp.com/album/staying-…
Staying inside is more an obligation than a choice these days, but there's beauty to be found in indoors, too, and Plant Care is as nurturing as the title implies.
15/100

One Second to Toe the Line - Cindy Lee (on @w25threcords)
cindylee.bandcamp.com/album/whats-to…
Romantic in the way Gloria Swanson's final walk in Sunset Blvd is romantic. Karen Carpenter raised on the VU's iciest moments. The ghost of an abandoned echo plate. Haunted and beautiful.
16/100

@w25threcords Weeping Birch - @ebaynetflix
dandeacon.bandcamp.com/album/mystic-f…
Not so much a song as a bursting forth of ecstasy. Dan Deacon's art-pop has always grasped for the sublime, but Weeping Birch (and Mystic Familiar more broadly) might be the closest he's come to actually capturing it.
17/100

Yesterday Is Gone - @danagavanski
danagavanskifth.bandcamp.com/album/yesterda…
2020 needed an ode to letting go of the past, and Gavanski's title track rings with quiet stoicism, its complex emotions buttressed by the stable, reassuring structure of a classic pop song.
18/100

Love-Lore 3 - @deerhoof
deerhoof.bandcamp.com/album/love-lore
In the midst of a discordant, whiplash-inducing tour of the 20th century avant-garde, Deerhoof pause for three minutes of sweetness that are more defiantly progressive than even the harshest noise around them.
19/100

@deerhoof It Was Me - @deradoorian
deradoorian.bandcamp.com/album/find-the…
In the spiritual journey of Find the Sun, It Was Me is when the illusion of easy answers is torn away. The roiling instrumentals and stoic vocals capture the tension of the moment, the fear and freedom of belief in nothing.
20/100

Blissful Dream Interpretation Melody - @DISCOVERYZONE3
discoveryzone1.bandcamp.com/album/remote-c…
At once kitschy and utterly sincere, Discovery Zone thrives in contradiction. Updating psych-synth pioneer Bruce Haack for a new millennium, it's laser-guided retro-futurism for the crystal set.
21/100

@DISCOVERYZONE3 Humble in Heart - Dmitry Evgrafov (on @FatCatRecords)
dmitry-evgrafov.bandcamp.com/album/surrender
The modern classical composer's most collaborative work to date, the buoyant and affecting "Humble in Heart" proves the soul-affirming value of shedding the need for complete control.
22/100

Sunshine in 1929 - @domeniquedumont
domeniquedumont.bandcamp.com/album/people-o…
A new score for a Weimar-era silent, Dumont's playful, nostalgic People on Sunday is an escape into utopian realms. I can't get over how much joy the ballooning bass in this song brings me.
23/100

Order and Class - Ecotype
ecotype.bandcamp.com/album/field-st…
Wandering synths, ethereal flutes, and lazy guitars drift by like fleeting thoughts on an autumn stroll. Order and Class is an assemblage of enticing tangents, with production spacious enough to follow every turn.
24/100

Hipps - @El_Michels
elmichelsaffair.bandcamp.com/album/adult-th…
Three minutes of head-bobbing triumph that provide the high point on a fictional movie soundtrack reverse engineered from a crate-digger's dreams. Impossible not to strut while listening to this.
25/100

@El_Michels Flesh Or Blood - @enattendantana
enattendantana.bandcamp.com/album/juillet
A jangle-pop gem from the early days of 2020 that gathers speed with its teenage-riot-in-miniature guitar riff then takes flight with the aid of an unexpected trumpet line.
26/100

Section I - @erikhallmusic
erikhall.bandcamp.com/album/music-fo…
Recorded in 2019, this recreation of Reich's Music for 18 Musicians reads like a lockdown project: transposing a collaborative performance into an act of solitary zen, crafting complexity one gorgeous line at a time.
27/100

It Is What It Is - @UhhFiver
youvechangedrecords.bandcamp.com/album/you-want…
Fiver's You Wanted Country? opens with an existentialist ballad and ends with a potent dose of Western psychedelia. It's at once a tribute and critique, reaching for what the genre could and should be, but rarely is.
28/100

