It was a hard year; music helped.
This made the task of choosing just ten of the local albums that helped us navigate it also a very hard one. Thankfully, former Arts & Culture Editor Brian Howe helped expand the process with a bonus list of ten powerhouse local singles. Here are the releases, compiled by INDY contributors and staff, that took our hands this year, guiding us on a journey through a Carrboro video game simulation, along a riverbank, and finally (spiritually, at least) into a mosh pit. Listen to them below.
Read and listen to the “Songs That Got Us Through 2020” here.
Skylar Gudasz: Cinema
[Suah Sounds; Apr. 17]
Skylar Gudasz’s 2016 debut, Oleander, was a testament to how persistence and refinement can shape a record. We’d have to wait four more years for Cinema, but the full-length follow-up may be remembered as Gudasz’s breakthrough moment. Largely self-produced and featuring an all-star cast of local collaborators—including co-producer Brad Cook, bassist Casey Toll, and violinist Libby Rodenbough—the album is a showcase of Gudasz’s subtle yet unmistakable songwriting, all presented with a rich, widescreen sheen that befits its title. Songs like “Actress” and “Animal” are exacting and evocative in their sensory detail, yet they resist easy resolution, content to remain in the ambiguous space of performance. —Will Atkinson
H.C. McEntire: Eno Axis
[Merge Records; Aug. 21]
“Early rise / Start the fire / Till the rows / Pass the tithes,” H.C. McEntire croons on album opener “Hands for the Harvest.” This meditative chore list sets the tenor for a warm, poetic album that’s all about getting up and getting by. Eno Axis was recorded shortly after McEntire, slowing down from touring with Angel Olsen, moved to a hundred-year-old farmhouse near the banks of the Eno, and the reverberations of the river are deeply felt on these tracks, which are shimmering and rootsy, psychedelic and twangy, all at once. Want to know what a Farmer’s Almanac would sound like set to music? I think you’ll find the answer in these ten songs. Also not to miss: In December, McEntire dropped a husky, dusky cover of Tammy Wynette’s “‘Til I Get It Right.” A song about trying and loving harder, it’s the perfect way to close out the year. —SE
Body Games: Super Body Games RPG
[Self-released; Aug. 27]
Before Super Body Games, my video-game experience was pretty much limited to Wii Sports and the occasional last-place finish in Mario Kart. Fortunately, the years-in-the-making “video galbum” from electro-pop trio Body Games—the first music release I’ve encountered that comes with a user’s manual—was made exactly for someone like me. This delightfully weird and surprisingly wholesome single-player adventure, inspired by classic computer games like King’s Quest, is just the right amount of challenging, rendering Carrboro’s downtown in 16-bit and unlocking the band’s new tracks as the game progresses. In a year when so much of the Triangle’s music scene was closed, Super Body Games was a satisfying virtual alternative—and Body Games paid it forward, collecting donations to the businesses featured in the game. —WA
OC from NC and D.R.U.G.S. Beats: Crown Royal [Self-released; Sep. 4]
For the past five years, OC From NC has put out a consistently high-quality body of music—offering dope traditional hip-hop beats and attention-grabbing lyrics filled with wordplay and precision. On Crown Royal, he linked with Grammy-nominated producer D.R.U.G.S. Beats; together, the two hip-hop purists create pure hip-hop. Sonically, the drums and samples hit as if it were the mid-’90s. OC’s cadence and distinctive voice are also reminiscent of legendary ’90s rappers, but relevant enough to make hip-hop heads bop in 2020. Crown Royal features guest verses from the best of the best in North Carolina, and each artist is able to hold their own, showcasing the wide range of talent that exists across the state. Besides the skillful beats, the serious rapping, and the long-overdue collaboration, Crown Royal’s detailed narratives and storytelling solidify its replay value. —Kyesha Jennings
Professor X: In Tune With the Soul
[941755 Records DK; Sep. 5]
With the extra pressure of landing a placement, it’s not too often that emerging producers in the Triangle area release beat tapes. But beat tapes are one of the best ways for producers to showcase their range, hone in on their niche, and generate fans who are primarily interested in production. Professor X took his time to craft his 2020 release, In Tune With the Soul, and the wait was worth it. The intentionality leaves us with jazzy, soulful, sample-filled beats that offer nostalgia. The Raleigh producer really shines each time he blends spoken-word poetry, classic movie skits, or flips of your favorite hip-hop and R&B verses from the likes of Kanye or Dreamville newcomer Ari Lennox. The track titles add yet another layer to the listener’s experience. The skill and creativity of In Tune With the Soul bring it close to being a perfect beat tape from this year. —KJ
