Welcome to the second part of a selection of favourite albums of 2022, many of which continue to come to terms with pandemic, climate change and other current issues but also show how music can continue to innovate, surprise and entertain. Best of selections, or top 50 countdowns? We don’t really see the point of those here, and even to pare down from the hundreds of releases is a challenging and certainly imperfect goal, but the music speaks for itself and many more can be found, not only on the Albums section, but also others as Songs of the Day on the New Songs section, which includes many more as well as one highlighted song, EPs and other releases.
Other examples of shorter alternative albums on the other section? See also the extraordinary Stromae album, Multitude, and the song Fils De Joie, featuring harpsichord, chanson, and hip hop, as well as its video, from the recent third album, Multitude, by the innovative Belgian artist of Rwandan Tutsi descent, Paul Van Haver. Or perhaps Cocteau Twins singer Liz Fraser’s EP under the name Sun’s Signature, and the song Golden Air.
There’s always more, and you can also check out Part 1 here.
Moonchild Sanelly: Phases
Stylish, charismatic, sexy, with a unique mix of South African dance music – gqom, amapiano, hip-hop, jazz and electronica, with a persona somewhere between Eartha Kitt, Nicki Minaj or Doja Cat, the starry, blue-haired Port Elizabeth-born rapper, model and designer’s fabulous second and double LP is all about ‘baddies’ and personal empowerment.
Shearwater: The Great Awakening
A welcome return by the band from Austin, Texas, their first studio LP since 2015’s Jet Plane and Oxbo, sees Jonathan Meiburg and others reconvening in a powerful, beautiful work, tackling the apparent global hopelessness of the past few years.
Vieux Farka Touré: Les Racines
Exquisite seventh studio album by Boureima "Vieux" Farka Touré, Malian singer and sublime guitarist, the player known as ‘the Hendrix of the Sahara’, as well as being the son of Mali’s great Ali Farka Touré.
Jessie Buckley and Bernard Butler: For All Our Days That Tear The Heart
An outstanding collaboration between the Irish actress and singer and the former Suede guitarist with this beautiful album of passionate, dramatic, folk music of various international styles, particularly Americana, English and Spanish.
Gwenno: Tresor
Third album by the Welsh artist, another almost entirely in the Cornish language, is an alluring mix of pop, ethereal psych-folk and electronica inspired by recent motherhood and the lockdown experience.
black midi: Hellfire
With heatwaves and wildfires ablaze globally, there could hardly be a more prescient title or dystopian theme by the London prog-rock-jazz experimentalists, whose third LP is strangely among their more accessible, awash as it is with lightning riffs and stop-start energy of King Crimson, Frank Zappa or even Buckethead proportions.
Nina Nastasia: Riderless Horse
Devastatingly stark and powerful first album for 12 years by the American folk singer-songwriter that focuses on her abusive, intense, dysfunctional 25-year relationship with her former manager and collaborator Kennan Gudjonsson.
Steve Lacy: Gemini Rights
Effortlessly cool, sometimes oddball and infectiously laid-back funk, soul and 70s-style pop in this second LP by the guitarist, singer and producer from Compton, California, with some distinct echoes of Stevie Wonder and Prince.
Beyoncé: Renaissance
The American superstar’s first full solo album since 2016’s Lemonade a ful- throttle 16-tracker filled with taut, sexy, hedonistic disco, soul, hip hop, Afrobeats, gqom, house, other club styles and even a surprisingly effective sampling of Right Said Fred.
Fable: Shame
An outstanding debut of powerful, intimate songs by the English singer-songwriter Holly Cosgrove from Paignton, Devon, who, with co-writer Jonas Persson, brings an aura of innovative, tender menace with echoes of Portishead, Billie Eilish and Fiona Apple.
Danger Mouse and Black Thought: Cheat Codes
A superb collaboration between two hugely influential innovators – producer Brian Burton and rapper and co-founder of The Roots, Tarik Luqmaan Trotter – packed with fabulously sharp hip hop, soul and funk samples and guests, including a lost verse from the much missed MF DOOM.
Ezra Furman: All Of Us Flames
The sixth LP by the brilliant, visceral, angelic American is perhaps the finest to date, an impassioned, tour de force, Springsteen-esque cri de coeur for the LGBTQ and Jewish communities, but also stirs hearts of all who feel oppressed or alienated.
