Meow Piglet’s icily haunting track “Doors” is about recurring dreams and how each can be a portal to another part of one’s subconscious or to another iteration of experiences from one’s unwaking hours. The human mind is often drawn to memories of dreams as potential answers to questions that occur while awake and for the song the image of doors and falling through them resonates with the familiarity of the dream state and how people and stimuli from that time are often unfamiliar yet seem a normal part of dreaming. The song itself is a series of portals into various realms of music. The beginning has a ring of menace and of dark spaces with a circular, slightly distorted vortex of tone and a minimal, percussion beat like the sound of a train track before shifting to more textural sounds as the focus and then on into gorgeous passages that may remind certain listeners of the blissful noises of 1991, foundational IDM song “Papua New Guinea” by The Future Sound of London. And yet further into the song there is an indie electronica passage where we hear singer Aurora Hentunen’s melodious voice offering a poetic rendering of a concrete description of the aforementioned dream exploration and the cyclical nature of dreams and how their true significance, assuming there is any, can elude us even when we turn to them for answers. Though the song traverses various moods, styles and genres of electronic music it all feels somehow like a unified aesthetic the way our dreams feel like a continuous experience that too shifts throughout their duration. Listen to “Doors,” with contributions from audio-visual artist Luka Batista, on Spotify and follow Helsinki, Finland’s Meow Piglet at the links below. The group’s latest album Deeper released on December 1, 2023.
This best of list was intended for publication in 2020 and parts of the entries with comments were published in my year end best list for the print edition of Birdy magazine in Denver for the December 2019 issue. The full best of list is presented here with those short reviews included with the appropriate album and the rest included without comment and several album covers shared as well. The album of the year was All Your Sisters’ Trust Ruins (listed first) because it encapsulated the mood of the year and the band put on one of the best shows of 2019 and the record felt like a leap forward in style and execution for the band. Soon I’ll publish the full best of 2020 list too in a similar format with the commentary for those items that made it into the print edition of Birdy for December 2020.
All Your Sisters | Trust Ruins | The Flenser A brutal, maximalist summation of the turmoil, conflict, sense of chaos and confusion, rage and frustration and overwhelming flood of negative input from world and societal events of the previous few years. In articulating those feelings and experiences and more alone as powerfully as it does, this album by All Your Sisters transcends genre by providing an example of how industrial and darkwave music can burst beyond established conventions with the sharp-edged and precise percussion framing and channeling the fiery energy at the core of the songwriting.
Adia Victoria | Silences | Atlantic
Adrianna Krikl | Celestial | Self-released
Aldous Harding | Designer | 4AD
Alex Cameron | Miami Memory | Secretly Canadian
Altas | All I Ever Wanted Was | Self-released A lush deepening of the band’s sweeping, cinematic aesthetic.
Anamanaguchi | [USA] | Polyvinyl
Andre Cactus | Dune Juice | Multidim Records
Andy Stott | It Should Be Us | Modern Love
Angel Olsen | All Mirrors | Jagjaguwar Poignantly dreamlike examination of identity in an age of universal scrutiny.
Bestial Mouths | INSHROUDSS | Rune & Ruin
Bellhoss | Geraniums | Self-released Buoyant, lo-fi slowcore love songs for inner awkward nerd.
Bethlehem Steel | s/t | Exploding in Sound The utter exorcism of oppression through bursts of melodic/atonal poetry.
Big Dopes | Crimes Against Gratitude | Self-released Captivating indie pop earworm vingettes of American malaise and hope.
Big Thief | U.F.O.F. / Two Hands | 4AD
Bison Bone | Take Up the Trouble | Self-released
Black Belt Eagle Scout | At The Party With My Brown Friends | Saddle Creek
black midi | Schlagenheim | Rough Trade Records A primer for the new avant-guitar rock revolution.
Black Mountain | Destroyer | Jagjaguwar
Blanck Mass | Animated Violence Mild | Sacred Bones
Blood Incantation | Hidden History of the Human Race | Dark Descent
Boy Scouts | Free Company | ANTI-
Briffaut | A Maritime Odyssey: Heaven is Only a Boat Race Away | GROUPHUG
Calexico and Iron and Wine | Years to Burn | Subpop
Cat Tyson Hughes | Gentle Encounters With Things | Self-released Ambient, aural snapshots of memory fragments from the hypnogogic state.
Cau5er | The Tower | Self-released
Ceremony | In the Spirit World Now | Relapse Records
Chastity Belt | Chastity Belt | Hardly Art
Cheap Perfume | Burn It Down | Snappy Little Numbers
Chella and the Charm | Good Gal | Self-released
Chelsea Wolfe | Birth of Violence | Sargent House
Chimney Choir | (light shadow) | Self-released
Chromatics | Closer to Grey | Italians Do It Better
clipping. | There Existed an Addiction to Blood | Sub Pop
Consumer | In Computers | The Flenser
Control Top | Covert Contracts | Get Better Records
Cop Circles | Vacation for Hurt | Self-released Subversive, Laurie Anderson-esque, New Age, No Wave send-up of corporate seminar jingles.
Cosey Fanni Tutti | Tutti | Conspiracy International Heavy and hypnotic industrial rave autobiography through sound.
Curse | Metamorphism | Fake Crab Records Eight, powerful, darkwave, prophetic warnings of our potential future.
Danny Brown | uknowhatimsayin¿ | Warp Records Relentlessly inventive beats and tragicomedic, self-immolating swagger, sci-fi autobiography.
Davi Valois | Bátraquio | Space Cow Music
Deafkids | Metaprogramação | Neurot Recordings Immersive, ambient-industrial death grind.
