2019 In New Music: Half Time Report

It's that time of year again - a half time round-up of all the albums I've heard that I think are at least worthy of your time.

ARTIST	ALBUM TITLE	LABEL
75 Dollar Bill	I Was Real	Tak:til
Adia Victoria	Silences	Atlantic
Aki Takase’s Japanic	Thema Prima	BMC
Aldorande	Aldorande	Favorite Recordings
Alejandro Coello	Percussion Theory	Alejandro Coello
Alex Rex	Otterburn	Tin Angel
Alexander Hawkins	Into The Wind	Intakt
Allison Miller’s Boom Tic Boom	Glitter Wolf	Royal Potato Family
Altin Gun	Gece	Glitterbeat
American Football	LP3	Big Scary Monsters
Anderson.Paak	Ventura	Aftermath Entertainment
Andrew McCormack’s Graviton	The Calling	Ubuntu
Angel Bat Dawid	The Oracle	International Anthem
Angelique Kidjo	Celia	Decca France
Anton Eger	AE	Edition
Art Ensemble Of Chicago	We Are On The Edge: A 50th Anniversary Celebration	PI Recordings
Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba	Miri	Out Here
Bedouine	Bird Songs Of A Killjoy	Spacebomb
Beirut	Gallipoli	4AD
Beth Gibbons & Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra	Henryk Gorecki: Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs)	Domino
Better Oblivion Community Centre	Better Oblivion Community Centre	Dead Oceans
Big Thief	U.F.O.F.	4AD
Bill Callahan	Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest	Drag City
Bill Frisell & Thomas Morgan	Epistrophy	ECM
Bill Mackay	Fountain Fire	Drag City
Billie Eilish	When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?	Interscope
black midi	Schlagenheim	Rough Trade
Boogarins	Sombrou Duvida	OAR
Brad Mehldau	Finding Gabriel	Nonesuch
Branford Marsalis	The Secret Between The Shadow and the Soul	Sony
Brian Krock	liddle	Brian Krock
Bruce Hornsby	Absolute Zero	Thirty Tigers
Bruce Springsteen	Western Stars	Columbia
Burnt Friedman	Musical Traditions in Central Europe - Explorer Series	Nonplace
Calexico and Iron & Wine	Years To Burn	City Slang
Cass McCombs	Tip Of The Sphere	ANTI-
Cassius	Dreems	Toilet Paper/Miko Miko/Caroline International
Caterina Barbieri	Ecstatic Computation	Editions Mego
Chaka Khan	Hello Happiness	Diary/Island
Chemical Brothers	No Geography	Virgin EMI
Chris Forsyth	All Time Present	No Quarter
Chris Potter	Circuits	Edition
Chris Robinson Brotherhood	Servants Of The Sun	Silver Arrow
Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah	Ancestral Recall	Stretch Music/Ropeadope
Cinematic Orchestra	To Believe	Ninja Tune
Clever Austin	Pareidolia	Touching Bass
Cochemea	All My Relations	Daptone
Damon Locks/Black Monument Ensemble	Where Future Unfolds	International Anthem
Daughter Of Swords	Dawnbreaker	Bella Union
Dave Douglas, Uri Caine, Andrew Cyrille	Devotion	Greenleaf
Dave Harrington Group	Pure Imagination, No Country	Yeggs
David DeRose’s Agile Experiments	The Ultimate Guide To Avant-Garde-Step	Agile Experiments
David Torn, Tim Berne, Ches Smith	Son Of Goldfinger	ECM
Death and Vanilla	Are You A Dreamer?	Fire
Deerhunter	Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared?	4AD
Dominic Miller	Absinthe	ECM
Duncan Eagles	Citizen	Whirlwind
Durand Jones and the Indications	American Love Call	Dead Oceans
Earth	Full Upon Her Burning Lips	Sargent House
Ebi Soda	Bedroom Tapes	Sola Terra
Elena Setien	Another Kind Of Revolution	Thrill Jockey
Eli Winter	The Time To Come	Blue Hole Recordings
Elkhorn	Sun Cycle/Elk Jam	Feeding Tube
Elliott Galvin	Modern Times	Edition
Elliott Galvin & Binker Golding	Ex Nihilo	Byrd Out
Ex Hex	It’s Real	Merge
Ezra Collective	You Can’t Steal My Joy	Enter The Jungle
Faye Webster	Atlanta Millionaires Club	Secretly Canadian
Fennesz	Agora	Editions Mego
Filthy Friends	Emerald Valley	Kill Rock Stars
Fire! Orchestra	Arrival	Rune Grammofon
Firefly Burning	Breathe Shallow	Firefly Burning
Flying Lotus	Flamagra	Warp
Forest Management	Passageways	Whited Sepulchre
Garcia Peoples	Natural Facts	Beyond Beyond Is Beyond
Georgia Anne Muldrow	VWETO II	Mello Music Group
Girl Unit	Song Feel	Night Slugs
Guided By Voices	Zeppelin Over China	GBV Inc
Gwilym Simcock	Near and Now	ACT
Hayden Thorpe	Diviner	Domino
Hedvig Mollestad Trio	Smells Funny	Rune Gramofon
Hejira	Thread Of Gold	Lima Limo
Helado Negro	This Is How You Smile	RVNG Intl.
