Songy LPs
Mariah Carey - Caution - Classic R&B diva action! Modern production - not Kelela modern, but they've graduated even if the songs recall the 90's R&B heyday pretty often.
Ned Collette - Old Chestnut - Obvious but great influences: Dylan, Cohen, Pink Floyd, all handled by a very skillful writer and player. The sequencing, pacing, and breadth all raise the songwriting to the next level as he earns the 70+ minute runtime.
Electronic LPs
Francis Harris - Trivial Occupations - Finally, the follow up to the brilliant Minutes of Sleep arrives, and its the most interesting combination of jazz and house since then.
Objekt - Cocoon Crush - Hertz is possibly the most creative abstract club producer in the world. Unpredictable moments are contextualized in his own framework in an easier-to-follow Autechre kind of manner. He's still young though, he may also get completely inscrutable someday.
James Murray - Falling Backwards - Gorgeous ambient from a master. Every song sounds like the last song of something.
I-LP-ON - AANET - Ilpo Väisänen of Pan Sonic's memorial to his bandmate Mika Vainio. It contains samples of Pan Sonic performances but manages to not feel burdened by nostalgia or sadness. Maybe that's because of the bleak mechanical sound!
House Tapes:
Anthony Naples - Take me with you - Really wish I hadn't missed out on the cassette version! This is his best thing and the best thing to happen to tape house all year.
Olsen - Dream Operator - Smooth, retro, fuzzy house that recalls the 1080p days as much as the 100% Silk days, which are these days because this is a Silk Sound release.
Dearly Departure - Genesis - On the squelchy 303 end of the lo-fi spectrum, but more instant classic Silk.
EPs
boygenius - boygenius - Reminds me of Case/Lang/Veirs for all the right reasons.
Emra Grid - From a band of thoughts that ended my year - Professional grade dark ambient that never fully gives into darkness or ambience.
Konrad Wehrmeister - 5050 - If you like both abstract techno and Ilian Tape techno, this is a great release for you.
Raime - Am I using content or is content using me? / We can't be that far from the beginning - I know that these are two different EPs but they have a lot in common and are more similar to each other than anything else Raime has done. Both are good and introduced me to Weightless as a genre.