As 2023 comes to a close, you've surely been as inundated with "best of" lists like we have at World Cafe, but who can really say what albums were the best?
So instead of calling them the "best" albums of the year, World Cafe correspondent John Morrison joins us for this installment of The Culture Corner to share his favorites with you. Enjoy.
WITCH, Zango
"WITCH is a Zambian psychedelic rock band who released a handful of amazing records throughout the 1970s and the early '80s. In recent years, a lot of those records have been reissued. A lot of record collectors in the West have become aware of what WITCH was doing all of these years ago.
"In 2023, the band kind of got back together and released their album Zango, which is their first record in, like, 40 years. They hadn't made a record since the '80s. This album is so strong. ... It's, like, riff-heavy, and it's funky. It's a perfect reintroduction to the band and a good complement to their older work, as well."
Bully, Lucky for You
"This album absolutely knocked me out. Bully is one of my favorite contemporary rock bands, and Lucky for You is so vicious and sharp in certain parts, but then it has a real softness in other parts. You've got these big, fuzzy guitars, nasty distorted drums — which I love — and the record just has mad heart and vulnerability.
"If this record had come out when I was in high school, in the mid-'90s, it would have dominated radio. Kids would have been dubbing tapes and wearing T-shirts with the word 'Bully' scrawled across them. ... You could tell they're building on some dope things, musically, that happened in the past, but it feels very contemporary, as well."
Immy Owusu, LO-LIFE!
"[Immy] was raised in a family that played West African music, but he kind of cut his teeth playing psychedelic rock in what's called Australia's 'coastal rock scene' ... I think that this record, LO-LIFE!, really reflects a meeting of those two worlds.
"Much of the music is grounded in Ghanaian high life, but it has all of these sonic signatures that are borrowed from lo-fi music, psychedelia and the music of the West. So it's a nice meeting of the music of Africa and the West, but embodied in one person's sound and vision."
Buffalo Nichols, The Fatalist
"Buffalo Nichols grew up playing in punk and metal bands, but he told me when I spoke with him earlier this year that he started focusing on the blues after he took a trip to Senegal when he was a teenager.
"There's a deep historical and musical connection between the blues in West Africa, obviously. The overwhelming majority of enslaved Africans that were brought to the U.S. came from West Africa. So the literal DNA of the blues comes from that region in Africa. Buffalo Nichols told me that this trip to Senegal inspired him to focus on playing the blues. ...
"He's really one of the best doing it right now, and this album, The Fatalist, really showcases that. It's so heavy, and it's an emotionally rich record. It's a pleasure and a joy for me to see a young Black man preserving this music and playing it the way that it was intended."
Liv.e, Girl in the Half Pearl
"This album is a strange, gorgeous record. On these songs, Liv.e really creates this rich and colorful sonic environment. The record has a real warmth and looseness to it. It's an R&B record, but it feels very lo-fi and homemade.
"I love records that have texture and personality to it. It's just a strange kind of adventure that she takes you on. There's these, like, weird synth sounds. She plays around with drum and bass on this record. It has these beautiful vocals and harmonies. It's probably the most avant-garde record on this list. It's a very unique take on R&B and contemporary soul music."
This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. The web story was created by Miguel Perez. Our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson, and our line producer is Will Loftus.
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World Cafe: 12/21/2023ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7r7zRZ6arn19nfXN%2FjmppaGphZH5yhZdyZ3JraW18q7vHp2Smp6KntrS7zWadmq6fp7a1sYyao5utnah6sLKMa2draw%3D%3D