The Distrans Continuum Top 8 Albums of 2021

Fast on the heels of the 2020 list, here comes 2021...

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8. Gas - Der Lange Marsch

A late release in December 2021, I can't help associate this album with a midnight drive to a COVID vaccination centre in the middle of rural Devon just as the first Omicron wave hit the UK (I kept missing turns in the dark, got lost, and eventually I realised I'd been driving without the headlights on). So the album carries extra paranoia-induced quality when I hear it. As for the music, the album is generally understood as a kind of homage to Wolfgang Voigt's extensive past electronic-ambient releases under the Gas moniker, so there's much to like even if it doesn't mark a radical departure from such past works.

7. Low - Hey What

Writing this post a year too late forces me to confront the untimely death of Low member Mimi Parker in November 2022 - RIP Mimi. Hey What presents in many ways a logical continuation from 2018's excellent Double Negative, which was something of a turning point in the Low back catalogue through its extensive use of Bon Iver-style vocal processing. Hey What starts in pretty uncompromising fashion with 'White Horses', bringing back a harder edge sometimes missing on its predecessor.

6. Kings Of Convenience - Peace Or Love

After a rather substantial gap since their last album, 2009's Declaration Of Dependence, I was surprised by how much I warmed to this record. Not a great deal has changed in the duo's music - it's still pretty inoffensive acoustic pop - but seemingly I have a major soft spot for it. Perhaps it is the basic charm of songs like 'Love Is A Lonely Thing' and 'Catholic Country' (featuring Feist sharing vocal duties) on the enkindling of romance that kept me coming back.

5. The Weather Station - Ignorance

Featuring on many critics list in 2021, this album took a while to warm to - in fact for a good while I still preferred 2015's Loyalty to it - but in the end the general quality and lyrical depth of Ignorance won me over.

4. Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine - A Beginner's Mind

If there were any long time readers of this blog, they would not be surprised to see yet another Sufjan Stevens album in my yearly lists. The collaboration is a pleasant homage to popular movies from a few years/decades ago, which presents a fun task in working out the various film references in the songs. More importantly, it's a thoroughly fun and enjoyable pop record, without any of the pervading angst that coloured 2020's The Ascension.

3. James Blake - Friends That Break Your Heart

After being blissed up in love on Assume Form (2019), James Blake seemingly returns to more familar emotional territory on Friends That Break Your Heart, dealing with less happy times and more mundane relationship turmoil. While not as universally lauded by critics as some of his other albums (this is Blake at his safest, according to Pitchfork), there's a lot to like here, from the bouncy lurch of 'Coming Back' to the melodic if self-deprecating 'Say What You Will'.

2. Floating Points & Pharoah Sanders - Promises

Another (unexpected) collaboration, and another great loss to music, with jazz legend saxophonist Pharoah Sanders passing away at the age of 81 in September 2022. His 2021 collaboration with Mancunian DJ and producer Sam Shepherd (aka Floating Points), also featuring the London Symphony Orchestra, is a genuine standout record in nine movements, with the sax, electronics and orchestra gently coalescing in exquisite harmony. Supposedly recorded over five years, Promises is an impressively forward-looking monument to Sanders' long career, not to mention future offerings from Floating Points.

1. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - G_d's Pee At State's End!

Finally, a post-2000s Godspeed album that lives up to the highs of their early work, last seen on 2012's excellent Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! As it happens, G_d's Pee At State's End! closely follows the successful structure of the band's 2012 album, with the familiar arrangement of a pair of front stage expansive 20 minute tracks each followed by shorter 5 minute interval pieces. As with Don't Bend! Ascend!, it is the longer tracks that carry the day, with resounding post-apocalyptic guitar instrumentals building out of the radio static, falling away, and rising again, in different (but equally epic) forms.