Limiting this to a top ten, although I’ve included eighteen more recommended albums at the end (in alphabetical order by artist); as these things tend to shift over time, a few may end up on a future iteration of this list.

10. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Woodland

One advantage of creating timeless-sounding music is that as long as the songwriting remains sharp and inspired, a venerable career is nearly guaranteed. Granted, this is Welch’s first new album under her own name in well over a decade (and also the first to co-credit longtime partner/collaborator Rawlings) but it’s also the most vital she’s come across since 2001’s Time (The Revelator). It doesn’t reinvent the wheel but it doesn’t necessarily have to as Welch and Rawling’s acoustic folk feels both as out-of-time and relevant as ever.

9. Jessica Pratt, Here In The Pitch

Similarly out-of-time, Pratt’s fourth album (and the first of hers I’ve heard) sonically resembles a world securely preserved in amber (in this case, one from the mid-1960s) but here’s the catch—I wouldn’t go so far to call it retro. Rather than trying to fully recreate a past aesthetic (such as a Bacharach/David pastiche), she crafts songs that resemble transmissions from an interior plane or at least something only known to her. Never musty nor obscure, her miniatures, like the disarming, haunting “Life Is” are occasionally striking enough to stop one in one’s tracks.

8. Julia Holter, Something In The Room She Moves

More than five years on from her ambitious, often intimidating double-LP Aviary, Holter re-emerges with something seemingly crafted for these uncertain times, a gentle fever dream serving as a balm but also as a stimulant. “Celestial” feels like an apt description of the vibe it often goes for (the less charitable might say “spacy” or just plain “strange”.) If one gravitates towards music that’s by nature obscure or unknown, Holter’s your god and while I have trouble retaining her melodies (“These Morning” a notable exception), there’s enough going on in her sonic palette to hold my interest.

7. Hurray For The Riff Raff, The Past Is Still Alive

Having spent years confused and intrigued by the moniker of Alynda Segarra’s long-running project, they first captured my attention with the propulsive, anthemic “Pierced Arrows” from 2022’s Life On Earth; this follow-up is a different proposition, a concept/road trip album centered on Segarra’s recently deceased father that delves into an Americana as vivid as it is divergent from what Welch and Rawlings offered this year. Despite the immediacy of opener “Alibis”, it’s a slow-grower of a record, kind of like the last Big Thief album only arguably more focused. 

6. Beth Gibbons, Lives Outgrown

Sixteen years after Portishead’s third (and apparently last) record, vocalist Gibbons’ first solo album is a totally unexpected gift: apart from her ever-distinct vocals, it’s like little her band ever did, opting for acoustic and/or orchestral arrangements that sometimes recall Out of Season (her 2002 collaboration with Rustin Man), but only slightly. As one would hope for from such an iconoclast, this feels nearly as fresh as Dummy did in 1994 in how it often surprises the listener: the not-cloying child’s choir in “Floating On A Moment” for instance, or the percussive momentum driving the thunderous “Reaching Out”. 

5. Gruff Rhys, Sadness Sets Me Free

Fifteen years after their last album, I no longer pine for a Super Furry Animals reunion as vocalist Gruff Rhys has produced a back catalog as nourishing as his old band’s. Sonically, this is not wildly different from 2021’s Seeking New Gods, carrying on that record’s orchestral sweep and pastoral climate. What’s new is a melancholia that Rhys communicates eloquently and defends convincingly, from the opener title track to closer “I’ll Keep Singing” (which cunningly reprises the former.) Also, delicately soaring non-single and hidden gem “Peace Signs” is (for what it’s worth) one of my most-played songs on Spotify this year.

4. Laura Marling, Patterns In Repeat

Arriving four years after Songs For Our Daughter which was crafted in anticipation of having a child, Marling’s latest is about actually becoming a mother. While such a concept risks preciousness, her gimlet-eyed view has only softened slightly. With her arrangements stripped down to percussion-less, near Fan Dance-levels, the resultant song cycle is her most complete-sounding album since 2015’s Short Movie or maybe even 2010’s landmark I Speak Because I Can. “Child of Mine” could be a future standard, while the extraordinary “The Shadows” relays Marling’s rare talent as beautifully as anything she’s done since her first recordings as a teenager.

3. Arooj Aftab, Night Reign

As with Jessica Pratt above, this Pakistani-American vocalist’s fourth album snuck up on me and offered considerable solace during an exhausting year. With a deep tone occasionally reminiscent of Sade, one could categorize her music (much of it sung in her native tongue) as a jazz/world music fusion, maybe a cross between Natacha Atlas and Cassandra Wilson. Still, Aftab’s unique blend of genres and cultures is arguably her own. “Raat Ki Rani” even has something approaching a hook but much of Night Reign scans like a velvet-smooth burrowing into a subterranean, way-after hours dreamscape—an enchanting place to let go and get lost in.

2. The Cure, Songs Of A Lost World

Long-anticipated, The Cure’s first release in sixteen years fully lives up to the promise suggested by hearing at least half of these songs in concert eighteen months ago. Remembering most of his strengths and qualities that no one else could ever hope to replicate, Robert Smith makes it sound so easy (even though the last four Cure albums would suggest otherwise.) Perhaps adhering to a rather narrow aesthetic this time (there’s nothing like “Friday I’m In Love” here) helped center him to make such a commonly focused, solid work. It won’t replace Disintegration or even Wish as anyone’s favorite Cure LP, but like the shockingly strong Tears For Fears reunion album two years ago, this is, against all odds or good reason, a “legacy artist” at the top of their game.

1. Cassandra Jenkins, My Light, My Destroyer

In large part because of her brilliant single “Hard Drive”, Jenkin’s previous album nearly ended up my favorite of 2021 before Aimee Mann unexpectedly dropped her own return-to-form. It was for the best as Jenkins’ follow-up is a real advance. Not that she could ever top “Hard Drive”, a singular creation that first appeared at a crucial moment, but My Light, My Destroyer makes an altogether more persuasive case for her as an artist. On paper, it appears to be a jumble, mixing catchy rockers (“Clams Casino”, “Petco”) with introspective ballads (“Only One”, “Omakase”), short instrumentals and conversational snippets (“Shatner’s Theme”, “Betelgeuse”) and unclassifiable combinations of some or all of the above (the gorgeous, mysterious “Delphinium Blue”.) And yet, I’m enchanted every time I put it on, compelled to consume all 37 minutes of it at once—not an easy feat in an age where there’s just so much music to pick from and pay close attention to. Happily, spending ample time with Jenkins reaps considerable rewards.

ALSO RECOMMENDED:

• Alison Moyet, Key
• Andrew Bird & Madison Cunningham, Cunningham Bird
• Another Sky, Beach Day
• Brittany Howard, What Now
• Father John Misty, Mahashmashana
• High Llamas, Hey Panda
• Katie Pruitt, Mantras
• Maggie Rogers, Don’t Forget Me
• Michael Kiwanuka, Small Changes
• Nilufer Yanya, My Method Actor
• Pet Shop Boys, Nonetheless
• Quivers, Oyster Cuts
• Real Estate, Daniel
• SUSS, Birds & Beasts
• The The, Ensoulment
• Tindersticks, Soft Tissue
• Wand, Vertigo
• Waxahatchee, Tigers Blood