In alphabetical order, 100 albums that made my 2022 a bit more joyful. Nearly all of these have been featured on The AM, so expect a mix of experimental electronics, ambient jazz, shoegaze, dream-pop, and other less easily classified sounds. There’s also the AM Gold 2022 Spotify playlist if you want to listen to a track from (almost) all of them—and while you’re at it, feel free to browse through the past lists here: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and A Decade of AM Gold.
Cancon is labeled for those who are interested in such things.
As with every year, even 100 albums isn’t enough to include everything that resonated with me at some point in the year, and I’m already feeling guilty about some of what’s been left out (god forbid an unknown Canadian community radio broadcaster’s list not be fully comprehensive, right?). Never let anyone tell you there’s no good music out there—there’s more being made every year than anyone could possibly listen to.
| Artist | Album | Link | Sounds Like |
|---|---|---|---|
| Akusmi | Fleeting Future | https://akusmi.bandcamp.com/album/fleeting-future | Pointillist melodies and side-eyed optimism |
| Alabaster Deplume | Gold: Go Forward in the Courage of Your Love | https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/gold | Self-help mantras snuck into slinky jazz arrangements |
| Andrew Wasylyk | Hearing the Water Before Seeing the Falls | https://andrewwasylyk.bandcamp.com/album/hearing-the-water-before-seeing-the-falls | Contemplatives journeys and cinematic arrangements |
| Asta Hiroki, Tristan de Liege | Untied | https://ahxtdl.bandcamp.com/album/untied | Freeflowing left-field electronics that you can dance to |
| 🇨🇦 Badge Epoque Ensemble | Clouds of Joy | https://bbadgepoqueensemble2.bandcamp.com/album/clouds-of-joy | Joyous harmonies and (Stevie) wonderful jazz-funk grooves |
| Beach House | Once Twice Melody | https://beachhouse.bandcamp.com/album/once-twice-melody | Only the dreamiest of dream-pop |
| 🇨🇦 Blume | Waves of Love | https://blumeband.bandcamp.com/album/waves-of-love | A wintry Canadian spin on Spiritualized shoegaze and krautrock |
| Carcascara | 2 | https://auralcanyonmusic.bandcamp.com/album/2 | Meditative spaces built from deconstructed folk |
| Carla dal Forno | Come Around | https://carladalforno.bandcamp.com/album/come-around-2 | Dubby, minimal post-punk |
| Cate le Bon | Pompeii | https://catelebon.bandcamp.com/album/pompeii | Oblique indie-pop from a familiar but foreign dimension |
| 🇨🇦 Charbonneau / Amato | Synth Works Vol. 2 | https://charbonneau-amato.bandcamp.com/album/synth-works-vol-2 | Electronic lullabies from machines of loving grace |
| Clarice Jensen | Esthesis | https://claricejensen.bandcamp.com/album/esthesis | What the aurora borealis might sound like if it was a neo-classical composer |
| 🇨🇦 Crystal Eyes | The Sweetness Restored | https://crystaleyesband.bandcamp.com/album/the-sweetness-restored | Bold, swooning, ’60s-inspired dream-pop |
| 🇨🇦 Dana Gavanski | When It Comes | https://danagavanskifth.bandcamp.com/album/when-it-comes | Pop melodies that consistently find unexpected zigs to zag |
| Die Welttraumforscher | Liederbuch | https://diewelttraumforscher.bandcamp.com/album/liederbuch | A cassette found in a dusty corner of an abandoned apartment that you don’t remember entering |
| Duncan Marquis | Wires Turned Sideways in Time | https://duncanmarquiss.bandcamp.com/album/wires-turned-sideways-in-time | A near-perfect intersection of ’70s kosmische, early 2000s post rock, and ambient folk |
| Dungen | En Ar For Mycket och Tusen Aldrig Nog | https://dungen.bandcamp.com/album/en-r-f-r-mycket-och-tusen-aldrig-nog | Wide-eyed, jubilant psych-pop from Sweden’s masters of the genre |
| 🇨🇦 Ecotype | Civil Version | https://ecotype.bandcamp.com/album/civil-version | Headphone music for a broken future |
| 🇨🇦 Esmerine | Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More | https://esmerine.bandcamp.com/album/everything-was-forever-until-it-was-no-more | Existential ambivalence channeled into hushed post-rock |
| Exek | Advertise Here | https://exek.bandcamp.com/album/advertise-here | Wry, wiry post-punk with early Eno melodies |
| Felbm | Elements of Nature | https://felbm.bandcamp.com/album/elements-of-nature | Library jazz for mystical forest dwellers |
