Year-End Lists

The Wire: Top 50 Albums of 2021

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012 • 2011]

1. Fatigue
   L'Rain
2. Black Encyclopedia of the Air
   Moor Mother
3. Promises
   Floating Points / Pharoah Sanders / London Symphony Orchestra
4. Hey What
   Low
5. Axacan
   Daniel Bachman
6. Number Pieces
   John Cage
7. Some Good News
   Hamid Drake / Elaine Mitchener / William Parker / Orphy Robinson / Pat Thomas
8. Painful Enlightenment
   Jana Rush
9. -io
   Circuit Des Yeux
10. New Decade
    Phew
11. New Long Leg
    Dry Cleaning
12. Hush Harbor Mixtape Vol. 1 Doxology
    Angel Bat Dawid
13. Jesup Wagon
    James Brandon Lewis / Red Lily Quintet
14. Made Out Of Sound
    Chris Corsano & Bill Orcutt
15. At Pioneer Works
    Les Filles de Illighadad
16. Intimate Immensity
    Tomaga
17. 12 Comp (ZIM) 2017
    Anthony Braxton
18. Fire
    The Bug
19. Black To The Future
    Sons of Kemet
20. Creative Contradiction: Poetry, Story, Song & Sound
    Maggie Nicols
21. Minds in Flux
    George Lewis with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
22. Kamil Manqus
    Muqata'a
23. Chuckle
    Alpha Maid
24. Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World
    William Parker
25. Lucy & Aaron
    Aaron Dilloway & Lucrecia Dalt
26. Honest Labour
    Space Afrika
27. The Voyager
    Clarissa Connelly
28. How much time it is between you and me?
    perila
29. Shade
    Grouper
30. De Mòrt Viva
    sourdure
31. Sound Ancestors
    Madlib
32. BRASS
    Moor Mother & billy woods
33. Gas Lit
    Divide and Dissolve
34. Established!
    RP Boo
35. Occam Ocean 3
    Eliane Radigue
36. Al Azraqayn
    Karkhana
37. Angel Tears in Sunlight
    Pauline Anna Strom
38. A Secret Code
    Pamela Z
39. Maquishti
    Patricia Brennan
40. parallel systems
    Rambutan
41. Afrique Victime
    Mdou Moctar
42. Glen Echo
    Azita
43. Archeophony
    Raed Yassin
44. NOW
    Damon Locks & Black Monument Ensemble
45. Mayan Space Station
    William Parker
46. Neon Genesis: Soul Into Matter²
    Meemo Comma
47. Hidemi
    Patrick Shiroishi
48. Nights on Saturn (communication)
    [Ahmed]
49. Open Arms to Open Us
    Ben LaMar Gay
50. Drop by Old Heaven Books
    IZ Band