Studies have shown how the global pandemic has changed our listening habits, and for those seeking calm, these 11 are the best ambient albums of the year.
Aesop Rock finally reunites with his longtime producer Blockhead for a hip-hop record less focused on nostalgia and more about depicting our paranoid present.
After a disappointingly bland 2019 album, the hushed emotions of acoustic strummers Hovvdy are back in full force on the stellar new set, True Love.
A peerless session musician looking to branch out on his own, Spencer Cullum mines his British-folk inspirations for a lush and lovely solo album.
After a year of livestreaming and a personal setback, there’s no better time to appreciate the quietly underrated instrumental trilogy Brothertiger created amidst the pandemic.
The pandemic has yielded a number of lockdown musical creations, but guitarist Nate Mercereau captures the sadness and quiet joy better than most.
At first you might think that James Wan’s Malignant is striking the same note as his prior horror films. You would be wrong.
Filled with sizzling originals and remixes, Red Hot + Free continues the Red Hot Organization’s legacy of giving us great dance music for a good cause.
On memoryland, CFCF builds a time machine to take you back to the sounds of ’90s techno, house, and dance-pop.
In a year beset by the most horrid and unusual circumstances, leave it to the hip-hop community to challenge our beliefs and voice our activism. The best records of the year served as rallying cries and made us reconsider the very genre itself.
In a year that felt lonelier than ever, some expected ambient music to be a soothing balm. Yet ambient artists capture the sadness, the bliss, the hurt, and the healing of this wild year better than most.
