Features : The Best Jazz and Experimental Music of 2021

Picthpork Staff January 04, 2022

Whether recorded remotely, live, or in-studio, the jazz and experimental music that left the biggest impression this year did so primarily because it challenged us to find momentum in life. In jazz, Anthony Joseph summoned Shabaka Hutchings and Jason Yarde for a quest to take political poetry as far as he could, and the Luke Stewart & Jarvis Earnshaw Quartet crafted a set split between meditative rumination and active discontent. In experimental music, Bill Orcutt overdubbed himself on an expansive collaboration with Chris Corsano, the Vietnamese trio Rắn Cạp Đuôi spliced together inscrutable psychedelic collages, and Fire-Toolz delivered a double LP packed with everything from screamo to ambient.

While it would be difficult to land on one element that is shared by the records and songs here, not one of these musicians took the beaten path. Model Home lengthened their cut-up jams, Carmen Q. Rothwell allowed the city to add another dimension to her upright bass-filled songs of regret, and ---__--___ (the musicians Seth Graham and More Eaze) produced a crushing soundscape out of manipulated vocals.

Below, we round out entries culled from our overall albums list and overall songs list with more releases just as worthy of your time, listed alphabetically.