| Field Works | Stations | https://fieldworks.bandcamp.com/album/stations | Avant-garde electronics co-written by the creaks and groans of the Earth itself |
| 🇨🇦 Fiver | Soundtrack to a More Radiant Sphere | https://fiverforreal.bandcamp.com/album/soundtrack-to-a-more-radiant-sphere-the-joe-wallace-mixtape | Scraps of protest songs from a picket line in a long-forgotten dream |
| Floating World Pictures | The Twenty-Three Views | https://floatingworldpictures.bandcamp.com/album/the-twenty-three-views | Ink-washed ambient jazz landscapes, open-ended meditations |
| Forgiveness | Next Time Could Be Your Last Time | https://musicforforgiveness.bandcamp.com/album/next-time-could-be-your-last-time | Sitting on a grassy hill as the mist rolls in (in ambient jazz form) |
| 🇨🇦 Fresh Pepper | Fresh Pepper | https://freshpepper.bandcamp.com/album/fresh-pepper | Smooth-jazz songs about food, seasoned with ancient wisdom |
| Geotic | To Not Now, Nor To Ever, Despair | https://geotic.bandcamp.com/album/to-not-now-nor-to-ever-despair | Soft sounds and warm hugs |
| 🇨🇦 Ghostkeeper | Multidimensional Culture | https://ghostkeeper.bandcamp.com/album/multidimensional-culture | Defiant, idiosyncratic psychedelia built on a foundation of love |
| Gloria de Oliveira, Dean Hurley | Oceans of Time | https://deanhurley.bandcamp.com/album/oceans-of-time | Expansive, ethereal dream-pop adrift on Cocteau currents |
| Golden Brown | Luminous | https://goldenbrown.bandcamp.com/album/luminous | Acoustic guitars spiraling sinuous sonic strands into the cosmos |
| Green-House | Solar Editions | https://green-house.bandcamp.com/album/solar-editions | Muzak in the grand cosmic elevator |
| Group Listening | Clarinet & Piano: Selected Works Volume 2 | https://grouplistening.bandcamp.com/album/clarinet-piano-selected-works-vol-2 | Reworking other people’s songs into the purest joy of music-making |
| Gwenno | Tresor | https://gwenno.bandcamp.com/album/tresor | Pop songs for wind-swept cliffsides |
| Hannah Peel, Paraorchestra | The Unfolding | https://hannahpeelmusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-unfolding | An immersive blend of synth and symphony that doubles as an inclusionary statement |
| Jenny Hval | Classic Objects | https://jennyhval.bandcamp.com/merch/classic-objects-blue-lp | Artfully offbeat global pop from one of the best lyricists going |
| Jilk | Haunted Bedrooms | https://jilk-cis.bandcamp.com/album/haunted-bedrooms | Bewitching electroacoustic soundscapes |
| 🇨🇦 Joyful Joyful | Joyful Joyful | https://joyfuljoyful.bandcamp.com/album/joyful-joyful | Transcendental folkways, Alan Lomax via Koyaanisqatsi |
| Justin Hopper & Sharron Kraus | Swift Wings | https://sharronkraus.bandcamp.com/album/swift-wings | A spoken-word storybook carried on the wind from the stone circle |
| Kikagaku Moyo | Kumoyo Island | https://kikagakumoyoggb.bandcamp.com/album/kumoyo-island | Trippy vibes and pop instincts honed into a funky, sitar-soaked swan song |
| Korb | III | https://korbmusic.bandcamp.com/album/korb-iii | A van airbrushed with Philippe Druillet art speeding through an endless desert |
| Large Plants | The Carrier | https://soundcloud.com/largeplants/sets/the-carrier-2 | Psych-folk shredding from beyond the veil |
| 🇨🇦 Living Hour | Someday is Today | https://livinghourband.bandcamp.com/album/someday-is-today | Hushed dream-pop exploring the expressive possibilities of the mid-tempo |
| Local Tourist | Other Ways of Living | https://localtouristmusic.bandcamp.com/album/other-ways-of-living | Stripped back slow-core with dark folk underpinnings |
| 🇨🇦 Lunar Lemur | Sifting Stars | https://lunarlemur.bandcamp.com/album/sifting-stars | Brief but beautiful snippets of interstellar symphonies |
| Lynn Avery, Cole Pulice | To Live & Die in Space & Time | https://moonglyph.bandcamp.com/album/to-live-die-in-space-time | Jazz for sitting in caves and slowly turning into a crystal |
| Mabe Fratti | Se Ve Desde Aqui | https://tinangelrecords.bandcamp.com/album/se-ve-desde-aqu | Inventive avant-pop that’s sinister and soothing in equal measure |
| Magic Arm | Dance Mania | https://magicarm.bandcamp.com/album/dance-mania | Genre-flitting electronics capped off with one of the year’s best indie jams |
