Natalie Prass - The Future and the Past (ATO)
A second album of delightfully groovy, sassy, saccharine, meticulously arranged pop.
Nathan Bowles - Plainly Mistaken (Paradise of Bachelors)
Nathan Bowles' fourth album is brilliantly realised, juxtaposing various musical traditions to craft a musical contradiction at once forward looking and hermetic.
Nathan Salsburg - Third (No Quarter)
Salsburg is a versatile guitarist who has collaborated with James Elkington and also plays regularly with Joan Shelley. This solo album is a warming and spirited collection of solo guitar music.
Neko Case - Hell-On (ANTI)
I've found this Neko Case album a little harder to negotiate than its most recent predecessors, particularly given its impressive stylistic diversity. Yet it has now started to reveal its own achievements and rewarding pleasures, and Case remains one of the finest singer-songwriters currently at work.
Neneh Cherry - Broken Politics (Smalltown Supersound)
Cherry has been on a major artistic roll since beginning a working relationship with the Smalltown Supersound label. Again working with Kieren Hebden, Broken Politics finds her in ruminative but quietly defiant mode and is rich in small, absorbing details.
Nicole Mitchell - Maroon Cloud (FPE)
Another great American resistance work, this eight part suite from the flautist and composer celebrates the power of the human imagination and its capacity to flourish in dark times. Recorded live at the Sawdust in Brooklyn as part of the John Zorn commissions series, the resulting music is both aching and transcendent. It is worth reiterating again what a great year 2018 has been for radical vocal jazz (Fay Adams is the powerful vocal presence here).
**Noname - Room 25 (Noname)**
Debut album proper from the innovative Chicago rapper. Aquatic sounds and deep grooves underpin the mischievous linguistic manipulation.
Norma Waterson and Eliza Carthy with The Gift Band - Anchor (Topic)
Intergenerational meeting of legendary folk artists that is both playful and deeply affecting.
Norma Winstone, Klaus Gesing, Glauco Venier - Descansado - Songs For Films (ECM)
Winstone remains not just a superb interpreter of song, but also possessed of a rare ability to turn compositions into deeply moving new works with new original lyrics. Her trio with Klaus Gesing and Glauco Venier remains an enrichingly subtle and sensitive unit, capable of communication and empathy. This set focuses on reimaginings of film soundtrack music and the song selection is frequently inspired.
Objekt - Cocoon Crush (PAN)
Painterly, reflective electronica.
Oliver Coates - Shelly's On Zenn-La (RVNG Intl.)
Cellist Oliver Coates continues to operate in a wide range of musical environments and his own work as a composer/performer places him alongside Lucy Railton and Shiva Feshareki in a new generation of artists opening up new possibilities for new music composers. Shelly's On Zenn-La is a nervy, skittering work in search of new vistas.
Oneohtrix Point Never - Age Of (Warp)
Daniel Lopatin's latest finds him focusing on collaboration and sharing of ideas. Some of this feels decidedly dark.
Olivia Chaney - Shelter (Nonesuch)
Olivia Chaney's slight frustration at being categorised as a folk singer has some justification - as second album Shelter presents her as a multi-faceted singer-songwriter and interpreter, capable of crafting direct, honest and affecting performances and arguably more confident accompanying herself at the piano than with guitar.
Orquestra Del Tempo Perdido - Stille (Shhpuma)
Jeroen Kimman's music genuinely does sound unlike anything else. I don't know what it is, but it draws me in.
Pablo Held Trio - Investigations (Edition)
Complex, intricate but thrilling piano trio jazz that moves through a wide range of moods and atmospheres, often within the space of a single composition.
Papa M - A Broke Moon Rises (Drag City)
Papa M - The Piano Sessions (Drag City)
The rehabilitation of David Pajo is something for which we should all be profoundly grateful - his two short works this year were both skeletal and unassuming, but imbued with a grace, determination and imagination with simple foundations.
Pariah - Here From Where We Are (Houndstooth)
First full length album and first release in six years from the DJ and producer results in a multi-faceted, textured and mesmerising work, producing tangible focus from the conventions of abstraction.
