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Sputnikmusic Staff’s Q4 Playlist 2023

Welcome to the fourth and final installment of our 2023 quarterly playlist! Feel free to jam the playlist below while reading what our writers had to say about each selection. Tell us what your favorites are in the comments, any new artists you may have discovered here, or let us know what we missed!

Next week: stay tuned for the Sputnikmusic community’s Top 50 LPs (and Top 10 EPs, Live Albums, and Compilations) of 2023 — cheers!

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Tracklist:

Beastwars – “Waves”
Tyranny of Distance

Beastwars rightfully turned a folk song about murder and suicide into their own sludgy brand of metal. This scorching affair hits as hard as the lyrics, easily becoming a highlight in their catalog. –Raul

Casey – “How to Disappear”
How to Disappear

Casey’s reunion and subsequent slow-dripping of singles have been a pleasant surprise, with the title track (and album closer) being my favorite of the bunch. The Welsh quintet’s sonic palette brings to mind Keep You-era Pianos Become the Teeth with some of Moving Mountains’ most meditative moments, and the slow-burning crescendo into the song’s cathartic final chorus is refreshing despite the somber lyrical backdrop. –Jom

Danny Brown – “Bass Jam”
Quaranta

I have my gripes with Quaranta as an album — the weird pacing, conflicted aesthetics, befuddled messaging and general jankiness — but then there’s “Bass Jam”: a heartfelt, soulful epitaph to the last 10 years of Brown’s career, delivered with an understated subtlety that is so unlike him, yet so uniquely his. In other words: the essential volte-face we didn’t know we needed. –Asleep

Dora Jar – “Puppet”
Puppet (single)

So, so hard to place Dora Jar’s music, which rateyourmusic is right: it fits squarely within the indie rock sphere, but also retains this pop sensibility that counterintuitively feels very unique to Dora? Anyway, I wouldn’t say “Puppet” is particularly standout even in relation to Dora’s so far very limited discog, but it captures really well the artist’s straightforwardness, her playfulness, in ways cool and exciting and yeah, hopefully indicative of what’s to come preferably sooner than later. –Blush

END – “The Sin of Human Frailty”
The Sin of Human Frailty

The heaviest, heftiest, ugliest slapperooni of the year? Probably. Metalcore supergroup END delivered a maelstrom of caveman boogies yet again, the title track of which may well be the glistening crimson death pit to end all glistening crimson death pits. –Asleep

Family Dynamics – “Downstream”
Service

“Downstream” is the highwater mark on the delightfully eerie Service, featuring the album’s only tangibly melodic (see: memorable) chorus. It’s a well-earned moment of sheer euphoria amid an otherwise subdued, moody, and subtly spooky affair. –Sowing

Frog – “Black on Black on Black”
GROG

Everyone’s favorite loveable indie goofballs have done it again on GROG, a highly consistent album with plenty of choice cuts. My personal favorite is the irresistible “Black on Black on Black”, which features a dynamic rhythm and groovy chorus that sucks you in immediately and never relents. As a standalone single, it’s one of Frog’s best and most representative tracks. –Sowing

Helga (SWE) – “Skogen mumlar”
Wrapped in Mist

Helga is the name of a voice that used to dwell in Swedish forests and lakes, once part of a church choir, and now free to roam where the airwaves take it. Four kind gentlemen provided that voice with a vessel, a platform, so she could express the enigmatic nature of her emotions in the proper language. The result of such a covenant is magical and fascinating, like something you have known before, but you would never know how or why. –Dewinged

Kanga – “Crashing”
Under Glass

Kanga’s music splashed across my world like a wave of synthetic and electrifying pop crashing against my misconceptions about her craft and depriving me of any potential defense against her charms. “Crashing” is a short, mournful and alluring whisper into your psyche, one that you won’t be able to ignore. –Dewinged

Kumo 99 – “Dopamine Chaser”
HeadPlate

2023 is over, I have a headache and neither the energy to formulate engaging sentences nor any certainty that the new year will be kind to spangled bedroom ravers in any capacity, and yet “Dopamine Chaser” still goes hard as monkey nuts. Is this a sign? Uh. –jotW

The Last Dinner Party – “On Your Side”
On Your Side (single)

So the whole Kate Bush, Florence, ABBA worship ‘argument’ isn’t entirely off base. Whether it leads the band to fame or obscurity, but, I am in for the ride. –Blush

