Iotar’s music year in review 2022

In which Iotar looks back at his year in music for 2022.

There’s been so much excellent new music this year that I’m going to break this roundup into regional and thematic sections for ease of reading.

K-pop

Well, 2022 has been a very strong year for South Korean music, although it seems that it’s been stronger for the girls than the boys: the banger “Girls” continued aespa’s ongoing saga, Pixy blew us away with “Villain”, Le Sserafim’s “Fearless” and “Antifragile” were particularly feisty. (G)I-DLE gave us the bangers “Tomboy” and “Nxde”, and their haunting “Changes” was on frequent rotation here; but Seulgi of Red Velvet emerged as K-pop queen of the year with her outstanding 28 Reasons album. Not a single dud on there. Slick as hell and catchy as… Well, let’s not go there.

While we’re talking about girl groups, it’s worth noting that while Loona’s Flip That album had some great material, especially “Pale Blue Dot”, they are currently in an ongoing struggle with their management company who have (allegedly) paid hardly any royalties to the members since 2016, leading to Chuu leaving the group. Fans are currently boycotting the upcoming album in protest against Blockberry Creative.

As far as the boys are concerned, although it has been a considerably less vibrant year, there was a lot of excitement at kings of K-pop Big Bang returning with the single “Still Life”, their first since their hiatus due to national service. Hitchhiker’s Alone was also a welcome return, as much for his mad CGI visuals as for his moody vocaloid rapper. Finally, an honorable mention must be given to “That That” by Psy and Suga of BTS.

The NCT crew were less strong this year, concentrating on their more lightweight bangers with NCT Dream, although in the last few hours the China-based sub-unit WayV made a welcome return with “Only Diamonds”. Ten, their Thai dancer and singer, also brought a smile to our faces with “Birthday” a few months ago.

America

It has to be said that American music hasn’t recently been particularly interesting to us at Polyversity Towers, although two acts that blew us away this year. The first was Imperial Triumphant with their avant jazz metal stylings, deep Gotham psychogeography and outfitting. Their Spirit Of Ecstasy album consolidated all of these strengths, and moreover featured a collaboration with Kenny G of all people.

Our other major US discovery is of quite a different sort. Ginger Root’s neo-city pop took us by storm, and the trilogy of videos, “Loneliness”, “Holy Hell” and “Over The Hill” from his Nisemono EP are charming, funny and teach us the importance of making space in our lives for playing mahjongg with our mates.

Also, while we’re here, although Khruangbin didn’t release a new album in 2022, their collaboration with Vieux Farka Touré that was recorded a few years back only finally emerged this year, and is highly recommended.

Russia and eastern Europe

With the ongoing situation in Ukraine, we were somewhat concerned that the politics of some of our favourite hardbass idiots would finally become problematic, and it is noteworthy that the prevalence of AK-47s and other military hardware in this scene have diminished. More importantly, Russian Village Boys came out early with a statement against Putin and promptly fucked off to their beloved Netherlands to spread peace, love and donks.

Village Gang in its various forms has been very lively: Russian Village Boys’ “Jumpstyle 2023” put a big idiot grin on our faces, as did “Molotov” with their Polish brother Mr Polska, and “Wooooop” with Cosmo and Skoro, but the crown this year goes to We Are We from Czech Republic, Russia and Kazakhstan whose “Tekno Cobra” just goes like shit off a shovel. Unbelievable.

Our more post-punk outliers from this region, Ploho (Siberia) and Molchat Doma (Belarus) have been perhaps more subdued, although both of these groups have distanced themselves strongly from Russian militarism.

Elsewhere, in Kazakhstan, the rise of Q-pop has finally reached our attention. In many ways this more closely resembles K-pop than Russian doomer or hardbass, and it may have lost some momentum over the last few years, but the boy groups Alpha and Ninety One in particular are still producing some great material with a very specific Kazakh accent that distinguishes it both from generic international pop and that of South Korea.

Europe

Europe mostly gave us metal this year. Which is pretty much what you’d expect from Europe, right? In many ways it was Electric Callboy’s year. They successfully managed a smooth transition into their new bandname, they continued the ongoing stream of videos that highlight most of the tracks of their Tekkno album, and they did something very weird with contemporary schlager and metal. Sure, fellow Germans Rammstein did something not entirely dissimilar this year with their “Dicke Titten”, but that was a bit ew in a very different way.

Next door in Belgium, Gnome won us over with such grooves as we hadn’t hoped to hear since the early ’70s. In some ways more akin to Focus than Sabbath, but that’s the Benelux thing, innit? The trilogy of videos, “Ambrosius”, “Kraken Wanker” and “Wenceslas”, from their King album, had better dance routines than… well, than anything in the history of metal really.

Obituaries

2022 was a very bad year in terms of losing favourite musicians: Vangelis, Klaus Schulze and Manuel Gottsching leave huge gaps in the landscape of electronic music, and we found ourselves oddly astonished at Olivia Newton-John’s passing, as we did with Mimi Parker and the spirit of Hawkwind, Nik Turner; but perhaps the saddest for us was Tony Hill from High Tide, because he never achieved the recognition in his lifetime that so many of the above earned.

Friends and family

Noteworthy whoops go out to Robert Sotelo, who we did another video for this year. He continues to knock it out of the ballpark with his quirky pop sounds. And while Center Of The Universe’s Interrabangers album was last year, he and his Metronomicon label continue to inspire with further green screen magic on videos, skits and a whole galaxy of lolz.

Also pleased to note that Bangalorean doomers Djinn and Miskatonic are working on their first new material since the start of the pandemic, and also kicked out the jams at one of those gig things that people used to play. Last but not least, a big up to Drift Of Signifieds and Freq zine, in particular for their ongoing series of Live And Indirect streams on Repeater Radio.

Entropy Circus

We achieved two albums proper this year, Guacamocchacino and Romplage! Bricolage! Sous les Paves, as well as one session for Live And Indirect, Thru 2022, that is available from our usual source. In addition, our own Sally Kitchener recorded a cover of Nik Turner’s “D-Rider”. This wasn’t actually a tribute, as it was recorded a few weeks before Turner died, but it may have become one in retrospect.

MOAR IN 2023! SEE YOU THERE!