**Park Jiha - Communion (Tak:Til)**
**Park Jiha - Philos (Mirrorball Music)**
Two excellent, free spirited albums from the Korean composer, producer and performer blending modern minimalism with traditional instrumentation.
Paul Simon - In The Blue Light (Sony)
2018 saw Paul Simon announce his retirement from international touring, and find an impressive and thoughtful way of revisiting some choice highlights from his back catalogue. Here, Simon's songs are rearranged in rich, jazz-inspired fashion with very rewarding results.
**Pete Lee - The Velvet Rage (Ubuntu)**
The pianist and composer deserved more recognition from this excellent and very personal album - which bravely moves well outside current voguish trends in contemporary jazz to follow its own confident and individual trajectory. Foot tapping grooves blend effortlessly with lush string arrangements and intriguing variety in colour.
Peter Wiegold, Sam Lee and Notes Inegales - Van Diemen's Land (Club Inegales)
Club Inegales in Euston has built a reputation for fostering unexpected and fruitful cross-genre (sometimes cross-art form) collaborations. Sam Lee's appearance resulted in further work with Peter Wiegold and the Notes Inegales ensemble, placing Lee's interpretations of folk ballads in new and intriguing settings.
Phil Cook - People Are My Drug (Merge)
Cook makes a substantial contribution to a number of different artists' work as a sideman and instrumentalist, and is often a crucial presence in the live line-up of Hiss Golden Messenger. His work as a solo singer-songwriter continues to develop - and People Are My Drug is a radiant and luminous set of brilliantly formed songs, many of them simple and direct in the bravest and most assured of ways, well informed in the history of American popular music.
Philip Jeck - Arcade (Touch)
An excellent, vivid long form piece captured at a live performance.
Phosphorescent - C'est La Vie (Dead Oceans)
It's been a while since I've been able to get fully on board with Matthew Houeck's music but this is comfortably the strongest and most evocative Phosphorescent album since Here's To Taking It Easy. There is, nevertheless, a sense that the flirtations with genre and production trickery still sometimes undermine the directness of the songs.
Phronesis - We Are All (Edition)
The restless band continue to make progressive strides on this superb, empathetic seventh album. The music here is often turbulent and dramatic but also at times deeply thoughtful and introspective. Their longevity is a triumph for European jazz.
Pram - Across the Meridian (Domino)
Welcome return after more than ten years for more kitchen sink maximalist hauntings, proving that the loss of a lead singer does not necessarily have to be an insurmountable obstacle.
Punch Brothers - All Ashore (Nonesuch)
Dependably deep and virtuosic modern day folk music, this time self produced by the band.
**Red River Dialect - Broken Stay Open Sky (Paradise of Bachelors)**
For me, one of the most subtly immersive and captivating albums of 2018, its expansive songs often feel like being out on the open seas.
Reinier Bass and Ben Van Gelder with Metropole Orkest - Smash Hits (Basta Music)
Radical and stirring enlarged arrangements of existing compositions recorded at two live performances. With apologies to Jacob Collier, but this is probably my favourite 2018 release involving the Metropole Orkest.
Richard Skelton - Front Variations I and II (Aeolian Editions)
In which Richard Skelton turns his landscape soundtracking skills to the distinctive terrain and atmospheres of Iceland.
Richard Swift - The Hex (Secretly Canadian)
One of the biggest and most surprising losses of 2018, Richard Swift's premature passing has taken a major songwriting talent who really ought to have had time to mature yet further as an artist. Still, The Hex is an album that bottles the essence of Swift's gifts for pop song form, melody and harmony.
**Richard Thompson - 13 Rivers (Proper)**
Arguably Thompson's strongest album since Dream Attic - you know what you're going to get from the master songwriter and guitarist, but this one feels particularly incisive and in the moment.
Robyn - Honey (Konichiwa/Universal)
Some Robyn fans on social media felt disappointed by this - perhaps due to a relative lack of immediate, insistent songs. Instead, there's a sense of hard won experience and longing and the melodies are hazy rather than blinding.
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - Hope Downs (Sub Pop)
Basic, kinetic, urgent, four square rock and roll delivered with verve and skill.
Rosali - Trouble Anyway (Scissor Tail)
One of the year's most beautiful sounding records, underpinning some lush and lyrical songs - a combination of dry and resonant sounds that works really well.
