12 Days of 2023: All the best

Day 11: Master list & Monsters

Attention men of Christmastime: be careful out there.

That is not meant to be a segue to…

The best book I read this year was Claire Dederer’s Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma. I can’t recommend it highly enough to anyone who wrestled with the “art vs. artist” debate.* In fact, I’ve recommended this book so much that I’ve loaned my copy of this book to several people since its April release and don’t currently know its whereabouts, otherwise I’d re-read it and write a lot more about it here.

* (I’m currently reading RJ Smith’s James Brown biography, and let’s just say I’m deep in these waters yet again.)

Instead, I’ll share this review in Slate by Laura Miller, who writes:

The solution is not to smash your idols but to recognize that they are not idols at all ... The realization that most human beings have a monstrous aspect allowed [Dederer] to see “the humanity of monsters.” This amounts to a more dramatic enactment of a pretty common experience: As children, we adore our parents, and growing up is a process of realizing how flawed they are—often with a period of extravagant adolescent rejection—before we come to understand that we love them despite those flaws, as we hope to be loved despite our own.

That sums up Dederer’s empathetic streak, but her book is more complicated than that. She wrestles with herself constantly throughout (she loses me a bit on the “all great artists are bad parents” tangent). She concludes on a “you do you” note, which is not really a cop-out after everything she’s presented you with.

Important selling point: she’s a great writer dealing with intellectual issues without coming across as a (shudder) academic. The book was spawned from this much-shared essay in the Paris Review, which you should really read.

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Favourite magazine article I read this year: “The End of the English Major” by Nathan Heller in the New Yorker, about the future of the humanities (and arguably humanity). Did you go to university? Do you have a child you would like to send to university? Read it. It’s long. Kind of like those books we don’t read anymore.

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For the unpaywalled crowd, here’s a synopsis of the last near-dozen posts.

Also for the unpaywalled crowd:

23/40 of these albums are Canadian. Not by design. That’s just how I roll.

Many links below are to now-paywalled posts. This master list will remain unpaywalled. If you’re an artist named here, or work for one, drop me a line and I’ll send you any required link.

Go listen to something you haven’t heard before!

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2023

Last month I decided these were my top 10 albums of 2023. After then going on to write about another 30 albums, I’m not so sure this is still it, but I love all these, for different reasons.

Altin Gun - Ask (Glitterbeat/ATO).

Baby Rose - Through and Through (Secretly Canadian).

Peter Gabriel - i/o (RealWorld).

Kayhan Kalhor & Toumani Diabaté - The Sky is the Same Colour Everywhere (RealWorld).

Terra Lightfoot - Healing Power (Sonic Unyon)

Donny McCaslin - I Want More (Edition)

NQ Arbuckle - Love Songs for the Long Game (Six Shooter)

Margo Price - Strays (Loma Vista)

Whitehorse - I’m Not Crying, You’re Crying (Six Shooter)

WITCH - Zango (Partisan)

Wrote about them here.

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20 more:

All Hands Make Light - Darling the Dawn.

The Beaches - Blame My Ex.

Belle and Sebastian - Late Developers.

Charlotte Cardin - 99 Nights.

Alabaster DePlume - Come With Fierce Grace.

Wrote about those here.

…

Jeremy Dutcher - Motewolonuwok.

Feist - Multitudes.

Debby Friday - Good Luck.

Matthew Halsall - An Ever Changing View.

PJ Harvey - I Inside the Old Year Dying.

Wrote about those here.

…

Hauschka - Philanthropy

Lankum - False Lankum

Murray Lightburn - Once Upon a Time in Montreal

Lightning Dust - Nostalgia Killer

Natalie Merchant - Keep Your Courage

Wrote about those here.

…

Midswim - Sneak Behind the Dreams in Your Head

Allison Russell - The Returner

William Tyler & the Impossible Truth - Secret Stratosphere

Billy Valentine & the Universal Truth - s/t

John Zorn - New Masada Quartet Vol. 2

Wrote about those here.

Favourite local records:

Communism - Lovespeech

Geordie Gordon - Tambourine

Kevin Hearn & Hugh Marsh - Dreaming of the ’80s / Rick White - 20 Golden Hits of the ’80s

Uh Huh - s/t

Witch Prophet - Gateway Experience

Wrote about those here.

…

Other local favourites:

Buck 65 - Super Dope

July Talk - Remember Never Before

Katie Cruel - Lost Vagus

Michael Peter Olsen - Narrative of a Nervous System

Pantayo - Ang Pagdaloy

Honorable mention: Eamon McGrath

Wrote about those here.

Best tracks found elsewhere:

I annotated this list here. 9/20 are Canadian.

A Certain Ratio - A Trip in Hulme

Jeremie Albino - Angeline

Anohni - Sliver of Ice

Jill Barber - Beautiful Life

Will Butler + Sister Squares - Arrow of Time

The Clientele - Dying in May

Daughter - Be On Your Way

DJ Shadow - Ozone Scraper

Gord Downie & Bob Rock - The Safest Day of the Year

Kevin Drew - Out in the Fields

Everything But the Girl - Nothing Left to Lose

The Flints - Different Drum

Evangeline Gentle - Gay Bar

Beverly Glenn-Copeland - Harbour

Nabihah Iqbal - The World Couldn’t See Us

Mourning [a] BLKstar - Catch 22

Nyssa - Breakup Party

U.S. Girls - So Typically Now / Futures Bet

Rufus Wainwright feat. Madison Cunningham - Alone

Yo La Tengo - Aselestine

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Some 2022 records I missed this time last year:

Bibi Club - Le soleil et la mer (really hope this new band changes its name so as to not to be associated with a current war criminal — which was certainly not its intent)

Mariel Buckley - Everywhere I Used to Be

Christine Fellows - Stuff We All Get

Lucas Silveira - The Goddam Flowers

Jairus Sharif - Water & Tools

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Favourite live shows:

Feb 19 Nicolette & the Nobodies at Cameron.

Feb 24 Communism at Cameron.

Feb 24 Margo Price at Phoenix.

March 13 Bill Frisell at Collins Bay Penetentiary, Kingston.

March 16 Lisa LeBlanc at Horseshoe.

April 7 Marlaena Moore at Monarch.

May 24 Nyssa at Dakota.

June 1 Tami Neilson at Great Hall.

June 14 Jairus Sharif at Music Gallery.

June 16 Whitehorse / NQ Arbuckle at Allied Music Centre.

Reviewed those here.

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July 9 Feist / Rufus Wainwright / Judy Collins / Jeremy Dutcher at Mariposa Folk Festival, Orillia

July 18 Mourning [A] BLKstar, Jane Inc. at Tranzac

Aug 2 Altin Gün, Rogê at Danforth Music Hall

Sept 11 Peter Gabriel at Raptors/Leafs Arena

Sept 17 Alabaster dePlume at Rivoli

Oct 8 Charlie Ballantine at Rex Hotel

Oct 26 NQ Arbuckle, Carolyn Mark at Horseshoe

Dec 1 Terra Lightfoot, Brandy Zdan at Horseshoe

Dec 9 Jeremy Dutcher, U.S. Girls at Massey Hall

Dec 22 Tom Waits Appreciation Congregation at Drom Taberna

Reviewed those here.