The Sampler: Best International Albums of 2021

Tony Stamp looks back at some of his favourite international albums of 2021, including UK soul, Scottish post-rock, American folk songs about movies, and more.

Mother by Cleo Sol

Cleo Sol released two albums this year. One was with her band SAULT, their fifth record 9 being the usual collection of spiky soul tracks concerned with social justice. But her solo album Mother had all those edges sanded off, as she embraced new parenthood, and cast her mind back to her own mum.

Sol and her producer Inflo hadn’t planned to make another album, but motherhood inspired her so much she felt compelled, and like everything the pair makes, it feels thoroughly genuine; off the cuff but accomplished, with the gentleness of someone holding a new life.

A Beginner’s Mind by Sufjan Stevens and Angelo Augustine

Folk musician Sufjan Stevens has been releasing albums for over 20 years now. I was slightly taken aback to realise this makes him something of an elder statesman, but it makes sense that he’s taken a younger simpatico artist under his wing. On A Beginner’s Mind he and Angelo Augustine delivered an album of whispered harmonies and plucks, finding the meeting point of their admittedly complimentary styles.

The slightly amusing backstory to the album is that Stevens and Augustine watched movies each night, and wrote about them in their songs, so ‘Back to Oz’ is about the movie Return to Oz, and many more are alluded to including The Thing, All About Eve, Point Break and more. I’m not sure what’s being referenced on opener ‘Reach Out’, but like all these tracks what really counts are its swooping falsetto choruses.

Thirstier by Torres

Meanwhile another American musician called Torres made a much noisier record called Thirstier, taking a term used to mean sexual ardour and applying it to her long term relationship. It’s an album that celebrates monogamy, and does it by leaning into eighties power-rock tropes, with songs seemingly designed to be sung along to into a hairbrush in front of a mirror.

The album has its share of brash, anthemic tracks like ‘Don’t Go Puttin’ Wishes In My Head’, but as the album progresses it cools into something more electronic, serving up mournful numbers like ‘Kiss The Corners’.

The best moments on Thirstier though are the ones where Torres aims for stadium level chord blasts and hooks. It’s an often thoughtful album under all the bluster, but as on ‘Drive Me’, which turns the phrase ‘"hands on ten and two" into a chorus, she understands that sometimes it’s better to keep things simple.

Vulture Prince by Arooj Aftab

The most pleasant surprise for me this year might have been Arooj Aftab’s Vulture Prince. I’m mostly unfamiliar with Urdu ghazals, the South Asian poetry style she’s adapting here. I’m also not au fait with Sufi-style singing, but hearing her voice roam around these distinctly non-Western melodies was a very pleasant education.

Aftab was born in Saudi Arabia, moved to Pakistan aged 11, and now makes music in Brooklyn. Her last album Siren Islands was an ambient project, but after suffering a family death during the writing of this album, she was moved to take on these traditional song styles. It’s an album that’s deeply personal, and concerned with healing as a part of grief. On tracks like ‘Last Night’ the scope broadens to include jazz and dub, but keeps the piercing emotion.

As The Love Continues by Mogwai

Scottish post-rockers Mogwai have been my favourite working band for some time now, and As The Love Continues, their 10th album (not counting soundtrack work and live recordings) was as dependably solid as ever. They initially became known for their blistering walls of noise, and while those still come into play, the real secret to Mogwai's longevity is their skill at writing wonderful melodies, and always knowing what to surround them with.

When I interviewed guitarist Stuart Braithwaite about the album, he said their aim is the same as always - putting notes together that "don’t sound completely awful". He was being self deprecating, but I do appreciate the way these songs reject meaning - the titles are completely arbitrary, and they’re mostly instrumental. All that matters is how they make you feel. On ‘Midnight Flit’, a standout for me, that involves an orchestra arranged by Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails, resulting in an intensity of feeling that’s hard to match.