Rosalia - El Mar Querer (Sony Spain)
Modernised pop flamenco from the Spanish star - and, along with Robyn and Christine and the Queens, the best pure pop music of 2018.
Rosanne Cash - She Remembers Everything (Capitol)
If not quite as deep as the remarkable The River and The Thread, She Remembers Everything is still a poignant and insightful collection, delivered with characteristic clarity and understatement from Cash. 'Crossing To Jerusalem' might just be 2018's most important song.
Ross From Friends - Family Portrait (Brainfeeder)
Ghastly moniker aside, this is idiosyncratic, intrepid and artful electronica.
**Roy Montgomery - Suffuse (Grapefruit)**
Supposedly always uncomfortable with his own singing, Roy Montgomery here composes music for some of the most idiosyncratic and innovative vocalists currently at work, including Grouper's Liz Harris, Julianna Barwick and Haley Fohr. The results are predictably awe inspiring.
RP Boo - I'll Tell You What (Planet Mu)
Legendary Footwork pioneer captures the mood.
**Ry Cooder - The Prodigal Son (Caroline International)**
In which Ry Cooder departs from the social and political high concepts of recent albums in favour of a renewed focus on interpretation and making blues and folk tradition live and breathe. This is a natural, unforced and outstanding album.
Ryan Porter - The Optimist (World Galaxy)
Trombonist with the Kamasi Washington LA scene makes impressive, punchy album as leader.
**Ryley Walker - Deafman Glance (Dead Oceans)**
Ryley Walker further develops his tendency for stretching out, his melodies increasingly subsumed within the mood and feel of each song. As ever, his provocative goofiness on Twitter belies his increasingly serious depth as a musician.
Sam Anning - A Field As Vast As One (Earshift)
Bassist/composer Sam Anning is a major presence in Australian jazz, but this subtle, assured and empathetic album is my introduction to his work.
Samba Toure - Wande (Glitterbeat)
The Malian musician has taken the core elements of desert blues and imbued them with a sense of joy and peace. Occasionally, he arguably moves too far to western fusion (Yerfara sounds like The Rolling Stones), but the majority of this album neatly balances tradition with reaching outward.
**Sarah Davachi - Gave In Rest (Ba Da Bing!)**
**Sarah Davachi - Let Night Come On Bells End The Day (Forced Exposure)**
2018 brought two excellent albums for two different labels from the inventive Canadian ambient composer, currently also working on a PhD in Musicology at UCLA. Gave In Rest experiments with Davachi's love for Medieval and Renaissance music, whilst Let Night Come On Bells...focuses on mellotron and organ. These are works that amply reward deep, close listening.
Sarah Louise - Deeper Woods (Thrill Jockey)
Also one half of House and Land, Sarah Louise brilliantly inhabits and revitalises American folk traditions.
Sarathy Korwar and UPAJ Collective - My East Is Your West (Gearbox)
Recorded live at London's Church of Sound, this bold and imaginative album seeks to re-establish and develop cross-cultural relationships between jazz, spirituality and Indian music. Reworking legendary pieces from the likes of Joe Henderson, Alice Coltrane, Abdullah Ibrahim, John McLaughlin and Don Cherry amongst others is a brave move, but Korwar has brought his own skillset and magic to this effective collaboration.
Scott Hirsch - Lost Time Behind The Moon (Scissor Tail)
The former Hiss Golden Messenger member returns with his best solo album to date, brilliantly fusing the primary influences of JJ Cale and Al Green with his own songwriting voice.
Seabuckthorn - A House With Too Much Fire (876627)
Andy Cartwright's superb latest adds some intriguing instrumentation and a meditative, psychedelic tinge to his hypnotic guitar music.
Senyawa - Sujud (Sublime Frequencies)
This duo from Jogjakarta, Indonesia are crafting some pretty extraordinary cross-cultural fusions here, incorporating home-made instruments, Indonesian traditions, heavy distortion and drone metal.
serpentwithfeet - Soil (Secretly Canadian/Tri Angle)
Highly creative blend of pop melody, performance art and the influence of church music from a major musical personality.
**Seun Kuti and Egypt 80 - Black Times (Strut)**
Righteous, infectious groove energy and Seun Kuti's finest album.