One, Two and Three Eyes - Florida BC
floridabc.bandcamp.com/releases
Clinton St. John roots his songs in folk and blues, but the power comes from somewhere else. Somewhere old and awesome and unknowable, like the kind of old-time religion whose name you weren't meant to speak.
29/100

Häxsabbaten - @thegarrysband
thegarrys.bandcamp.com
Eerie as they are, doom-wop surfers The Garrys aren't the obvious choice to score one of the creepiest silents ever filmed. The pairing turns out inspired, a moody instant classic for misty midnights and full moons.
30/100

Living Like I Know I'm Gonna Die - @genevieveartadi
genevieveartadi.bandcamp.com/album/dizzy-st…
A memento mori draped in slick future r&b, Artadi's existentialist anthem casts mortality and cosmic insignificance as sources of liberation. If "the future is a guess," we can make it our own.
31/100

@genevieveartadi I'm New Here - Gil Scott-Heron & @MakayaMcCraven
xlrecordings.com/buy/gilscotthe…
Callahan may have written the line, and the arrangement is McCraven's, but Scott-Heron gives it gravity through hard-won experience: "No matter how far wrong you've gone, you can always turn around."
32/100

Quick aside: I'm so glad I got to see Gil Scott-Heron perform in 2010. The sheer joy and appreciation he gave to the crowd was one of the most memorable concert experiences of my life.

Theophany - Grapefruit (on @moonglyph)
moonglyph.bandcamp.com/album/light-fr…
Portland's Charlie Salas-Humara finds the sound of dawn cresting the horizon in tape loops, guitar squiggles and pulsing synth. You can almost hear the plants shaking off their morning dew.
33/100

Sansevieria - Green-House
green-house.bandcamp.com/album/six-song…
2020 was the kind of year where a little gentleness went a long way. A spiritual successor to Mort Garson's Plantasia, Olive Ardizoni's Green-House nurtures the soul with only the softest of gossamer soundscapes.
34/100

Valley Spiral - Gunn-Truscinski Duo (@SteveGunnMusic)
threelobed.bandcamp.com/album/soundkee…
A rhyzomatic melody twists and folds in on itself like a labyrinth—the contemplative path, not the mythical maze. Truscinski paces out the steps, gently reminding that the only way out is through
35/100

Mountain Song - @HabibiTheBand
habibitheband.bandcamp.com/album/anywhere…
Anywhere But Here is the kind of album that makes it hard to single out a highlight, but Mountain Song nicely splits the difference between Habibi's bubble-gum pop, garage rock, and moody psychedelia tendencies.
36/100

Pattern Thinker - @HaikuSalut
howdoesitfeeltobeloved.bandcamp.com/album/pattern-…
Effervescent electronics cascade around twinkling pianos and gently glitched drums. Ten minutes of bliss, providing an energetic and soothing score to the charmingly titled silent film "4 and 20 Fit Girls."
37/100

Precipice - @HectorPlimmer
stampthewax.bandcamp.com/album/isolatio…
In the early days of the lockdown, @stampthewax gave artists three days to write songs for a fundraiser compilation. Plimmer's percussive Precipice beautifully captures that moment's eerie mix of urgency and uncertainty.
38/100

Still City - @_hermitess_
hermitess.bandcamp.com/album/tower
The wintry woods of her debut were an obvious home for a Hermitess, but the Tower EP finds ample room for magic in the city. Synthetic sounds and urban imagery connect Crighton's timeless folk to thoroughly modern anxieties
39/100

Air Curvatures - @BeachEnsemble
memoirlabel.bandcamp.com/album/end-of-t…
The gentle creak of Air Curvatures' central sample is more than a percussive flourish. It's the sound of the song breathing, so tactile you feel it in your sinews, as satisfying as a deep stretch before sleeping.
40/100

Spirit Refinement Exploder - @inventionsmusic
inventions.bandcamp.com/album/continuo…
With members of Eluvium and Explosions in the Sky, it's no shock Inventions excel at atmosphere and grandeur. What's maybe more unexpected is their consistent playfulness, and the airy uplift it adds.
41/100

