555-2020 - End Of Year


#41

Salem Rashid (Bedouin Records)


Top ten end of the year list /////


  • Constantine Skourlis - Eternal Recurrence LP
  • Hiiro Issiki - 1000 Plateaux LP
  • Haku Sungho - The Farthest Creole LP
  • Stargazing in Northern Thailand
  • ‘Just Kids’ book by Patti Smith
  • Ruang Talok 69 (1999 film)
  • fa777e night at Ku Bar
  • Building a studio with Lala
  • Chubby’s homemade icecream
  • My wolfchild’s cheer


#42

Theresa Adebiyi


Top Ten 2020 /////


  1. Evisu Palace advert

    Whew. I mean. What is not to love. This reference packed, 90’s, swagged out 30 or so seconds of advertising content is probs the best this year from Palace. It’s also hands down one of the things I’ve watched the most in 2020. Just a shame I didn’t actually buy any of it.
  1. Pa Salieu - Send Them to Coventry
    No1. Album of the year for me and been on repeat since release. I feel like to some degree, Pa’s ascent has been stifled a bit due to the pandemic and not having the club exposure that might have kept things moving up and up, but he is absolutely a star and 2021 onwards is his time.

  2. Oneohtrix Point Never - Lost But Never Alone video
    This video is perfect. It’s a Venn diagram of some of my key interests.

  1. Supreme x Nike Air Max Plus (green and orange)
    Vile, obscene, slick, perfect colour palette on a classic trainer shape.

  2. Crocs
    My best purchase of 2020. I think we can all relate to wanting maximum comfort and simplicity day to day, especially this year. A friend put it well when he said ’there’s so much going on, on your body right now’. It’s true, but they make me really happy.

  3. Coloured emojis
    Many many big moments of reckoning this year, but to zero in one one micro one 
. 2020 is the year where if you are still persisting on using coloured emojis that do not represent your actual skin colour we’re unlikely to remain friends, or even acquaintances. I’ve endured so many moments of this shitty little micro aggression in every setting you can imagine. My feeling is, if you can’t get the basics of respectful communication right, we’re unlikely to be thinking along the same lines on the bigger picture. So I guess in this sense, repeatedly asserting my intolerance for this small, but indicative issue felt like repeated moments this year.

  4. The Camberwell Arms
    Pub in Camberwell, London: I really believe in trying to supporting local businesses as much as you can and I’m also a big believer in treating yourself. CA has been my local and go to pub and restaurant since it opened in around 2013. It is defo on the fancier end of the Camberwell joints, but the lighting, food, drinks and service are so wonderfully welcoming and warming it’s just always going to be my no.1 choice of where I want to be, if I can be.

  5. His Dark Materials
    These books punctuate my early to mid teenage years in a way that not many other things did. Seeing the BBC adaptation bring them to life with such a prominently diverse cast felt so special. Amir Wilson, Aryion Bakare, Nina Sosyana
 brilliant. I felt weirdly ‘seen’ in the books, and really related to the character of Will. I think part of me always tried to implant myself in them as a nigerian-irish kid in the noughties. It was very very cathartic watching this version. Oh - we cannot forget the Andrew Scott appearances. Damn. Hot Priest graced us again.

  6. CYNAR
    I love bitter things and bitter, herbal, citrussy liquors with exciting label design is my kryptonite. I’m really into Amaro’s - the secrecy of the recipes, the narrative of each distinct class and each type has such unique and fascinating flavour profiles. Right now, Cynar is my fav, but possibly closely followed by Vecchio Del Capo. I’ve also been making batches of my own flavoured liquors which I think has been making my mates happy this xmas.

  7. Biden / Harris win
    Little to say here bar I don’t usually cry but after everything that happened this year, seeing this win made me feel uncontrollably emotional. It felt like a moment of actual hope? As a keen follower of US politics, I felt like I’d been on this journey towards hope for years and seeing the start of some sort of result being realised was
memorable.


Special shout out to: Prospect Park NYC, Bruce Nauman @ Tate Modern, Sian Rowe (she isn’t a thing, she’s a human being, and she is one of my favourite humans on this planet), Future’s ‘Mask Off’, Merlin (the BBC tv Series), Candles - way too many candles to mention, SIMBA’s entire product range, overalls for ever.



