2020 Review - Best Compilation albums

 In a bad year music is one of the few things that's kept me going. Here are my pick of this year's best compilation albums.

1. GU43 Joris Voorn: Rotterdam

Less a compilation album and more a work of art, this astonishing album brings together over 100 tracks in 2 continuous mixes. Voorn has taken all of the tracks, mixed and edited them so seamlessly, sometimes with 2 or 3 playing at once, that the whole thing feels like an album that he's written and played himself. If you get the download version with the separate tracks as well as the mixes there's over 11 hours of music, which is surely the best value for money album you'll buy all year.

2. Cafe Exil - New Adventures In European Music 1972-1980

Complied by the musical encyclopaedia that is Bob Stanley from Saint Etienne, this excellent compilation  provides the imaginary soundtrack for David Bowie and Iggy Pop hanging out in Kreuzberg's Cafe Exil in West Berlin in the 1970s. It's brilliantly evocative of the period and provides lots of unknown gems as well as one or two more well known tracks.

3. Late Night Tales: Khruangbin

The second Late Night Tales album to be released in 2020, this is expertly executed compilation that takes you around the world via 14 tracks that I can pretty much guarantee you'll have never heard before. It's hugely atmospheric and also works as a great companion to Khruangbin's own album from this year, 'Mordechai'.

4. Back to Mine - Fatboy Slim

As eclectically brilliant as only Norman Cook can be, this album mixes the Pink Panther Theme and the Go! Team, Dave & Ansel Collins and Manu Dibango and lots more besides, It's the perfect antidote to 2020's woes.

5. Late Night Tales: Hot Chip

With three new Hot Chip tracks, as well as their cover of The Velvet Undergound's 'Candy Says', this is a must for Hot Chip fans, or anyone else who appreciates quality music from the vast lake of Hot Chip's vinyl collection.