Hoff’s Favorite Albums of 2021

Notes and Honorable Mentions:

This year in music was an interesting one in that my favorites seemed to follow a polarizing trend. I spent most of my time in my house, quieting working, cooking, watching TV and spending time with my local family unit. With that extreme comfort also came a standard helping of monotony, which created a void of experiences that I chose to fill with music. In the end, I gravitated toward releases which offered more extreme experiences. This includes brain-melting ones as well as sedative ones, as each were equally valuable to me during different points of the year. I have narrowed down my favorites, but I also wanted to include some releases that I enjoyed but were not robust or substantial enough to earn a place on the final list.

• Disclosure – Never Enough EP
• Flying Lotus – Yasuke OST
• Homeboy Sandman – Anjelitu EP
• Japanese Breakfast – Sable OST
• Pond – 9
• Silk Sonic – An Evening With Silk Sonic
• Snail Mail – Valentine

Here is the playlist of the top 40 albums on Spotify if you want to listen along (SPOILERS INCLUDED, OBVIOUSLY): https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2d2eDQ7HQ69SjmFtvtI1yc?si=df500f1abd0b4e6c

I have taken great pleasure and care to rank all of the music I have listened to this year and I hope it remains a staple in my life for 2022 and all the years to come.

-Nick

The List:

40-31

40. Injury Reserve – By The Time I Get To Phoenix – Trippy • Beatless • Hip-Hop

39. Anthony Joseph – The Rich Are Only Defeated When Running For Their Lives – Raving • Powerful • Jazz

38. Armand Hammer & The Alchemist – HARAM – Intricate • Underground • Hip-Hop

37. St. Vincent – Daddy’s Home – 70s • Fuzzy • Rock

36. Poppy – Flux – Nu-Metal Revival • Pop • Rock

35. Weedie Braimah – The Hands of Time – Jubilant • Djembe-Centered • Jazz

34. James Blake – Friends That Break Your Heart – Introspective • Strolling • Pop

33. Indigo De Souza – Any Shape You Take – Earnest • Emotional • Indie Rock

32. Makaya McCraven – Deciphering the Message – Upcycled • Beat-Focused • Jazz

31. Nite Jewel – No Sun – Bare • Breakup • Electro Pop

30-21

30. th1rt3en & Pharoahe Monch – A Magnificent Day For An Exorcism – Present • Political • Hip-Hop

29. Moor Mother – Black Encyclopedia of the Air – Boundary Pushing • Unsettling • Experimental Hip-Hop

28. Illuminati Hotties – Let Me Do One More – Sharp • Light-Hearted • Indie Rock

27. Little Simz – Sometimes I Might Be Introvert – Autobiographical • Authentic •Hip-Hop

26. Adele – 30 – Honest • Reflective • Pop

25. Pink Pantheress – To Hell With It – TikTok • UK Garage • Pop

24. Men I Trust – Untourable Album – Chill • Steady • Indie Rock (*Most played of 2021)

23. Wolf Alice – Blue Weekend – Anthemic • Confident • Rock

22. Deerhoof – Actually, You Can – Silly • Edgy • Rock

21. Pom Poko – Cheater – Quick • Positive • Rock

20-11

20. Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine – A Beginner’s Mind – Soft • Friendly • Indie Rock

19. Dijon – Absolutely – Raw • Folksy • Rock

18. Chai – Wink – Bouncy • Fresh • Pop

17. aya – im hole – Schizophrenic • Screechy • Electronic

16. dltzk – frailty – Glitchy • Unpredictable • Modern Emo

15. shame – Drunk Tank Pink – Meaty • Jagged • Punk

14. Esperanza Spalding – Songwrights Apothecary Lab – Unconventional • Sparse • Jazz

13. Jazmin Sullivan – Heaux Tales – Compassionate • Story-Driven • R&B

12. Tyler, The Creator – Call Me If You Get Lost – Classic • Braggadocious • Hip-Hop

11. Genesis Owusu – Smiling With No Teeth – Exciting • Juiced • Pop/Hip-Hop/Rock

Top 10

10. Arooj Aftab – Vulture Prince – Vocal-Centric • Sweet • Folk

Vulture Prince is a study in getting the essence of beauty out of an instrument. Aftab’s voice soars over gentle guitars, harps, and pianos in long pieces that linger. Her lilting melodies are full of embellishments. Whenever she adeptly adds an adornment, your ears have no choice but to flutter. The stunning “Saans Lo” is seven and a half minutes of Aftab crooning over a guitar ostinato that never quite resolves but eventually ceases into peace. The previous track “Mohabbat” is representative of her work here as a whole. It builds its own atmosphere, then different instruments take their turns in the spotlight, all commenting on the same idea but always with some variation. Play this album as you light a candle, take a bath, and recede into the comfy folds of your own brain.

