The A.M.

For the first episode of 2025, we're counting down The AM's top 50 albums of the past 12 months. Enjoy the second half of AM Gold 2024!

Playlist:

• Dummy - Godspin
• Jon McKiel - Under Burden
• Various Artists, featuring Green-House, Keela - Within Without (Liberation)
• Luka Kuplowsky - How Can I Possibly Sleep When There is Music (a response to Ryōkan Taigu)
• Nala Sinephro - Continuum 3
• Peel Dream Magazine - Machine Repeating
• OHMA - between all things
• Jennifer Castle - Earthsong
• Dialect - Overgrown Song
• Project Gemini - Twilight
• Bernardino Femminielli - La foire aux lumiéres
• Memorials - Name Me
• Jessica Pratt - Get Your Head Out
• Eric Chenaux Trio - These Things
• Ayal Senior - Burnt Lokshen
• Elori Saxl - Shorter Lifespan
• Buildings and Food - Planting a Desert
• Geotic - The Men-Shaped Fog
• Sam Wilson - Waterside
• Loving - The Light In You
• Chad VanGaalen - Little Song
• Organic Pulse Ensemble - Ypocalypse
• Andrew Wasylyk, Tommy Perman, featuring Aidan Moffat - Be the Hammer
• Tomin - Life Revisited
• Lau Ro - Each Day
• SW Hedrick - Explore, Exploit
• Hiro Ama - Everything Is Going To Make Sense In The End
• Cindy Lee - Government Cheque
• Caméra - Matsutake
• Peggy Lee & Cole Schmidt - fall ride
• SiP - Herbalife
• Tristan Arp - Invisible Cities
• Hypnodrone Ensemble - Alchemia
• Fabiano do Nascimento, Sam Gendel - Cores
• Ezra Feinberg - Soft Power

AM Gold 2024 – Part One: Looking back at 101 favourite albums from the last year. See the full list at theam.ca, or wait until 2025 to find out what capped this year's list.

Playlist:

• Ryan Lottermoser - Twilight Vigil
• Tomo Katsurada - Moshimo
• Hélène Vogelsinger - Elevation
• Trees Speak - Emotion Engine
• Loula Yorke - the stream sent forth such sallies of glad sound
• Ivan the Tolerable - Poole Hospital
• Drum & Lace, featuring Nailah Hunter - Plucked
• Lynn Avery & Cole Pulice - The Mirror-Glade
• Osmanthus - Cutting and Layering
• Temporal Waves - Cyclotron
• Hollie Kenniff - Surface
• Warrington Runcorn New Town Development Plan - A Shared Sense of Purpose
• Seahawks - Sail Across the Moon
• Clinic Stars - I Am the Dancer
• Mark McGuire - Anhedonia
• Charbonneau / Amato - BOC
• Dean McPhee - Cosmos
• Miyauchi Yuri - Jiade
• P:ano - mariko
• Yasmin Williams, featuring Kaki King, Darian Donovan Thomas - Harvest
• Bananagun - Those Who Came Before
• Circles Around the Sun, Mikaela Davis - Gloaming Way
• Retep Folo, Dorothy Moskowitz - The Enchanted People
• Anna Butterss - Seeing You
• SHOLTO - Trident (Jazz Not War)
• Wayne Patrick Garrett - Something About Us
• BIG|BRAVE - Theft
• Beak> - Ah Yeh
• Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Grey Rubble - Green Shoots
• Daisy Rickman - Winter Solstice
• BADBADNOTGOOD - Mid Spiral
• Unessential Oils - Solutions to My Gloom
• Bibi Club - Le Feu

No Christmas tunes on this week's AM—although there is one sad Christmas Eve song in the 8:30 Throwback. No, it's just an average mid-winter episode of The AM, gradually waking up from gently drifting synths and ambient jazz through a psych-pop second hour to a trip-hop-laced conclusion. Hope you enjoy the break from holiday sounds, and see you next week for the annual AM Gold year in review episodes.

