In a year of fine ambient work from artists like Emily A. Sprague, Sarah Devachi and (further down this list) Beatrice Dillon and Nicolas Jaar, it was the artist who took the notion of "sound healing" back to the (virtual/imagined) club who made the most hypnotic, meaningful, and indeed curative record of the year. Like so much work that was conceptualized pre-pandemic but consumed under quarantine, it feels startlingly predictive of the emotions and needs of the isolated and traumatized. "Re-Wild" makes a call for a kind of feral creativity as a response to despair, and "Jeannette" offers a matter-of-fact approach to grief. But this is not a morose album in any sense; the insistent beats and soaring melodies make it a gratifying catharsis.

Another album aligned all too well with this traumatic year, the most urgent and necessary—and cacophonous—hip hop production since Public Enemy.

Veering guitar-ward from his electronica-infused 2018 album Safe in the Hands of Love (also #3 on my list that year), Heaven seems to place Tumor at an almost Bowie-like position: a kind of post-human rock star whose sheer charisma steers a raucous band into howling ecstasy.

Say what you will about 2020, but at least this year we learned that hazy reggaeton ÷ spacey drum 'n' bass = upside-down Boards of Canada ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The defiantly experimental Drew Daniel pulls off his wiliest surprise yet: an album of warm, atmospheric house and heartfelt, almost reverent ambient loops, all in service of an inspiring message of hope.

Despite the absence of clubs, the cutting edges of house music bubbled with incredible creativity in 2020, albeit almost entirely in single form (see my singles list below). Here's the exception: an atmospheric and vivid album-length tribute to Brooklyn, like a deep house version of David Holmes' Let's Get Killed.

Two albums, released three months apart, whose loose (and, sure, sometimes ragged) sprawl is part of the appeal, since the goals—gathering up whole histories of funk, gospel and soul in service of a moment of unimaginable Black grief, trauma, and hope—are so profound, and so necessary.

After three stunning albums from Kevin Parker's psychedelic project, each more groundbreaking, energetic, and electronica-tinged than the last, The Slow Rush's chilled disco and slow jams can at first seem like a step back, or at least a bit of a lie-down. But further listens reveal a layered richness to the mellow vibe, and a profound meditation on time and its imperceptible yet all-too-quick passage.

Echoing the spacey expanse of Can, the wry humor of Gang of Four, and the stark outlook of Daydream Nation-era Sonic Youth, Fontaines D.C. stands on the shoulders of giants. But the Dublin combo's second album feels urgent and necessary, a deeply personal ode to the struggles of contemporary life.

Is 150 bpm the "tempo of the year"? As in some of DJ Python's slippery tracks (see above), 150 bpm can read either as hyperspeed or as a loping half-speed 75 bpm, strangely perfect for a year that felt both jittery and exhausting. All of Workaround is set at this tempo, and the rigid yet perspective-tricking framework gives the constantly surprising cornucopia of sonic elements a coherent structure, a stark grid on which a museum's worth of tones hang.