Favorite EPs of 2021
I focused on LPs this year and I wasn’t gonna say anything about any EPs in my year-in-review, and then this first EP came along and I couldn’t ignore it — if it were a full-lenth album and consistently this good, it’d probably have been in my top 10 — so I decided to include that and the two other EPs I loved most from 2021:
Don’t, Do
The band Don’t is a collaborative effort between English art pop visionary Cosmo Sheldrake and his actress / ceramic artist / apparently-also-a-singer/composer girlfriend Flora Wells. You wouldn’t know it, but (all?) of the instrumentation is composed of pitch-shifted, sequenced animal sounds. Each of these 4 songs has a distinct personality and together they’re a delightful package. Highlights: “Did,” “Did Don’t Do,” “Dlora Yelps”
Homeboy Sandman, Anjelitu
Queens-based underground rapper Angel Del Villar II erupts flurry of up-tempo, uncharacteristically rapid-fire rap on this fantastic six-song set, fully produced by recurring collaborator Aesop Rock and released less than a year after 2020’s Don’t Feed The Monster. Highlights: “Go Hard,” “FYI,” “Lice Team Baby”
Kishi Bashi, Emigrant
Fresh from a concept album about Japanese internment camps in the American West, singer and multi-instrumentalist K. Ishi Bashi found himself inspired by his travels to make an EP about settlers of the OId West, in a 5-song, bluegrass-focused mixture of 4 originals and 2 covers. Highlights: “Wait For Springtime,” “Early Morning Breeze,” “Cascades”