Playlist:

• Various Artists, featuring Asta Hiroki & Tristan De Liége - reassurance, consolation
• Pye Corner Audio - Mainframe - Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith Remix
• Roedelius - TB11 34 20
• Boisson Végétale - Late Night Yellow
• R Grunwald - Bound in Stillness
• Sebastien Tellier - Septieme Ciel
• Domenique Dumont - To Unknownia
• Arooj Aftab - Last Night Reprise
• Philip Clemo - To Breathe
• Postnamers - Scarves and Lashes
• David Zucchi - Away
• Tarwater - Everybody Had a Hard Year
• Seawind of Battery - Dreamscaper
• Milkweed - The Tree as a Kinship Symbol
• Bernice - Empty Cup (Yves Jarvis Sequel)
• Simon Fisher Turner - Toast
• Nicholas Krgovich, Jan Lankish - At Last I Am Free
• The Everly Brothers - Christmas Eve Can Kill You
• The Everly Brothers - Green River
• Kit Sebastian - Enkaz
• Margo Guryan - Sun
• Parsnip - Turn to Love
• Faith Healer - Canonized
• Astral Swans - The Coward
• Portishead - The Rip
• Sinewave - Dodecahedron
• Massive Attack - Pray for Rain
• Bristol Manor - All At Once
• Concretism - Of Frisbees and Pylons
• Cate Brooks - Prismatics
• The Comet is Coming - The Afterlife
• O.rang - Superculture
• Dreamsploitation - The Soft Focus Sound of Today
• L.T.Leif - Into the Air

Some contemplative tunes for the last week before the Winter Solstice, including Nap Eyes tackling WB Yeats, Robert Wyatt's Matching Mole, and a selection of songs that may have made my year-end list if I'd found them a bit sooner. Hope you enjoy it, and see you again once the days start getting longer.

Playlist:

• Fabiano do Nascimento, Shin Sasakubo - Ap​ó​s a Tempestade
• Blue Lake - The Forest
• Wayne Patrick Garrett - Mystic Grotto
• David Zucchi - Mandi
• Woo - Memory Oscillator
• Google Earth - Wouldn't You
• david a jaycock - Salford Shopping City
• Caribou - August 20/24
• Machinedrum, featuring aja monet - ORACLE
• Zachary Gray - In Arrears
• Papa M - Devil Tongue
• Teitur, Girls in Airports - Krabbasker
• Kate Bollinger - Postcard from a Cloud
• Various Artists, featuring Pearl and the Oysters - Koi Wa Momoiro
• Matching Mole - O'Caroline
• Matching Mole - Instant Kitten
• Dorothea Paas - Whatever That Means
• Nap Eyes - I See Phantoms of Hatred and of the Heart's Fullness and of the Coming Emptiness
• Me & My Friend - Imperfectionism
• Yuma Abe - I'm falling for you
• Klaus Johann Grobe - Io Sempre Di Tu
• Helado Negro - Best For You and Me
• Lætitia Sadier - The Inner Smile
• Animal, Surrender! - One of These Things First
• Eiyn Sof - Liquid Light
• Aluminum - HaHa
• Blume - Shifting Tides
• The Reds, Pinks & Purples - Finding Shells on the Beach
• Milk Toast - (You've Got A) Little Problem
• Ducks Ltd - Train Full of Gasoline
• Lab Coast - Walking On Ayr

A bit of a musical hodgepodge this week, making it through some tracks that didn't fit into the rest of 2024, and squeezing in some late-year releases that demand a moment in the spotlight. But who needs consistency as long as you have quality?

Hope you enjoy the variety, and have a fantastic week.

Playlist:

• Robin Guthrie - Starting Fires
• Hollie Kenniff, featuring Goldmund - Esperance
• ASKO - enoksasant
• Seahawks - Shining Dream
• Charbonneau / Amato - Groupe
• Kristen Roos - Bouton
• Harpsichord Canvas, featuring Orchid Mantis - The Dream Is Over Now
• ecotype - Inner Order
• Applesauce Tears - Faded and Braided
• Various Artists, featuring Lucas Croon - Krautwickel
• Castillo + Jarboe, featuring Thor Harris - The Humour
• Avi C. Engel - Cocoon
• White Poppy - Orchid Child (Acoustic Mix)
• Deradoorian - Digital Gravestone
• spirit blue - Desire Machine
• Yo La Tengo - Leaving Home - Alternate Version
• Yo La Tengo - Wizard's Sleeve
• anaiis, Grupo Cosmo - Voyage
• Mandrake Handshake - The Change and the Changing
• N NAO - Corps
• Fievel Is Glauque - As Above So Below
• Druid - Remembering
• Minor Conflict - Glue
• Prefuse 73 - She Needs No Introduction
• Sleepkit - Candy Apple Girl
• Hildegard - Melody I Heard
• Bon Enfant - Minimum
• Sunglaciers - One Time or Another
• Cindy - All Weekend
• Fashion Club, featuring Julie Byrne - Rotten Mind
• Jolie Holland & Samantha Parton - Wildflower Blues
• Te Huhu - Get It On

Another three hours of offbeat easy listening to warm a frozen December morning. Enjoy ambient psychedelica, soundtrack grooves, prog-inflected detours, and dream-pop ditties.

