Edition #17
My Favorites of 2021
As we are about to welcome the promises that come with a brand new year arising, you’ve been numerous to ask me what my favorite albums, books, movies, and TV series of 2021 have been.
If I rarely pay much attention to the “best of” lists published on every possible entertainment platform at this time of the year, I nonetheless found an interesting exercise to look into what has been my creative companions over the last 12 months. It’s even more singular to think it through, as those albums, books, and movies are usually a pretty faithful representation of my emotional journey this past year and are also a vivid reflection of the affective stream my life has been during that specific period of time.
Therefore, as puzzling as it felt at first, I came to realize that it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would to assemble my personal favorite lists this year. Strangely, I don’t have too many recollections of what last year has been for me prior to getting back on the road with The Pineapple Thief. While it’s not rare for me to lose track of time, besides the blessings that I had to share new projects with you all, early 2021 seems a little blurry. So I had to do a little digging, especially regarding music, as I tend to listen to a new album, whenever possible, on vinyl first, and I have way more unwrapped records piled up everywhere than the number I could spin on my turntable… This made the compiling process a very fascinating voyage of its own somehow.
I needed a more profound kind of intimate peace, something that could contribute to the spiritual serenity I was looking for.
Surprisingly, rediscovering my 2021 musical exploration led me to notice not only just how diverse my playlist was, but also clearly revealed that I’ve been mainly immersed in instrumental music, cinematic soundtracks, fragile and delicate artistic endeavors, world sonorities, much more so than in any of the usual type of music I dwell on instinctively. For someone who’s been creatively shaped by noise and experimental art, it’s quite eloquent as to what last year has been for me.
Maybe, even if I have spent most of early 2021 alone with my 2 dogs surrounded by the luxuriant mountains of the Virginia highlands, I needed a more profound kind of intimate peace, something that could contribute to the spiritual serenity I was looking for. Maybe it served as a way for me to travel, inwards and outwards, or maybe I was simply looking for something that had more colors and textures to wrap my heart and soul in… Especially as I kept on wandering for the invisible, longing to discover the unknown within me. Whatever it was, it paved the way to the sonic palette I’m sharing with you today.
Again, that list has nothing to do with what I may consider as the best albums of the year. I don’t have that pretension nor do I believe that art should be generically standardized into such gradation. Those records stood as a contemplative recollection of what I’ve been losing myself in, of what has been defining and redefining me every time I reemerged from their immersive universe.
Thank you for offering me the wonderful blessing to commune it all with you my precious friends, don’t hesitate to let me know which albums have been significant for you as well.
Be safe,
Much love
Your brother and friend
Alex
In no particular order...
My Favorite Albums
– Nine by Sault
– Vulture Prince by Arooj Aftab
– For the first time by Black Country, New Road
– Yol / Alem by Altin Gün
– Fatigue by L’Rain
– Live In Stuttgart / Live In Brighton by Can
– Promises by Floating Points, London Symphony Orchestra, and Pharoah Sander
– Springtime by Springtime
– She Walks in Beauty by Marianne Faithfull with Warren Ellis
– Afrique Victime by Mdou Moctar
– Windswept Adan (Live at Bunkamura Orchard Hall, Tokyo 2011) by Ichiko Aoba
– I Shall Wear a Crown by Pastor T.L. Barrett
– Echo by Indigo Sparke
– Several Others by Whispering Sons
– Turkish Belly by Konstrukt
– Feral Hymns by Hilary Woods
– Cavalcade by Black Midi
– Shade by Grouper
– At Pioneer Works by Les Filles de Illighadad
– In Virus Time by Lee Ranaldo
– A Girl On The Shore Soundtrack by World’s End Girlfriend
– Alkisha by Senyawa
– Psalms by Nathan Salsburg
– Open The Gates by Irreversible Entanglements
– Vertigo Days by The Notwist
My Favorite Books
- Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back) by Jeff Tweedy
– Dog Songs by Mary Oliver
– In Tangier by Mohamed Choukri
– Inflamed Invisible by David Toop
– The Edge Of Choice by Ludwig von Bewusstsein
– The Collected Poems by Chika Sagawa
– I Wanna Be Yours by John Cooper Clarke
– Weight of the Earth : The Tape Journals by David Wojnarowicz
– Ariel by Sylvia Plath
– The Last Night of the Earth Poems by Charles Bukowski
– En Herbe by Lucien Jean
– Life And Work by Andrey Tarkovsky
My Favorite TV Series
– The Serpent
– Squid Game
– Mare of Easttown
– Midnight Mass
– The Chestnut Man
My Favorite Movies
– The Power of the Dog
– Nomadland
– Belfast
– The Father
– The World To Come