DARCY MACDONALD

Chiiild, Hope for Sale (Island/Avant Garden)

Janette King, What We Lost (Hot Tramp)

Cadence Weapon, Parallel World (Independent)

Czarface & MF DOOM, Super What? (Silver Age)

Tha God Fahim X Your Old Droog, Tha Wolf on Wall St. (Mongoloid Banks)

Madlib (with Four Tet), Sound Ancestors (Madlib Invazion)

Backxwash, I Lie Here Buried with My Rings and My Dresses (UglyHag Records)

SG Lewis, Times (Virgin EMI/PMR)

Aesop Rock X Blockhead, Garbology (Rhymesayers)

Blu, The Color Blu(e) (Nature Sounds)

All global clusterfuckery considered, it was a solid 365 for music this year. What 2021 may have lacked in quantity, release-wise, it made up for with quality, re-listenable projects. This list reflects albums I kept coming back to throughout high and low points alike of this blur of an annus we’ll not soon wipe clean, I suspect. Montrealadjacent talent made a highly respectable showing, with Chiiild and Janette King having been a kind of yin-and-yang for my ears as a weird winter gave way to a sweltering summer. Even their respective album titles stood in as suitable slogans for how life in the ‘20s is playing out so far. As I peruse the list again, that’s actually somewhat true across the board. Anyway, one more time for your MF’n mind: RIP DOOM.