This week's throwback is Butter 08, a goofy, groovy one-off Cibo Matto/JSBE collaboration from back in 1996—thanks to Mike Bell for tipping me to the existence of this one.

Playlist:

• David Zucchi - Salve Regina
• Dissolve in Sepia - Apricity
• Ben Lukas Boysen, featuring Tom Adams - Vineta
• Tristan de Liège, Velvet Empress - Kensington
• Tomo Katsurada - Zen Bungalow
• Wayne Patrick Garrett - Reflections
• Yabra - Transmission II
• Drum & Lace, featuring Nailah Hunter - Plucked
• Prince Shima - New Albion
• Air - Ce matin-là - Demo 2
• SiP - Palomino
• Loud Diamond - Good Day
• Juana Molina - Astro de la luz segunda
• The Books - Chain of Missing Links
• Zacht Automaat - God Only Knows (Beach Boys)
• Butter 08 - How Do I Relax
• Butter 08 - Butter of 69
• MISZCZYK, featuring Chandra - Bad Ride
• Badge Époque Ensemble - Unity (It's up to You)
• Laurence Vanay - Underwater Light Reflections
• Sagor & Swing - Soft Forest
• Jane Weaver - Univers
• Gal Gracen - (Infinity)
• Brian Eno - St Elmo's Fire
• Memorials - Cut It Like a Diamond
• Church Chords - Man On a Wire
• Peggy Lee & Cole Schmidt - Gloop
• Snake River - TV Light
• Child Actress - Aries Sun
• Dummy - Nine Clean Nails
• Orange Crate Art - Diagrams from Spherical Models
• Century Palm - New Creation

A more downbeat, wintry episode, with occasional bursts of sunnier psychedelia and pop-adjacent sounds. Hope you enjoy it, and keep warm out there.

Playlist:

• Various Artists, featuring Rachika Nayar, Julianna Barwick, Cassandra Croft - Song to the Siren
• Hollie Kenniff - Amare
• IKSRE - vermillion - Kilometre Club Remix
• A Lily - Solar Systems
• Animals on Wheels - Stan's Soluble Fish
• Me & My Friend - Inspiration
• Flying Lotus - Garmonbozia (Instrumental)
• Angell & Crane - Yellow Diamond
• Elori Saxl - How We Got Here
• Philip Clemo - Space to Dream
• ermhoi - Ginger Island
• Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp - Tout Cassé
• KOKOROKO - Higher
• Crumb - AMAMA
• Alan Sparhawk - Black Water
• Zacht Automaat - Long Long Long
• Zacht Automaat - Lost in the Peak District
• Echolalia - Odd Energy
• Void Comp - Control
• Atoms For Peace - Before Your Very Eyes
• Cloe Martin - Winter Is Way Too Long
• Bananagun - Free Energy
• The Soundcarriers - With Us For Now
• Sleepkit - Yo Gamma Gamma
• SUUNS - Wave
• Emilíana Torrini - Black Water
• Bristol Manor - Shadows & Form
• Jilk - Hiss Release
• Yoo Doo Right - Spirit's Heavy, But Not Overthrown, Part 1
• Hypnodrone Ensemble - Desdemona

Skip to the 2:15 mark (ish) for a conversation with the filmmakers behind Slice of Life, a documentary at this week's CUFF.Docs film festival. Or listen from the start for your usual AM mix of hazy electronics, psychedelic sounds, and (this week) a bit of a dream-country detour to round out the show.

Playlist:

• Sankt Otten - Helden
• Various Artists , featuring Frunk29 - Journey In Search Of The Holy Gray
• Earthen Sea - Another Space
• RAMZi - flotilli
• Astrocolor - Cosmosis
• Jay Holy - All the Time
• Luciano Michelini, Lorenzo Dada - Modular Clouds in Rome
• Ryan Lottermoser - Blooming Despite the Dark
• Rich Aucoin - Waldorf Wave
• Underworld - denver luna
• Various Artists , featuring We.B - The Cycle of Seasons
• Mark McGuire - (I Can) Only Imagine
• Haruka Nakamura - passage
• Underground Wires - HEA
• Philip Clemo - Dawn
• SHOLTO - Letting Go of Forever
• Klint - Are You There
• Klint - Diamond
• BADBADNOTGOOD - Best Left Unsolved (Bonus Track)
• Black Moth Super Rainbow - Demon's Glue
• L'éclair, Klaus Johann Grobe - Lotus
• Scions - Fight Song
• P:ano - song
• Talking Heads - The Big Country
• Jennifer Castle - Louis
• Ghostkeeper - Rolly
• Rose City Band - Lights on the Way
• Skinshape - How Can It Be?