Shackleton - Furnace of Guts (Woe to the Septic Heart)
Two typically percussive and idea-filled long-ish pieces from Sam Shackleton, still seemingly more interested in collaborations and shorter form releases than making conventional albums.
**Sidi Toure - Toubalbero (Thrill Jockey)**
Defiant, inspiring and uplifting music from Mali.
Sink Ya Teeth - Sink Ya Teeth (Hey Buffalo)
Slinky, hugely enjoyable old school electropop.
Skee Mask - Compro (Ilian Tape)
Ingenious electronica covering a broad spectrum from light to dark, fusing ambient, house and drum and bass influences.
Sunday, December 30, 2018
Friday, December 28, 2018
2018 in New Music Part 3
J Mascis - Elastic Days (Sub Pop)
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.
Leon Vynehall - Nothing Is Still (Ninja Tune)
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.
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.
Monday, December 24, 2018
2018 in New Music Part 2
**Dan Weiss - Starebaby (Pi Recordings)**
Dan Weiss continues to be one of the most original imaginative drummer/bandleaders in contemporary improvised music, drawing from a wide range of material and from different musical cultures. Starebaby, inspired by David Lynch and Twin Peaks, is a triumphant, agitating, disruptive work fusing jazz, metal and progressive rock, as reliant on its brilliant ensemble (including keyboard players Craig Taborn and Matt Mitchell, guitarist Ben Monder and bassist Trevor Dunn) as it is by Weiss' spidery compositions. There is no other music quite like this.
Daniel Avery - Song For Alpha (Mute)
Avery has described this album as exploring 'the moments in a club when the outside world becomes a little more than an inconsequential thought in the back of your head'. It's electronic music as an accompaniment and complement to the world, rather than an escape from it and it is beautifully realised.
**Daniel Bachman - The Morning Star (Three Lobed)**
A patient and meditative counterbalance to personal transition and political chaos, The Morning Star is one of the year's more demanding and uncompromising albums, but also one of the most rewarding. This is music that transports the listener outside time.
Daniel Blumberg - Minus (Mute)
Daniel Blumberg's journey from the teenage energy of Cajun Dance Party and the murky alt rock of Yuck towards much more personal, distinctive and outsider concerns has been fascinating. Minus brilliantly combines purposefully repetitive and minimal melodies with bursts of creative improvisation. This music is interested in the possibilities of sound, space and texture. Blumberg also uses his voice dynamically and powerfully, and the unpredictable twists and turns create an appropriately uneasy environment.
Daughters - You Won't Get What You Want (Ipecac)
Tense, stark, sometimes industrial sounding brutalist rock.
Dave Holland - Uncharted Territories (Dare2)
If it has sometimes felt as if Dave Holland's compositional voice has become so familiar as to be perhaps comforting, here is an album that places him somewhere very different. Working with the great saxophonist Evan Parker, pianist Craig Taborn, and percussionist Ches Smith, Uncharted Territories is a dense double set of thoughtful, empathetic improvisations in different configurations.
David Byrne - American Utopia (Nonesuch)
The accompanying tour has to go down as one of the greatest live events of the decade, as a result of which perhaps the actual album seemed slightly overlooked. Nevertheless, it's an impressive, typically urbane and quixotic examination of modern culture.
David Crosby - Here If You Listen (BMG)
At 77, Crosby is proving to be more restless and creative than ever, and is currently in the midst of a quite remarkable late career run. Here If You Listen finds him collaborating again with Michael League from Snarky Puppy and the excellent singer-songwriters Becca Stevens and Michelle Willis. Sometimes this music has an hallucinatory or hypnotic quality and sometimes it is more earthy, but it never feels as if Crosby is settling for anything comfortable (even when revisiting Woodstock).
Dead Can Dance - Dionysus (PIAS)
A welcome return with more fusions of traditions with modernism, this time inspired by the Greek God of wine.
Dedekind Cut - Tahoe (Kranky)
One of the finest albums of the year - drones with longing as well as creeping unease.
Demdike Stare - Passion (Modern Love)
Clearest and most atavistic Demdike Stare album for a while.