9. Black Midi – Cavalcade – Ominous • Royal • Prog Rock

Imagine a dreary landscape with thousand year old ruins, ruled by tyrants, slowly crumbling. This is the dystopian future suggested by Black Midi’s Cavalcade. A prog rock album by nature, this epic spans eight tracks which all flow together as one piece, though it is full of ideas that never grow tiresome. High strings, horns, and electric guitar leads sound like alarms, warning of – but also inciting – chaos and terror. The bass guitar races underneath, playing cratered patterns against the sometimes-off-balance drums which creates a sense of panic. It’s not all fire and brimstone though, there are some softer passages in “Slow”, “Marlene Dietrich”, and the closing track, the grand “Ascending Forth”. In all, Cavalcade balances prog rock conventions with new ideas, creating a sound both beautiful and bleak.

8. Low – Hey What – Distorted • Slow • Rock

The band Low has been making music since the early 90s, but I’m brand new to them. My first listen to their 13th project, “Hey What”, was a rough one, to put it lightly. “White Horses” begins the album with synths that are maximally distorted, but only as a backdrop to the haunting melody and harmony of the two vocalists. Imagine the band The Civil Wars meets Animal Collective’s “Painting With”. It caused me such sensory confusion, it took me a second listen of the album to really get over the original shock and appreciate the songs as they are. Low does a lot with a little, in that the sounds are so rich, robust, and enigmatic, and yet you break down the sounds to their elements and you realize they are simply synths and vocals. Drums are usually absent, tempos crawl, and chord progressions never settle, yet the songs are as memorable as any pop-anthem. My favorites in this respect are “All Night” and “Hey”, but any of the rest could be a favorite on any given day. Play this album to shake the 2:30 feeling.

7. Arca – KicK iii – Hard • Mind-Bending • Electronic

If the previous album shakes the 2:30 feeling, then this album obliterates it. Arca is a trans artist from Venezuela who specializes in electronic textures and bangers. Her album, KicK iii, is the third in a series of five, the first of which nearly my list last year but fell slightly short in terms of replay value. By contrast, this album has immediate and lasting impact. Play “Señorita” and tell me you don’t want to punch-dance instantly (I generally don’t do that but only to avoid social repercussions). Ditto to “Incendio”, ditto to “Bruja”, ditto to “Skullqueen” which pairs skittering synths with syncopated synth percussion and sampled pitched-up vocals. Though as hard as it punches, KicK iii has levels and layers as well. The end of tracks tend to slow down to give room for the next. “Intimate Flesh” sounds like a TOKiMONSTA beat, but is completely in Arca’s range. Arca can do it all– she has been incredibly prolific over the past 10 years, and I don’t expect anything less for the next 10.

6. BadBadNotGood – Talk Memory – Lush • Grand • Modern Jazz

Effortlessly cool, uncompromising, and truly original, BadBadNotGood have been making this type of music for a while now, but I still did not expect the flavors that came out of this new record. Their first purely instrumental album since 2014’s “III”, “Talk Memory” floats over well composed tunes that leave you in awe. Along with the original trio of drums, bass, and keys, Arthur Verocai adds complementary string arrangements over half of the album, including prize gem “Beside April”. This nods to a big band sound, especially when guest horn players enter the fray. BadBadNotGood has previously been held back in the past from low budget production and slightly longwinded, unfinished song structures. This album has none of that – everything sounds clear and the songs don’t overstay their welcome even as some approach the six-minute mark. “Talk Meaning” is a big end-credits moment, finishing appropriately with Brandee Younger on harp. The defining characteristic of the project has to be the heavy string influence which gives the pieces lift and depth, adding to the sound formula that BadBadNotGood already had.

5. Jpegmafia – LP! – Dirty • Loud • Hip-Hop

The production on Jpegmafia’s new “LP!” can not be touched. It is dirty and in your face, and that’s exactly where Jpeg wants to be. The Baltimore rapper wants his detractors to know he isn’t going anywhere, rapping aggressively on “Rebound!” and “Dirty!” and including disses on “The Ghost of Ranking Dread!”. The album jumps from one beat to the next, usually from one short track to the next, but sometimes within them. “What Kinda Rappin Is This?” features samples but is carried by a strong bass lick and drum pattern. “End Credits!” features a pro wresting sample along with an Animals As Leaders metal sample. Jpegmafia is showing off at this point and the results speak (rather shout) for themselves.

4. Blake Mills & Pino Paladino – Notes with Attachments – Understated • Plucky • Jazz Rock

Blake Mills earns another top 10 spot from me with another album that largely flew under the radar of the music press. Wonder bassist, Pino Palladino, enlists Mills to flesh out a collection of tunes he had written himself over years of session recording. Along with saxophonist Sam Gendel, the pair play a variety of stringed instruments on meticulously arranged tracks that are probably meant to be listened to in a den, sipping a porter while admiring your record collection. “Just Wrong” begins with gentle pulses before snapping into a soft but funky bass riff against light picked guitar chords. Woodwinds take the melody, but other instruments enter and exit mysteriously as the composition heads surely forward. As the piece nears a climax, the snare and hi-hats come to the front of the mix to change the entire vibe of the piece, but they disappear a mere ten seconds later. That’s just the first song. Mills and Gendel take pleasure in disguising the source of sounds with some production tricks, creating a peculiar yet rich experience. I’m having an easier time writing about this because this record is completely up my alley: Laid back, jazz-inspired, music for music nerds.

3. Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, and the London Symphony Orchestra – Promises – Entrancing • Lamenting • Classical/Jazz

Promises is a perpetual heartbreak, a massive study in emotion and a soundtrack of missed opportunities. Electronic composer Floating Points, jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, and the London Symphony Orchestra team up to create something big, really big. The 46-minute piece is split across nine movements, but are centered around a single motif of seven notes. Between each playing of the motif, enough space is afforded to create doubt of its return, even after it is trained into the listener. Pharoah Sanders’ playing is tender and crushing. He stands out from the humming of the background instruments to deliver saddening bellows and pleading runs. String drones are quietly replaced with synths, both of which feed us with sustenance but also a sense of tension or imbalance. In the fourth movement, Sanders dramatically trades his sax for his voice, adding a human element to what may have before appeared mechanical. The harmonic progression repeats for the first four movements, and it is only with the fifth that a major, dominant chord replaces a passive, minor fifth one. Along with this, the primary background instrument becomes a sinister electric piano, strongly contrasting the orchestra backing from before. It retreats by movement six, signaling a return to form, at least for now. By now, the motif, having been played a hundred times already, should have worn out its welcome by now, but it instead feels new. Different scenes build and climax, stars explode, and continents divide through the rest of the piece. It all comes back to the saxophone, or so it seems. I won’t spoil the ending, but to me, this is an absolute must listen for any fan of classical music, most fans of jazz, and anyone who is patient enough and curious enough to enjoy a completely thrilling and heartbreaking sonic experience.

2. Haitus Kaiyote – Mood Valiant – Delicious • Comfortable • Future Soul

Haitus Kaiyote came out with one of the defining albums for neo-funk fans in 2015 with “Choose Your Weapon”, a lengthy sophomore release showcasing the Australian band’s immense talents for both songwriting and technical proficiency. I called it my fifth favorite album of decade, and I think it still fits there. Aside from a solo effort from the lead singer/guitarist Nai Palm, we did not get any new music from the band until this year’s “Mood Valiant”. So how does it hold up? I can proudly announce it holds up extremely well. In contrast to “Choose Your Weapon”, “Mood Valiant” is sensual, slightly more restrained, and a bit more trim. See “And We Go Gentle” for an example of this. However, they retain their virtuosity and energy on most of the tracks. “Get Sun”, “Red Room”, and “Chivalry Is Not Dead” are bonafide classics and work well as singles. Nai Palm’s multi-part harmonies are stupidly impressive and beautiful, and add fullness to each arrangement. Speaking of fullness, Arthur Verocai joins us again to tamper with the string arrangements. A standout for the album is the soaring “Stone Or Lavender”, a piano ballad that Nai Palm absolutely destroys. She offers that special something that you just can’t find anywhere else, and that’s why Haitus Kaiote and this album will always be close to my heart.

1. Lingua Ignota – Sinner Get Ready – Extreme • Zealous • Experimental

I don’t think I can do this one justice. “Sinner Get Ready” is extremely poetic, with incredibly dark imagery and themes. Lingua Ignota’s songs are veiled with religious under- and overtones lyrically but also musically. Most of the songs read like through-composed hymns or full blown theatre productions. Piano is the primary instrument, but is often supplemented by church organ or a variety of folk instruments, all of which can be smothered with effects or completely raw. Each of the pieces on this record can be characterized as extraordinarily powerful by their ability to trap the listener, almost in a can’t-look-away fashion. Hayter is completely committed to each of the characters (if they are indeed characters) in each piece, and creates a sense of urgency with her voice alone. She is a master of harmony, very consciously swinging in and out of tune on “I Who Bend The Tall Grasses” to which is dizzying and awe-inducing. Conversely on “Pennsylvania Furnace”, she creates beauty by building stable walls of harmony with piano and woodwinds. “The Sacred Linament of Judgement” features a drone of a Shruti box on a suspended chord, which allows the resolution of each passage to feel satisfying but not complete. It is impossible here to separate the music from the spiritual content in the spoken word. Her voice is front and center of every recording, as she passionately asks for forgiveness, retribution, understanding, and a critical eye towards the church. She includes the confession of evangelist Jimmy Swaggart to warn of the church’s hypocrisy and gaslighting. “Many Hands” chillingly alludes to the power dynamics of a tortured relationship through the lens of Christianity. This record is absolutely crushing, brutal, thrilling, and tear-inducing, and I only recommend a listen if you are in a good condition to do so. The orchestration is perfect, the production is powerful and rich, the progression of the album is seamless, the compositions are balanced and endlessly interesting, the performances are sharp and striking, and above all the messages are profoundly painful. This is a fantastic album that has been assembled with great care and immense devotion.

Listen to samples from my top 40 on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2d2eDQ7HQ69SjmFtvtI1yc?si=df500f1abd0b4e6c

Look forward to hearing from you, reader! I’m open for new music from any year!