As with previous years, I combed through all of the playlists from the podcast and the weekly Free Form Freakout shows, revisited the small number of review columns I was able to churn out and put together a blurb-less, alphabetical list of some of my favorite albums, tapes, and reissue & archival releases of the year. There are a few titles on here that will appear on upcoming shows, and the plan, for now, is to do a proper year-end recap episode of the podcast before 2020 is a wrap. Overall, I tried to keep this reeled in so it didn’t start to look more like an endless ‘albums I heard in 2020’ exercise. Once again, I didn’t include any of the three releases that came out on Round Bale Recordings this year, but I was proud to have worked with Oksun Ox, Family Ravine, and Magnetic Ghost in getting their music out into the world, despite how upside down the world was when those releases came out. 

I also want to give a huge shoutout to Glenn Donaldson and Thomas D’Angelo for their writing contributions to the Free Form Freakout website this year. I always looked forward to seeing what surprises they would send my way with their columns, and not only did they broaden the scope of our coverage, but their contributions also kept me motivated to keep things going, which I desperately needed. Full disclosure: after doing the podcast for 10 years (and radio for 15), I was seriously considering pulling the plug at the end of 2020 or at the very least, scaling things back dramatically. I’ll spare you from the tedious details; the photo above that was taken in jest in the early stages of lockdown perhaps tells you all you’d really need, at least the classy, grey-on-grey, sweatpant-sweatshirt combo should, but let’s just say I’m at a point where I feel re-energized by the continuous arrival of inspiring new music and a renewed sense of purpose for supporting this area of music, something I believe is more important now than ever.         

On that note, I encourage you to click through the links provided for each release below and if you discover something you like, please make every effort to support these artists and labels in whatever way you can. Like many of you are probably feeling, I look forward to officially turning the page on 2020, but more importantly, I look forward to soldiering on in the new year ahead, perhaps with some new features and columns and, who knows, maybe even some live in-studio performances once again. Hope you’ll continue to check-in with us along the way. As always, thanks for looking and listening.

Albums:

• Malvern Brume – Tendrils (Alter)
• Jon Collin – Water & Rock Music 3 & 4 (Feeding Tube)
• The Cool Greenhouse – S/T (Melodic)
• Beatrice Dillon – Workaround (PAN)
• Delphine Dora – L’inattingible (Three:Four)
• Exotic Sin – Customer’s Copy (Blank Forms)
• Asher Gamedze – Dialectic Soul (On the Corner)
• Green/Blue – S/T (Slovenly)
• Irreversible Entanglements – Who Sent You? (International Anthem/Don Giovanni)
• A.F. Jones – A Jurist For Nothing (Gertrude Tapes)
• Okkyung Lee – Yeo-Neun (Shelter Press)
• Lithics – Tower of Age (Trouble In Mind)
• Bérangère Maximin – Land Of Waves (Karlrecords)
• Bill Nace – Both (Drag City)
• David Nance – Staunch Honey (Trouble In Mind)
• Obnox – Savage Raygun (Ever/Never)
• Oso el Roto – Pop de Cuchillo (Bruit Direct Disques)
• Ashley Paul – Ray (Slip) & Window Flower (Takuroku)
• Patrick Shiroishi – Descension (Thin Wrist Recordings)
• Silver Scrolls – Music For Walks (Three Lobed Recordings)
• Still House Plants – Fast Edits (Blank Forms)
• Spirit Fest – Mirage Mirage (Morr Music)
• Nick Storring – My Magic Dreams Have Lost Their Spell (Orange Milk)
• The Reds, Pinks, & Purples – You Might Be Happy Someday (Tough Love)
• Triple Negative – God Bless the Death Drive (Penultimate Press)

Tapes:

• Félicia Atkinson – Everything Evaporate (Shelter Press)
• Kate Carr – Heatwave (Hasana Editions)
• Crazy Doberman – Illusory Expansion (Astral Spirits)
• Christopher Alan Durham – Bread & Wine (Soft Abuse)
• Channelers – Isles Beyond (Inner Island)
• Delphine Dora – l’esprit du lieu, le lieu de l’esprit (Titania Tapes)
• Gerycz/Powers/Rolin – Beacon (Garden Portal)
• Mark Gomes – New Sounds of Nature (Regional Bears)
• Greymouth – Telepathic Dunce (Careful Catalog)
• Iceblink – Carpet Cocoon (Moon Glyph)
• Amirtha Kidambi & Lea Bertucci – End Of Softness (Astral Spirits)
• Kraus – A Golden Brain (self-released)
• Matt Lajoie – Light Emerging (Trouble In Mind-Explorer Series)
• Lorenzo Gomez Oviedo / Bardo Todol – Tu Cara Estirada Por El Extasis (Kirigirisu Recordings)
• The Post Spiderhole Ensemble​ – ​False Alarms and Excess Baggage (Kitchen Leg)
• Prairie Clamor – Spilling Light (Friendly Puppy Music)
• Matt Robidoux – Brief Candles (Null Zone)
• Skyminds – Shapes & Traces (Internal Rhythm)
• Spiritczualic Enhancement Center – Transporting Salt (Crash Symbols)
• Tereshkova – Budget Angel (Audio.Visuals.Atmosphere)
• V/A – A Little Night Music: Aural Apparitions from the Geographic North (Geographic North)
• V/A – New Tulips (Regional Bears)
• Will Veeder – Mind Net (Carbon Records)
• Andrew Weathers Ensemble – The Thousand Birds in the Earth, The Thousand Birds in the Sky (Full Spectrum)
• Wombo – Blossomlooksdownuponus (Sophomore Lounge)

Reissues / Archival Releases:

• Behrman/DeMarinis/Friedman/Hanlon/Klingensmith – She’s More Wild… (Black Truffle)
• Bomis Prendin – Clear Memory (Mental Experience)
• Lol Coxhill & Morgan Fisher – Slow Music (Aguirre)
• Charles Curtis – Performances & Recordings 1998-2018 (Saltern)
• Dadamah – This Is Not A Dream (Grapefruit)
• Beatriz Ferreyra – Echoes + (Room40)
• Harry Pussy – Superstar (Palilalia)
• Go Hirano – Corridor of Daylights (Black Editions)
• Steve McCaffery – Pataphonix: Selected Sound Poems (We Are One)
• Charlie Morrow – America Lament (Recital)
• People Skills – Former January Ending Through 52 Weeks (Sophomore Lounge)
• White Heaven – Out (Black Editions)