Dinosaur - Wonder Trail (Edition)
The second long player from Laura Jurd's Mercury nominated band veers away from the Miles Davis fusion era inspirations towards playful experimentation with synths and angular rhythmic phrasing. It sounds like everyone had tremendous fun making this and it's equally exciting to engage with as a listener.
**Dirty Projectors - Lamp Lit Prose (Domino)**
In which Dave Longstreth deftly combines some of the musical concerns that first brought Dirty Projectors to a wider audience circa Rise Above and Bitte Orca with some of the more solipsistic production trickery he has been exploring more recently. The combination is urgent and effective. An impressive roster of guests including Amber Mark, Syd, Empress Of and Robin Pecknold also leave their mark.
**Domenico Lancelloti - The Good Is A Big God (Luaka Bop)**
Great, reflective album of contemporary samba influenced songs, with co-production and arrangement duties from Sean O'Hagen of The High Llamas.
Don't Problem - Don't Problem (Don't Problem)
Striking EP of original music from 8 piece South London based brass band. Heavy grooves, thrilling arrangements - maximum excitement.
Doug Paisley - Starter Home (No Quarter)
Stripped back, clear and deceptively simple country songs.
Dylan Carlson - Conquistador (Sargent House)
Typically slow, doom-laden, epically distorted, heavy tread solo excursions from the Earth guitarist.
Earl Sweatshirt - Some Rap Songs (Tan Cressida/Columbia)
Fragmented, warped, laconic and woozy hip hop.
**Eiko Ishibashi - The Dream My Bones Dream (Drag City)**
One of the year's most distinctive, ambitious and ultimately glorious works, very much occupying its own space in an exciting hinterland between modern composition, avant garde pop and improvisation.
Eleanor Friedberger - Rebound (Frenchkiss)
Unassuming but effective glossy, keyboard-heavy, outsider pop from the former Fiery Furnaces singer-songwriter.
Elephant Micah - Genericana (Western Vinyl)
Recorded with 'discarded or devalued' equipment, Genericana finds Joe O'Connell's ensemble forging a new relationship between the analogue and digital worlds, crafting some patiently unfolding, quietly stirring experimental rock along the way. Reference points - Songs: Ohia, Will Oldham.
Eli Keszler - Stadium (Shelter Press)
An abundance of rapid fire ideas but also somehow teflective and absorbing ninth solo album from the drummer-composer, someone I discovered this year thanks to his work with Laurel Halo. This is Keszler's ninth solo album, so there is plenty more to investigate.
Elliot Galvin - The Influencing Machine (Edition)
Quirky, fidgety contemporary jazz from the pianist (also a member of Dinosaur).
Elvis Costello and The Imposters - Look Now (Concord)
This first new Elvis Costello in aeons draws largely from discarded collaborations, including some further songs written with Burt Bacharach. It's a rich, polished set musically, but also comes with characteristic observational bite.
Elysia Crampton - Elysia Crampton (Break World)
Dazzling, detailed EP from the Brazilian sound collagist. Its liberal, scattershot approach to cultures and genres and cultures helps explore migration, travel and personal history.
Enemy - Enemy (Edition)
This trio of Kit Downes, James Maddren and Petter Eldh makes exceedingly complex, very modern music feel natural and effortless. More ways to refract and reshape the conventional piano trio.
Eric Chenaux - Slowly Paradise (Constellation)
I continued to find Eric Chenaux's warped and disorientating songscapes, reminiscent of some of Arthur Russell's work, a curious source of solace, and Slowly Paradise is one of his strongest.
Erik Friedlander - Thoroughbreds OST (Back Lot Music)
Friedlander's brilliant soundtrack to Thoroughbreds is percussive, driving and combative.
Erland Cooper - Solan Goose (Phases)
Orkney, birds and a majestic, sustained and swooning romanticism.
Espen Eriksen Trio with Andy Sheppard - Perfectly Unhappy (Rune Gramofon)
Very melodic, European chamber jazz.
Ezra Feinberg - Pentimento and Others (Related States)
Gently cascading solo debut from the former Citay member that slowly exerts a magnetic pull.
