Another characteristic combination of melodic brightness and laconic delivery from the Dinosaur Jr. frontman. Softer and lighter than Dinosaur Jr. albums, with only the occasional excoriating guitar solo and with the melodies foregrounded.
Jacob Collier - Djesse Vol. 1 (Hajanga)
The Quincy Jones protege and multi-instrumentalist is undoubtedly a huge talent, and there is a lot to admire and enjoy here although, at this stage, I do question whether a four album magnum opus (to be completed over the course of 2019) is really the right way to go.
James Davis Quintet - Disappearing Roads
Expansive and enthralling contemporary jazz detailing transition and change.
Janelle Monae - Dirty Computer (WEA International)
A rather conspicuous, Prince-inspired reach for a wider audience that, in fairness, seems to have worked pretty well (the tour has graduated to arenas for 2019). Much of this is excellent, but I can't help feeling some of the high concept character and artful risk from Monae's previous albums is missing. More than worthy of your time, however, particularly the 'emotion picture' (and the live show is excellent).
Jason Stein's Locksmith Isidore - After Caroline (Northern Spy)
Imaginative, long running trio from the Chicago reedsman, also a crucial force in Joshua Abrams' Natural Information Society. Stein's music here alternates swinging rhythms with guttural sonic attack and textural experiments.
Jean Toussaint Allstar 6tet - Brother Raymond (Lyte)
Eleven outstanding original compositions make up saxophonist Toussaint's first album for four years. Features various different configurations of his Allstar 6tet, highlighting some of the most luminous talent on the UK jazz scene.
Jeff Tweedy - Warm (dBPM)
Possibly Tweedy's best work outside Wilco, a delicate but nuanced selection of acoustic guitar-focused songs capturing a uniquely personal intimacy. Tweedy's music in this idiom is insidious - it seems low key and unassuming at first but reveals considerable depths on repeated close listens.
Jennifer Castle - Angels of Death (Paradise of Bachelors)
A poetic and powerful dissection of death, mortality and grief in the form of stark, striking country ballads recorded in a 19th century church.
Jerusalem In My Heart - Daga'iq Tudaiq (Constellation)
This fascinating third album from the Montreal-Beirut project combines a side long orchestral interpretation of 'Ya Garat Al Wadi', by the popular Egyptian composer Mohammad Abdul Wahab with four original solo pieces.
Jessica Sligter - Polycrisis: yes! (Butler and Butler)
Unsettling theatrical ambient song.
Jim James - Uniform Distortion (ATO)
Jim James - Uniform Clarity (ATO)
Scuzzy, elaborately produced avant-rock from the My Morning Jacket frontman, together with an accompanying unadorned acoustic version.
Jim O'Rourke - Sleep Like It's Winter (Newhere Music)
Patiently unfolding long form work from the multi-instrumentalist and producer, who now seems to follow his every musical instinct in all manner of thoughtful and unexpected directions.
Jlin - Autobiography (Planet Mu)
Not an official third album from Jlin, but rather commissioned music to accompany Wayne McGregor choreography that more than works as a listening project too. Full of the striking textures, sudden shifts and percussive dynamism that has characterised Jlin's work to date. One of the most important composer-producers currently working in electronic music.
Joe Armon-Jones - Starting Today (Brownswood)
Joe Armon-Jones may have competed with George Ezra for the most insanely annoying Twitter marketing campaign of 2018, but at least the debut solo album from the Ezra Collective co-founded was an engaging, intoxicating and uplifting album of rhythmic pop-jazz, sometimes in collaboration with vocalists.
Joe Lovano and Dave Douglas 'Sound Prints' - Scandal (Greenleaf)
First studio set for the predictably brilliant project co-lead by two of the key musicians in American jazz - 'in this age of scandal, we rejoice in the freedom to seek the truth in collective inquiry'.
John Hiatt - The Eclipse Sessions (New West)
Stripped back, slightly weathered songs from the underrated Nashville songwriter.
