2022 Best of | Best albums | Best songs | Irish albums | Irish songs | Best Of Podcasts | Guest lists | Best New Irish artists
60.
Guerilla Toss
Cannibal Capital
Guerilla Toss are a New York band who make glittering off-kilter kraut-influenced art-rock, at least that’s how I’d describe ‘Cannibal Capital’.
It’s from their fifth album Famously Alive on Sub Pop.
59.
Empress Of; Jim-E Stack
Turn The Table
After ‘Save Me’ and ‘Dance For You’ this year, ‘Turn The Tide’ featuring production from Jim E-Stack was yet another example of how Lorely Rodriguez aka Empress Of makes alt-pop music with big hooky smarts.
58.
Anish Kumar
Sadhana
As heard at Four Tet live sets this year, Anish Kumar’s ‘Sadhana’ comes from a release called Bollywood Super Hits! As the album title suggests, this is a Bollywood-inspired track brimming with percussive sparkle and synth energy.
57.
VTSS
Make You Scream
London-based Polish producer aka Martyna Maja aka VTSS brings dark electroclash vocal pop styles on ‘Make You Scream’ with the ominous vocal threat – “imma make you scream / make your head disappear.”
56.
Vieux Farka Touré; Khruangbin
Diarabi
Texas trio Khruangbin met Mali guitar legend and made an album of covers of Vieux’s dad – Ali Farké Touré, called Ali. In doing so, the alchemy of the players and its source material lifts the album from pure retread, instead finding new places for these songs to go, through the song of the father.
55.
Breanna Barbara
Weaning
It’s howling high drama from the off with New Yorker Breanna Barbara’s song ‘Weaning’ cutting through a tense psychedelic blues rock intro with a skyscraping vocal and crashing drums. It’s from Barbara’s second album Nothin’ But Time out on Fuzz Club.
“In the past, I found myself in relationship after relationship and, once deep inside them, I would pretty consistently want out for one reason or another. It was a pattern I followed for years and had a lot of guilt surrounding it. I think life in general requires us to wean off of certain relationships, starting with our own mother and all the way up to past versions of ourselves. For me this recording really capures the intensity and often pain that can come with grieving those relationships.”
Breanna Barbara
54.
Channel Tres
6am
The dancefloor is open til 6am. Channel Tres has clearly heard about Ireland’s upcoming licensing law changes, as he’s been announced for a Dublin gig and dropped this slinky banger to coincide.
53.
Fontaines D.C.
Jackie Down The Line
‘Jackie Down The Line’, reminds me of early Manic Street Preachers, Stone Roses and Nirvana’s In Utero musically. It’s a darker, lower dirge, a deeper sink for the band’s guitar music while retaining the band’s trademark pop smarts, which indicated that Skinty Fia, their third album was going to be a starker and darker proposition.
52.
Aoife Nessa Frances
Emptiness Follows
‘Emptiness Follows’ Is a foggy slice of psych-folk music Aoife Nessa Frances’ second album Protector. The harp, synths, brass and warm instrumentation throughout really made this stick as a repeater all year.
‘Emptiness Follows’ is about the intimacy and deep emotional connection of friendship. The song captures these moments – the water as the weight of the emotional connection we share, the small details we remember ‘the shape sits beneath your earlobe’. The movement and colour of the music, the harp constantly flowing throughout, are emphasising a profound importance in acknowledging an eternal kind of love. I wanted my voice to be close and up front and vulnerable like Serge Ginsberg’s ‘ Histoire de Melody Nelson’’.
51.
Jockstrap
Concrete Over Water
Jockstrap have always been a weird outfit. Every time I drop into the London duo of Georgia Ellery and Taylor Skye, I’m never sure what to expect but it’s usually pretty out there.
By contrast, ‘Concrete Over Water’ from the album I Love You Jennifer B, plays it straight sonically if not arrangement-wise. Along with its rich visuals, it feels like song written for a operatic stage show, a part of of a whole with twists, turns and stops baked in. It’s a delightful oddity that sounds like little else, other than the wildly dizzying Jockstrap themselves.
50.
Jamie xx
Let’s Do It Again
‘Let’s Do It Again’ proved a much more robust song than was maybe intended by Jamie xx, a soul-sampling track which builds with house music drops and euphoric drums, that was intially a giddy marker of the first summer of reopening after two long years away, but has ssustained into the colder months.
48.
Charlotte Adigéry; Bolis Pupul
Ceci n’est pas un cliché
Belgian duo Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul made a bop using just lyrical clichés, and it’s a sort of a genius.
“This song is an accumulation of all the cliché lyrics so often used in pop music. It came about when we were touring and heard a song on the radio opening with “I was walking down the street” which made us strongly cringe. But the thing is, cringing is a shared passion of Bolis and I. So we passionately made a song out of it called ‘Ceci n’est pas un cliché’. ”
Charlotte & Bolis
Their debut album Topical Dancer on Soulwax’s DEEWEE label is one of 2022’s best.
47.
Elaine Howley
To The Test
From the gorgeous album The Distance Between Heart and Mouth from Cork-based artist Elaine Howley on Belfast Touch Sensitive Records, ‘To The Test’ finds a hypnotic pocket of rhythm for Howley to sing over – it’s simultaneously experimental folk and soul, a unique place to arrive.
The Distance Between Heart and Mouth is one of our Irish albums of the year.
46.
Gabe Gurnsey
Higher Estates
Gabe Gurnsey’s Diablo, his second album of electro body music on Phantasy Sound doesn’t deviate too far from the established sound that dominated 2018’s excellent Physical.
Gurnsey’s partner, Tilly Morris has a main vocal role all over the record, and it was ‘Higher Estates’ that stood out since it arrived.
45.
The 1975
Happiness
There’s no denying the smooth ’80s synth and sax pop vibe on ‘Happiness’ that The 1975 have nailed more than once in their career. The song is a perfect pop song – a classic ’80s tune made in the year 2022.
44.
Danger Mouse & Black Thought, MF DOOM
Belize
An excellent posthumous MF DOOM feature from the album Cheat Codes, from the Danger Mouse and Black Thought collaborative album.
43.
The Smile
The Smoke
The debut album A Light For Attracting Attention from The Smile (Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Sons of Kemet’s Tom Skinner’s new band) was released this year, and ‘The Smoke’ resonated across the year. It’s down to that snaking Radiohead bassline and the subtle brass and instrumentation.
42.
Claude
twenty something
In putting together one of the release roundups this year, I came across the music of Chicago artist Claudia Ferme, AKA Claude, and this sumptuous slice of dream-pop music, from an excellent debut album is called a lot’s gonna change.
If anyone remembers Joy Zipper, this is giving me those vintage vibes.
41.
Gwenno
Ardamm
Welsh artist Gwenno released her third album Tresor, and I love this heavenly mix of the rolling krautrock-esque bassline and Welsh language vocals
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Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005 . He is the cohost of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Cara Magazine, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, founder of Lumo Club, event curator and producer of gigs, parties & events.
