Other Music’s staff tell us their Top 10s of 2020 (listen to the playlist)
We ve been asking artists and other industry figures for their Top 10 albums of the 2020, and here we have year-end lists from a bunch of staff members of much-missed NYC record store
Other Music, which closed in June of 2016. One of the first things a lot of customers did on walking into Other Music was look up at the giant white board above the counter to see the current staff Top 10 lists, so it s a treat to have a virtual version of that here. We got lists from 20 staff members, including co-owner
The sound of
Mobb Deep. It didn’t fade so much as mutate. For Amani & King Vision Ultra, it’s as if Mobb Deep’s insomniac grind finally wore out. There’s no nostalgia on ‘An Unknown Infinite’. The album might be birthed from that New York sound, but the city, it’s legacy, they respect it too much not to add something to it.
‘Scrapes’ is a kind of boom bap comedown. An aftermath. I love the bass on this: lethargic but dub heavy, Keith Hudson heavy. There’s this other presence too. Noise that doesn’t disrupt so much as seethe alongside. Then comes ‘Holyfield’, the first we hear from Amani.