While there were some terrific albums put out in the first quarter of 2023 (see here for my list), the period between April and June has seen a ton of amazing stuff released! Here goes.
Colin Stetson – When we were that what wept for the sea It’s such a relief to hear another proper album from saxophone experimentalist Colin Stetson, after a run of high-profile but oddly muted film soundtracks. This album is rammed with Stetson’s trademark button-clicks, intakes of breath and throat-mic groans, plus Scottish smallpipes by Brìghde Chaimbeul and affecting spoken-word passages.
Romance & Dean Hurley – River of Dreams The masters of hauntological pop team up with Twin Peaks sound designer Dean Hurley once again, following their Celine Dion-inspired Once Upon a Time and a lesser album themed around Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s film The Bitter Tears Of Petra Von Kant. This one’s solid, creepy gold.
Horse Lords – Live in Leipzig Absolutely storming skronky math-post-rock, like Battles battling Beefheart. I would have loved to have seen this show.
Benefits – Nails This Teesside punk band features two of my cousins in its lineup, so I’m biased – but honestly, Benefits are vital in today’s bland indie landscape, and I feel strongly that their politics and anger are true and admirable. This album is as good a reflection of the state of the nation in Britain (i.e. fucked) as you’ll find anywhere.
Hannah Peel / Manchester Collective – Neon There’s more than a touch of Steve Reich’s obsessive repetitions in this short set, and that’s no bad thing. Over 12 minutes it hits that sweet spot between beautiful and maddening.
Herman Dune – The Portable Herman Dune, Vol.3 This final album of rerecorded favourites doesn’t disappoint. David Ivar Herman Dune’s voice is far more raw now, making the oddest moments of these perfect indie-pop songs poignant.
J. Albert – config Excellent dub techno. Last.fm tells me this is one of my most-listened albums this year, which is weird. I’ve been using it as a background to writing, and the time just slips away when you’re in the zone.
Bana Haffar – intimaa’ Their 2019 recording Genera – Live at AB Salon, Brussels is a favourite of mine, and while this doesn’t quite match up, its scratchy, heavenly drones come close.
Lau Nau – 5 × 4 This hazy synth pop doesn’t quite hit the heights of Lau Nau’s HEM. Någonstans soundtrack from 2015, an album still on rotation in my office – but it’s still wonderful.
Alpha Maid & Mica Levi – spresso Oh wow I love this. Alpha Maid has been one to watch since her 2019 and 2021 EPs, and now she teams up with the best soundtrack composer of this century? For a punk garage jam? This EP may be less than 8 minutes long, but stick it on repeat a few dozen times like I do.
Annea Lockwood / Ruth Anderson – Téte-a-téte This one took a few listens to bed in, and the behind-the-scenes story about Lockwood’s tribute to the late Anderson gives it additional power. It may be a demanding, avant-garde experiment, but it’s filled with love.
Afrorack – The Afrorack Absolutely nuts Ugandan synth grooves made using wonky homemade equipment.
Baxter Dury – I Thought I Was Better Than You This witty album seems deeply personal, primarily about his Blockhead father Ian and Baxter’s own self-loathing of being a ‘Prisoner, famous parents, assisted recognition’ whose benefits seem to amount to nothing: ‘But you don’t sound like you / You sound just like him’. But Baxter’s a star in his own right.
Miaux / Lieven Martens – The Pels Organ and Hemony Carillon This is simply outstanding. Even its origins are strange, being the soundtrack to the unveiling of a woven tapestry in the city hall of Hoogstraten, Belgium. The first side, featuring Miaux’s pipe organ compositions, is as magisterial as Sarah Davachi’s release and yet as intimate as Badalamenti. The second side is weirder, featuring field recordings of birdsong and muted traffic. It’s an essential album, I think.
Jam City – Jam City Presents EFM More half-remembered, hauntological not-really-80s pop from the best in the business.
Wild Up – Julius Eastman Vol. 3: If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich? More wonderful interpretations of the great composer’s work by California ensemble Wild Up.
Boris & Uniform – Bright New Disease Are they mocking Metallica at times? I think so. But there’s wit here, and variety, and good humour, and stompingly excellent speed metal.
Bruce Falkian – Bruce Falkian Honestly, I don’t know what this is, or who they are. They’re from France, I think. And I think it’s sort of pop music. It’s funny and odd.