Sweet Path - Janko Nilovic & the Soul Surfers (on @BROCRECORDZ)
brocrecordz.bandcamp.com/album/maze-of-…
A Russian soul combo and a master of '70s library music make for one of 2020's unlikeliest pairings, but Sweet Path's laid-back groove is up there with any of Nilovic's classics.
42/100

A Dog's Age - @futuremyth
jeffreysilverstein.bandcamp.com/album/you-beco…
From the first few notes, even just from the tone of it, you can feel this is something special. A track (and an album) suffused with calm, care, and reassurance.
43/100

Our Place - @JosephShabason ft @isthisthomas
josephshabason.bandcamp.com/track/our-plac…
More pastoral perfection. Shabason gives the song its pulse, while Gill's guitars glisten like sunlight on the surface of a pond. Too good to just be a one-off; here's hoping the duo have more on the way.
44/100

Part I • I've got that trans-dimensional feeling again - @joyfultalk
joyfultalk.bandcamp.com/album/a-separa…
The album art depicting Jay Crocker's novel notation tells the story better than any write-up. Synths and strings loop and whirl, building a beautiful machine one gear at a time.
45/100

In Light - @juliannabarwick ft. @iamjonsi
juliannabarwick.bandcamp.com/album/healing-…
Healing is a Miracle is a hymnal for the everyday wonders we often overlook. With "In Light," it's the endless promise of new dawns and new beginnings, the immence potential of Now.
46/100

Öresund - Kanaan (on @El_Paraiso_Rec)
elparaisorecords.com/releases/kanaa…
A relentless assault of endless, fuzz-soaked guitars and pummeling drums. The loudest thing on this list by a wide margin, ideal for when you need to drown out the world and invite in the cosmos.
47/100

The Kindness of Strangers - @karav3lo open.spotify.com/album/2ZEFDHct…
Distilling the spirit of a Hawaiian vacation, not through tiki kitsch (well, maybe a little), but in the contentedness that comes from being surrounded by sunlight, sand, and breaking waves without another care.
48/100

Wake-up - @kellyleeowens
kellyleeowens.bandcamp.com/album/inner-so…
Owens ends an album of introspection with a call to action, eventually stripping it down to a two-word a cappella refrain, gentle but urgent, a whispered plea to break free from the destructive sleepwalk of modern life.
49/100

Ivory Tower - @dylankf
heart.bandcamp.com/album/finds-yo…
Khotin's 2020 EP came ready-made with the gauzy texture of a cassette you've worn out and re-dubbed a dozen times already. Beats from a half-remembered summer, recollected through the hangovers of the intervening years.
50/100

Time (You and I) - @Khruangbin
khruangbin.bandcamp.com/album/mordechai
Time's taut funk-pop and jump-rope melody shows how flexible their sound has become. In 5 years, they've gone from inward-facing psych to irresistible Tom Tom Club grooves, without sacrificing their singular voice.
51/100

Circles - Kibrom Birhane
…rhaneflyingcarpetrecords.bandcamp.com/album/circles
Deep grooves from Birhane & co., a compelling fusion of Ethio- and spiritual jazz traditions. Recorded live off the floor, and you can sense the push and pull as the players feel out the sonic space.
52/100

Lately In Another Time - Loving
loving.bandcamp.com/album/if-i-am-…
Loving's 2nd LP repeats the miracle of the first, another collection of perfectly assembled folk-pop with a slight psychedelic lilt. The Clientele & Bibio are touchpoints but this is its own kind of vernal loveliness.
53/100

Aurelius Dye - Martin Rude & Jakob Skøtt Duo
elparaisorecords.com/releases/marti…
Building from a tentative shuffle to a motorik chug before dissolving in a shimmer of reverb, "Aurelius Dye" captures the strengths of the duo's dynamics (and caps off a stellar year for @El_Paraiso_Rec).
54/100