High Aura’d and Josh Mason	Lower Yr Voice	s/r
Hildur Gudnadottir	Chernobyl (Music From The Original TV Series)	HBO/Touch Music
Holly Herndon	PROTO	4AD
Hot Chip	A Bathfull Of Ecstasy	Domino
House and Land	Across The Field	Thrill Jockey
Ibibio Sound Machine	Doko Mien	Merge
Ishmael Ensemble	A State Of Flow	Severn Songs
Jai Paul	Leak 04-13 (Bait Ones)	XL
Jake Xerxes Fussell	Out Of Sight	Paradise Of Bachelors
James Blake	Assume Form	Polydor
Jamila Woods	LEGACY! LEGACY!	Jagjaguwar
Jeff Ballard	Fairgrounds	Edition
Jenny Lewis	On The Line	Warner
Jessica Pratt	Quiet Signs	City Slang
JJ Cale	Stay Around	Because Music
Joe Jackson	Fool	Earmusic
John Turville	Head First	Whirlwind
Jon Collin	Water & Rock Music Volumes 3 - 6	Early Music
Jonny Mansfield	Elftet	Edition
Jonny Nash	Make A Wilderness	Music From Memory
Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society	Mandatory Reality	Eremite
Julia Jacklin	Crushing	Transgressive
Julia Kent	Temporal	The Leaf Label
Julian Lage	Love Hurts	Mack Avenue
Kehlani	While We Wait	WEA International
Kel Assouf	Black Tenere	Glitterbeat
Kelly Finnegan	The Tales People Tell	Colemine
Kelsey Lu	Blood	Columbia
Kevin Morby	Oh My God	Dead Oceans
King Midas Sound	Solitude	Cosmo Rhythmatic
Kyle Bobby Dunn	From Here To Eternity	Past Inside The Present
Lafawndah	Ancestor Boy	Concordia
Lambchop	This (Is What I Wanted To Tell You)	City Slang
Lau	Midnight and Celebration	Reveal
Laura Cannell	The Sky Untuned	Brawl
Laurence Pike	Holy Spring	Leaf
Lee Fields & The Expressions	It Rains Love	Big Crown
Leif	Loom Dream	Whities
Liam Hayes	Mirage Garage	Weird Vacation
Liam Noble	The Long Game	Edition
Little Steven & The Disciples Of Soul	Summer Of Sorcery	Wicked Cool/Universal
Luke Abbott	Music From The Edge Of An Island	FLOAT
Maggie Rogers	Heard It In A Past Life	Polydor
Makasi Batoh	Nowhere	Drag City
Mariee Sioux	Grief In Exile	Night Bloom
Marilyn Mazur’s Shamania	Marilyn Mazur’s Shamania	RareNoise
Mark Lockheart	Days On Earth	Edition
Mary Lattimore & Mac McCaughan	New Rain Duets	Three Lobed
Matmos	Plastic Anniversary	Thrill Jockey
Matthew Herbert Big Band	The State Between Us	Accidental
Maurice Louca	Elephantine	Northern Spy
Mavis Staples	Live In London	ANTI-
Mavis Staples	We’ll Get By	ANTI-
Mdou Moctar	Ilana (The Creator)	Sahel Sounds
Mega Bog	Dolphine	Paradise Of Bachelors
Mekons	Deserted	Glitterbeat
Mercury Rev	Bobbie Gentry’s The Delta Sweete Revisited	Bella Union
Michael Chapman	True North	Paradise Of Bachelors
Miguel Gorodi Nonet	Apophenia	Ubuntu
Mike Walker	Ropes	Market Square
Mr. Tophat	Dusk To Dawn	Twilight Enterprise
Nakhane	You Will Not Die	BMG France
Nick Walters & Paradox Ensemble	Awakening	22a
Nils Lofgren	Blue With Lou	Cattle Track Road
Nivhek	After its own death/walking in a spiral towards house	YELLOWELECTRIC
Nkisi	7 Directions	UIQ/NON Worldwide
Nubiyan Twist	Jungle Run	!K7
Oren Ambarchi, Mark Fell, Will Guthrie, Sam Shalabi	Oglon Day	33 33
Orville Peck	Pony	Sub Pop
Our Native Daughters	Songs Of Our Native Daughters	Smithsonian Folkways
Padang Food Tigers	Wake Up, Mr. Pancake	Blue Hole Recordings
Panda Bear	Buoys	Domino
