No. 38 - Best albums of 2022 edition
Music writer Hannah Jocelyn wrote the latest edition of her “What Your Favourite album of 2022 Says About You” series. Take from that, and from the list below, what you will.
50. Sorry – Anywhere But Here
49. Cluttered - Transgender Dystopia Blues EP
48. Kiwi Jr. - Chopper
46. vein.fm - This World is Going to Ruin You
45. Yeule - Glitch Princess
44. Nilufer Yanya - PAINLESS
43. Camp Cope - Running With the Hurricane
42. Rich Aucoin – Synthetic Vol. 1
41. Black Midi – Hellfire
40. Martha - Please Don’t Take Me Back
39. Fontaines D.C. - Skinty Fia
38. They Hate Change - Finally, New
37. Hatchie - Giving the World Away
36. Denzel Curry - Melt My Eyez See Your Future
35. Shygirl - Nymph
34. MUNA - MUNA
33. Ethel Cain - Preacher’s Daughter
32. Chastity - Suffer Summer
31. Orville Peck - Bronco
30. Beabadoobee - Beatopia
29. Dazy – OUTOFBODY
28. Panda Bear & Sonic Boom - Reset
27. Sudan Archives – Natural Brown Prom Queen
26. Coco & Clair Clair - Sexy
Original image, Artificial Intelligence, by Phil Wolstenholme.
25. Soccer Mommy - Sometimes, Forever
24. Weird Nightmare - Weird Nightmare
23. Luna Li - Duality
21. Momma - Household Name
20. Soul Glo - Diaspora Problems
19. Pup - The Unravelling of Puptheband
18. The Beths – Expert In a Dying Field
17. Jockstrap – I Love You Jennifer B
16. Field Medic – grow your hair long if you’re wanting to see something that you can change
15. Steve Lacy - Gemini Rights
14. Anxious - Little Green House
13. Yard Act - The Overload
12. Bartees Strange - Farm to Table
11. Grace Ives - Janky Star
10. Dehd - Blue Skies
9. Wet Leg - Wet Leg
8. Charli XCX - Crash
7. Sophia Bel - Anxious Avoidant
6. My Idea - Cry Mfer
5. The 1975 – Being Funny in a Foreign Language
4. Enumclaw - Save the Baby
3. Courting - Guitar Music
2. Ombiigizi - Sewn Back Together
1. Alvvays - Blue Rev
Kool Kids Self-promotion Club
For the 10th year running, I helped curate and write the Exclaim! Gift Guide for 2022. Think of it like a Christmas list for music nerds, the primary nerd being me.
I also did a little bit of year-end blurbing for the mag. Up first was Alvvays’ Blue Rev, which as you saw above was both my and the writers of Exclaim!’s choice for the best album of the year. “There's nothing backward-looking about Blue Rev. Instead, they boil down elements of power pop, shoegaze, dream pop, jangle rock and any other indie rock subfield you can think of into an alcopop-charged rush of guitar rock joy.”
I also once again stumped for Sophia Bel’s Anxious Avoidant, this time on Exclaim!’s list of 25 Great Canadian Albums You Might Have Missed in 2022. There’s a lot of good stuff on there as well!
Finally I reviewed the new, supposedly final, NOFX album, Double Album. “Billed as equal parts leftovers from their previous record, Single Album ("The songs on Double Album aren't quite as good," reads the press release), and the group's swan song, it expertly follows through on the first promise in a way that their long list of self-deprecating song and album titles (I Heard They Suck Live!!, "All Outta Angst") only hinted at.” Ouch.
Kool Kids Music Recommendation Club
ICYMI: I’ve started curating a list of upcoming Toronto area shows. You can check that out here.
Over the past decade producer and DJ Fred Again… (aka Fred Gibson) has scored a lot of cred points working in the background with the likes of Brian Eno and Karl Hyde, Stormzy and Charli XCX and Lil Yachty’s earworm “After the Afterparty,” in between landing significant hits with the likes of George Ezra and Clean Bandit. Still, he’s also been behind some dodgy releases, notably Ed Sheeran’s No. 6 Collaborations Project. That’s a mixed bag! But it’s Gibson’s ongoing Actual Life series of releases that have put the UK artist in the spotlight. Actual Life 3 (January 1 – September 9 2022) his latest house-inflected collection of samples, voice notes and field recordings doesn’t really give us a better sense of who Fred Gibson is, but it is filled with anthems that work equally well in the club or on your morning commute. “Danielle (smile on my face),” which samples a live recording of 070 Shake’s “Nice To Have,” is a clear standout.
Toronto trio notfortheo are something of a meeting of the minds from the city’s various music scenes. Jonathan Rogers has played with indie acts Elsa and The Seams, Khalede Russell came up in the Toronto hardcore scene while Villabeatz is a local producer and DJ. Together they make music that sounds adjacent to, but not really part of the indie-R&B of the early 2010s. But the corners of the four-tracks that make up their Half Life EP are a little less rounded, the sound a tad less gauzy, while leaning on the light funk of artists like Men I Trust and TOPS. “interlock” seems to compare the feeling off coming off a coke binge to the neverending scroll of our phones. Drugs sound like fun!
Despite all its ickiness, a lot of good stuff does manage to make it out of Florida. Thankfully there isn’t a whiff of that cesspool of a state in the music Pool Kids are making. Their second album puts a nice stadium sheen on noodley midwest emo. while singer Christine Goodwyne unloads about her love-hate relationship with the digital world. “I'm in a group chat with twenty-one goddamn people. I wish I was exaggerating, but I'm not” she sings on “Arm’s Length, one of the record’s many standouts.
Finally Bria, aka Frigs and Orville Peck backing-band member Bria Salmena, is back. On the heels of last year’s Cuntry Covers Vol. 1 is… Cuntry Covers Vol. 2. Perhaps the sequel is inevitable, but the record’s first single “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone” ditches the first installment’s Twin Peaks country vibe for a groovier take on Paula Cole’s immortal Women & Songs-core staple. Vol 2, which includes covers of Gillian Welch, Mary Margaret O’Hara and Loretta Lynn, drops February 24 on Sub Pop.
Ian Gormely is a freelance music journalist based in Toronto.
Hit up koolkidsmusicclub@gmail.com for questions, criticisms and submissions.