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Lots of movement on and additions to my updated list. 100 104 106 107 total good new releases is pretty good for four months in; I’ve heard it said that, other than Fiona Apple’s offering (seeming to excite everyone, including this previous tire-kicker), no one’s dropped a classic yet. I’d add Makaya McCraven’s GSH interp to that, goldarn Kesha continues to be a shot in this malaise’s arm, Lewis and Taylor wail on their new live duet, the inspired Irish folk-punk Jinx Lennon has given me more than I can quickly absorb (but it’s raised a little chicken skin during two listens), Lido Pimienta’s pop-folk schizo-concept album has come up the chart like gangbusters,  X’s comeback is slowly growing on me, and HOLY SMOKE Anna Hogberg Attack’s lena is a huge leap forward from a predecessor that was superb–in a word, time (and there’s plenty of it) has a way of conveying power onto a work of art, so we’ll wait and see.

2020 (January 1 – April 30): A Bad Time for Most Anything But Music, Part 5

Note: Bolded items are new to the ongoing 2020 list.

1. Fiona Apple: Fetch the Bolt Cutters
2. Gil Scott-Heron and Makaya McCraven: We’re New Again–A Reimagining
3. Kesha: High Road
4. Princess Nokia: Everything is Beautiful
5. Various Artists: New Improvised Music from Buenos Aires
6. Body Count: Carnivore
7. Anna Hogberg Attack: lena
8. Irreversible Entanglements: Who Sent You
9. The Good Ones: RWANDA, you should be loved (it’s late ‘19, actually)
10. Cornershop: England is a Garden
11. The Third Mind: The Third Mind
12. Shabaka and The Ancestors: We Are Sent Here By History
13. Mark Lomax II: The 400 Years Suite
14. Princess Nokia: Everything Sucks
15. Lido Pimienta: Miss Colombia
16. Danny Barnes: Man on Fire
17. James Brandon Lewis and Chad Taylor: Live in Willisau
18. Jeff Parker: Suite for Max Brown
19. Mdou Moctar: Mdou Moctar Mixtape, Volume 1
20. Grimes: Miss Anthropocene
21. Jinx Lennon: Border Schizo Fffolk Songs for the F****d
22. Gard Nilssen’s Supersonic Orchestra: If You Listen Carefully, The Music is Yours
23. Chicago Underground: Good Days
24. K Michelle: All Monsters are Human
25. Fat Tony and Taydex: Wake Up
26. The Howling Hex: Knuckleball Express
27. Mr. Wrong: Create a Place
28. Bad Bunny: YHLQMDLG
29. U. S. Girls: Heavy Light
30. The Necks: Three
31. Dua Lipa: Future Nostalgia
32. Rod Wave: Pray 4 Love
33. Serengeti & Kenny Segal: AJAI
34. Azu Tiwaline: Draw Me a Silence, Pts. 1 & 2
35. Sunflowers: Endless Voyage
36. McPhee, Rempis, Reid, Lopez, and Nilssen-Love: Of Things Beyond Thule, Volume 2
37. KeiyaA: Forever, Ya Girl
38. Moses Sumney: grae
39. X: Alphabetland
40. Swamp Dogg: Sorry You Couldn’t Make It
41. Tyler Keith: The Last Drag
42. Ndudozo Makhathini: Modes of Communication—Letters from the Underworlds
43. Constantinople & Ablaye Cissoko: Traversees
44. Mythic Sunshine: Changing Shapes–Live at Roadburn
45. STRFKR: Future Past Life
46. Yves Tumor: Heaven to a Tortured Mind
47. Denzel Curry & Kenny Beats: UNLOCKED
48. GuiltyBeatz: Different (EP)
49. Alkibar Junior: Music from Saharan WhatsApp, Volume 4 (EP)
50. Kefaya + Elaha Soroor: Songs of Our Mothers
51. Jennifer Curtis & Tyshawn Sorey: Invisible Ritual
52. Sunwatchers: Oh Yeah?
53. Shopping: All for Nothing
54. Katie Shorr: Open Book
55. The Neptune Power Federation: Memoirs of a Rat Queen
56. Chubby & The Gang: Speed Kills
57. Rina Sayawama: SAYAWAMA
58. Darragh Morgan and John Tilbury: For John Cage (composer: Morton Feldman)
59. Westside Gunn: Pray for Paris
60. Onipa: We No Be Machine
61. Waxahatchie: Saint Cloud
62. Snotty Nose Rez Kids: Born Deadly (EP)
63. Evan Parker and Paul Lytton: collective calls (revisited) (jubilee)
64. Fire! Orchestra: Actions for Free Jazz Orchestra
65. Majid Bekkas: Magic Spirit Quartet
66. Jan St. Werner and Mark E. Smith: Molocular Mediation
67. Lyra Pramuk: Fountain
68. Shabazz Palaces: The Don of Diamonds
69. John Anderson: Years
70. Natural Child: California Hotel
71. Megan Thee Stallion: Suga
72. Childish Gambino: 3.15.20
73. Ohad Talmor Newsreel: Long Forms
74. Etran de L’Air: Music from Saharan WhatsApp, Volume 1 (EP)
75. MONO: Before The Past
76. Tamikrest: Tamotait
77. Luís Lopes Humanization 4Tet: Believe, believe
78. Colin Stetson: Color Out of Space (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
79. Tomeka Reid and Alexander Hawkins: Shards and Constellations
80. Lakecia Benjamin: Pursuance—The Coltranes
81. Wayne Phoenix: Soaring Wayne Phoenix Story The Earth
82. Moses Boyd: Dark Matter
83. Thundercat: It is What it Is
84. Kassa Overall: I Think I’m Good
85. Oumou Diabate et Kara Show Koumba Frifri: Music from Saharan WhatsApp, Volume 2 (EP)
86. Dogleg: Mellee
87. Pink Siifu & yungmorpheus: Bag Talk
88. Jays Electronica and -Z: A Written Testimony
89. Meredith Monk: Memory Game
90. Luke Combs: What You See Is What You Get
91. Jeich Ould Badou: Music from Saharan WhatsApp 03
92. Pink Siifu: NEGRO
93. Moor Mother: CLEPSYDRA

REISSUES AND PAST RECORDINGS NEWLY BROUGHT TO LIGHT

1. Ranil: Stay Safe and Sound!
2. Lee Scratch Perry with Seskain Molenga and Kalo Kawongolo: Roots from the Congo (reissue)
3. Milton Nascimento: Maria Maria (reissue)
4. Jon Hassell: Vernal Equinox (reissue)
5. Fela Kuti: Perambulator
6. Various Artists: Stone Crush—Memphis Modern Soul 1977-1987
7. Observer All Stars & King Tubby: Dubbing with the Observer (reissue)
8. Bryan Ferry: Live at the Royal Albert Hall, 1974
9. Pharoah Sanders: Live in Paris 1975
10. Nina Simone: Fodder on My Wings
11. Yabby You & The Aggrovators: King Tubby’s Prophecies of Dub (reissue)
12. Various Artists: Léve Léve – Sao Tomé & Principe Sounds ‘70s-‘80s
13. Various Artists: Soul Jazz Records Presents Black Riot—Early Jungle, Rave, and Hardcore
14. Various Artists: Jamaican All-Stars (Studio One)