Paper Tiger	Rogue Planet	Wah Wah 45s
Park Jiha	Philos	Tak:til
Partisans	Nit De Nit	Whirlwind
Patchwork Jazz Orchestra	The Adventures of Mr. Pottercakes	Spark
Pelican	Nightime Stories	Southern Lord
Pile	Green and Gray	Exploding In Sound
Plaid	Polymer	Warp
Pond	Tasmania	Marathon Artists
Pure Bathing Culture	Night Pass	Infinite Companion
Puto Tito	Carregando A Vida Atras Das Costas	Principe Discos
Pye Corner Audio	Hollow Earth	Ghost Box
Quelle Chris	Guns	Mello Music Group
Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi	There Is No Other	Nonesuch
Rian Treanor	Ataxia	Planet Mu
Richard Skelton	Border Ballads	Corbel Stone Press
Rickie Lee Jones	Kicks	The Other Side Of Desire/Thirty Tigers
Robert Ellis	Texas Piano Man	New West
Robert Forster	Inferno	Tapete
Ron Gallo	Stardust Birthday Party	New West
Royal Trux	White Stuff	Fat Possum
Rustin Man	Drift Code	Domino
Sacred Paws	Run Around The Sun	Rock Action!
Salif Keita	Un Autre Blanc	Naive/Believe
Sarah Davachi	Pale Bloom	W. 25th/Superior Viaduct
Sarah Louise	Nightime Birds and Morning Stars	Thrill Jockey
Sarah Tandy	Inflection In The Sentence	Jazz re:freshed
School Of Language	45	Memphis Industries
Scopes	Scopes	Whirlwind
Seabuckthorn	Crossing	Eilean
Seamus Blake	Guardians of the Heart Machine	Whirlwind
Sebadoh	Act Surprised	Domino
Seed Ensemble	Driftglass	Jazz re:freshed
Sharon Van Etten	Remind Me Tomorrow	Jagjaguwar
Shiva Feshareki	New Forms	Resist
Slauson Malone	A Quiet Farwell, Twenty Sixteen to Twenty Eighteen	Grand Closing
slowthai	Nothing Great About Britain	Method
smileswithteeth	Care	Never Content
Sneaks	Highway Hypnosis	Merge
Solange	When I Get Home	Columbia
Steve Gunn	The Unseen In Between	Matador
Steve Lacy	Apollo XXI	3qtr/AWOL
Stuart A. Staples	Music For Claire Denis’ High Life	Lucky Dog/City Slang
Sunn O)))	Life Metal	Southern Lord
Sunwatchers	Illegal Moves	Trouble In Mind
Susanna & The Brotherhood Of Our Lady	Garden Of Earthly Delights	SusannaSonata
Swervedriver	Future Ruins	Rock Action!
Teeth Of The Sea	Wraith	Rocket
The Budos Band	V	Daptone
The Comet Is Coming	Trust In The Life Force Of The Universe	Impulse!/UMG
The Delines	The Imperial	Decor
The Dream Syndicate	These Times	ANTI-
The Gloaming	The Gloaming 3	Real World
The Long Ryders	Psychedelic Country Soul	Cherry Red
The O’Jays	The Last Word	S-Curve
The Unthanks	Lines	Rabble Rouser
Theon Cross	Fyah	Gearbox
These New Puritans	Inside The Rose	Infectious/BMG
Thom Yorke	Anima	XL
Tim Hecker	Anoyo	sunblind music
Tom Cawley	Catenaccio	Ubuntu
Tori Freestone Trio	El Mar de Nubes	Whirlwind
Trish Clowes	Ninety Degrees Gravity	Basho
Vampire Weekend	Father Of The Bride	Columbia
Vanishing Twin	The Age Of Immunology	Fire
VEIN Trio	Symphonic Bop	Double Moon
Vijay Iyer & Craig Taborn	The Transitory Poems	ECM
Vula Viel	Do Not Be Afraid	Vula Viel (s/r)
Wadada Leo Smith	Rosa Parks: Pure Love	Tum
Weyes Blood	Titanic	Sub Pop
White Denim	Side Effects	City Slang
William Basinski	On Time Out Of Time	Temporary Residence
William Brittelle	Spiritual America	Nonesuch
William Tyler	Goes West	Merge
Willie Nelson	Ride Me Back Home	Sony
Y La Bamba	Mujeres	Tender Loving Empire