| Makaya McCraven | In These Times | https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/in-these-times | Soulful jazz that goes out on many a limb without ever missing a beat |
| Maria Chiara Argiro | Forest City | https://mariachiaramusic.bandcamp.com/album/forest-city | Jazzy art-rock that flirts with the ghost of trip-hop |
| Marina Herlop | Pripyat | https://marinaherlop.bandcamp.com/album/pripyat | A mystifying, multifaceted assemblage of future-jazz, art-pop, and fragmented vocals |
| Misha Panfilov | The Sea Will Outlive Us All | https://mpsc.bandcamp.com/album/the-sea-will-outlive-us-all-2 | Pink Floyd stranded on a desert island but trying to enjoy the experience |
| 🇨🇦 MISZCZYK | Thyrsis of Etna | https://miszczyk.bandcamp.com/album/thyrsis-of-etna | A tour-de-force of art-pop eclecticism, bound together by sheer force of will |
| 🇨🇦 Moat Bells | Bones of Things | https://moatbells.bandcamp.com/album/bones-of-things | The moment your eyes start adjusting to the brightness |
| Molly Lewis | Mirage | https://cafemolly.bandcamp.com/album/mirage | What you’re hoping that dollar-bin exotica record will sound like, but it never does |
| Monster Rally | Botanica Dream | https://monsterrally.bandcamp.com/album/botanica-dream | Fragments of kitsch and exotica stitched into something unexpectedly poignant |
| Morgan Szymanski and Tommy Perman | Music for the Moon and Trees | https://blackfordhill.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-the-moon-and-the-trees | A crisp, evocative electroacoustic collaboration between two artists and their environment |
| Myna Cycles | Myna Cycles | https://neilcowley.bandcamp.com/album/myna-cycles | Contemplation and momentum at a point of pure equilibrium |
| 🇨🇦 Netrvnner | Moonward | https://netrvnner.bandcamp.com/album/moonward | The score to the video game adaptation of a float tank experience |
| OHMA | Between All Things | https://ohma.bandcamp.com/album/between-all-things | Ambient jazz playfully pursuing the boundaries of bliss |
| Orange Crate Art | Contemporary Guitar Music | https://orangecrateartswc.bandcamp.com/album/contemporary-guitar-music | Shoegaze-inspired instrumentals rarely maintain this much joy & wonder |
| Oren Ambarchi | Shebang (or Ghosted) | https://orenambarchi.bandcamp.com/album/shebang | Tightly bundled and expansive all at once, string theory in musical form |
| Peel Dream Magazine | Pad | https://peeldreammagazine.bandcamp.com/album/pad | Easy-listening grooves for the space-age bachelor pad |
| Persica 3 | Tangerine | https://persica3.bandcamp.com/album/tangerine | The lighter-than-air feeling of a pleasant memory, distant in time but alive in the mind |
| Personal Bandana | Geleezeit | https://personalbandana.bandcamp.com/album/wf-40-geleezeit | What ’80s educational videos probably sounded like at Hogwarts |
| Pneumatic Tubes | A Letter from TreeTops | https://soundcloud.com/ghost-box/sets/treetops | Organic and hypnotic, a nostalgic landscape of rolling hills and dense fog |
| Pocket Pavilions | Gondolas Traversing Lofty Peaks | https://pocketpavilions-cis.bandcamp.com/album/gondolas-traversing-lofty-peaks | The naive utopianism of worlds fairs and mid-century design in 24 perfect minutes |
| 🇨🇦 Postnamers | Sissies & Sluts | https://postnamers.bandcamp.com/album/sissies-sluts | Strings warbling and bells chiming, the score to fantasy film watched on a psychic TV |
| Psychic Temple | Plays Planet Caravan | https://schlarb.bandcamp.com/album/plays-planet-caravan | The psych-jazz expansion of the Sabbath classic you didn’t know you needed |
| Rachika Nayar | Heaven Come Crashing | https://rachika.bandcamp.com/album/heaven-come-crashing | Deconstructed shoegaze at its most atmospheric and cinematic |
| Salamanda | ashbalkum | https://8salamanda8.bandcamp.com/album/ashbalkum | Leftfield compositions that are living, breathing, shapeshifting and sometimes downright silly |
| Sam Prekop | The Sparrow | https://samprekop.bandcamp.com/album/the-sparrow | Modular synths wrangled into sounds that are spare, soothing and warm |
| 🇨🇦 Sanctums | Neon Wraith | https://sanctums.bandcamp.com/album/neon-wraith | Eyes closed and dancing while the world burns around us |
| Sankt Otten | Symmetrie und Wahnsinn | https://sankt-otten.bandcamp.com/album/symmetrie-und-wahnsinn-2 | Pitch-perfect motorik evoking a hard-won optimism |