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith: Let's Turn It Into Sound
Wondrously inventive, mesmeric, ingenious experimental work by the electronic composer from Orcas Island, Washington State, whose tools include a range of Buchla and other modular synthesizers, woodwind instruments and clever layering of her own vocal samples.
Laufey: Everything I Know About Love
An exquisite debut by the Los Angeles-based Icelandic-Chinese jazz-pop artist, whose pure voice, alongside mostly acoustic guitar or piano backing, brings a timeless collection of gentle, old-school, charming, candid, singer-songwriter love songs reminiscent of Karen Carpenter to Peggy Lee.
Jockstrap: I Love You Jennifer B
Wondrously wild, inventive experimental pop debut LP by the duo of Georgia Ellery and Taylor Skye, whose entrancing fusion of electronica, classical and theatrical strings, dance music and witty, agile sonic combinations sometimes slip playfully into reverse.
Sampa The Great: So Above, So Below
A swaggeringly stylish, sharp, soulful, funny, proclamatory new release by rapper and singer Sampa Tembo celebrating her return to her native Zambia, with rebuffs to her previous home Australia and its music industry, and nods to Zamrock, lyrics in the Bantu language, and multiple African and other collaborators.
Sudan Archives: Natural Brown Prom Queen
The scintillating second album by Ohio’s LA-based multi-instrumentalist and singer Brittney Parks showcases her innovation across hip hop, R&B, electronica, jazz and beyond with looping ingenuity, improvisation, and sharp feminist, dark lyrics about life as a black woman.
Rina Sawayama: Hold The Girl
With her 2020 debut, Sawayama, the British-Japanese singer’s career was predicted on this site to go up and up, and so it has proved with this dazzlingly strong new album of high-octane pop powerfully voiced melodies and intelligent, candid lyrics.
Jesca Hoop: Order of Romance
An exquisite new release by the American singer-songwriter with a collection of crisply perfect lo-fi folk-pop acoustic numbers, wrapped in intriguing, intricate yet pared-back instrumentation, and sharply intelligent, vividly imaginative lyrics.
Beth Orton: Weather Alive
The first album for six years by the British singer-songwriter brings an exquisite fragility and mature beauty, suffused with her delicate, sometimes ghostly vocals and sparse but perfectly weighted instrumentation.
Crack Cloud: Tough Baby
Eclectic, original, energised and experimental, this is an enthralling third post-punk, pop, rock and thunderous concoction release by the Vancouver collective led by drummer and lead vocalist Zach Choy filled with the the passionate and oddball, and a broad range of instruments including strings and a brass section.
Björk: Fossora
The Icelandic iconic pioneer returns with a 10th LP, mesmeric, strange, beautiful, sometimes challenging, but always original, inspired by fungi, the death of her mother, oodles of woodwind, rich vocal harmony and some Dutch techno.
Bill Callahan: YTI⅃AƎЯ
Dreams, horses, darkness and uplifting otherworldliness feature in this wonderful, mischievously mirror-titled ninth LP under the Smog artist’s own name, pouring out velvet voiced beauty, vivid lines, deadpan humour, acoustic intimacy and full band momentum.
Arctic Monkeys: The Car
With lavish orchestration, grandiose dynamics and a crooning falsetto, echoes of Scott Walker and early 80s David Bowie, Alex Turner’s writing and delivery enters a new and fascinating phase of enigmatic, melancholy maturity.
Dry Cleaning: Stumpwork
The London post-punk band continue where they left off from last year’s debut, New Long Leg, with Florence Shaw’s beguiling, droll, laconic, surreal, stream-of-consciousness, darkly humorous spoken delivery over clever, off-kilter music.
Marlowe: Marlowe 3 (L'Orange and Solemn Brigham)
A third album by the brilliant US hip-hop pair packed with intelligent lyrics and killer beats, clever jazz and other samples, including riffs off sci-fi film soundtrack clips and voiceovers, rhythm changes and sounds, offering a constant flow of originality and wit.
Benjamin Clementine: And I Have Been
Sublime third album by the British singer-songwriter, actor and 2015 Mercury winner, whose powerful, expressive, soul and gospel voice brims with elegance and stark emotion in stripped back, tender songs that capture many forms of pain, but also defiantly soar.
