Sloth Racket - A Glorious Monster (Luminous)
Cath Roberts' gestural, impressively interactive improvising group continues to go from strength to strength, veering from playful mischief making to substantive force. Thematic preoccupations with animals notable.
Sonar with David Torn - Vortex (RareNoise)
David Torn is such a versatile musician and it's great to hear his multi-faceted approach to guitar playing and live looping in a very different context from his recent solo work.
Sons of Kemet - Your Queen Is A Reptile (Impulse!)
Line-up and label changes seemed to drive Shabaka Hutchings' most successful project further, engaging with deep political and social concerns (attacking the hereditary nature of the British monarchy and celebrating the roles of black women) with steadfast, relentlessly kinetic music. It's been really pleasing to see this band reach wider attention this year, from the Mercury nomination to scoring Wire magazine's album of the year.
SOPHIE - Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides (Transgressive)
Adventurous, questing and subversive pop music.
Stefan Schulze - System Tribe (WhyPlayJazz)
I'm grateful to Chris Elcombe from the BBC for including this in the Late Junction year end list as this is an important late discovery that sits very neatly alongside Kelly Moran's Ultraviolet in intriguing approaches to prepared piano music. System Tribe is vibrant, restless, inquisitive music that really does sound like clockwork.
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - Sparkle Hard (Domino)
One of Malkmus' strongest post-Pavement works, neatly combining his psych-rock preoccupations with the more angular and unpredictable aspects of his work.
Steve Hauschildt - Dissolve (Ghostly International)
The Ghostly International label has a had a phenomenal 2018, and this thoughtful, reflective and detailed ambient work is a major contribution to that.
Steve Lawson and Pete Fraser - Restless (Bandcamp)
For all of the moanings about the internet in 2018 - here is one of the great things it has enabled: This live improvisation between two outstanding musicians was captured in Birmingham on the 25th November and released via Bandcamp before the year was out. I've long admired Steve Lawson's approach to music (and his willingness to discuss it on social media) and Pete Fraser is a hugely versatile musician with a brilliant range of inspirations. The combination yields fascinating and often surprising results.
**Steve Tibbetts - Life Of (ECM)**
The superb guitarist returns with an album of mostly concise, gently evocative pieces accompanied by his own stately piano playing, the hand percussion of Marc Anderson and the cello and drones of Michelle Kinney.
Stuart A. Staples - Arrythmia (Lucky Dog/City Slang)
Something of a departure for Staples in the immediate context of his solo work but something that makes more sense in the lineage of Tindersticks' soundtrack work, this album consists of four pieces, two of which are long (one very long and constructed from studio improvisations).
Sunwatchers - Sunwatchers II (Trouble In Mind)
Glorious, incandescent jam band rock with added skronk.
Supersilent - 14 (Rune Gramofon)
Still one of the best and most significant improvising units in Europe. But is it jazz? (!!)
Sweet Billy Pilgrim - Wapentak (self released)
Now a very different proposition from the group that received a Mercury nomination for Twice Born Men, Wapentak finds a more collaborative Tim and Jana focusing on song craft and compelling vocal harmonies, and occasionally veering into inspired groove-heavy tangents.
Szun Waves - New Hymn To Freedom (Leaf)
An intriguing supergroup featuring pastoral electronica producer Luke Abbott, Jack Wyllie from Portico Quartet and Laurence Pike, the inventive drummer from PVT. The resulting meditative, synth heavy music is refreshingly far from anything these musicians have done before.
Teresa Winter - What The Night Is For (The Death Of Rave)
Deeply unsettling and nightmarish dissonant crescendos.
Thalia Zedek Band - Fighting Talk (Drag City)
Another set of daring, excoriating music from Thalia Zedek, who continues to breathe new, brave life into the rock band format.
Thandi Ntuli - Exiled (Self released)
A substantial and assured work from the South African pianist and vocalist.
The Body - I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer (Thrill Jockey)
Superb title presaging some heavy and visceral music.
The Breeders - All Nerve (4AD)
There could hardly have been a more welcome comeback in 2018, and All Nerve is refreshingly, bracingly alive.
The Cradle - Bag of Holding (NNA Tapes)
Beautiful, delicately ornate song narratives from New York musician Paco Cathcart.
The Dead Tongues - Unsung Passage (Psychic Hotline)
This one seems to have slipped under the radar a bit, but it's a wonderfully captivating set of country tinged songs.
The Good, The Bad and The Queen - Merrie Land (Parlophone)
Damon Albarn's detractors remain vocal, but this strange mix of English folklore and myth making with the Afrobeat grooves of Tony Allen is undeniably potent and mysterious.
The Internet - Hive Mind (Columbia)
Forward and imaginative neo soul with the deep glow of a lava lamp.
