6. Gluttons for Punishment by Heartworms (Goth)

For her first full-length, Josephine Orme, who performs as Heartworms, knocks it out of the park.  This album is fantastic, and even better after multiple listens, which is a good thing since they’ve also released remixes this year to keep this album at the front of everybody’s mind.

5. Snocaps (Self Titled) (Indie Folk)

Here’s a powerhouse supergroup: Allison “Waxahatchee” Crutchfield and Brad Cook (also from Waxahatchee amongst many others), Allison’s sister Katie, and MJ Lenderman.  Wow.  Great songwriting, fantastic music–this is an album to get lost in.  And I love that it was a surprise Halloween release.

4. From The Private Collection of Saba and No ID

One of Chicago’s most consistently inventive rappers works with one of Chicago’s best producers (or maybe the best, period).  Saba released two albums this year, with second being titled Coffee.  Coffee was good.  This one was great.

3. Lotus by Little Simz (UK hip hop)   

Little Simz has been at the top of the hip hop game for years now.  Her latest goes full-on spoken word at several points while weaving across hip hop and jazz with a fluidity that belies the absolutely raw lyrical content.  Simz isn’t just a top British rapper or a top female rapper.  She’s a top rapper, period.

If ya dig smart, conscious, provocative, not-American hip hop, try…

• Hopefully by Loyle Carner.   Like most of the artist’s work, it can be classified as hip hop but it’s really just a warm record about love that has some of the elements of the genre, alongside many others.  Carner is a truly slept-on talent here in America.
• Only Dust Remains by Backxwash.  This Zambian-Canadian rapper’s album is HEAVY.  It’s not the kind of thing I will find myself listening to very often, but when I have the time to focus and pay attention it’s incredibly rewarding.
• Self Titled by Kae Tempest.   Tempest’s work is definitely much more hip hop than his earlier stuff, and more mainstream-sounding, but that’s not a bad thing.  There’s still a lot of the old poetic spoken word style, but overall it’s more musical.  Then again, the beats aren’t why we love Kae Tempest.  It’s the powerful words, which move seamlessly from beautiful love (“I can’t believe the peace I feel in your company/When did it happen?/Happiness”) to pure dysfunction (“Me and you and our diagnoses/A perfect match in a bag of explosives”).

2. Never Enough by Turnstile (Postpunk)

Turnstile have been online critic darlings for years, but I confess that I never really “got” them before this album.  I guess that makes sense, because my tastes skew towards mainstream and I don’t really dig much hardcore–and on this album, Turnstile make the “turn” to much more polished, melodic songs.  They’ve approached this area before, but here they fully embrace it.