#43

Alexander Tucker


top ten 2020. /////


It’s mostly music not so many films, books or comics consumed this year

  1. Regis - Tongue Box, Downwards

  2. Mausim - 
The New Humanity, HP Cycle

  3. OPAL X - My Future Is In Your Hands, Industrial Coast

  4. Li Yilei - Unabled Form, LTR Record

  5. Regis - Hidden In This Is The Light That You Miss, Downwards

  6. Maria W Horn & Mats Erlandsson - FĂ€ltinspelningar FrĂ„n Terres De L’Ebre, XKatedral

  7. C.F. - William Softkey And The Purple Spider, Anthology Editions

  8. POLE 1,2,3 Boxset, Mute Records

  9. Grimescapes 12", Youth

  10. Color Out Of Space, dir. Richard Stanley



#44

Rob Booth (Houndstooth / Fabric)




#45

Konx-Om-Pax


  1. Modular Synthesis
  2. Sidefx Houdini
  3. Youtube Tutorials
  4. Not Raving
  5. Pauline Oliveros
  6. Cheese Toasties
  7. Yoga
  8. Athens
  9. Substance Painter
  10. Finding a new place to live in Berlin.


#46

Julianna Barwick


  1. calmed by nature youtube ambience scenes, and especially the recent holiday ones

  2. weekends at the beach over the summer, even the bummery sunsets that were so beautiful because of the wildfires

  3. driving 4200 miles in the car and seeing family and nature

  4. splurging on fancy tomatoes, stone fruits, cheese, and herbs

  5. twice weekly zoom workouts that made me really strong

  6. new music. loved kelly lee owens new one, mary lattimore, bullion, kllo, and so many others

  7. learning how to find and shuck an oyster at 8am on the washington coast and washing it down with champagne

  8. playing a livestream with mary lattimore in an oregonian forest compete with a real green room, a real stage with monitors, a real taste of normalcy and familiarity.

  9. seeing yellowstone for the first time and experiencing so many overwhelmingly beautiful nature scenes- gurgling springs, a rushing gigantic waterfall, and clean pine scented air

  10. welcoming two friends’ babies born in the pandemic, and trying to be there as much as possible under these very strange circumstances



#47

SurenSeneviratne

Suren Seneviratne


10 End Of Year Best Of List /////


99 year old British WWII Captain Tom Moore’s attempt to walk laps in his garden to fundraise money for the NHS before his 100th birthday captured the heart of supporters worldwide and gathered donations surpassing £35 million. He has since been awarded a knighthood by the Queen for his efforts.

Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu’s first post-lockdown concert was held not to people, but to a seated audience of nearly 3,000 plants. The conceptual performance by Spanish artist Eugenio Ampudia, livestreamed online in June, was a beautifully poignant reminder of our embattled relationship with nature. Watch till the end!

Australian agriculturalist Bruce French devoted five decades cataloguing over 30,000 edible plant species with entries from almost every country on Earth. His lifelong mission to educate and empower malnutritioned communities has so far reached four continents with additions to the database being added regularly. “I’m interested in hungry kids not dying before they get to school" he said.

A lovable Labrador which was rescued from heavy floods in southern Mexico has been adopted by the Navy. A video that surfaced on Twitter showing the dog clinging to its life before being pulled to safety was watched by millions of people across the globe. The Mexican Navy chose to adopt the pooch after no one came forward to claim him adding: “Even in the heavy clouds there are a few rays of light and hope shining through”.

Laungi Bhuiyan, 70, of Indian district Bihar, devoted twenty years of his life to painstakingly dig a canal using nothing more than simple tools and unwavering determination. Despite no governmental support and a disapproving wife, Bhuiyan’s inspiring act will mean a renewed lifeline for local farmers today and for generations to come.

The platypus, which has long bemused scientists for centuries, now boasts fluorescent fur that glows under UV light! As a venomous duck-billed egg- laying creature with webbed feet, it was always outside general mammalian convention and this discovery, led by American biologist Paula Anich, gives credence to the mysteries of our natural world.

A masked man donned a replica Batman suit to deliver hot food to the needy after record months of unemployment ravaged the the Chilean capital of Santiago. Operating anonymously out of the back of his car, the unknown hero spread compassion and goodwill to those who most needed it most, and has since gone viral.

The Great Barrier Reef, one of the world’s natural wonders which has fought off ecological threats for decades, is finally showing signs of recovery in protected regions. The reef which is located off the coast of Northeastern Australia is home to millions of inhabitants and is the single largest living organism on Earth. Dr Mike Emslie at The Australian Institute of Marine Sciences reported on the findings as “encouraging”.

A ‘Secret Santa’ figure brought an unexpected smile to hundreds of shoppers at Walmart, Tennessee, USA by paying off the store’s $64,995 layaway debt, just in time for Christmas. The kind gesture took place at 6am in the morning with the accompanying message: “I love you, God bless you, and Merry Christmas”.

