Best of 2020 – Mike Whyte

The Best of 2020 list from Mike Whyte, Release Magazine.

Albums

Run The Jewels: “RTJ4″
Some of the best work they have done, catchy to the extreme.

Squarepusher: “Be up a Hello”
An amazing return to the form he started off his career with.

Arca: “KiCk i”
An experimental pop playground from the Bjork collaborator.

Idles: “Ultra Mono”
A brilliant set of punk tracks that make you want to shout them from the top of your lungs.

Princess Nokia: “Everything Is Beautiful”
A great album that just wins out over its rival release “Everything Sucks”, brought out the same day.

Kelly Lee Owens: “Inner Song”
Great electronica-backed pop songs.

Songs

Lone: “Dragonrush”
2020 allowed me to listen to a lot of music and I discovered my love of techno is undiminished – enter “Dragonrush”.

Synapscape: “The Claw”
A twisting and writhing monster of a track.

FourTet: “Baby”
FourTet has been continuously knocking them out of the park for years now and “Baby” is another seemingly effortless classic.

Daniel Avery: “Lone Swordsman”
Referencing the sadly departed Andrew Weatherall. Avery produced this beautiful meditative track to make you dance through the tears.

HAAi: “Bon Viveur”
Rave transported through the filter of 2020 – this is how it sounds…

Roisin Murphy: “Murphy’s Law”
A great bit of escapism in what otherwise has been a pretty rough year.

U96 and Wolfgang Flür “Maschineraum”
Could have been written for the next Blade Runner movie.

The Orb: “Pervitin”
A track that harks all the way back to the seminal “…Ultraworld” album beginnings.

Squarepusher: “Detroit People Mover”
Squarepusher hit full 80:s electronic soundtrack heaven with this track.

Public Enemy: “State of the Union”
Public Enemy back for the year 2020, and sharp as ever.

Newcomers

Park Hye Jin
A great new act on Ninja Tune and I loved the track “Like This”.