Pine Trees - @marylattimore
marylattimoreharpist.bandcamp.com/album/silver-l…
A gateway into the wilderness of Silver Ladders. Crisp needles of sound underlain by deep, almost subliminal synth (via Neal Halstead). Comforting but slightly foreboding, like a stroll at the start of a Grimm fairy tale.
55/100

For Lise - @matchessound
matchess.bandcamp.com/track/for-lise
Droning synths and offset strings gather an eerie momentum, like a midnight drive through unfamiliar terrain, or the slow-dawning inevitability of a bad dream. Released in @MexicanSummer's fabulous Looking Glass series.
56/100

July 23rd - Matthew Cardinal
matthewcardinal.bandcamp.com
Each of the electronic improvisations on Cardinal's Asterisms is tied to a time, and July 23rd carries the warmth of a midsummer daydream in its collage of synths and airy effects. Beautiful and brimming with life.
57/100

Contingencia - @mintfieldband
mintfield.bandcamp.com/album/sentimie…
Good and crunchy dream pop from Mexico City. Breathy vocals and sideways guitars set the mood, but it's that absolutely relentless bassline and its motorik momentum that drags this one into the spotlight.
58/100

Few Layers for Smith - Misha Panfilov Sound Combo
mpsc.bandcamp.com/album/days-as-…
Imagine Steve Reich composing game show themes, a slow accumulation of Wurlitzer loops, '70s jazz flute, and toe-tapping grooves into the sunniest of sunny day jams.
59/100

Sunflower - @MonsterRally
monsterrally.bandcamp.com/album/castaway…
Monster Rally's strange alchemy turns kitsch into gold. Swooning strings, easy-listening, exotica, and other bargain-bin finds get fused with big, head-bobbing beats, revealing hidden depths & unknown pleasures.
60/100

Bless Me - Moses Sumney
mosessumney.bandcamp.com/album/gr-2
Grae's lineup features a murderer's row of players, producers and even literary figures, and brilliant as the music is, it feels almost superfluous next to the ecstatic highs and aching beauty of That Voice.
61/100

Sanctuary - @netrvnner
netrvnner.bandcamp.com/album/of-might…
Netrvnner's first EP of 2020 set aside synthwave's neon future for a magical fantasyland, crackling with ethereal energy rather than dystopian electricity.
(His second EP of 2020 came out today. It is also great.)
62/100

GODS DIRTY WORK - @nick_hakim
nickhakim.bandcamp.com/album/will-thi…
Hakim's multi-tracked vocals have a whispered intimacy, like you're inside his head, listening to his thoughts echo above the kind of deep psych-soul groove you hope never has to end.
63/100

All Melody - @nilsfrahm
nilsfrahm.bandcamp.com/album/tripping…
Frahm's music is patient, but it's also restless, evolving from moment to moment in captivating ways. By the time the climax arrives a dozen minutes in with its percussive synths and processed vocals, you're already soaring.
64/100

Fish - @nojoy
nojoy.bandcamp.com/album/motherho…
An imaginative fusion of production-heavy genres from shoegaze to industrial that, aside from its own mastery, incidentally proves Enya has been as essential to the evolution of dream pop as anything on 4AD.
65/100

Rivers That You Cannot See - @North_Americans
northamericanszone.bandcamp.com/album/roped-in…
Ambient-folk drone poetry that reveals itself like stars in the night sky. Ribbons of pedal steel shimmer and drift like northern lights; melodic pinpoints becoming more intricate the harder you stare.
66/100

Skull - @oracogan
oracogan.bandcamp.com/album/bells-in…
Between the dreamlike "Sleeping" and propulsive prog-folk of "Skull," Cogan managed to open her latest album with two of the year's most captivating songs. Kinetic and eerie, like a ship cutting through thick west coast fog.
67/100

Do You Have ESP - @OCAheaven
orangecrateart.bandcamp.com/album/radial-t…
Imagining a paradox-inducing world where Brian Wilson was raised on a steady diet of MBV, Malmo, Sweden's Orange Crate Art sculpts dense sonic collages from lysergic '60s sounds and waves of shoegaze distortion.
68/100