Malfet – “To Assail the Thresholds of Woe”
Dolorous Gard

Of all the many, many, many high-fantasy themed dungeon synth artists you’ll find in the dusty corridors of Bandcamp, Malfet has long held — in my eyes, at least — the most legitimate claim to true artistry. That’s not to put down the vast swaths of wholemeal goodness churned out on the platform daily, but rather speaks to the unique polish this one-man-band has demonstrated within the field, as well as the unadulterated joy and whimsy that their resultant mystical tapestry has delivered over the last 5 years. Fresh cut grass, chivalry, and adventure awaits, again, on their latest spiritual outing — lovingly composed, shimmering in purple, and ready to whisk away the woe. –Asleep

Mary Lattimore – “Horses, Glossy on the Hill”
Goodbye, Hotel Arkada

Sometimes all it takes is a pretty melod- hush you what do you know of melodies, if melody was the most important part of music we would all still be trapped in limbo listening to, I dunno, Bach and the other good melody artist, you know nothing of melodies for they are finite and brittle, how dare you rope them into this context and omit any consideration of the intricate layings and delay effects through which wonderful harpist human being Mary Lattimore carefully evolves her central phrase not to mention the way she uses a subtle string arrangement to furnish a meaningful context for them or the straightforwardly beautiful tone of her harp that turns your quote-unquote pretty melody into a pretty SOUND how is it even possible that you can erase so much complexity with one sentence that you didn’t even get to the end of you boorish pearl-chomping swine I am throwing myself off your building five minutes ago deal with that hard cope buy me a drink your hair is a disgusting mess

… but for what it’s worth, that central motif is pretty damn pretty. –jotW

The Republic of Wolves – “Veer”
Why Would Anyone Want to Live This Long?

The Republic of Wolves haven’t graced us with new music since 2018’s shrine, but their new EP is well worth the wait. Much of that is because of the strength of “Veer”, which features searing, blistering riffs and builds to a massive crescendo along with an epic, chanted chorus. If you’ve been missing brooding, melodic indie-rock in your musical diet, then “Veer” will satisfy your hunger. –Sowing

Resavoir – “Inside Minds”
Resavoir

“Inside Minds” from Will Miller’s collaborative side project is pensive and soothing, with the beat beneath the keys softly babbling like a brook. The song’s last thirty seconds, featuring a fleeting, yet luminous guitar arrangement, are some of the most resplendent on the record. –Jom

Rid of Me – “Rid of Me”
Access to the Lonely

Grunge has been dead and buried for a long time. Many have tried to unearth it and make it dance again, but every success has been isolated and uneventful — not enough to call it a proper grunge revival. Rid of Me may have, maybe accidentally, kicked the soul of Cobain out of his grave with this song because it sounds like the roaring echo of that time I first heard Nevermind for the first time on my stereo and I felt the world coming down on me. –Dewinged

Ritual (USA-TX) – “Wave Goodbye”
Closing In

As subgenres after subgenres continue to branch off like tributaries, sometimes their fortuitous convergence can lead to refreshing consequences. Ritual’s debut EP is a whirlwind of ’90s alternative with melodic hardcore underpinnings and ethereal shoegaze ambience. I also enjoy Ian Flores’ drumming on “Wave Goodbye”, particularly his cymbal work, as a stirring complement to the effect-laden, Hum-like guitars. –Jom

Sampha – “Dancing Circles”
Lahai

“Dancing Circles”, its simple, repetitive piano, its (almost) drumless groove, its effective, affecting anti-climax, epitomise Lahai in the best, most addicting of ways — and addicted I was, am, will continue be. –Blush

Sofia Kourtesis – “Si Te Portas Bonito”
Madres

Sensuous, catchier than a room full of Taylor Swift songs if they were humanoids armed with nets and baseball gloves and bankrolled by literal Satan, effortlessly danceable in the least imposing yet no less irresistible fashion, like, ever, and also a colossal banger. Everyone likes this song. –jotW

Tuber – “Eau Rouge”
Joyful Science

Like a joyful ride on the sunny Mediterranean coast during summer, “Eau Rouge” displays once more with great success Tuber’s penchant for disco-infused stoner rock. –Raul

VIVIZ – “Untie”
VERSUS (EP)

It took them a while to release this sexy single, to finally follow where GFRIEND left before disbandment. The engaging bass line and smooth vocals bring out the best in VIVIZ. –Raul

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Participating staff writers:

AsleepInTheBack | BlushfulHippocrene | Dewinged |
insomniac15 | Jom | JohnnyoftheWell | Sowing

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