Fabled - Short Stories (Pictor)
Saxophonist Sam Rapley's band is something of a who's who of contemporary London based jazz - with pianist Matt Robinson, guitarist Alex Munk (who also leads Flying Machines), Conor Chaplin (Dinosaur, also Flying Machines) on bass and the superb Will Glaser on drums. It's a creative hybrid music, drawing from a range of sources to expound on literary themes and it journeys through a range of moods and sensations.
**Fatoumata Diawara - Fenfo (Republic of Music)**
Excellent, outward reaching second album from the Malian singer that also manages to engage fully with contemporary cultural issues (one song calls for an end to the ban on marriages between different ethnic groups).
**Field Music - Open Here (Memphis Industries)**
Peter and David Brewis continue to hone their tradmark sound, blending classic pop melodies with arty, angular grooves and, on this particularly impressive album, intriguing string arrangements. Open Here might be their strongest work to date and it's one from relatively early in the year that I keep returning to again and again.
**Flying Machines - New Life (Ubuntu)**
The much hyped 'new jazz explosion' may have dominated most of the column inches when it came to UK jazz this year, but this is a major contender for my favourite UK jazz album of the year. In working with producer Sonny Johns, Alex Munk's band have crafted an album dominated by improvisation but which still succeeds in using the recording studio as a creative resource. There's an impressive dynamic and textural range here, and the music draws from rock, classical and folk forms too.
Fofoulah - Daega Rek (Glitterbeat)
A greater emphasis on both vocals and electronics makes this second album from the London based group even more adventurous and open minded than their first, drawing as much from dub and club music as from West African rhythms.
Gang Gang Dance - Kazuashita (4AD)
Great to have GGD back after seven years. As ever, it's a heady and genre bending concotion. There's an interesting piece where Brian DeGraw talks about some of the influences on this album here:
https://www.factmag.com/2018/09/15/7-things-that-influenced-gang-gang-dances-triumphant-album-kazuashita/
Garcia Peoples - Cosmic Cash (Beyond Beyond is Beyond)
For all your expansive psych pop needs.
GAS - Rausch (Kompakt)
Another powerful, dark journey from Wolfgang Voigt, creating dense layers of sound until they become overwhelming.
Gaye Su Akol - Istikrarli Hayal Hakikattir (Glitterbeat)
Exploratory contemporary Anatolian rock from the Turkish singer on her second international release.
Gazelle Twin - Pastoral (Anti Ghost Moon Ray)
A very 'of the moment' record in that it uses notions and ideas from English folklore to create something sinister and apocalyptic.
Gemini Sisters - Gemini Sisters (Psychic Troubles Tapes)
John Kolodji of High Aura'd and Matt Christensen collaborate on this reflective, sensory guitar music.
Georgia Anne Muldrow - Overload (Brainfeeder)
Intricate, surreal and evocative neo soul.
Grouper - Grid of Points (Kranky)
Liz Harris returned after a relative hiatus with this mercilessly concise but breathtakingly beautiful, pure sounding set of haunting miniatures.
Gruff Rhys - Babelsberg (Rough Trade)
An experiment in lush, Jimmy Webb-ish country pop from the Super Furry Animals frontman.
Guided By Voices - Space Gun (Guided By Voices Inc.)
Bob Pollard keeps on going with more of the artful same. It's unlikely to win any new converts at this stage but the faithful can only be delighted,
**Gwenifer Raymond - You Were Never Much Of A Dancer (Tompkins Square)**
Radical folk music with common ground with artists such as Laura Cannell. This music feels traditional and inhabited, but it is mostly a set of remarkable originals from Raymond.
Gyan Riley - Sprig (National Sawdust Tracks)
The great Terry Riley's son is an impressive musician in his own right and Sprig is a fine and warm recording of his guitar compositions.
**H.C. McEntire - Lionheart (Merge)**
H.C. McEntire's set of affecting, graceful country rock songs from a queer perspective is triumphant. Also features a stirling set of special guests including Mary Lattimore, Tift Merritt, William Tyler and the ubiquitous Phil Cook.
Hailu Mergia - Layla Blu (Awesome Tapes From Africa)
A new release from the excellent Awesome Tapes From Africa, this captures the unusual accordion-lead jazz of Washington DC based Ethiopian bandleader Hailu Mergia. Tony Buck from The Necks plays drums.