Eyeballs - @peeldreamzine
peeldreammagazine.bandcamp.com/album/agitprop…
Agitprop Alterna and sister EP Moral Panics filled 2020 with oscillating anthems, blending pop instincts with vacuum-cleaner guitars and motorik grooves, updating Stereolab's space-age bachelor pad for the new millennium.
69/100

Stop and Listen - @BroPeterick
peterbroderick1.bandcamp.com/album/blackber…
Doomsayers have more gravity, but sometimes wisdom is better served by whimsy. Broderick's optimism and humour belie the musical and philosophical depth of a song that simply urges us to pay attention to what matters.
70/100

El Delirio - Petite Amie
soundcloud.com/petiteamie/el-…
Warbly indie-pop to warm you on a winter's eve. Something in the easygoing guitars feels coastal, a sound steeped in sunshine and boundless horizons. A promising early release from a band that's only three singles in.
71/100

Morning Plants - Puma & the Dolphin
invisible-inc.bandcamp.com/album/indoor-r…
Puma's Nikko Names describes the album as coming from "a monotone period of my life which I have overlaid with colour" and I can't think of a better description of the role music has played for me in 2020.
72/100

Evrlong - @rafwilcot
rafwilcot.bandcamp.com/album/cinnabar…
Omnivorous, experimental folk pop that brims with soul and overflows with the joy of musical creation. Refuses to abide by expectations, instead opting to follow its tangents to their fullest expression.
73/100

Flashflood - @oh__rhoda and @dillanwitherow
shhsecretsongs.bandcamp.com/album/snowgard…
Despite the title, "Flashflood" isn't so much a torrential outpouring as a gentle brook, its soft stream of guitar harmonics and gentle melodic loops still somehow just as able to sweep you away.
74/100

Sudden Awareness of Now - @rivalconsoles
rivalconsoles.bandcamp.com/album/articula…
For all its varied textures and sonic flourishes, "Sudden Awareness" clings to its simple melodic theme like a mantra, repeating it until the very act of repetition becomes a means of seeking ecstasy.
75/100

Morning Light - @RoseCityBand
rosecityband.bandcamp.com/album/summerlo…
The stoned-out bliss of Moon Duo is shockingly well-suited to country music. "Morning Light" is what bar bands everywhere would sound like if there were justice in the world, a two-chord stomper brimming with joy.
76/100

Never Met - Sam Prekop
samprekop.bandcamp.com/album/comma
"Never Met" is about as melodically straightforward as it gets but the range of sonic textures Prekop coaxes from his synths is something else. An exercise in timbre, with the confidence of a musician 25 years into his career.
77/100

Wenig Worte für ein Ende - @SANKTOTTEN
sankt-otten.bandcamp.com/album/lieder-f…
Plenty of bands draw influence from German innovators like Neu! and Kraftwerk, but Sankt Otten is one of very few to feel like their peers. Sentimental and robotic; the latest permutation of the man-machine.
78/100

Uncomfortable - @SaultGlobal saultglobal.bandcamp.com/album/untitled…
SAULT released two double-albums of fearless soul in 2020. "Uncomfortable" is one of the smoothest moments on either, but no less confrontational for it, the plainspoken delivery all the more heartbreakingly direct.
79/100

Joy - Scott Hardware
scotthardware.bandcamp.com/album/engel
One of the first songs I fell in love with in 2020, and one that still overwhelms with the sheer force of its emotion. Hardware trips over his own words, tumbling forward through four minutes of joyous catharsis.
80/100

Antifa Fuchsia - Secret Drum Band
secretdrumband.bandcamp.com/album/chuva
Based on improvisations recorded during a far-right rally and antifa counter-protest, the opener to Secret Drum Band's latest is stoic and steadfast. Anxious synths moan underneath, but the beat goes on.
81/100

Osouji - Shabason, Krgovich & Harris (@Ideefixerecords)
shabasonkrgovichharris.bandcamp.com/album/philadel…
Krgovich sings of "seeing things that have been hid, and considering them." It's a mission statement for an album of quiet observation & soft melody, an antidote to 2020's information overload.
82/100