Ignorance by The Weather Station

Canadian musician Tamara Lindeman has been releasing albums as The Weather Station for 10 years or so, and her latest, Ignorance, had her blossoming from folk music into full blown chamber pop. It’s an album of songs that are melancholy but optimistic. The sting in the tail is the subject matter - all these tracks are informed by the looming spectre of climate change. So when the album is called Ignorance, and has a song called ‘I Tried To Tell You’, you start to get where she’s coming from.

Another pointed title is ‘Robber’, a not so subtle dig at unfettered capitalism, buoyed by a jazzy arrangement.

You could easily listen to this album and not pick what it’s about, never mind how angry Lindeman is about it. The music follows her calm delivery, and it’s all very lovely. The high point might be ‘Parking Lot’, an entire song about Lindeman watching a bird, with the loss of the natural world as subtext. The orchestration under her swells, and it’s almost like she’s lost for words in the face of this simple spectacle.

New Long Leg by Dry Cleaning

It was actually an RNZ listener who drew my attention to the UK post-punk band Dry Cleaning, and their album New Long Leg has remained a favourite. They’re the kind of band where each member is doing something interesting, firing off riffs or fills, but running through it all is the alarmingly calm delivery and surreal wordplay of front-person Florence Shaw, who only joined the band on the condition she wouldn’t have to sing.

There’s a tension through the whole album where all these musical fireworks are going off, and you expect Walsh to match them with her delivery, but she never does. She only sounds semi-interested throughout, and that never stops being funny. It’s a mad musical equation that somehow makes perfect sense.

Consequences by Joan Armatrading

My appreciation for Consequences, the 20th album by UK musician Joan Armatrading over a nearly 50 year career, was definitely informed by how impressed I am by her as a person - seventy years old and singing about sex and love, as well as writing, performing, and recording every instrument herself, in her own private studio. 

There’s a zest for life running through each track on the album, and plenty of heartfelt moments. Her voice wavers slightly but it’s still powerful, just given extra character with age. Mostly I enjoyed how warm and friendly Consequences is - Armatrading appears on its cover with a twinkle in her eye, and this felt like an album-length musical hug.

Prioritise Pleasure by Self Esteem

I’ve been fascinated by UK musician Self Esteem for years now, since her first album Compliments Please took up a high rotation slot in my ears. 

It was pop music unlike any I’d heard - so personal, so regionally specific, full of things I thought were jokes, but wasn’t completely sure about. Her follow-up Prioritise Pleasure is equally idiosyncratic. It feels like the opposite of something focus-tested, but it’s still full of joyful pop hooks.

Self Esteem is the project of Rebecca Lucy Taylor, who played in indie duo Slow Club before going solo. These songs often feature many voices joining as one, turning personal tunes into universal ones: more than anything, Taylor’s music is about solidarity. It feels distinctly British, and to be more specific, Northern, in the way it speaks directly to ordinary people, not down to them.

It’s also musically adventurous, thanks in part to her producer Johan Hugo. There are elements of industrial and hip hop, but even the album's weirdest tracks like ‘It’s Been A While’ prioritise her fantastic melodies.

She broke into the mainstream this year with the song ‘I Do This All The Time’, an anthem crammed with relatable, spoken bits of wisdom about being a human in 2021, as well as a few things Taylor has had said to her during her music career. 

I interviewed her shortly before the album came out, and talking about the song, which has lyrics that have connected with millions of people, she told me in typically self-effacing British fashion she just wanted to make a song where she didn’t have to worry about rhyming the words. 

Somni Presents: Up Too Early Vol. 2

Over these last few years I’ve listened to more ambient music than I have during my whole life prior, and I know I’m not alone in that. I think a lot of people have just been trying to calm down, to tune out that little drone of stress in the back of their heads as we all faced something we didn’t quite understand.

This album isn’t ambient per se, but it worked on me primarily as a collection of nice sounds. It’s a compilation of beat music designed for those days when you wake up stressed and can’t get back to sleep (hence Up Too Early).

‘Morning’ by the artist Powermitts encapsulates what I love about this music: a bass thump, unidentified clicks and scrapes, cellos and chimes, and most importantly, a chord progression that aims to soothe.