First Aid Kit: Palomino
After the heartbreak of the dark 2018 Ruins album, Swedish sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg return to uplifting, sweet harmony country-folk-pop, sometimes reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac, and expressed in the title by the idea of a free-spirited elegant horse.
Horse Lords: Comradely Objects
Mesmeric fifth album by the Baltimore-formed quartet of polyrhythmic avant-garde rock, jazz, prog, also drawing on Appalachian, bluegrass, krautrock, African, post-punk and alternative tuning systems that pull you into their brilliant and beguiling world.
Christine and the Queens: Redcar Les Adorables Étoiles (prologue)
Grand and theatrical, with oodles of 80s synth sounds and a big dash of Grace Jones and David Bowie-style glamour, Héloïse Letissier returns with his (recently confirmed as a trans man) flamboyant, poetic third album.
The Cool Greenhouse: Sod's Toastie
An excellent second LP by the wittily droll wordsmith Tom Greenhouse and band, bringing oodles of hilarious, oddball short stories and killer lines about the absurdity of life, backed by strangely wonderful post-punk and electronica.
Sault: Aiir, Earth, Today & Tomorrow, Untitled (God), 11
An unprecedented five albums landing simultaneously without warning, and with a temporary free download period on the mysterious London collective’s website, producer Inflo (Dean Josiah Cover) and co have again brought untold riches in soul, funk, gospel, jazz, RnB, hip-hop, experimental and contemporary classical.
Weyes Blood: And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow
A sublime, 70s California-style, Karen Carpenter-evoking, melancholy new work by Natalie Mering, her fifth LP overall, and first since the acclaimed Titanic Rising of 2019, one that’s “feeling around in the dark for meaning in a time of instability and irrevocable change”.
Little Simz: No Thank You
Released without fanfare like those of the collective Sault’s recent five (with producer also Inflo involved here), a fierce, sharp, set of songs, particularly about mental health issues, race and music industry evils by the brilliant London rapper and Mercury prize winner.
Makaya McCraven: In These Times
An intricately beautiful and mesmeric fusion of polyrhythm and melody by the Paris-born, Chicago-based percussionist and composer, bringing together cosmic jazz, hip-hop breakbeats, funk, classical and African influences on this sublime fourth album, released in September.
The Nightingales: The Last Laugh
The very best ‘til last for 2022? Quite possibly, with this absolute belter from Robert Lloyd, Fliss Kitson and co, this October release packed with superbly Beefheart-esque, stompy, infinite wit, riff and rhythm change.
Honorable mentions:
There are so many other great releases from 2022 to be discovered and enjoyed. Check out more on our Albums pages including:
Whatever The Weather: Whatever The Weather (Loraine James album)
Hercules & Love Affair: In Amber
Nova Twins: Supernova
Regina Spektor: Home, Before and After
Stealing Sheep: Wow Machine
Viagra Boys: Cave World
Laura Veirs: Found Light
Katy J Pearson: Sound Of The Morning
Working Men's Club: Fear Fear
Tami Neilson: Kingmaker
Lizzo: Special
Gemma Rogers: No Place Like Home
Pan Amsterdam: EAT
Jennifer Vanilla: Castle In The Sky
Panda Bear and Sonic Boom: Reset
Hot Chip: Freakout/Release
Panic! At The Disco: Viva Las Vengeance
Julia Jacklin: PRE PLEASURE
The Lounge Society: Tired of Liberty
Tim Burgess: Typical Music
Sports Team: Gulp!
Gabriels: Angels and Queens - Part 1
Pixies: Doggerel
Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Cool It Down
Lambchop: The Bible
The Orielles: Tableau
Mamalarky: Pocket Fantasy
Gilla Band: Most Normal
Goat: Oh Death
Loyle Carner: Hugo
Taylor Swift: Midnights
Special Interest: Endure
Big Joanie: Back Home
Stormzy: This Is What I Mean
Lous and the Yakuza: Iota
Let's Eat Grandma: Two Ribbons
Walt Disco: Unlearning
The Real Tuesday Weld: Dreams
Richard Dawson: The Ruby Cord
The Unthanks: Sorrows Away
The Bug Club: Green Dream in F#
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