**The Necks - Body (ReR)**
Just when you think The Necks have covered just about every angle for their meditative improvisations, they return with a slightly different perspective. Body's insistent but fluttery groove hints at Laughing Stock-era Talk Talk.
The Nels Cline 4 - Currents, Constellations (Blue Note)
Nels Cline's new band has a dream line-up - a dual guitar frontline with Cline and Julian Lage, ably supported by a nimble rhythm section of Scott Colley and Tom Rainey. This is biting, nimble improvisation.
The Other Years - The Other Years (No Quarter)
The duo of Anna Krippenstapel (fiddle player for Joan Shelley) and Heather Summers play absorbing bare bones American folk music with grace and poise.
The Sea and Cake - Any Day (Thrill Jockey)
Bright and driving alternative guitar rock with laser sharp melodies.
The Skiffle Players - Skiff (Spiritual Pajamas)
The brilliant collaborative project helmed by Neal Casal and Cass McCombs yields a second superb of wild narratives and reframed traditions.
The Wave Pictures - Look Inside Your Heart (Moshi Moshi)
The Wave Pictures - Brushes With Happiness (Moshi Moshi)
One of the UK's most prolific and best indie bands, The Wave Pictures continue to refine their oddball songwriting over the course of two albums this year. Brushes With Happiness is the looser, weirder of the two, recorded in just one day.
Theotis Taylor - Something Within Me (Big Legal Mess)
A gospel singer and pianist from Georgia who had garnered a substantial reputation without ever releasing a full length album - until now. Something Within Me augments a rediscovered recording from 1979 with additional accompaniment and is a superb showcase for Taylor's resonant gospel blues.
Thom Yorke - Suspiria (XL)
Appropriately eerie and evocative soundtrack for Luca Guadagnino's reinterpretation of Suspiria shows that Yorke can play Jonny Greenwood at his own game.
Thumbscrew - Ours/Theirs (Cuneiform)
Companion albums from the outstanding, adventurous trio of Michael Formanek, Tomas Fujiwara and Mary Halvorson, the first featuring original compositions and the second devoted to radical reinterpretations. A great example of a band making the jazz tradition malleable.
Tigercats - Pig City (El Segell del Primavera)
Another of the most surprising, playful and inventive UK indie bands make effective forays into Afrobeat-influenced rhythms.
Tim Garland - Weather Walker (Edition)
The great saxophonist and composer continues to explore new contexts for his impressive composition and arrangement skills - here with a new orchestral work with inspirational roots in the Lake District.
Tim Hecker - Konoyo (Sunblind Music)
Hecker's best work since Ravedeath, 1972 - Konoyo finds him working with a gagaku group put together by Tokyo musician Motonori Miura, using electronics to manipulate some intriguing, traditional acoustic sounds in fascinating and empathetic ways.
Tim Rutili and Craig Ross - 10 Seconds To Collapse (Jealous Butcher)
The second collaboration between the Califone frontman and Craig Ross is something of a duopoly between insistent, melodic classic rock and gently manipulated folk music.
**Tirzah - Devotion (Domino)**
Radical, refracted and warped pop music that is also open and tender. Bits of it remind me of Leila's unfairly forgotten masterpiece 'Like Weather', which is clearly no bad thing.
Tomberlin - At Weddings (Saddle Creek)
Beautiful spare songs and the condition of youth.
Tom Ward and Adam Fairhall - Sussurus (Madwort)
Studio recording from the improvising duo, brilliantly utilising both space and sound to create a shifting range of moods and feelings. Brilliant track titles too!
Tori Freestone and Alcyona Mick - Criss Cross (Whirlwind)
Another excellent duo recording characterised by idiosyncratic ideas and inspired playfulness. The superb vocalist Brigitte Beraha guests on two tracks.
Tracyanne and Danny - Tracyanne and Danny (Merge)
Collaboration between two singer-songwriters - Camera Obscura's Tracyanne Campbell and Crybaby's Danny Coughlan. Melodic and imbued with honey drenched classic pop influences. A little subtler and less ebullient than Campbell's work with Camera Obscura.
Trampled By Turtles - Life Is Good On The Open Road (Thirty Tigers)
Modern bluegrass of a piece with Old Crow Medicine Show.
Traveller - Western Movies (Refuge Foundation For The Arts)
Country rock supergroup comprised of Robert Ellis, Cory Chisel and Jonny Fritz.
Trembling Bells - Dungeness (Tin Angel)
The Glasgow band continue to craft a freewheeling, disorientating and discombobulating blend of folk, medieval, psychedelic, rock and improvised music that feels removed from time.
Tropical Fuck Storm - A Laughing Death In Meatspace (Joyful Noise)
Very weird and wonderful deconstructed rock.
