Tape Op Staff Picks 2023!

These are all people or situations I have interviewed for

at some point.

An awkward Zoom connection with no camera on John and still an intriguing chat. He seemed to want to discuss mixing in quad!

A batch of journalists in a booth at an AES Show in NYC. My recorder jammed up and Tom Kenny of Mix Magazine loaned me his audio. Peter was wonderful to be around.

Backstage at The Aladdin in Portland, OR. Robyn was gracious and patient with my dumb questions.

Over Zoom in the early Covid times with bandleader Sadie Dupuis, who has now done some articles for Tape Op!

Possibly the most nervous I have been interviewing someone over Zoom, and one of the earliest in the morning interviews as he was in the UK. Turned out to be so fun to talk to and quite eloquent!

Sonic Boom/Pete Kember and I had a great chat over Zoom, and worked on a Moon Duo album together as well. Adrian Sherwood felt distracted, I swear he was in the middle of a tracking session! His recent dub work, like Spoon’s Lucifer on the Moon and this one are fabulous!

I interviewed Jeff Tweedy at his studio, The Loft, in Chicago on one of the coldest days ever. Went back the next day to interview engineer Tom Schick and have lunch with most of Wilco. Amazing, and thanks to Spencer Tweedy (also interviewed)!

2023 was a great year for recorded music. Some of my favorite established artists released really great mid/late career albums. Sufjan Stevens released

, PJ Harvey released , and Wilco and The National released two great albums each in 2023. But, even though those six albums are some of my 2023 faves,  I’m trying to not list any artists I’ve listed in previous years so I can mostly spotlight some newer, younger artists. Here’s a dozen great new records from 2023.

It's not often that you get to have two albums from the same band from the same year on your year end favorites list, but when one of your favorite bands is King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, it's less hard to imagine. The first,

, is a compact, fuzzy metal joyride of an album and the second on the list, is a 2 disc synth-heavy electronic offering with whispers of Kraftwerk, Radiohead, Steve Reich, Massive Attack, and Air. The second disc is alternative/extended mixes.

I love a good psych-rock banger and this is good one. More refined, and not quite as lo-fi as some of their earlier releases, but a treat regardless.

Hadsel is a refreshing listen and somewhat of a meditation on space, time and place. A perfect winter listen that is full of hope.

This was in heavy rotation this summer and keeps finding its way to the stereo. The dub version that includes Adrian Sherwood is also awesome.

My daughter turned me on to this band and I was immediately drawn to the blown-out dirty bass sound, Jess Berry's groovy vocals and the interesting alt-soul-trip hoppy production. is a stand out track.

Living room and kitchen dance party is on. The Herb Alpert sounding horn hook on is a killer.

I confess with pride that my musical origins (and misplaced aspirations) began in my birth town of Minneapolis. For all of us never quit / die-hard Replacements fans, we wanted more than anything – and could hardly wait – to show the world how our Twin Cities heroes were so fucking special. Unfortunately, much in the same way that The Replacements’ live sets could be unpredictable (and quickly go off the rails),

took a sonic turn down the wrong road. This record was supposed to be “the one” for us, but it ended an era for The Replacements. Now, like a mythical comeback from six stumble-down drunk codas of “Help Me, Rhonda,” Ed Stasium has resurrected these songs by stamping his remixed version of as The Replacements’ best album – it's definitely now "the one." I selfishly bought the Box Set for myself as a holiday gift. It’s almost an anthology that includes previously unreleased recordings, live performances, and demos, plus a cello version of ”Can’t Hardly Wait.” -SM

Here are my Top 5 YouTube videos and performances of 2023!

The following albums brought me a lot of joy over the last twelve months, each leading me to the doorway of the ever-so-important world of fiery inspiration and incalculable imagination. They allowed me to float around in a Corey-sized bubble for a few minutes at a time, viewing it's heights. Some I just played really, really loud.

(Kara Jackson is the former U.S. National Youth Poet Laureate)