Most years a little post-rock makes it onto my List somewhere. And there were some excellent post-rock records in 2022 that didn’t quit make the cut – shout out to long-listers The Glass Pavilion (x2, as both 2022 releases were close), and Secret Gardens (which is 70% a fantastic record but has a real dip in quality in the middle). The standout post-rock record for me this year, though, is this effort from And So I Watch You from Afar. They’re a band who have been around for almost 2 decades, and for much of their existence they’ve made post-rock on the heavier, mathy side, with pounding drums, odd time signatures and a bunch of riffs. All that previous work is good, but not so good that And So I Watch You from Afar have ever troubled my List before. Jettison is a much mellower effort, full of large open spaces, string accompaniment and gentle, plucked guitar. It’s a largely instrumental record, albeit with a few spoken samples that introduce some themes along the way. There are occasional nods to the math rock of their past, like on ‘III Lung’, but they’re rare. Conceived as a single piece (to the point that the record is available as a selection of tracks but also as a single track), this is a real album, and one to wallow in. Like all the best post-rock it grows and envelops. This change of pace and focus has turned And So I Watch You from Afar from excellent to essential.