Haley Hendrickx - I Need To Start A Garden (Mama Bird)
A stark and captivating album of songs celebrating small details and emotional nuances. Hendrickx manages to sound both in touch with folk traditions and remarkably resonant and contemporary at the same time. It's also a great example of reverb being used to bring songs into sharper relief rather than to obfuscate.
Hannah Read - Way Out I'll Wander (Hudson)
Beautiful modern day folk songs from the Scottish singer-songwriter now residing in New York City, sometimes reminiscent of Anais Mitchell or Gillian Welch.
**Harmony Rockets with Peter Walker - Lachesis/Clotho/Atropos (Tompkins Square)**
An all star line-up featuring the great rediscovered Woodstock guitarist Peter Walker, the robust former Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, avant garde guitarist and Wilco member Nels Cline, Jonathan and Grasshopper from Mercury Rev, Jesse Chandler and Martin Keith. It's every bit as majestic and resplendent as you'd expect such a collaboration to be.
Harriet Tubman - The Terror End of Beauty (Sunnyside/Early Future)
I'm slightly ashamed to admit that this is the first time I've heard the progressive jazz trio Harriet Tubman, but I'll definitely be investigating more from their 20 year career on this basis. This is fiery and urgent jazz rock.
Heather Leigh - Throne (Editions Mego)
Heather Leigh and Peter Brotzmann - Sparrow Nights (Trost)
Dramatic, excoriating songs with theatrical vocals and pedal steel.
Leigh's collaboration with the legendary Peter Brotzmann certainly has its predictably unsettling moments, but it also has moments of surprising romanticism and stateliness.
Helena Deland - 'Altogether Unaccompanied' Series (Vols I-IV) (Luminelle)
Not intended as an album, but more a collection of songs that live on their own - they vary from the stripped bare and unadorned to unexpected experiments with electronics, but always in service to Deland's intrepid melodies.
Helena Hauff - Qualm (Ninja Tune)
One of the year's best titled albums (Qualm means smoke or fog in German, or a sense of uneasiness in English). Qualm is one of the year's more abrasive and radical electronic albums.
Helena Kay's KIM Trio - Moon Palace (Ubuntu)
The award winning saxophonist's trio neatly blends a rich understanding of the jazz tradition with more turbulent contemporary forms. The music is melodic, thoughtful and compelling. NB: Misha Mullov-Abbado plays bass in the video below but Ferg Ireland plays on the recording.
Henri Texier - Sand Woman (Label Bleu)
Thanks must go to Peter Slavid for pointing me in the direction of this one - an open and expressive example of great European jazz.
Henry Lowther's Still Waters - Can't Believe, Won't Believe (Village Life)
A slight conflict of interest should be declared here as trumpeter Henry Lowther's justly acclaimed album is currently available exclusively from Jazz CDs, where I work for part of the week. Nevertheless, it's essential to recognise that Henry remains one of the UK's most significant musicians - adaptable to a wide range of contexts, and his compositions here are calmly authoritative.
http://www.jazzcds.co.uk/artist_id_113/cd_id_2090
**Henry Threadgill 14 or 15 Kestra: Agg - Dirt...and More Dirt (Pi Recordings)**
Two typically questing, cerebral and ambitious long form works from the pioneering saxophonist, flautist and composer.
**Hieroglyphic Being - The Red Notes (Soul Jazz)**
In a year that seemed to amplify and highlight the musical lineage and innovation of Chicago, Jamal Moss' latest album for Soul Jazz made a substantial contribution, drawing from both acid house and experimental and improvised music. Comfortably some of the best dance music of 2018.
High Aura'd - If I'm Walking In The Dark - I'm Whispering
High Aura'd and Asama - Oil Pourer (Noble Rot)
John Kolodji can lay some claim to being 2018's most prolific and consistent artists - I enjoyed three of his project this year (see also Gemini Sisters).
Hilary Woods - Colt (Sacred Bones)
The former JJ72 bassist explores entirely different, unexpected and more intimate concerns on this excellent album of meditative ambient, atmospheric, ethereal folk pop.
Hop Along - Bark Your Head Off, Dog (Saddle Creek)
Excellent, dynamic, rhythmically driving self produced third album from the alt-rock band with little respect for genre boundaries. Also thematically timely in its exploration of 'man's misuse of power'.