John Prine - The Tree of Forgiveness (Oh Boy)
A late career gem from one of country music's great survivors.
John Surman - Invisible Threads (ECM)
Working in a trio with pianist Nelson Ayres and percussionist Rob Waring, Surman explores a range of peaceful folk-tinged soundworlds.
**Jon Hassell - Listening To Pictures (Pentimento Volume One) (Ndeya)**
This coruscating, compelling work is Hassell's first new album in nine year.s 'Pentimento' is described as a particular technique to editing and post-production, in which sounds are creatively layered over one another. It's impressive that, forty years after first developing the fourth world aesthetic, Hassell still sounds so fearlessly contemporary.
Jon Hopkins - Singularity (Domino)
Fifth and strongest work to date from the electronic producer and composer.
Jonny Greenwood - Phantom Thread OST (Nonesuch)
Jonny Greenwood - You Were Never Really Here OST (Invada/Lakeshore)
Not one, but two distinctive, highly successful soundtracks from the Radiohead guitarist and composer.
Joseph Shabason - Anne (Western Vinyl)
Absorbing, distinctive blend of ambent electronica and improvisation, interwoven with recordings of interviews with Shabason's mother, currently suffering from Parkinson's disease.
Josephine Davies' Satori - In The Corners of the Clouds (Whirlwind)
Contemporary jazz trio without a chordal instrument, with a focus on strong melodic lines.
Joshua Redman - Still Dreaming (Nonesuch)
Recorded with a superb all star band with Ron Miles on cornet, Scott Colley on bass and Brian Blade on drums, this album inspired by Dewey Redman's Old and New Dreams band is brimming with ideas and expression.
**Julia Holter - Aviary (Domino)**
Julia Holter returns to her more adventurous preoccupations, with what is undoubtedly her densest and most demanding album, full of turbulent twists and turns. There are so many ideas here, not all of them completely successful, but the confidence and vaunting ambition is extaordinary.
Julian Arguelles' Tetra - Tonadas (Whirlwind)
New quartet album from the great saxophonist, drawing on his Spanish roots to create music at once breathtaking and lyrical. Very strong writing with melodies that are both dexterous and lingering.
Julian Lage - Modern Lore (Mack Avenue)
A brilliantly kinetic, classic sounding and urgent trio set - with Scott Colley on bass and Kenny Wolleson on drums.
**Julian Siegel Quartet - Vista (Whirlwind)**
Saxophonist and composer Julian Siegel is one of UK jazz's great treasures - able to blend the earthy, cerebral and celebratory in equal measure, with music that is poised and exhilarating.
Kacey Musgraves - Golden Hour (Universal)
A rare example of genuinely excellent mainstream country.
**Kadhja Bonet - Childqueen (Fat Possum)**
Both madcap and concise, it's hard to understand why Childqueen hasn't received much wider attention for its dreamlike psychedelic neo-soul. It's otherworldly and synaesthetic, borne aloft by peculiar stylistic blends and an imaginative way with vocal harmonies.
Kamasi Washington - Heaven and Earth (Young Turks)
Neither as significant as his admirers suggest, nor as problematic as his detractors would argue, Kamasi Washington's second full length does once again emphasise vastness, both in terms of the amount of material and in the number of musicians thrown at the arrangements. What it lacks in nuance, it makes up for in punch, thrill and verve.
Kelly Moran - Ultraviolet (Warp)
Unusual and fascinating prepared piano compositions.
Khruangbin - Con Todo El Mondo (Night Time Stories)
The Texas band draw from psychedelia and a range of world music to create a heady, potent mix that seems to have found favour with a young audience this year.
Kikagaku Moyo - Masana Temples (Guruguru Brain)
Shifting, transitive psychedelia emphasising movement as much as contemplation. This will be particularly welcome for anyone who cannot resist a good wah-wah guitar sound.
**Kit Downes - Obsidian (ECM)**
Downes' superb organ project, in part inspired by W.G. Sebald, evokes defiant, desolate landscapes. This is contemporary music free from convention and genre.