Kaavan, known for years as the ‘World’s Loneliest Elephant’ made new friends this month after living alone for years in a run down zoo in Islamabad, Pakistan. Originally a gift from Sri Lanka, the 5-tonne elephant was transported in a specially built enclosure and travelled by air to his new home at a wildlife sanctuary in Cambodia where it’s hoped he will mate with the resident females.



#48

CarinAbdula

Carin Abdula (Outer Agency)


  • jazz by ken burns
  • everything huey mnemonic put out
  • love is blind
  • luke iso whatsapp group (shouts)
  • lafawndah - the fifth season
  • verraco - grial
  • amaarae - the angel you don’t know
  • attack on titan
  • the empty portuguese southern coast
  • yusef lateef - ching miau
  • midnight diner
  • lena mačka


#49

SelimBulut

Selim Bulut


  1. The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band who Burned a Million Pounds
  2. Knole Park, Sevenoaks, Kent
  3. The National Union of Journalists
  4. Yves Tumor, “Gospel for a New Century”
  5. The Righteous Gemstones
  6. Zolmitriptan
  7. Carrera Crossfire 2
  8. Stuart Price’s remixes
  9. DJing to about 20 mates over Twitch
  10. Barry Lyndon


#50

Logos (Different Circles / Boxed)


hardcore and jungle in rotation 2020 /////


  • Droppin Science - Crime 96
  • Matty Mash Up - Vol 2
  • Flex and Uncle 22 - On Top of the World
  • Original DJ Vibes - Style EP
  • Jo - Imagine the Future
  • DJ Clarkee - I Get Hype
  • Oaysis - Outcry
  • Photek - Knitevision
  • Dillinja & Batmix - Tear of your chest
  • LFO - Take Control


#51

DavidAbravnel

David Abravanel


Top Obsolete Music Software I dove into during this pandemic /////


What better time to embrace yesterday’s technology? A journey.

Pro Tracker
Ah, the place of origin for so many ruff jungle tunes and so many video game soundtracks. You can get an evolved and quicker tracker workflow working with Renoise, but why not dig into the fun and frustrations of yesteryear’s four-track technology? Have a hex calculator ready for those breakbeat cuts.

There’s still a very robust community around this one, and a great iPhone emulation/expansion in VividTracker.

Noatikl
Set aside some time for confusion, menu diving, and truly understanding all those little rules. Then just embrace the happy accents of flicking random things around. This has since been rolled into Intermorphic’s current algorithmic composition suite Wotja, but there’s something lovely about these generative apps that seem to have come from a state of nature in which influence from traditional sequencers is virtually absent.

M
Speaking of generative, there’s Cycling 74’s standalone beast. While you can certainly do most of what M does with Max (and frankly, it’s rather surprising that there isn’t just a straight up M port for Max out there, unless I’m just too lazy to find it), M is still a right bit of fun - and still available for demo and purchase.

The Darkware VSTs
Oh yeah, don’t act like you forgot about these. Before the big kids at iZotope and NI et al took on glitch plugins, before the niche options from Glitchmachines and Inear Display and Twisted Tools, there were these gnarly beasts. Developed in SynthEdit and featuring only the finest of hentai GUIs. Make sure to have them showing for the nerds looking behind your back at circa 2005 basement shows trying to figure out what magic mojo makes those glitches.

NI Spektral Delay
There are certainly replacements out there - the Melda MSpectral Delay and the new Spectral Time in Live 11 come to mind - but didn’t this one look pretty? Over the years and deprecations of NI plugins, this is the one I truly miss the most. Crunchy.

Novation V-Station
We’ve reached the point where first-generation virtual analog sounds are starting to get a vintage to 'em, and the Novation V-Station (still available but who knows when it was last updated) gives just that right sheen. It’s not quite hollow but not quite warm, not quite digital and not quite real.



#52

Leila


10 List /////


  • The terrarium that I made out of a large goldfish bowl (especially the mini benches and mini maranta plant that I found) .

  • The quiet and fresh air during lockdown in the city during April .

  • Watching Westerners queue for basic food after years of other ppl on the planet having to live like that .

  • Watching old ppl be the vips and get served first / respected more .

  • The toppling of the statue in Bristol ( horrified to have imagined generations of black ppl having to see that on their way to town / school/ whatever ) .

  • The Rashad Becker remaster of my album “like weather” coming out on the modern love label out of nowhere .