| Seahawks | Infinite Echo | https://oceanmoon.bandcamp.com/album/infinite-echo-2 | The soundtrack at the pan-dimensional health spa at the edge of the Milky Way |
| Sessa | Estrela Acesa | https://sessa.bandcamp.com/album/estrela-acesa | Lovely, mellow Brazillian pop, recalling the glory days of tropicalia |
| Shabaka | Afrikan Culture | https://open.spotify.com/album/5fFftOUCiSbNfofIj8vXx0 | Breathy, intimate, and introspective; so sparse listening feels like an intrusion |
| 🇨🇦 Shabason & Krgovich | At Scaramouche | https://shabasonandkrgovich.bandcamp.com/album/at-scaramouche | A lesson in finding wonder in the smallest moments |
| Shintaro Sakamoto | Like a Fable | https://shintarosakamotoofficial.bandcamp.com/album/like-a-fable | A master of uneasy listening fully embracing his love of pop |
| 🇨🇦 Steven Lambke | Volcano, Volcano | https://stevenlambke.bandcamp.com/album/volcano-volcano | Ebulliantly off-key vocals running ripshod through impeccable folk-rock arrangements |
| Svaneborg Kardyb | Over Tage | https://svaneborgkardyb.bandcamp.com/album/over-tage | Post-rock for jazz fans, or vice versa |
| 🇨🇦 Tess Roby | Ideas of Space | https://tessroby.bandcamp.com/album/ideas-of-space | A polished opal—smooth, cool, and richly coloured |
| 🇨🇦 Test Card | Patterns | https://testcardmusic.bandcamp.com/album/patterns | An excercise in low-key escapism, a sunset walk through idyllic fields |
| 🇨🇦 Thanya Iyer | rest | https://thanyaiyer.bandcamp.com/album/rest | Restorative indie R&B, more rejuvenating than any 15 minuntes should be |
| The Advisory Circle | Full Circle | https://soundcloud.com/ghost-box/sets/full-circle | Confident, reassuring, subtly triumphant |
| The Hardy Tree | Common Grounds | https://thehardytree.bandcamp.com/album/common-grounds | A walk through familiar streets on a crisp autumn day |
| The Hologram People | Village of the Snake God | https://libraryoftheoccult.bandcamp.com/album/village-of-the-snake-god | Bad trips on good acid |
| The Orielles | Tableau | https://theorielles.bandcamp.com/album/tableau | Expansive art-rock, untethered and unafraid |
| Time Wharp | Spiro World | https://timewharp.bandcamp.com/album/spiro-world | Swirling cosmic dust on the verge of igniting into a star |
| tstewart | elysian | https://mkx.lnk.to/tstewartElysianWE | A much-needed dose of concentrated optimism and slow-building bliss |
| 🇨🇦 Untrained Animals | Stranded Somewhere on the Planet Fantastic | https://untrainedanimals.bandcamp.com/album/stranded-somewhere-on-the-planet-fantastic-lp | An exercise in creative restlessness, from space rock to breakbeats to “beatless floaters” and acid freakouts |
| Videodrones | After the Fall | https://elparaisorecords.com/product/videodrones-after-the-fall/ | A divey disco in a Mad Max wasteland |
| Wax Machine | Guardians of Eden | https://waxmachinebbib.bandcamp.com/album/hermits-grove | MPB and tropicalia meanderings, aimless in the best sort of way |
| Weils | Fugue State | https://weils.bandcamp.com/album/fugue-state | Transcendent cosmic blues, patient past the point of absurdity |
| 🇨🇦 Where’s the Other | Relaxology | https://wherestheother.bandcamp.com/ | Soothing transmissions from the new age of New Age |
| Winter | What Kind of Blue Are You? | https://daydreamingwinter.bandcamp.com/album/what-kind-of-blue-are-you | The salty-sweet blend of crunchy distortion and soaring melodies |
| Yonatan Gat | American Quartet | https://yonatangat.bandcamp.com/album/american-quartet-2 | A loving, blasphemous, ultimately invigorating reimagining of a groundbreaking work |
| 🇨🇦 Yoo Doo Right | A Murmur, Boundless to the East | https://yoodooright.bandcamp.com/album/a-murmur-boundless-to-the-east | Cacophanous, cathartic, and above all collosal space rock |
| 🇨🇦 Yves Jarvis | The Zug | https://yvesjarvis.bandcamp.com/album/the-zug | Impulsive, inquisitive, impressively wide-ranging, and somehow his most controlled album to date |
| 🇨🇦 Zacht Automaat | P is for Progress | https://zachtautomaat.bandcamp.com/album/p-is-for-progress-2 | Can and Exile-era Stones jamming on a movie score for an impressionistic anticapitalist documentary |
| 🇨🇦 Zoon | A Sterling Murmuration | https://zoongideewinmusic.bandcamp.com/album/a-sterling-murmuration-ep | Reverb, distortion, bliss |
Wander Lines 