Winter 2020: 10 Albums to Spent Winter With

Written by Nathan Evans

It’s 4:36 pm as I’m writing this, and the sky is a deep cold blue; winter is here. We’re nearing the end to the longest year of our lives, and there have been some positive upticks in the world since the summer. Now though, being indoors seems more normal in the context of the cold, only going out to brave the cold when necessary, wearing a coat like a turtle’s shell. The dark period of the year has worsened this time in particular; the UK has re-entered a nationwide lockdown for a month, so it’s looking to be an even colder set of weeks, potentially months.

But if you’re reading this, you likely find that music gives great comfort in times of need. Earlier in the year, I gave a listicle of Summer albums where I tended to favour easy listens. Many hold very reactionary listening habits upon reaching winter, favouring smooth sailing in their playlists, but right now, leaning more on the experimental side gives great excuse for headphones listens, which are life’s true earmuffs. These wouldn’t go down well at the Christmas dinner table, unless you are pulling crackers with John Peel and Mary Anne Hobbs.

Jonsi - Shiver (2020)

Shiver was recently reviewed by KEYMAG, and the Sigur Rós vocalist’s first mainline record in a decade was a drastic, but welcomed, change of pace. Jónsi executive-produced the record in collaboration with PC Music founder and hyper glitch-pop trailblazer AG Cook, who also looked over Charli XCX’s how i’m feeling now earlier in 2020. Jónsi’s effort is a mirror image of what Charli achieved with Cook’s sound, as he tries to find beauty in a genre that’s been reserved for freakish fun, like searching for a diamond in a ball pit. Perhaps overstaying its welcome at 54 minutes, this album nonetheless acts as a steel blanket of cold intimacy, like huddling for warmth in the Arctic.

Yves Tumor - Heaven to a Tortured Mind (2020)

Heaven to a Tortured Mind is the latest from experimental artist Yves Tumor, whose influences are so wrapped in chaos and noise that they can be hard to pick apart. However, with repeated listens, there are signs of Prince here ('Kerosene!’, ‘Super Stars’), as well as freakishly sensual glam-rock (‘Romanticist’, ‘Dream Palette’), underneath a manic collage of textures so thick and mangled, it becomes utterly alien. It’s perverse yet enthralling, like spectating a shotgun wedding, and will certainly add some spice when the snow falls. Yves Tumor’s record is a series of devilishly enjoyable sins.

Against All Logic - 2017-2019 (2020)

Nicolas Jaar is a genius, certainly worthy of induction into the ‘Modern Mavens’ series when that starts up again. The electronic producer is consistently uncompromising in his art, and his Against All Logic moniker is another example of that. Crafting house music that pays close attention to texture and treatment of samples, Jaar was willing to let loose and let the tunes be magnetically dazzling on their own feet, as evidenced by the stealth release of the first project 2012-2017 without his name attached. However this year’s sequel, 2017-2019, is another pivot; harsher, more minimalistic, and inviting styles like IDM, industrial and microhouse. There’s more emphasis on handing over new sounds to listeners than the last record, but Jaar never does too much to throw them off course. Frosty in tone, if any dance record represents the cold, closed-in reality of today, it’s here.

Leon Vynehall - Nothing Is Still (2018)

Another dance album makes the list, because with winter, one must reconnect with their physical self to keep warm. It’s better than drinking mulled wine and playing For Emma, Forever Ago for the umpteenth time. Leon Vynehall’s 2018 LP Nothing Is Still is an amazing feat, a true synergy of house music and classical strings, and not just that faux-gospel house that everyone tried to do in the vinyl-singles era. This is the closest thing to ‘art house’ as we have, though you won’t find any club hits here, or even any affecting percussion, it’s nonetheless engaging in a whole new way.

Radiohead - Kid A (2000)

This one’s an easy one, I know. But, Kid A has recently celebrated its 20th birthday, and is also a biting exile clinically designed for the wintertime. As the meme goes, this is the greatest left turn in the history, siphoning the stiffness of IDM, the disorientation of jazz, and much more into their already-elevated brand of rock. You’re likely familiar with the material here, to which I suggest re-interpreting the album with a new angle. On my last listen, I imagined Kid A as a crushing war story, and it works surprisingly well as a first-hand journey through the perils of combat once you suspend the specifics. So, if you’ve heard this album, or any album, to death, play dress-up with it, and approach it through different eyes.

Kate Bush - 50 Words for Snow (2011)

Another obvious pick judging from the title, 50 Words for Snow is a late-career highlight for Kate Bush, in which she writes long, unravelling chamber pop fables. Largely insular compared to her usual art-pop, Kate cabins herself in with a piano, spilling stories about a steamy romantic dream involving a snowman, or the short life and death of a snowflake. The opportunity to hear Bush in such an intimate setting is enough to last at least one hibernation.

Portishead - Portishead (1997)

Weirdly, all the albums featured in the list fall into three periods of time, with some fresh albums, others orbiting around 2010, and the rest being from the late 90s and new millennium. Portishead’s self-titled is the oldest record here, and it sounds so. However, this is not through poor ageing, as to follow up their 1995 classic Dummy, the trip-hop group ventured into more outlandish and elusive territory. Coldness can be applied to distance, and this record feels miles away chronologically. Framed in a noir palette, and with all the fidelity of a beaten-up 50s swing album, Portishead spun a deliberately unsettling listen made only more twisted by Beth Gibbons’ cartoonishly witchlike vocal scowls.

Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes (2008)

Robin Pecknold’s songwriting is near-universally appealing. The lead vocalist of Fleet Foxes writes with such a Goldilocks amount of tenderness and spontaneity that the band’s take on indie-folk can easily draw new listeners into the style, it’s a good job he’s not a cult leader. Their first album even takes priority on the list over Fleetwood Mac’s Bare Trees, which would have made the cut if it didn’t look weird having two ‘Fleet’ bands on the same list. Anyway, Pecknold and company string together a set of songs in tribute to the wintertime, their love for the season shining through on the self-aware ‘White Winter Hymnal’. Fleet Foxes is an album that waits by the window for the first drop of snow, every year.

Biosphere - Cirque (2000)

Norwegian ambient music royalty Biosphere knows the cold like no-one else. The godfather of what is known as ‘Arctic ambient’ since the late 90s, he paved the way for future artists like Tim Hecker, and his 2000 project Cirque continues that embarkation. Incredibly subtle, he nonetheless conjures such strong visions of mountainous landscapes just like one seen on the album cover. Drenched in suspenseful synths penetrated only by walkie-talkie vocal murmurs, this album explores the feeling of traversing a mountaintop, with challenges, obstacles, and joy along the way.

Enya - A Day Without Rain (2000)

Enya has experienced a resurgence into the critics’ consciousness recently, possibly due to the growing affection and nostalgia towards new age music. Enya has written herself out of that label, which belies the shared traits that make people align her with new age music. Celtic-born chamber pop that breathes like a winter morning, her peaceful, unhardened croons lending an almost-ambient quality to these passages. A Day Without Rain is her finest hour, Enya shares a joy and exuberance in her writing, even if the subject matter can be anything but. This translates to hope, perhaps why key track ‘Only Time’ was used after the 9/11 attacks one year after its release. In this time of waiting for normality to be restored, the sentiments of the song apply more so. “Who can say where the road goes?”

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