  • The mayor of Pennsylvania telling trump to “put his big boy pants on and accept that he lost” 
 read of the year 
 simple, funny AND factual .

  • Seeing ppl get into cooking, nature and actually spending time with the ppl in their lives .

  • The clapping for the NHS on Thursdays which was very moving but I wish it had manifested as more than just flattery and actual better pay and respect for them and the service sectors in our society .

  • The resignation of Dominic Cummings (and hopefully more of these nasty, Machiavellian psychopaths that our social model celebrates and breeds) .



#53

Martyn Bootyspoon


2020 /////


  • Australian Beach Thirst Trap Pics w UNIIQU3 & Australian co.

  • Adria - Italo-Croat Parisian restaurant (last insane fine dining experience pre-pandemic)

  • Jacques Greene EU x UK Tour — last night of tour B2B at Radio Radio Amsterdam

  • Omar S - You Want / Spending time w Omar S in Detroit

  • Canada Emergency Recovery Benefit

  • Call of Duty Warzone

  • Jessy Lanza - All The Time album

  • Releasing long-edged EP Lickety Split two years after initial inception on 2 B Real.

  • Starting to play / loving Tennis

  • My 30th Birthday



#54

wow, big love right back at you. thanks, this is great.


#55

Juha van 't Zelfde (Progress Bar)


Some of my favourite music of 2020 /////


Simulaciones
by Imaabs

Circuit City
by Moor Mother

The devil is a lie !
by CRYSTALLMESS

CONSCIENTEOFTHESOUL
by CÔvco

VerĂŁo Dark Hope
by V/A

Ase Manual - Black Liquid Electronics
by Ase Manual

Ochre Flood
by SHALT

Who Sent You?
by Irreversible Entanglements

Gen
by Bby Eco

Cocky
by Lotic

Guerrilla
by Nazar

Frozen
by Klein

Hard Matter / Warm Currents
by Shifted

The Faintest Hint
by Ai Aso

DIAL UP
by MOOR MOTHER & YATTA

Seguridad
by GAIKA

Hmm
by Loraine James

GLOW
by patten

The Sprawl OST
by Kuedo

CULT
by God Colony

untitled
by Various Artists

First Circle
by First Circle

Cicatriz
by Kamixlo

d87226ecae575c199309c09bb00631e1fb9519696a489e5d94b34af83a7c3bdc
by TCF

Passion
by Vessel

days collapse
by Judith Hamann

Imaginary Film Music (Volume Three)
by Richard Skelton

The Power E​.​P.
by DJ Duke

Waiting Time​/​Weighting​/​Wading Time: On Juneteenth, Watch Night, Freedom’s Eve, and Emancipation Day
by BLACK QUANTUM FUTURISM

Simulacrum
by Aho Ssan

Hydrangea
by Holly Childs & Gediminas Ćœygus

Hibernation
by Know V.A.

GET FREE
by TYGAPAW

GUARDIAN
by LORN

LIVE AT EMPTY BOTTLE / CHICAGO
by fennesz

GIL - Storm Salon [YGK008]
by GIL

B​.​B​.​H​.​E.
by Hudson Mohawke

Modern Antics In a Deserted Place
by LA Timpa

The Beautiful Dreams #1
by André Lourenço

INT001
by NKISI

Radio Unnameable
by Yantan Ministry

Unfiltered
by Tyshawn Sorey

Live in the Park IX
by Philip Jeck

25082016235210179
by Mika Vainio

Radio Voorwaarts | Online Premiere
by Juha




#56

Yes m8!!!


#57

shout out to everyone comming from twitter lol. hello


#58

:open_mouth: nick jensen! on 555!

Tom knox video part for thrasher

a million times this! Tom and Jacob Harris are slowly re-wiring skateboarding for the better.


#59

Spotify playlist of some of my favorite records from 2020:


#60

Amar Ediriwira (Boiler Room / 4:3)


10 surreal AF celebrity photos /////


Meryl Streep’s Quarantini

Nic Cage wearing a fab jacket

A masked Ben Affleck smoking

Bong Joon Ho for Vanity Fair

Mads Mikkelsen pointing at a Christmas Tree

“It’s a look!” Dame Helen masked up

The Facebook overlord surfing with a load of sunscreen on his face

Nic again, this time channelling Willy Wonka with his son

A virtual table read of Fast Times at Ridgemont High featuring Jennifer Aniston, Dane Cook, Morgan Freeman, Jimmy Kimmel, Shia LaBeouf, John Legend, Ray Liotta, Sean Penn, Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts.
1970

Adele’s carnival “look”