Best new music 2024
A brief personal reflection followed by the traditional list of the best music that caught my ear during 2024.
Category: Music
I’m passionate about music, and this is where I post about it.
Best new music 2023
Better late than never, here is my annual blog post listing my favourite new releases from 2023. It’s been a rather trying festive season this year because the rich soup of respiratory viruses making the rounds have ensured that my various holiday writing projects, including this one, got pushed and pushed.
Best new music 2022
Every year, I somehow commit myself to spending a few days writing up the best new recorded music I heard in the previous 12 months. Here’s the 2022 edition.
Best new music 2021
A couple of weeks ago, in the middle of the afternoon, someone enthusiastically rang our doorbell and then knocked several times. Unfortunately, we were both on Zoom calls so couldn’t rush to the door to see who was there. Usually … [read more]
Of mixtapes and playlists (DIVERSIONS//2021.01)
This year, I’ve decided to occasionally make a streamed playlist “mixtape.” I don’t have a specific listener in mind. I do this for my own amusement primarily. There might be a series of these, or only a few ultimately. My objective is to include good music, of course, but also to sequence something that’s listenable in context.
Best new music 2020
It’s the morning of Boxing Day, December 26, 2020, and Ontario has been back in full lock-down since midnight. At least we are avoiding the worst possible super-spreader effect of the annual shopping melee. We are ten months into the … [read more]
Best new music 2019
My 2019 annual write-up of the year’s best new music. I publish this post into the ether once a year to summarize what I’ve particularly liked during the last twelve months, in the hope that you might discover something new.
In memoriam Johnny Clegg
A personal reflection on the death of Johnny Clegg, giant of South African music, in July 2019. … I met him once, very briefly. In my mid-20s, when I was living in Johannesburg, a colleague and I bumped into him holding court in a café at Rosebank Mall where we had gone during our lunch break.