Plug in, for avant-jamming, opiated pop and Yuletide twang!
1 BILLY F GIBBONS JINGLE BELL BLUES
The open sleigh fave re-tooled as a slow blues for hot rods. Come for the egg nog and bells, stay for the chef’s kiss molten licks. Find it: Concord red vinyl 7”/streaming services
2 BINKER & MOSES FEED INFINITE
The sax-and-drum team join bassistturned-electronica man Max Luthert on this super-cool updraft of ambient-spiritual jazz. Like flying over tundra, in a dream. Find it: streaming services
3 ANDREW SCOTT YOUNG/ RYAN JEWELL/RYLEY WALKER ALLEGRO
Walker and his regular rhythm section, tongues in cheeks, launch a new avant-jam band genre, Post Wook. And there’s a twist – the music’s great. Find it: Bandcamp
4 NICK CAVE & WARREN ELLIS WE ARE NOT ALONE
A sombre, gorgeous new Cave classic, on the soundtrack for a doc about snow leopards. Anyone alienated by the duo’s electronic tendencies will find its orchestral lushness a balm. Find it: YouTube
5 WU-LU BROKEN HOMES
A taster from a promised 2022 LP on Warp, this is the band’s best stab yet at their wild, gnarly live mix of dub, noise, opiated pop and street poetry. Think AR Kane for 2022. Find it: streaming services
6 THE BUG & JASON WILLIAMSON STOAT
The Bug’s dirty ragga techno with scraping strings meets Sleaford Mods’ arch-rebuker on 10 cans of Kong Strong, going loopily zoomorphic down a paranoid pothole. Find it: SoundCloud
7 JEFF PARKER LA JETÉE
Guitarist ne plus ultra of the Chicago post-rock/jazz scene, Parker revisits, solo, one of his ’90s Tortoise masterpieces (it’s Jetty, from TNT). Find it: Bandcamp
8 SOUL REVIVERS FT. ERNEST RANGLIN HARDER
The veteran reggae guitar master plays it light yet deep on this jazz-reggae excursion into no-time. From team-ups LP On The Grove. Find it: Bandcamp
9 SARAH BROWN I’M ON MY WAY
From a 2022 tribute to Mahalia Jackson, Brown (Simple Minds, Pink Floyd) pairs her skywards vocal to brisk soul-gospel. Joyous. Find it: streaming services
10 MARTIN CARR FLAMES
Former Boo Radley heralds new Bandcamp subscription service with a meld of glassy pop and fuzzy cut-ups: Animal Collective, meet China Crisis.
Find it: streaming services