The EOY Wrapped Edition

Colin and Noah here. From Spotify Wrapped to Netflix’s most popular TV and movies list, ‘tis the season for year end lists of what we consumed. We decided to tap into our very interesting contributors to have them share their Top Three (or thereabout) lists of new (mostly) things they loved this year.

Hopefully there is something in here that can fill in some of the much deserved downtime. Thanks for all your support this year.

A plug for Noah’s new project:

BrXnd is a new project at the intersection of brands and AI. Have a play with the first experiment: AI brand collabs. Try it now.

Onto the picks:

FILMS

Chris Erickson

• Everything Everywhere All At Once

• RRR

• The Banshees of Inisherin

ASVV

• Everything Everywhere All At Once - healing generational trauma through the multiverse. 

• Turning Red: Pixar makes taking on period taboos adorable.

• Triangle of Sadness: For the Balenciaga / H&M moment alone - but so much more. 

Matt Locke

• Living

• Everything Everywhere All At Once

• Aftersun

Todd Osborn

• Funny Pages

• On the Count of Three

• Aftersun

Russell Davies

• Top Gun: Maverick - it’s been an honor, Captain

• Boiling Point - one shot kitchen tension

• Living - beauty, restraint and tea

Eric Matthies

• Official Competition

• Nope

• Tár

Lindsay Tuchman

• Everything, Everywhere All at Once

• Triangle of Sadness

• Elvis (I’m a sucker for a musical biopic, so runner up Weird: The Al Yankovic Story)

TELEVISION

Chris Erickson

• Reservation Dogs

• The Rehearsal

• The Bear

ASVV

• White Lotus: Anything I say would be a spoiler. 

• Derry Girls Season 3: The perfect ending to the perfect show about growing up in the midst of history

• Pachinko: Beautiful, multilingual, multigenerational and sorely overlooked drama about Japan, Korea and America

Matt Locke

• Severance

• Station Eleven

• The Traitors

Mark Slavonia

• Station Eleven

• Bob’s Burgers

• South Side

Todd Osborn

• Tokyo Vice

• The Rehearsal

• The Bear

Graydon Gordian

• Station Eleven

• Derry Girls

• Andor

Russell Davies

• Sherwood - real-life crime drama in East Midlands mining community

• Taskmaster - funny, happy, silly telly

• Slow Horses - MI5 dumping ground makes for drama with the jokes you actually get in real life

Eric Matthies

• Jeen-Yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy

• Tokyo Vice

• Raised By Wolves

Lindsay Tuchman

• The Rehearsal

• Severance

• Abbott Elementary

ALBUMS

Chris Erickson

• King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard “Omnium Gatherum”

• The Pixies “Doggerel”

• Kid Cudi “Entergalactic”

ASVV

• Beyonce “Renaissance”: Dancefloor-as-healing

• Kendrick Lamar “Mr Moral and the Big Steppers”: Kendrick goes to therapy. 

• Sault - 5 album drop: still working my way through but damn what a prolific, expansive, generous experiment. 

Matt Locke

• Sault 5 album drop

• Harry Styles - Harry’s House

• Lianne Le Havas - S/T (2020, but I listened to it a lot this year)

Todd Osborn

• Monophonics - Sage Motel

• Jimetta Rose - The Gift

• Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio - Cold As Weiss

Graydon Gordian

• Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy - Jeff Parker

• Step on Step - Charles Stepney

• The Forever Story - JID

Russell Davie

• Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek: DOST 2 - Anatolian psych folk pop mixed with gentle Berlin funk

• Warpaint: Radiate Like This - Moody, lush, tuney

• Hart: Moon Jazz - Hiphop meets jazz in South Wales

Eric Matthies

• Sudan Archives

• Adrian Quesada

• Danger Mouse w Black Thought

Lindsay Tuchman

• I listen to almost exclusively 80s New Wave so nothing new…

BOOKS

Chris Erickson

• Incredible Doom, vol 2 by Matthew Bogart & Jesse Holden

• Clandestinity by Antonio Moresco 

• After The Revolution by Robert Evans

ASVV

• My Los Angeles, Edward W. Soja - a collection of preeminent geographer/planner’s post-modernist writings on Los Angeles

• Wilding, Isabella Tree. Escape to the rewilding of the countryside

• The Data Detective, Tim Harford. Touring data with  real data enthusiast

Mark Slavonia

• Over the Edge of the World: Magellan by Laurence Bergreen

• Seven Games: A Human History by Oliver Roeder

• The Tim Tebow Chronicles by Jon Bois

Graydon Gordian

• Late Victorian Holocausts - Mike Davis

• The Years - Annie Ernaux

• The Bond King - Mary Childs

Russell Davies

• The Candy House - Jennifer Egan - fascinating ideas and sentences on every page

• Ways of Being - James Bridle - the most coherent, important artistic response to the climate crisis

• Fen, Bog and Swamp - Annie Proulx - an essay of bog facts punched up with great writing

Steve Bryant

• Bad Mexicans

• The Filing Cabinet: A Vertical History of Information 

• Blindsight

Eric Matthies 

(Read this year, not necessarily published this year)

• The Castle Of Crossed Destinies - Italo Calvino

• Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead - Olga Tokarczuk

• Underland: A Deep Time Journey - Robert MacFarlane

Lindsay Tuchman

• Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

• Alone With You in the Ether

• The Anomaly

ART

Chris Erickson

• Tyler Scully

• Hermann Josef Hack

• Lee Ellis

ASVV

• Umair Rashid - post-colonial pop culture maps and mash-ups

• Victoria Gitman, Everything is Surface at Francois Ghebaly - the most intricate miniatures of the most pretty little things

• Julian Rosenfeldt, Euphoria at Park Avenue Armory - an hour and a half journey through capitalist thought.

Matt Locke

• Cornelia Parker retrospective at Tate Britain

• The Horror Show! at Somerset House

Eric Matthies

• Sam Szafran - Musee Orangerie, Paris

• Sabine Weiss - Peter Fetterman Gallery, LA (photography)

• Belonging - Blue Lapis Light, ATX (aerial dance)

LIVE MUSIC

ASVV

• Grace Jones at Hollywood Bowl - an epic piece of performance art as well as a killer music show 

• Polo & Pan / Parcels at Hollywood Bowl - pretty much anything is incredible at the Hollywood Bowl

• Automatic at KCRW Studios  - My first intimate indoor show since the pandy did not disappoint

Eric Matthies

• Paulo Cangalhas - Porto, Portugal

• Channel One Sound System - Porto, Portugal

• Khruangbin - Austin, TX

FOOD

ASVV

• Kato, Taiwanese bar tasting menu in Los Angeles

• Nobelhart & Schmutzig in Berlin. 

• Quiadaiyn, hearty Oaxacan food in LA

VIDEO GAMES

Mark Slavonia

• Elden Ring

• The Return of the Obra Dinn

• Zwift racing

PODCASTS

Mark Slavonia

• The Memory Palace

• 5-4

• Triple Click

Russell Davies

• The Curiously Specific Book Club - a warm, funny podcast about dates and locations in books

• The Briefing Room - a panel of experts briefs you on stuff in the news

• Between The Ears - experimental radio and sound

Steve Bryant

• Behind the Bastards

• 5-4

• La Verdadera Historia de México 

PLAYLISTS
Steve Bryant

• Graydon’s Jazz in Japan

• Vangelis

• Herb Sundays 

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Thanks for reading,

Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN)

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