Way back in the first Covid-19 lockdowns, when people were reliant on the internet for everything, we started the KEF Culture Hub to help track down the best mental stimulation available.

Live streams, virtual tours, historical performance films… the more we did it, the more we enjoyed it ourselves, and the more it built into an archive of really great stuff.

And here we are, almost three years on, still digging to find the best online culture every week – and looking back through 2022, it’s continued to surprise and delight week in week out.

So, as we reach the end of the year, here’s a little stock take of the best gems that we dug up. From subcultural history to superstars in the making, and from Vietnamese lo-fi to Dutch dance culture, it’s all here.

Take a dip into this list of 22 highlights from 2022, and remember to bookmark the Culture Hub for future tips!

 

MARK DE CLIVE-LOWE’S ‘MOTHERLAND’

Mark De Clive-Lowe is a remarkable keyboardist and producer, and a mainstay of London’s broken beat scene.

He’s also a deep and broad thinker, and always has rich conceptual underpinnings to his work – not least the Motherland album which explores his Japanese heritage and came out right at the start of 2022.

Best of all, there’s a full audiovisual album to stream.

 

C LAVENDER’S ‘TRANSCENDENT WAVES

We loved discovering Lavender Suarez aka C Lavender’s ecstatic drone music this year, and even better this gorgeous little book examining the nature of listening and how we can learn to listen closer and better to the world around us.

 

GREG TATE WAS LOVED 

Greg Tate, the great writer and champion of Black American culture in all its forms, was taken from us way too young at the end of 2021.

To mark a year since his passing, a huge archive of 40-odd years of his work was recently unveiled – just as his posthumously released sleevenotes for British band AR Kane’s re-released Americana album emerged.

His influence is only set to grow.

 

AZULA’S BRAZILIAN SOUL 

December got lit up by this outrageously great mini set by new Brazilian talent Azula for Sofar.

A collision of jazz, soul and truly outrageous stagecraft which radiates out of the screen even in an intimate, audience-less scenario has us on tenterhooks to see what will come next. This is precisely the reason we love digging through performance streams every week.

 

KING CRIMSON’S ENDLESS CONFLICTS

Without question, the music documentary of the year is In The Court Of The Crimson King. Its depiction of the cranky old men of jazz-prog legends King Crimson – and particularly its awkward-squad leader Robert Fripp – is hilarious, intense, but ultimately hugely affectionate.

We covered its live stream showing but it’s now out on DVD – watch the trailer here.

 

MYLES O’REILLY’S VISUAL HYMNS TO IRELAND

We keep coming back to this filmmaker’s endless documenting of the musicians and landscapes of his native Ireland.

There’s a huge archive here and here, you can access his newest films by supporting his Patreon, and what’s more he releases his own gloriously warm ambient music too.

 

WILKO’S UNIQUE TECHNIQUE

Of the many sad losses to music in 2022, the death of the great blues/rock/proto-punk guitarist Wilko Johnson hit particularly hard.

What better way to remember him than with this utterly charming clip where he demonstrates his guitar technique: the perfect showcase of the way he made it look so simple yet remained completely inimitable.

 

DARBAR’S COMPREHENSIVE INDIAN GUIDE

The music of India can sometimes feel like an entire planet of its own.

So thank goodness for Darbar Festival, whose collection of videos takes you on a whistlestop tour of classical and traditional styles – and then offers a subscription service if you really want to go deep.

 

ARTS FOR ART FOR ALL OF US

NYC’s Arts For Art organisation is exactly the sort of thing we live for: making deep and involved culture available for all. 

They started live streaming in the Covid-19 lockdowns of 2020 and haven’t stopped, and the archive of videos of experimental jazz legends from their Vision Festival 2022 is a treasure trove in itself.

 

A MASTER DJ’S TRIBUTE

We love Mixmaster Morris’s hour-long themed mixes, which take you through a particular artiste or label’s catalogue. But his tribute to James Mtume was particularly powerful, coming as it did soon after the legendary percussionist, producer and songwriter had passed away.

Hearing his music compiled with a deft DJ’s touch gave it a new glow, and was a fitting memorial.

 

THE LONELY MAGIC OF THE LIGHTHOUSE

Back in the spring we stumbled over an interactive map of the world’s lighthouses, each flashing in the colour that the real-world light is. It’s truly hypnotic, and makes you wonder who, if anyone, is in each of those buildings.

It sent us digging, and took us to this 1994 documentary which captures the solitary romance of the lighthouse life.

 

DRIFT AWAY INTO LO-FI VIETNAM

If something exists, there is probably a lo-fi hip-hop or “music to study to” remix of it. Sometimes it works, sometimes less so. 