**Kris Davis and Craig Taborn - Octopus (Pyroclastic)**
Exquisite live recordings from a series of two piano concerts. The thoughtful, agile and subtle improvising is tremendous.
Kurt Vile - Bottle It In (Matador)
A very long collection of laconic and sly songs - this has made me want to have another go with the rest of the KV catalogue.
**Laura Cannell and Andre Bosman - Reckonings (Brawl)**
An excellent development in the restless and prolific career of Laura Cannell - an improvised violin duo exploring forms that intuitively integrate the medieval and modern. Cannell continues to be interested in the role that spaces play in sound creation - and this recording situates Cannell and Bosman conversing with each other musically from opposite sides of St Andrew's Church in Raveningham, Norfolk.
Laura Veirs - The Lookout (Bella Union)
Typically lush and resonant album focusing on the fragility and impermanence of things and the need not to be complacent.
**Laurel Halo - Raw Silk Uncut Wood (Latency)**
This relatively low key release deserved more attention, as it might be Laurel Halo's most radical and impressive work to date. Cellist Oliver Coates and percussionist Eli Keszler also contribute to this thought provoking instrumental set.
Atmospheric and mesmerising debut, also utilising the skills of some brilliant musicians including Sam Beste (Hejira, Amy Winehouse) on keys and Finn Peters on saxophones.
Les Halles - Zephyr (Not Not Fun)
Gentle airborne ambience.
Let's Eat Grandma - I'm All Ears (Transgressive)
A rich, lavishly melodic, beguiling and sometimes confounding collection from the young duo - brilliantly produced and executed avant pop.
**Lonnie Holley - MITH (Secretly Canadian)**
A powerful, palpably engaged state of the nation address from the avant garde poet and artist.
Lorraine Baker - Eden (SPARK!)
Drummer and bandleader Baker's debut album pays tribute to the great Ed Blackwell with a strong sense of melody and adventure.
**Low - Double Negative (Sub Pop)**
Low have subtly revised their signature sound many times over the course of their 20 plus year career, be it with the intervention of electronics on Drums and Guns or on the more robust rock of The Great Destroyer. This is, however, arguably the first time where they have bravely stripped away many of the core defining elements of their music - be it the delicately rustled drums, lingering, chiming guitar chords or, most significantly, the beautiful and pure sound of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker's vocal harmonies. What replaces it here is an initially anxious, almost apocalyptic sounding use of abrasive noise textures, eventually revealing itself as a suite of genuine beauty in the face of madness and strife. A remarkable triumph from a consistently revelatory band.
Lucrecia Dalt - Anticlines (RVNG)
Curious and bewitching combination of spoken word and electronic sound worlds. Sonic textures matching the textures of landscapes.
Lucy Railton - Paradise 94 (Modern Love)
Debut album from the open-minded and adventurous cellist and composer that feels very modern, atavistic and distinctive.
LUMP - LUMP (Dead Oceans)
Laura Marling's collaboration with Mike Lindsay is imaginative, unpredictable and rewarding.
Lydian Collective - Adventure (Lydian)
Bright, ebullient modern fusion from the very promising newcomers.
**M. Geddes Gengras - Light Pipe (Room40)**
Maybe the strongest ambient album of the year, this is music in which to get lost.
Maisha - There Is A Place (Brownswood)
One of the strongest albums to come so far from the group of mostly London based artists wildly hyped as the 'new UK jazz explosion' (in reality, the group of artists to have most benefited from how Arts Council funding for jazz is now distributed - the strategy, at least on the surface, appears to be working). The work of a thirteen piece ensemble lead by drummer Jake Long, There Is A Place is transcendental in the mould of spiritual jazz, but also with urgent grooves that make it well placed to energise the dancefloor.