Jazzy sounds start your first post-Daylight Savings morning, plus the usual mix of shoegaze, jangle-pop, post-punk, and a throwback to Bruce Haack's Electric Lucifer.

Enjoy the sounds, stay sane this week, and enjoy a showfill from Greenhouse's Emily R. next Monday morning.

Playlist:

• Spirit of Naima - Cut Free
• SW Hedrick - Early Golden
• Blue Lake - Weft
• Ayal Senior - Ta Shma
• Peggy Lee, Cole Schmidt - Blame
• Sylvain Rifflet - Mǎmǎhūhū
• Tomin - Life
• Erki Pärnoja - Rumba in mostly 7 for one
• Bristol Manor - Sepia Tones
• Prefuse 73 - The End of Air
• The Smile - Instant Psalm
• White Poppy - Memories (Surf Mix)
• Bon Enfant - Enfant de l’air
• Memorials - Lamplighter
• Sleepkit - Flower Through Your Head
• Bruce Haack - Cherubic Hymn
• Bruce Haack - Program Me
• Kit Sebastian - Göç / Me
• Whatitdo Archive Group - Wild Man
• Panda Bear, featuring Cindy Lee - Defense
• Dana Gavanski - Business of the Attitude
• Jonathan Personne - Nuage noir
• Nick Brobak - They Can Save You
• Color Green - Ball and Key
• Jonah Yano - Someone Asked Me How I’ve Been
• Naima Bock - Moving
• Chad VanGaalen - Snake Pit
• Affiliate Links - Three Minute Drum Solo
• The Smashing Times - June Rabbit
• Tess Parks - Crown Shy
• OMBIIGIZI - Hands Are Up
• Smoke Bellow - Homecoming
• Cheer - Intersections
• Keiichi Suzuki, Hirokazu Tanaka, Hiroshi Kanazu and Toshiyuki Ueno - You've Come Far, Ness
• Mort Garson - Concerto for Philodendron & Pothos
• Mort Garson - Plantasia
• Mort Garson - Symphony for a Spider Plant
• Mort Garson - Baby's Tears Blues
• Michael Boddicker - End Title March

Thank you to each and every one of the 60+ folks who donated to this year's AM Funding Drive episode. We're back to more normal programming this week, with offbeat easy listening, post rock and shoegaze textures, and (since its Hallo-week), an hour of spooky-adjacent sounds to wrap things up.

Hope you enjoy it!

Playlist:

• Woodford Halse Records, featuring Apta - Jurema
• Dissolve in Sepia - Petrichor
• Seahawks - Time Enough For Love
• SiP - Carmelos
• Voyage Futur - Nocturnal Flux
• Psychic Pollution - Unauthorized Activities (Version 1)
• Rooster37 - Lost in the Fog
• Hawksmoor - The Transcendentalist
• Dialect - Ancient Faith Radio
• Bonobo - Counterpart
• howiewonder, featuring Straizo - Lotus
• Jonny Trunk - Deep in a Dream
• Dar Disku - Fajr
• Carson Tworow and David Lavoie - The Slabs
• Klint - Where the Leaves Fall
• Calibro 35 - Chaser
• Badge Époque Ensemble - Enormous Profit
• Hrsta - Hechicero Del Bosque
• wihtikow - Rust
• Clinic Stars - Shiver (walking over time)
• Witch Victim - Car Alarm
• Traffik Island - Ghost Town
• Mahogany Frog - We Encircle Within This Ring
• Dream Division - Black Gloves
• The Vampire Sound Inc. - Necromania
• Richard Delvy - Green Slime
• The Garrys - The Dance of St. Vitus
• The Hologram People - Night Sweats Part 1 & 2
• Shooting Guns - Moon Dust
• Bradley Thomas Turner - Spooky Season (in the Foyer)
• Garden Gate - Spirits of the Dead
• Castle If - Haunted Bossa
• Speak Low - Thriller