The Snail's Favorites of 2023


Ángeles Rojas "breath into the forest, into the bird, into the song"

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Armand Hammer "We Buy Diabetic Test Strips"

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Bar Italia "Tracey Denim"

File under: three singers but none of them can sing, imaginary nostalgia, guy necklaces


Bill Orcutt "The Anxiety of Symmetry"

File under: horseshoe theory but with beautiful music and annoying music at either end


Billy Woods & Kenny Segal "Maps"

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Blake Mills "Jelly Road"

File under: middle-class music, soft Los Angeles cowboy aesthetic


Catherine Lamb "parallaxis forma"

File under: the mathematics of sound


CIA Debutante "Down, Willow"

File under: resin hits, bunker punk


The Crying Nudes "angel heart"

File under: bands that probably don't exist, Dean Blunt's latest whispery girlfriend


Fire! Orchestra "Echoes"

File under: chaotic big band groove, Joe McPhee hollerin' about jacking off


Graham Lambkin "Aphorisms"

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Graham Lambkin & James Rushford "Gondolas"

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Henry Birdsey "Laments for Rhodes Piano"

File under: Angelo Badalamenti falling asleep to La Monte Young


Irreversible Entanglements "Protect Your Light"

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Joanne Robertson "Blue Car"

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Josiah Steinbrick "For Anyone That Knows You"

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Julie Byrne "The Greater Wings"

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Julius Aglinskas performed by Apartment House "Blue Dusk"

File under: concussion music, moving toward the light


Kali Malone with Stephen O'Malley & Lucy Railton "Does Spring Hide Its Joy"

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Karenn "Everything is Curly"

File under: squiggly dancing, music to make your wife mad


Keith Fullerton Whitman "A Stable Environment"

File under: magnetic levitation, strange cloud formations


Khanate "To Be Cruel"

File under: not too old that they can't still beat your ass


KOU "KOU"

File under: not overthinking things, confusing but familiar, drunkenly riffing on Lucier


Krano "Lentius Profundius Suavius"

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Lana Del Rey "Did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd"

File under: Seth Rogen's handmade ash trays


La Tène "Ecorcha​/​Taill​é​e"

File under: playing D&D on LSD


Laurel Halo "Atlas"

File under: club drone, orchestral screw tapes


Maria W. Horn & Mats Erlandsson "Celestial Shores"

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Mark William Lewis "Living"

File under: drugged driving, rainy cities, moody guys who still smoke cigs


Mary Jane Leach "Woodwind Multiples"

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Melaine Dalibert "Magic Square"

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Michiko Ogawa & Lucy Railton "fragments of reincarnation"

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Perila "On the Corner of the Day"

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pmxper "pmxper"

File under: Russians in Berlin, women talking, sketchy drums


Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band "Dancing on the Edge"

File under: the spirit of DCB, Kentucky soul, peanuts on the floor


Sarah Davachi performed by Quatour Bozzini "Long Gradus: Arrangements"

File under: waking up before everyone else, feeling the temperature change as the sun rises


Stephan Mathieu "Mauve District"

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Theodore Cale Schafer "Trust"

File under: forgetting the camera is on, reminiscing, texting an ex


Uranium "Pure Nuclear Death"

File under: Kaczynski metal, laptop industrial, back patches