But as we discovered this year, Vietnamese pop and traditional music is particularly receptive to the treatment – maybe it’s because there’s already a tendency to gentleness and subtle emotion in the music, but whatever the reason the mixtapes we discovered here and here on YouTube are endlessly replayable.

 

ELIANE RADIGUE’S ETERNAL ORGANS

Occam XXV, the 44-minute organ piece by Eliane Radigue and Frederic Blondy, is easily one of this year’s very best experimental releases. But then it was natural Radigue would create brilliance from the deep pulses of church organ pipes – over many years she’s perfected a very special tonal minimalism that really focuses the mind.

Just her brief introduction video to the project itself will set your synapses tingling.

 

A UKRAINIAN EASTER AND THE PRESERVATION OF HOPE

Of course this year, our minds have often been on Ukraine. Back in Easter with the invasion still horribly fresh in everyone’s mind, we discovered pysanky: the Ukrainian folk art of decorated eggs, which celebrate rebirth and ward off evil, and they remain a symbol of hope.

The haunting choral sounds of the Ukrainian Orthodox church are worth a listen too, whether you’re prone to praying or not…

 

PHIL KIERAN’S ‘NIGHTRIDE’ THROUGH BELFAST 

Phil Kieran from Belfast, Northern Ireland, is a techno veteran, a DJ and producer whose output has always had an experimental edge and emotional depth. So it’s no wonder that his first movie soundtrack is a doozy.

Nightride itself is fun enough, a rollicking action thriller shot in real time in a single drive through Belfast. But Kieran’s sounds truly elevate it.

 

THE MINGUS LEGACY ALIVE FOR THE CENTENARY

This year marked 100 years since the birth of the mighty Charles Mingus.

This might make him feel like a museum piece – but his legacy has been continually been kept alive by his widow Sue and musicians he worked with, so the Mingus Big Band live feels like a continuation not a commemoration.

Find out more about them here.

 

MUSIC FOR ISOLATION’S ULTRAMINIMALISM

The Tokyo duo of Rie Takeuchi (baritone saxophone) and Gideon Juckes (tuba) were just one of those things we stumbled over while looking for interesting live streams, but they stopped us in our tracks.

Their incredibly subdued, minimalist compositions genuinely don’t sound like anyone else on earth.

Check out their recordings, and if you see they’re playing live, don’t miss it.

 

THE ENERGY OF DUTCH BUBBLING

“Bubbling House” is a very special type of dance music created by the Caribbean diaspora in the Netherlands, connecting to the nation’s commercial house styles but adding unique syncopation.

A recent Boiler Room session demonstrated its infectious energy perfectly, and if you like that then young generation talent De Schuurman will blow you away.

 

GO-GO’S BITTERSWEET WASHINGTONIAN HISTORY

Another great documentary this year talked about the underappreciated history of Washington DC’s own funk/dance genre – go-go – and looked at how it was being used to revive community pride and fight gentrification.

This got us going back to the 1980s go-go classics of bands like Trouble Funk and the mighty Junkyard Band.

 

NEW ZEALAND’S ELECTROFUNK JOY

We’d never have predicted that our favourite DJ mix this year would have consisted of early 1980s New Zealand electro and electropop – but such is the skill and passion for music of Dujon Cullingford that that’s how it transpired.

Find out more about the milieu of the music here.

 

AN AUDIENCE WITH ERYKAH

The comedy singer/rapper/beatboxer/electronic musician Marc Rebillet can be an acquired taste, but we had to admit that his online chat show is something else – particularly with his fellow Texan, the mighty Erykah Badu, on it.

As well as surreal chat and humour, it gave a really deep insight into her never-ending creative process as they grooved through the show.

 

FOLK RECLAIMING THE LAND

We’ve long loved the Folk On Foot podcast, but it took on a new piquancy when it joined the Right To Roam campaign – sending folk musicians walking through forbidden English countryside in a heatwave, challenging the ownership of that land.

It made that music feel once again alive and burdened with glorious purpose.

Find out more here.

 

Cover Credit: Freepik, Mahsoom007/PNGItem, rawpixel, Amazon Music, Darbar Festival, Jean-Christian Rieu, Folk on Foot, Music for Isolation

 

Writer | Joe Muggs

Joe Muggs is a writer, DJ and curator of many years standing, covering both mainstream and underground. His book 'Bass, Mids, Tops', covering decades of UK bass music, is out now via Strange Attractor / MIT Press, and you can subscribe to his newsletter at tinyletter.com/joemuggs.

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