best of 2023 • Samia • Honey

samiaband.com

Embracing comparisons to melancholic “sad girls,” she puts on her Phoebe Bridgers Doc Martens (the deep Californian drawl in every “time” on “Charm You”) and Adrianne Lenker cowboy hat (the lyrics on “Pink Balloon” that recall “anything”), but her gestures toward intimacy land without emotional weight. The guttural scream at the end of “Breathing Song” is one of the rare moments when Samia’s delivery matches the vague devastation of her lyrics. Opening lines like “Your mom keeps threatening suicide on holidays” and “Screaming ‘Porn kills love’/Outside your window with the Adventists” might as well be items on a grocery list. PF

ifitbeyourwill Podcast Backtrack 2023

ifitbeyourwill.buzzsprout.com

At the beginning of 2023, I was on the verge of retiring ifitbeyourwill.ca, my 14-year-old music journal that has evolved over time. I found maintaining it was becoming less beneficial for me, as curating music requires significant effort. As a last attempt to sustain this project, I decided to invite indie artists to chat on Zoom about their musical journeys and promote their music that we love, rather than just posting songs. I thought this idea was foolish - who would make time in their busy lives to talk with me? I'm happy to say that after 2 seasons, filled with heartwarming responses from many wonderful artists, this concept was a success! Starting in February 2024, I'll restart the machine for season 3. 

Thank you for listening, colleyc xo

best of 2023 • Metric • Who Would You Be For Me

https://www.ilovemetric.com/

“Who Would You Be For Me” is a characteristically hooky and shiny piece of alt-pop. The song is built on strummy acoustic guitars, but there’s nothing small about it. As it happens, the new song addresses the early days of the band. Here’s what Emily Haines has to say about it:

The song “Who Would You Be For Me” is a throwback lullaby set in NYC in 2002. All the action takes place in Tompkins Square Park, in a subway car, and at the café on St. Marks Place where I worked as a waitress when we were getting our start.

Automatic behaviors and patterns are often fairly easy to flag in others but can be a riddle to spot in yourself. In life and in love, all the emphasis in your mind can default to being what someone else wants until it dawns on you to consider your own desire. I could be the girl for you, but who would you be for me?

best of 2023 • Hayden • Miss Fort Erie

Speaking about the track, Hayden says: "’Miss Fort Erie’ has been in my back pocket for a while now. It  was written and recorded pretty quickly up in my attic in the summer of 2016. At the time, my mind was on balancing a young family and being out on the road. Something I’m weighing again now and in the coming months. I thought it a funny idea to describe a conversation between a couple, where the traveler always plays down their adventures so as to not make the one at home feel left out. As per usual, there’s a twist ending. Musically, I had a blast playing all the parts, and for an artist with a catalogue lacking in middle eight’s or bridges, I’m particularly proud of the changes throughout the song.”

best of 2023 • Postdata • Look to the Stars

https://www.postdatamusic.com/

The melody and chorus lyrics for this song started as a lullaby for my son. I still sing for him a lot but there were times where it was like 30 minutes of singing and he wouldn't be sleeping… you sing the same songs a lot but there are points where that's just boring or there's just a nice feeling in the room and you just venture into writing mode, I guess.

This one had a nice melody and a sort of easy melody to visualize "look to the stars…they tell you who are…look to the stars, yeah, you never know..they all burned out so many years ago…we only dance in the afterglow." I developed the rest of the lyrics from that point but that's the starting point of it and the song ended up actually being about a voyage, as well.

best of 2023 • Steve Adams • Living in the Local Void

https://fikarecordings.com/steven-adams

‘I realised we needed some sort of video for this track, seeing as it’s the Modern Times… so I knocked this up using some stuff I filmed out of the window of the L train in Chicago and a sea plane leaving Salt Spring Island in early August. I think that the ‘local void’ can be a home or a neighbourhood or just wherever you are when you wake up and you don’t know what kind of a day it’s going to be, but I’m reluctant to try any real meaning to this now: it’s about whatever you want it to be’.

best of 2023 • Sarah Mary Chadwick • Some Else's Baby

The new song depicts hysteric desire at its finest – the ever-shifting goal post of wanting what you don’t have, always creating psychic debt. Chadwick shares, “Sometimes someone else’s baby is just better than your own. This feeling tends to correlate with having an absolutely chaotic life, so as an avoidance technique, it’s fantastic!” BW

But I'm just trying to move my life

Away from strife and into love

But I'm messed up, I want the painful stuff

Makes me feel alive, makes my veins hum

And if it's easy, I don't want it, baby

You'll never change me

And nothing's better than someone else's baby

And it drives me crazy

And just a junkyard full of things nobody wants

I give you the most extravagant of all the loves

We call it fine and call it good

And I'll run as fast as I can

But make it wrong and make it out of time

And I'll want it more than I can stand

So come on, please me, imagine how hot, baby

And so hot it burns me

And nothing's better than someone else's baby

And it drives me crazy

Well, I take my sadness everywhere I go

I can't put it out, can't leave it at home

'Cause I'm just a one-time wonder

A fickle lover

On close examination made of glass

Winter or summer

Clear skies or thunder

But I'm not really here, I'm in the past

And I'm just a star that never shined

A mountain no one wants to climb

But I don't know how to live under the light

But I'm thankful that I've had

The chance to touch the souls I have

And I'll take that any day in lieu of life

best of 2023 • Al Menne

At just under thirty minutes, Freak Accident is an inviting meditation on seeking protection from life’s chaotic thunderbolts in our relationships and connections. These nine songs, like smooth rocks pocketed for self-soothing, serve to shore us up against situations that are ultimately out of our control. On tracks that veer through canyons, careen across highways, and wend through the avenues of memory, Menne offers us a way through.

