12 Days of 2023: Truths Universal & Impossible

6th in a series in the old year dying

More from December’s annual contribution to the distraction-industrial complex. Too much good music! Today: the remaining five of my favourite 30 records of 2023. Still to come: some local lights.

Those other lists: top 10 albums are here. More favourite albums are here, here and here. A mixtape of other tracks is here. Paywalled for now, but:

Exclaim posted what I find to be their most valuable year-end list of “great Canadian albums you might have missed.” I’ve usually missed more than a few, and am grateful for the education.

I do find it quite funny, however, that some of the albums “that we might have missed” include two artists that they put on the cover of the nationally distributed print magazine (Jeremy Dutcher and Allison Russell, both of them CBC faves as well), and two artists who made the Polaris shortlist (Begonia and Gayance).

One of those four appears below, as does a Canadian record that Exclaim and everyone else in Canada missed (so far), plus a mitzvah and truths both Universal and Impossible.