Tune-Yards - I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life (4AD)
For me, the least effective of Merrill Garbus' albums so far (and one that seems to be consciously reaching for a wider audience) - but this is still at the more unusual and experimental end of modern pop music and it still packs a rhythmic punch.
Ty Segall - Fudge Sandwich (In The Red)
Magnificent slacker rock covers album.
**Tyshawn Sorey - Pillars (Firehouse)**
Tyshawn Sorey is not a musician to do anything by halves, or to make concessions to an audience's ease of access. Pillars is a monumental creation comprising three CDs and four hours worth of deeply patient, meditative, ritualistic and innovative modern music, blending composition and improvisation in increasingly creative ways.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Sex and Food (Jagjaguwar)
Inspired, psychedelic antipop capturing the chaos and confusion of modern living.
Vaudou Game - Otodi (Hot Casa)
One of the most striking world music albums of 2018, Otodi is named after the long dormant studio in Togo at which it was recorded.
**Wayne Shorter - Emanon (Blue Note)**
Wayne Shorter's remarkable late career period has been characterised by his finding of new ways of presenting his iconic compositions. Emanon is a gargantuan triple disc set capturing a performance of Shorter's superb quartet in London and one disc comprising a collaboration with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. The set also comes with a graphic novel penned by Shorter himself. The full set is expensive and sadly there is no digital version, or indeed any music to sample online. One has to respect Shorter's choices here, but it's a shame I can only include the all-too-brief album trailer. At 85, Shorter is still arguably the greatest living musician, and has closed 2018 by receiving a greatly deserved Kennedy honour.
Virginia Wing - Ecstatic Arrow (Fire)
Recorded in Switzerland with Misha Hering (who also worked on the two A Grave With No Name albums on which I contribute drums and percussion), this is wide ranging and distinctive song craft, with the added inspirations drawn from Yellow Magic Orchestra and Fourth World.
Weeping Bong Band - Weeping Bong Band (Feeding Tube)
Yes there's actually a band called Weeping Bong Band and yes they sound much as you might expect.
White Denim - Performance (City Slang)
Yes they draw heavily (and perhaps a little reverently) from the past, but White Denim execute this music so skilfully that they remain an exciting proposition.
Will Oldham - Songs of Love and Horror (Drag City)
Never one to shy away from revisiting his back catalogue (his songs live and breathe to the extent that he rarely plays them the same way twice), Will Oldham here delivers unadorned and touching acoustic versions of older songs, including three of his most enduring (I See A Darkness, Ohio River Boat Song and New Partner).
Willard Grant Conspiracy - Untethered (Loose)
Stark and haunting final work from the much-missed Robert Fisher.
Willie Hightower - Out of the Blue (Ace)
77 year old rediscovered soul singer returns in excellent voice with a superb set of new southern soul material, produced by 95 year old Quinton Claunch. Remarkable.
Witch Prophet - The Golden Octave (88 Days of Fortune)
Fascinating, wide ranging debut from the Toronto singer-songwriter.
Wolfgang Muthspiel - Where The River Goes (ECM)
Beautiful compositions performed and developed by an all star band (Brad Mehldau, Larry Grenadier, Ambrose Akinmusire, Eric Harland).
Wume - Towards The Shadow (Northern Spy)
Third album from the Baltimore duo, but the first to cross my radar, blending tight grooves with kosmische influences.
Xylouris White - Mother (Bella Union)
George Xylouris and Jim White return with another strange and thrilling meeting of musical minds.
**Yo La Tengo - There's A Riot Going On (Matador)**
As wonderful as they undoubtedly are, it's maybe been a bit too easy to take Yo La Tengo for granted over their past few releases. This one, boldly referencing Sly and the Family Stone's pioneering album, is a substantial work, drenched in hazy beauty and emphasising their gifts for simple melody.
Young Fathers - Cocoa Sugar (Ninja Tune)
I'm still not sure how to describe Young Fathers' music, which seems to be their own distinctive blend of modern pop, R&B, soul and hip hop.
Yves Tumor - Safe In The Hands of Love (Warp)
Yves Tumor's first album for Warp is kaleidoscopic.
Mu-Ziq - Challenge Me Foolish (Planet Mu)
Reliably addictive, whimsical electronica from Mike Paradinas.
Last but not least, this Egyptian electronic producer makes abrasive, fractured and challenging music that is also hugely exciting too.
That's it - more than 300 albums released this year that caught my attention. I'm not completely sold on all of them, and some I'm unlikely to return to in future years - but I think there's enough of interest on every release I've included here to invite discussion and thought. Some of this music is truly inspiring.
I'd like to take the opportunity to thank all the people who contributed to this list by recommending me albums I might not otherwise have heard. Also thanks to all the musicians and music journalists I follow on Twitter, who remain a great source of information and new enthusiasms. Onwards to 2019!
No comments:
Post a Comment