 

best of 2023 • Being Dead • When Horses Would Run

Luna • Satellite of Love • 2023

lunamusic.com

best of 2023 • GROUPLOVE • Hello, All!

https://www.grouplovemusic.com/

The opening track of the album, “All,” features a passionate and intense vocal performance by lead vocalist/guitarist Christian as he expresses a series of unfulfilled desires, culminating in a powerful outburst of emotion. In contrast, “Hello” is a bright and energetic track that came together spontaneously on the band’s last day in the studio, ultimately expressing a desire for human connection and a feeling of being lost in the world. EM

best of 2023 • The National • First Two Pages of Frankenstein

First Two Pages of Frankenstein isn’t a portrait of triumph—that would be too easy. Instead, it’s a depiction of someone made unsteady from their time away, but nonetheless desperate to connect: less with an entire arena than someone in the passenger seat. PF

https://shop.4ad.com/release/362657-the-national-first-two-pages-of-frankenstein

After two back-to-back albums and several busy years of touring, First Two Pages of Frankenstein was initially stalled while lead singer Matt Berninger navigated, “a very dark spot where I couldn’t come up with lyrics or melodies at all… Even though we’d always been anxious whenever we were working on a record, this was the first time it ever felt like maybe things really had come to an end.” Instead, The National “managed to come back together and approach everything from a different angle, and because of that we arrived at what feels like a new era for the band,” according to guitarist/pianist Bryce Dessner, whose bandmates also include his brother Aaron (guitar/piano/bass) as well as brothers Scott Devendorf (bass, guitar) and Bryan Devendorf (drums).

best of 2023 • ifitbeyourwill Podcast Playlist 2023

A compilation of the music tracks featured on season 1 & 2 of the podcast. Enjoy 🎙️ 

https://ifitbeyourwill.buzzsprout.com/

 

Mol Sullivan • Still Tryin’ • 2023

“The idea behind the ‘Still Tryin'’ video was to chronicle a day in my life at the time I wrote the song, during the dawning era of my sobriety from alcohol,” Sullivan says. “It's the first music video I've made thus far that is narrative-based and that doesn't rely on the support of campy themes and characters to deliver the punches. It's a vulnerable display of what it looked like when my life was a very one-day-at-a-time affair and when the power of music and community helped keep my chin above water.” Cinny

ZOON • Dodem • 2023

"On Zoon’s exquisite second album, Bekka Ma’iingan, Monkman frequently sidesteps conventional songcraft altogether and surrenders to the impressionistic power of sound. Bekka Ma’iingan is at once his most opaque and most open-hearted work, less interested in explicit storytelling than in making you feel the deep-seated ache and hard-won euphoria coursing through Monkman’s veins."

- Pitchfork

"The music arrives in dusty, amorphous gusts of sound — sometimes revealing a strummed acoustic guitar, sometimes swelling with tremolo strings, sometimes surrounding Monkman with high, delayed vocals — that make every perception sound fragile and precious."

- The New York Times

Zoon created Bleached Wavves with extremely limited, often broken gear. They worked through frustrating, lengthy delays and yet managed to reverse engineer a masterpiece of a debut. With sophomore album, Bekka Ma’iingan (Bay-ka Mo-Een-Gan) a broad spectrum of possibilities, lush orchestration, resources, collaborators and friends all supported the process. Bleached Wavves provoked us to face many difficult questions and reckon with a deeply uncomfortable and painful history. Bekka Ma’iingan continues to explore their Indigenous and life experience, and while still clutching to the unresolved, it moves us more softly and sweepingly towards acceptance. 

best of 2023 • Wednesday • Quarry

https://www.wednesday.band/

The rain rotted house on the dead end of Baytree old bitter lady 

sits caddy corner to the aftershock from the Quarry 

She says "America's a spoiled child that's ignorant of grief”  

but then she gives out full sized candy bars on Halloween

best of 2023 • Stanley Brinks • THIS IS THE DAY

Stanley Brinks is renowned for his unique anti-folk style: both playful and suggestive, insightful and entertaining. 

http://www.stanbrinkssongs.toile-libre.org/Main2.html

best of 2023 • Jefferey Lewis • What I Love Most in England (Is the Food!)

 

https://thejeffreylewissite.com/

I love green sheet fields with all edges

Bound by old stone walls and hedges

And the sticks, the vibes, the charming mix

Of farmer, punk, and druid

That mist's more mystic than where I'm from

But on this list the shock biggest to come

Is that one other thing I really love in England is the food

best of 2023 • Islands • Life's A Joke

https://islandsareforever.com/

And That’s Why Dolphins Lost Their Legs is Islands’ ninth album, following the 2021 comeback album Islomania. “[Islomania] was exuberant and hopeful, and Dolphins is like the grim rejoinder,” Thorburn said in a statement. “The songs attempt to tap into some of our darker impulses. The grim, unshakeable feeling that we live in hell, that there is no future, that all hope is lost. I wanted to explore those depths and see where it lead me.” PF

Hallelujah The Hills • Alone, In Love • 2023