As I’ve done in the past, I went through all of the playlists from the Free Form Freakout radio and podcast show from this year to try and assemble a list of some personal favorites that really stood out and consumed a fair amount of my listening time, including a few newer titles that’ll be featured on upcoming shows. Given how much time I spent listening to new music this year, I could have easily doubled this, but I thought I’d stick with a reasonable 50 new albums and 10 reissues as I’ve done in previous years. One difference, though, is that I just lumped all of the new releases together regardless of their format instead of a separate category for cassettes. It seems kind of silly at this time when artists and labels are now waiting over a year for a vinyl release to come out to relegate the cassette format to some type of sub-category, right? 

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 that you can. I didn’t include any of the five new releases that came out on Round Bale Recordings this year, but I’m very proud of each of those and feel grateful to have gotten to work with those artists too.

Whether you’re a long-time listener or reader of Free Form Freakout or have just stumbled upon this website, thanks for checking out what we are doing. We’ve got some new features and collaborations that are in the works for the year ahead, so I hope you’ll check back often.

David Perron  / FFF Bunker in N. Mankato / December 2021

New Music:

[Ahmed]	Nights on Saturn (Communication)	Astral Spirits
Jeffrey Alexander	Reyes	Garden Portal
Daniel Bachman	Axacan	Three Lobed Recordings
Bardo Todol y sus Aves sin Nido & Anne-F Jacques	Land of Rituals	Presses Précaires
Olivia Block	Innocent Passage in the Territorial Sea	Room40
Blue Chemise	Flower Studies	B.A.A.D.M.
Bobby Would	World Wide World	Low Company
The Bohman Brothers	In Their 70s	Fort Evil Fruit
Channelers	Another Entrance	Inner Islands
Cindy	1:2	Mt. St. Mtn./Tough Love/Paisley Shirt
Johnny Coley	Antique Sadness	Sweet Wreath
Alex Cunningham	As Slow as the Stream Cuts the Dirt from Beneath	Arkeen
Erin Demastes	Thing Music	Public Eyesore
Aaron Dilloway & Lucrecia Dalt	Lucy & Aaron	Hanson
Enhet För Fri Musik	Ömhet & Skilsmässa	Discreet Music
Eyes of the Amaryllis	S/T	Cor Ardens
Flowertown	Time Trials	Paisley Shirt
Myriam Gendron	Ma Délire	Feeding Tube/Les Albums Claus
Jean-Luc Guionnet & Will Guthrie	Electric Rag	Ali Buh Baeh Records/Editions Memoire
Steve Gunn	Other You	Matador
Dereck Higgins	Future Still	FPE Records
Matthew Himes	Hemlock & Bergamot	Home & Garden
H.M.S. RMA	Naughty Cool	ALTER
Ignatz & De Stervende Honden	Saturday’s Den	Ultra Eczema
Koeosaeme	Annulus	Orange Milk
Charmaine Lee	KNVF	Erratum
Sarah Louise	Earth Bow	Earth Bow
Low	Hey What	Sub Pop
Madlib	Sound Ancestors	Madlib Invazion
Dan Melchior	Odes	Cudighi
Monokultur	Ormens Väg	Ever/Never
Monte Espina	Pa	Elevator Bath
Moor Mother & billy woods	BRASS	Backwoodz Studioz
The Notwist	Vertigo Days	Morr Music
Ora Clementi	Sylva Sylvarum	Black Truffle
Bill Orcutt & Chris Corsano	Made Out of Sound	Palilalia
Painted Shrines	Heaven and Holy	Woodsist
Charlie Parr	Last of the Better Days Ahead	Smithsonian Folkways
Rambutan	Parallel Systems	Sedimental/Tape Drift
The Reds, Pinks, & Purples	Uncommon Weather	Tough Love/Slumberland
Rosali	No Medium + Chokeweed	Spinster / Unifactor
Space Afrika	Honest Labour	Dais
Nick Storring	Newfoundout	Mappa Editions
Styrofoam Winos	S/T	Sophomore Lounge
Tongue Depressor/Gateway	Flashes on the Past Partition	Workingman Laydown
Train Fantôme	Nous Sommes Dans Un Rêve	Cudighi
Tuluum Shimmering	Emerald Trees of Mottled Green + The Bright Moon Emerges +++	Tuluum Shimmering Records
Vanishing Twin	Ookii Gekkou	Fire
Wau Wau Collectif	Yaral Sa Doom	Sahel Sounds
Yasmin Williams	Urban Driftwood	Spinster

Reissues/Archival/Compilations:

Don Cherry’s New Researches featuring Naná Vasconcelos	Organic Music Theatre: Festival de jazz de Chateauvallon 1972 + The Summer House Sessions	Blank Forms
C.O.B.	Spirit of Love	East Central One
Alvin Curran	Fiori Chiari, Fiori Oscuri	Black Truffle
The Dead Goldfish Ensemble	Fishy Tails	Conatala
Beatriz Ferreyra	Canto+	Room40
Frigate	Dreams of the Deep	D.Q. Records
Heron	S/T	Trading Places
Seefeel	Rupt + Flex 94-96	Warp
Stephen	Radar of Small Dogs	Joyful Noise Recordings/Yellow Electric
Yumbo	The Fruit of Errata	Morr Music