Doo Crowder | One For the Losers (& Other Pilgrims) | Self-released The greatest art pop record since the death of Harry Nilsson.
Dog Basketball | s/t | Self-released
Drab Majesty | Modern Mirror | Dais Records Moodily heartbreaking deep dive into the essence of love, memory and beauty.
Drowse | Light Mirror/Second Self | The Flenser
Dude York | Falling | Hardly Art
Earl Sweatshirt | FEET OF CLAY | Tan Cressida
Elizabeth Colour Wheel | Nocebo | The Flenser Majestic, urban-tribal, noise-sludge dream psych.
Empath | Active Listening: Night On Earth | Get Better Records
Entrancer | Downgrade | Multidim Records
Ex Hex | It’s Real | Merge Records Cosmic New Wave power pop gems beginning to end.
Facs | Lifelike | Trouble In Mind
FEELS / Shannon Lay | Post Earth / August | Wichita / Sub Pop
FM Cubgod | Handsome? | Self-released
Foxes in Fiction | Trillium Killer | Orchid Tapes
Frankie Cosmos | Close It Quietly | Sub Pop
French Kettle Station | Over X Millennia | Self-released Retro-furturist, New Age pop shade jams on contemporary wack culture.
Future Sound of London | Yage | Fsol Digital
Gila Teen | Doesn’t | Self-released
Glissline | Digital Bipolarism | Multidim Records
Gold Trash | Quiet Violence | Glasss Records Collage glitch industrial hip-hop daggers into misogynist culture.
Goon | Natural Evil | Convulse Records
Guerilla Toss | What Would The Odd Do? | DFA Mind-altering, subtropical, disco punk dance pop.
Half Shadow | Dream Weather Its Electric Song | Illusion Florist
Haunted Horses | Dead Meat | SIXWIX
Have a Nice Life | Sea of Worry | The Flenser
HEALTH | Slaves of Fear Vol. 4 | Loma Vista Recordings
HIDE | Hell is Here | Dais Records
Holly Herndon | Proto | 4AD
HTRK | Venus In Leo | Ghostly International Love songs from downtempo dance clubs in the future urban decay.
Jamila Woods | Legacy! Legacy! | Jagjaguwar
Jenny Hval | The Practice of Love | Sacred Bones
Kal Marks | Let the Shit House Burn Down | Exploding in Sound
Kid Mask | dead sore(s) | Self-released Dispatches from the industrial glitch techno hard rave revolution.
Kim Gordon | No Home Record | Matador Records Scathing jazz cool poetry set to hip-hop-inflected noise.
Kristin Hersh | Possible Dust Clouds | Fire Records
Kyle Emerson | Only Coming Down | Swoon City Music
Larians | Looming Boy EP | Self-released Loneliness and isolation distilled as shimmering IDM nuggets.
Legendary Pink Dots | Angel in the Detail | Metropolis Records A brilliant synthesis of classical sonic architecture, emotionally charged ambient and deep social critique.
Hanna Ojala “(I have no clue, so I will) Listen & Learn” cover
“(I have no clue, so I will) Listen & Learn” is Finnish artist Hanna Ojala’s most ambitious composition to date. She drew partially on Pond5: The Public Domain Project for source material not only in sampling sound and video footage for her own short film made for the piece but as a kind of aesthetic template through which to explore methods of social control from the past and how there is an eerie resonance for the present. One imagines one hears Ojala’s own voice reading from scientific abstracts but maybe it’s her commentary on the metaphysical underpinnings of human existence and how we treat identity as a justification for social stratification processed and placed in the soundscape with the quality of an old record while a simple melody runs through and ambient, atmospheric sounds and a bit from an old blues singer lamenting the human condition for so many as imposed by a racist society. The effect is reminiscent of the soundtrack work Eurythmics did for the film 1984. It is imbued with the spirit of a future art project intended to convey the alien qualities of an old civilization informed by prejudices that will seem completely irrational decades and centuries hence. The footage of the American Civil Rights movement, scientific experiments, some on children, and now outdated technology enhance this unique critique of how society has rationalized its mistreatment of a minority group and, in the end, of the society entirely as that mistreatment has consequences for all. And yet, as the title of the work suggests, Ojala has no pretense of a full understanding or appreciation of the experiences presented, rather, she has created the audio and the video as a vehicle for understanding for herself and for anyone else willing to go along for its 22 minute, 2 second duration. But the journey is fascinating and worth taking and reminiscent of old industrial culture projects that created their art as a medium of comprehension as well. Fans of Chris & Cosey and Future Sound of London will appreciate not only Ojala’s aim for the song but also her cinematic production of the audio and the musical rhythm of the sampled video. Watch that video for “(I have no clue, so I will) Listen & Learn” on YouTube and connect with Ojala at the links below.
“Isolated Arrest” by multimedia artist HEARTATTRACKS (with guest vocals from Kim Little aka Hnymlk) folds together some hip-hop production with glitchy IDM and ambient music. The vocals center the tonal flow of the song when they come in like a vortex of illumination. The effect is a bit like what might have happened had William Orbit and Future Sound of London come up after the advent of trap beats. The song conveys a sense of the exotic and the alien while also establishing a calming influence with its high pitched background arpeggio and softened, accenting percussion. The song evokes images of the dreams of a calm jungle in the morning with the myriad of stimuli washing gently over you that will recede into the ambient soundscape once your conscious mind fully takes hold. It is a soundtrack to hyper awareness without being overwhelmed by what you perceive. Listen to “Isolated Arrest” on Spotify and connect with HEARTTRACKS at the links below.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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