Makaya McCraven - Where We Come From (International Anthem)
Makaya McCraven - Universal Beings (International Anthem)
McCraven represented the much touted new jazz on the other side of the Atlantic, and the Where We Come From mixtape finds him collaborating with UK artists. The editing techniques McCraven deployed in post-production were hardly new (Miles Davis' work with Teo Macero paved the way for continued experiments in this field), but there is something fresh about McCraven's collage approach with genre.
Mansur Brown - Shiroi (Black Focus)
Debut album from the guitarist who is also a member of Triforce 5ive and played a major role in the much lauded Yussef Kamaal album. Categorised as jazz, but really a curious hybrid of electronica, dance music, funk and astral travelling.
Marisa Anderson - Cloud Corner (Thrill Jockey)
More stunning, encircling solo guitar music.
Marissa Nadler - For My Crimes (Bella Union)
Stark, honest and captivating songwriting.
Mark Pritchard - The Four Worlds (Warp)
Perhaps Pritchard's strongest, most brilliantly designed album so far. The four to the floor pulse of the lengthy opening track turns out to be a red herring, given that the rest of the album is more interested in open, percussion-less spaces.
Mary Gauthier - Rifles and Rosary Beads (Proper)
Gauthier continues her run of impressive form with an impassioned and defiant album written in collaboration with wounded veterans.
**Mary Halvorson - Code Girl (Firehouse)**
One of 2018's major artistic statements - a substantial work where the approach and sound is very hard to define in words. Halvorson's guitar playing is fluid and daring, with composition and improvisation being fluidly integrated. With the vocals of Amirtha Kidambi an effective presence throughout, Code Girl should be filed alongside Cory Smythe's Circulate Susanna in 2018's bold attempts to manipulate and reinvent the song form.
**Mary Lattimore - Hundreds Of Days (Ghostly International)**
Mary Lattimore's layered harp music continues to enthrall and evoke place and memory with great clarity and sensitivity. Hundreds of Days is another substantial contribution to her impressive catalogue.
Matthew Dear - Bunny (Ghostly International)
A weird, somnambulant disco-rock hybrid. At its most successful when least reliant on Dear's vocals.
Matthew Sweet - Tomorrow's Daughter (Honeycomb Hideout)
This won't exactly reinvent the wheel, but it's another set of very creditable 60s inspired power pop.
**Meg Baird and Mary Lattimore - Ghost Forests (Three Lobed)**
A dream collaboration offering a remarkably coherent, unified approach.
**Miles Okazaki - Work: The Complete Compositions of Thelonious Monk**
A gargantuan project presenting every Thelonious Monk composition interpreted for solo guitar across six volumes. Perhaps of more interest to serious students of Monk and musicians than to the general listener, but there is a wealth of inventive exposition and creativity here - and Work serves as a great example of how great source material can inspire considerable individuality and freedom of expression.
Mind Over Mirrors - Bellowing Sun (Paradise of Bachelors)
The concept here is apparently an examination of celestial cycles - the resulting music is ethereal and mesmerising.
Mountain Man - The Magic Ship (Bella Union)
Very welcome and sadly slightly overlooked second from the Appalachian folk vocal group.
Mount Eerie - Now Only (1Gd)
The rather unnerving and candid turn Phil Everum's songwriting took following the tragic loss of his wife Genevieve has some common characteristic with the increasingly unhinged diary litanies of Mark Kozelek (especially as the lyrics frequently don't scan) but, whilst listening to Elverum can feel like an uncomfortable intrusion for the listener, one senses a genuine healing process at work here.
Mouse On Mars - Dimensional People (Thrill Jockey)
Typically inventive with sound, texture and sensation.
**Myra Melford's Snowy Egret - The Other Side Of Air (Firehouse)**
Myra Melford is one of the most innovative and explorative bandleaders in contemporary US jazz, her music blending considerable discipline with uncompromising bursts of seemingly free exploration. Sometimes her compositions feel meticulously controlled, at others they feel like they are teetering on a precipice, preparing to leap recklessly into chaos and the unknown. Sometimes they make the leap with real abandon, at others they feel fragmented and jagged.
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