Lydia Loveless: Daughter
[Honey, You’re Gonna Be Late Records; Sep. 25]
“If I gave you a daughter/would that be enough?” asks Lydia Loveless on “Daughter,” the title track on her fifth album. It’s an unforgettable question, and the stripped-down, searching song—which considers what it means to hold value outside a patriarchal framework—is equally unforgettable. This album, which Loveless says is her most vulnerable yet, is one of the most underrated of this year. Loveless’s fingerprints are all over its ten songs—each one gnarly, candid, a little wry—but the artist, now on the other side of a divorce and a decade of industry intensity, emits a quiet, complicated strength. Her flamethrower voice is massive and searing; the embers stay long after the flame dies down. —SE
Sylvan Esso: Free Love
[Loma Vista Recordings; Sep. 25]
What didn’t Sylvan Esso do this year? They released a concert album, WITH, which saw the electro-pop duo upscaling to a slinky multi-instrumental dectet for several auditorium shows. They called back the big band for a surprise EP, WITH LOVE, this month. They made a music video in Animal Crossing. They released a podcast, Shaking Out the Numb. They performed in a moving pickup truck on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. At the center of it all was Free Love, the grail of a three-album quest for the biggest tiny sound a singer and an electronic producer could make by themselves. It captures a fascinating, perhaps pivotal moment for a famously self-sufficient duo, one clearly feeling the tug of a new kind of shapeshifting collaboration. —Brian Howe
Jooselord Magnus: Moshpit Messiah
[Self-released; Oct. 28]
Although we have made it through 2020 without attending any in-person music festivals or concerts, Jooselord’s Moshpit Messiah lives up to its name. The 19-track album, produced entirely by Chill Woods, offers a number of modern-day protest anthems that help listeners navigate the wide range of emotions sparked by the highly visible social and racial injustices we saw this year. With Moshpit Messiah, Jooselord positions himself as the “voice of the people.” His raps are blunt, unfiltered, and filled with honest narratives that reflect his personal experiences as a Black man in America. Creativity is sprinkled throughout. Whether he’s sampling nursery rhymes or dropping innovative and subtle (and somewhat abstract) ad libs, this album demonstrates Jooselord’s commitment to creating something unique and authentic. —KJ
Maison Fauna: Field Guide I
[Maison Fauna; Nov. 13]
The first in a series of vinyl compilations from the emerging Durham electronic-music brand Maison Fauna, Field Guide I is too curated to be called a snapshot of the local scene. It’s more like a sculpture, elegant and abstractly floral, with the Triangle’s minimal house and UK garage producers as a stem, and branches that reach far out of town. Those two genres—the one smoothly propulsive, the other jaggedly—blend with nearly infinite possibilities. Here, they encompass a vocal-loop threnody by Portland’s Blursome; a surprising, exhilarating turn from hip-hop to deep house by Durham’s Treee City; a molten Europop palate-cleanser by Raund Haus regular FootRocket; a colorful garage mirage by Fauna cofounder Kir; and other rare stratospheres for basement dance floors, if we ever get to do that again. —BH
al Riggs & Lauren Francis: Bile and Bone
[Horse Complex Records; Sep. 18]
Romantic and droll, cryptic and serene—in short, Durham’s answer to The Magnetic Fields—al Riggs is known for abundance. Already, four new releases are pushing September’s Bile and Bone down their Bandcamp. But it’s one of the weightier LPs and stands like a stone amid the relentless flow. Working with guitarist/producer Lauren Francis to blend indie folk and soft rock into dreamy, creamy washes of sepia and pastel, Riggs refracts queer allegories through a phantasmagorical imagination, as if peering at the ordinary world through a cracked prism. The sense of solitude that distinguishes Riggs’s songs is intact; in typical counterintuitive form, it took a collaboration for them to perfect the art of being alone. —BH
Click here to return to the main page
Comment on this story at [email protected].
Support independent local journalism. Join the INDY Press Club to help us keep fearless watchdog reporting and essential arts and culture coverage viable in the Triangle.
You must be logged in to post a comment.