For the past three years, Toronto’s WHIMM have brought the searing intensity of their live performances to stages across North America, honed through touring. Singer/guitarist Mounir Chami, bassist Andrew Matthews, and drummer Jonathan Pappo create ominous, emotionally charged avant-rock fusing spellbinding melodies with an urgency akin to 1980s anarcho-punk. WHIMM’s debut, A Stare Ajar, was released by Pleasence Records on October 27.
New albums this year (Andrew Matthews):
Barcelona, Pueden Ser Ellos
Anarquia Vertical, Sistema Total De Liberación
Pharmakon, Contact
Drew McDowall, Unnatural Channel
Tzusing, 東方不敗
Dean Blunt & Joanne Robertson, Wahalla
Things that I like this year in no particular order (Jonathan Pappo):
Twin Peaks: The Return
Mount Eerie, A Crow Looked At Me
Beverly Glenn Copeland, Keyboard Fantasies
All Koyama Press Books (Anti-Gone, Old Ground, Everywhere Disappeared, etc.)
Timothy Morton, Dark Ecological Chocolate / Humankind
Joseph Shabason, Aytche
Richard Dawson, Peasant
Here’s me list (Mounir Chami):
Milton Nascimento, Minas and Geraes
Bernardino Femminielli, Plaisirs Américains
Marvin Gaye, I Want You
The Caretaker, Everywhere at the end of time (Stage 1 and 2)
Bob Fosse, All That Jazz
Maren Ade, Toni Erdmann
Kelly Reichardt, Certain Women