Bendik Giske – Bendik Giske I feel slightly spoiled after the triumphant return of Colin Stetson, and now this. Bendik Giske’s saxophone work features many of the same close-miked technique, and it is very, very good.
Arthur Russell – Picture of Bunny Rabbit These previously-unreleased tracks from the mid-80s World of Echo sessions are as wonderful as you’d hope, particularly the title track and the final messed-up wonkiness wonderfulness on this album.
Rrose – Please Touch So good! Techno to drive fast to – or to write car chases to.
Werner Dafeldecker & Valerio Tricoli – Der Krater The oddest, spaciest double-bass drones imaginable.
Ergo Phizmiz – Angelbread Another triumphant return! When he turns his mind to skewed pop (as on my favourite album of 2010, Things To Do And Make), Ergo Phizmiz is simply unbeatable. He tosses off incredible lyrics that recall The Cleaners from Venus (‘You can feel like Ken Russell / In my Catholic bathroom’) or Hefner or The Wave Pictures at their finest (‘I stayed at the table and put a coaster / Over your wine so flies couldn’t get in’). And ‘Day of the Baboon’ is a genuinely excellent pop song in defiance of Phizmiz’s sometimes self-defeating attitude to writing and recording.
Philip Jeck & Chris Watson – Oxmardyke Affecting and frequently terrifying, Chris Watson’s field recordings of a Yorkshire railway crossing become something far stranger and more illuminating when treated by the late Philip Jeck. An aural, modern-day version of Dickens’ ‘The Signal-Man’.
My favourite book published this year was Candescent Blooms by Andrew Hook. It’s an outstanding, confident, often surreal collection, featuring accounts of the final days of Hollywood actors who died before their time. Despite its strong pitch, it remains difficult to describe – the stories are poetic, subjective, dizzying. Though there’s a huge amount of research in evidence, tone and language take precedence over biography. Normally I struggle to read whole collections from start to finish, whereas in this case I told myself I’d take my time, savour the richness of each story, but then raced through the whole lot in a couple of sittings, so that now they all merge in my mind and I couldn’t tell you which I loved most. It’s a huge achievement and a hell of an experience, and I recommend you get hold of a copy immediately.
Of the other recently published novels I read this year, the one that meant the most to me was Leonard and Hungry Paul by Rónán Hession (2019). I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed this story of humble, modest people achieving humble, modest success. You might describe another of my favourites as an antagonistic twin of this book: No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood (2021), which genuinely made me laugh out loud in the first half and also cry at the end, and I can’t remember the last novel that managed that. One of the most exhilarating books I read in 2022 was By Force Alone by Lavie Tidhar (2020), casting Arthurian legend in bizarre new forms, a 21st-century riff on T H White’s already riff-packed The Once and Future King. I’m saving the second of Tidhar’s Anti-Matter of Britain Quartet novels (The Hood) for a later treat, and I can’t wait to find out which legends the final two novels will address. Other novels that I loved unequivocally were The Rotters’ Club by Jonathan Coe (2001), my first Coe, which sparked a season of reading his other linked books, and Geek Love by Katherine Dunn (1989), a big, bold carnival of a carnival novel which was Very Much My Thing even before the speculative elements showed up.
On to older novels. I was blown away by the restrained energy of Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (1980), and the inventiveness of the Jekyll and Hyde-inspired Two Women of London by Emma Tennant (1989) – I must get on to reading more of her work. I found The Woman in the Dunes by Kōbō Abe (1962) thrilling in spite, or perhaps because of, its claustrophobia.
A list of wonderful novels I read this year and that I should have got around to reading much sooner includes: the amoral The Murderess by Alexandros Papadiamantis (1903), the lively Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh (1928), the unexpected pleasures of The Club of Queer Trades by G. K. Chesterton (1905), the proto-SF The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster (1909) and the intense and startlingly modern The Awakening by Kate Chopin (1899). Even odder, and somewhat embarrassing, omissions until 2022 were the wonderfully bizarre The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz (1934) and The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers (1895).
It’s that time again! Here are some of the most interesting open submission calls for SFF/horror writers that I’ve come across recently. As always, best of luck if you pursue any of these opportunities!
It’s that time again… Here are some of the most tantalising open submission calls I’ve spotted this month. If you decide to go after any of these opportunities, good luck!
Tim Major 
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