It's great to make music that sounds like the 60's, but sometimes you just want to make the surf music you want to make. Or maybe you want to push the genre beyond where it's been. There were a lot of great options here this year, and while I don't think my selections paint the full picture, these are the records that I felt were the best from start to finish.

Bandcamp may have changed hands again recently, but it looks like they're still giving up their portion of sales on the first Friday of every month, so "all" of your money goes to the artists (so long as you count Paypal as an artist). And as semi-usual, I'll draw some focus to recent surf releases worth a look. October is always a big month for surf releases as bands try to cram stuff in before Halloween, but that hasn't started yet, so this is mostly un-spooky. I also didn't get a chance to do one of these last month, so it's reaching back a little further.

This category is for surf groups that don't feel like they need to closely imitate the sounds of yesteryear, who carve out their own sound and identity. I don't know if I've ever crammed this category with so many records as this year -- and this is after several difficult cuts. Maybe I need to be more ruthless, or maybe there was just so much to love. I like to think it's the latter. Here are what I consider to be the cream of the crop for 2020.

This category is for albums that are unmistakably surf, but would not be mistaken for vintage. This was a tough category this year and it was tough choosing a winner. A lot of these were also really pushing the envelope, and it was hard to decide what belongs here and what belongs in the Way-Out Instro category.

For a while WJLP's Petomaniac was one of the best free surf/instro albums you could find on bandcamp. They've since decided to get paid for it, though still pretty damn affordable (and very worth it) at €5. Though they've sprinkled instrumentals here and there since then, but they're back to a full instrumental record with a spacey sci-fi movie theme.

I wouldn't normally post a single song (the other song on this EP is a vocal track) but this is an excellent Halloween song that never gets covered and WJLP released a pretty excellent instro album for free a while back. Enjoy!