1. Raven, Kelela
This agile soulful voice, of course, but at the service of a musical vision of dazzling modernity, both audacious and welcoming. Before Beyoncé took over the dance floor, Kelela was already there, in 2017, on her famous first album. Exploit repeated on this Raven designed with the best of the bestunderground dancing, including LSDXOXO, AceMo and our Kaytranada, who pose on the assertive texts of the queer musician rhythms finding the balance between R&B, soul, house, pop and sound experimentation.
2. The Record, Boygenius
A first album, an alliance both improbable and inevitable between three sensitive souls with strong identities: Lucy Dacus, Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers. Together, both distinct and fusional, they managed to create against all odds a world that holds together. Better, a continuation of the world. They are the ones raising their hands in the Class of 2023, asking the real questions and offering the answers. Hymns in harmony, old school rock bias, anger and beauty. Yes, all that.
3. This Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, Mitski
Well, okay, if you want to, Mitski seems to be telling us. Going for a seventh album. His kind of country is haunting, nestled in the melodic and orchestral comfort of Glen Campbell from the years with Jimmy Webb, with obvious talent and a certain laziness (think Hope Sandoval from Mazzy Star). Mitski seduces against the grain, against his will. But since she creates beauty, we say to ourselves that she must like it, once out of bed, once in the studio. We were waiting for him, confident. And happy.
4. Mélusine, Cécile McLorin Salvant
A legend from the Middle Ages, inspiration for a jazz album which is sung in four languages and mixes the rhythms of the world? The incredible Cécile, as rooted as she is without borders, embodies a fairy who is both founding and evil, without losing the groove in a single measure. Her Mélusine is here a symbol of power and independence, and her story becomes that of generations of elusive women. Everything surprises, everything delights, until the resumption of an air of… Starmania. Nothing less.
5. Javelin, Sufjan Stevens
Stevens’ year 2023 was disrupted by the mourning of his spouse (to whom is dedicated Javelin) and the diagnosis of a nervous system disease. This tenth album in his career is nevertheless luminous and peaceful, a folk song with ingenious orchestrations which evoke the best of his work, the sincerity of the melodious songs of Carrie & Lowell (2015) and the orchestral extravaganza of those ofIllinois (2005). After two more experimental, hermetic albums, even, it’s good to reconnect with good old Stevens.
6. Seven Psalms, Paul Simon
Percussions evoke a religious past. An acoustic guitar takes it back to the beginning. And then Paul Simon sings, in his familiar sweet tone: “ I’ve been thinking…” First words of the first of the seven “psalms” making up the great work that is this new album. Thirty-three minutes, solemn and intimate at the same time. Reflections, observations, metaphors coexist: the echoes of a lifetime of melodies and sounds found very close and very far away, a life of trying to evolve and understand. Masterful climax.
7. Sundial, Noname
Fascinating 2023 vintage for American rap. The heavyweights of the scene have launched controversial albums, while theunderground shone: Billy Woods and Kenny Segal, JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown, the brilliant poet, rapper and composer Noname, perhaps the best pen of American rap. The verb is scathing and vulnerable at the same time, the prosody close to confidence, combined with productions that make fun of fashionable trap-drill. Noname offers a valuable look at her place, and that of black women, in society.
8. Stories From a Rock’n’Roll Heart, Lucinda Williams
Everyone to the rescue. Hey! When a tornado crosses your home, a cardiovascular accident hits you and all this bad luck hits you in the middle of a pandemic, the rallying of the couple Springsteen-Scialfa and Angel Olsen, Jesse Malin and Ray Kennedy is not asking too much of fate. But the important thing is that Lucinda sings, albeit in a more drawling voice than before. The drama is an old acquaintance for the Louisiana woman, no pity: here we go again on the poorly paved roads of America.
9. Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, Caroline Polachek
A revelation, this fourth solo album by Caroline Polachek, a musician with around fifteen years of experience on the scene and who, having nothing left to prove to anyone, offers a gem of avant-garde electronic pop with unexpected orchestrations , imagined with the help of troublemaker Danny L. Harle. A formidable melodist, the American unleashes her magnificent voice by making us want to escape through dance, establishing herself as one of the most astute singer-songwriters of the moment.
10- My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross, ANOHNI and the Johnsons
It was a feeling of hope that pushed Anohni Hegarty to come out of retirement, six years after her last solo album. Surrounded by a new version of the Johnsons, the artist with his unique timbre and tremolo soaks his songs in soul-funk orchestrations evoking the golden age of the genre, the great years of Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Curtis Mayfield, imploring renewal in our relationship with others on It Must Change in the opening, and to our planet on the soul-blues Restof which he admits himself guilty on It’s My Fault.
11. Life, Arthur H
The surprisingly joyful album of the year. Son Higelin celebrates life there. Without irony. When Arthur sings the key words of the title song in falsetto, we share his sweet euphoria. “That originally someone took you by the hand / And whispered life to you / Life healed you.” This tone. Perky. A game of tug-of-war between the life drive and the death drive, where joy wins. With the magic of Martenot waves and Baschet crystal so that the child hiding deep within you comes out. Free.
12. Love in Exile, Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, Shahzad Ismaily
Three seasoned improvisers brought together to give us a little respite in these uncertain times. In the recorded sessions of the singer Aftab, the jazz pianist Iyer and the multi-instrumentalist Ismaily there is this reassurance that we so badly need eight months after the release of this first collaborative album which navigates ambient music, modal jazz and the vocal tradition of the South Asian continent, the trio honoring its roots here. The spell guaranteed by the warm voice, the rich piano playing, the creativity of the arrangements.
13. You’re the One, Rhiannon Giddens
She is capable of anything and explores what she wants (with her wonderful voice). Missing was an album of his own songs, from which we hoped for the impossible: originality. If the subject is personal and felt, it is covered like an overview: southern soul, acoustic blues, jazzy zydeco, European pop (with a signature… James Bond). Everything is good, candy. But we are left hungry twelve times. It would have taken twelve albums to be satisfied. To be continued ?
14. Hackney Diamonds, The Rolling Stones
Yes. A new album like the Stones brought to the most undeniably Rollingstonian era (1968-1974, roughly). Why so successful? Because they let go, Keith and Mick. For others, reinvention at all costs. We’re old, so let’s make some good old Stones brand new. With Lady Gaga, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, even Paul McCartney on the twisted bass. And Charlie Watts just before he died. Of course the strings are big, that’s intentional. Pleasure too, of course!
15. People pass, time remains, Glaucous
The Belgian quartet took a pandemic to refine its second album, which bears witness to our troubled times with lucidity, on explosive rhythms merging post-punk and electronic music. It frees the bad guy: these thirty-somethings don’t look away from their raw gaze throughout the songs of this dense and paradoxically danceable album, as if they had decided that it was even better to come together, full of hope, on a dance floor than thinking about throwing yourself into the void of an uncertain future.