In putting together a playlist of the best tracks of 2022, I became aware that if I had made this on another day it might have turned out substantially differently. I guess the way I think about it is that these tracks aren’t necessarily the best but ones that I had a strong reaction to.
2022 was certainly an interesting year. I was just looking at the Council on Foreign Relations list of the 10 most significant events of 2022. They suggest that 2022 may well be the end of one era and the beginning of another, so there’s that. Number one on the list, of course, is the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which continues to be a threat to the existing world order. Also on the list are the climate crisis, inflation, political turmoil, and number 5 on the list was “COVID eases”, but this was also the year that everyone in my household caught COVID, and we’ve all been struggling with upper respiratory infections these last several weeks. 2022 was also a year where Psychedelic drugs continued to gain broader social acceptance. In the November election Colorado voted to decriminalize plant-based psychedelic drugs.
And then there’s the music. It seems like I’ve said this every year since I’ve started doing Turn Me On, Dead Man, but the musical output of this past year was incredible. To me the most compelling music drew broadly on influences from around the world. Here are my picks for the best tracks of 2022:
| time | artist | title |
|---|---|---|
| 00:14 | Melting Palms | Orchard’s Lie |
| 04:03 | Living Sky | Cylinder |
| 07:28 | Pale Blue Sound | Broken Heart |
| 14:10 | Psychedelic Source Records | Oppressions |
| 26:47 | Worn Robot | Meet Again One Day |
| 29:05 | Dead Waves | Wake Up In The Night |
| 31:05 | Thee UFO | Satellite Reverser |
| 33:57 | Kikagaku Moyo | Cardboard Pike |
| 37:48 | Cosmic Lotus | Lotus Devotion |
| 45:35 | Human Rites | The Serpent and the Rainbow |
| 50:17 | Los Males Necesarios | Repeticion |
| 52:49 | Drug Couple | Missed Our Chance |
| 57:20 | The Lee Rudes | Insignificant Man |
| 1:03:04 | Night Rites | Dark Patterns |
| 1:07:18 | Tombstones In Their Eyes | A Higher Place |
| 1:10:20 | Omissam | Hide |
| 1:13:04 | Snakes Don’t Belong In Alaska | Cosmic Prophet |
| 1:20:31 | Sol Viator | Phoenix Flies Over The Rockies |
| 1:25:43 | Zong | Return As Light |
| 1:34:47 | Dos Brujos | Dahr |
| 1:50:09 | East and West Rendezvous | Montjuic |
