My show focuses on new music so it always feels like a year long list of favourite records. Instead of regurgitating myself, I wanted to focus on a record that not only surprised me but also made me think a lot about the potent power of possibilities still to be discovered in music.

I'm talking about Let's Start Here by Lil Yachty.

Here is an album that feels adventurous, daring, exciting and a whole bunch of other superlatives that I'm too lazy to type out. It's an album that deconstructs its influences and reconfigures them in ways that accentuate them and, at the same time, shows those parts in stunning new perspectives.

There's no sampling here, only interpolation. I could wang on for hours about how I buzz with fevered excitement over well executed interpolation. To summarise: it's like magic to me. Interpolation is a sly wink, a sleight-of-hand where Pink Floyd and Radiohead influences slide close to their original texts but deftly dodge the costly clearance headaches of sampling.

Bro, Lil Yachty is 26 - already proving himself as a maestro. Here he is: changing everything up, following his instincts, making music that feels so vital, so emotional, so 2023.

I went back to this record so many times over the course of the year and it never lost its ability to leave me awestruck. I'm not sure it will ever seem less than that to me. A sign of good music to me. Go listen!