How To Dress Well - The Anteroom (Fat Cat)
Designed to play as a single piece, Tom Krell's fifth album of manipulated electro soul is his most ambitious and elaborate to date.
Ian William Craig - Thresholder (Fat Cat)
A collection of material spanning the period of Vancouver singer/composer Ian William Craig's first three albums and typically aching, haunting and magical.
Idris Ackamoor and The Pyramids - An Angel Fell (Strut)
Improvised music that is both in the moment and transcendent, powerfully addressing necessary contemporary themes.
**Ingrid Laubrock - Contemporary Chaos Practices - Two Works For Orchestra With Soloists (Intakt)**
This new work from the saxophonist and composer is both dramatic and cerebral and feels like a major artistic statement.
Imarhan - Temet (City Slang)
Very strong, rhythmically driving second album from the Tuareg band from Algeria.
Insecure Men - Insecure Men (Fat Possum)
Sleazy low budget electro pop.
Israel Nash - Lifted (Loose)
A widescreen, shimmering take on country rock.
Itasca - Morning Flower (Dove Cove)
Excellent, contemplative cassette only release from Kayla Cohen.
**Ivo Neame - Moksha (Edition)**
At times Ivo Neame's grooviest and most immediate music, but also characteristically willing to explore musical ideas in great depth - an entirely irresistible recording.
Dan Weiss continues to be one of the most original imaginative drummer/bandleaders in contemporary improvised music, drawing from a wide range of material and from different musical cultures. Starebaby, inspired by David Lynch and Twin Peaks, is a triumphant, agitating, disruptive work fusing jazz, metal and progressive rock, as reliant on its brilliant ensemble (including keyboard players Craig Taborn and Matt Mitchell, guitarist Ben Monder and bassist Trevor Dunn) as it is by Weiss' spidery compositions. There is no other music quite like this.
Daniel Avery - Song For Alpha (Mute)
Avery has described this album as exploring 'the moments in a club when the outside world becomes a little more than an inconsequential thought in the back of your head'. It's electronic music as an accompaniment and complement to the world, rather than an escape from it and it is beautifully realised.
**Daniel Bachman - The Morning Star (Three Lobed)**
A patient and meditative counterbalance to personal transition and political chaos, The Morning Star is one of the year's more demanding and uncompromising albums, but also one of the most rewarding. This is music that transports the listener outside time.
Daniel Blumberg - Minus (Mute)
Daniel Blumberg's journey from the teenage energy of Cajun Dance Party and the murky alt rock of Yuck towards much more personal, distinctive and outsider concerns has been fascinating. Minus brilliantly combines purposefully repetitive and minimal melodies with bursts of creative improvisation. This music is interested in the possibilities of sound, space and texture. Blumberg also uses his voice dynamically and powerfully, and the unpredictable twists and turns create an appropriately uneasy environment.
Daughters - You Won't Get What You Want (Ipecac)
Tense, stark, sometimes industrial sounding brutalist rock.
Dave Holland - Uncharted Territories (Dare2)
If it has sometimes felt as if Dave Holland's compositional voice has become so familiar as to be perhaps comforting, here is an album that places him somewhere very different. Working with the great saxophonist Evan Parker, pianist Craig Taborn, and percussionist Ches Smith, Uncharted Territories is a dense double set of thoughtful, empathetic improvisations in different configurations.
David Byrne - American Utopia (Nonesuch)
The accompanying tour has to go down as one of the greatest live events of the decade, as a result of which perhaps the actual album seemed slightly overlooked. Nevertheless, it's an impressive, typically urbane and quixotic examination of modern culture.
David Crosby - Here If You Listen (BMG)
At 77, Crosby is proving to be more restless and creative than ever, and is currently in the midst of a quite remarkable late career run. Here If You Listen finds him collaborating again with Michael League from Snarky Puppy and the excellent singer-songwriters Becca Stevens and Michelle Willis. Sometimes this music has an hallucinatory or hypnotic quality and sometimes it is more earthy, but it never feels as if Crosby is settling for anything comfortable (even when revisiting Woodstock).
Dead Can Dance - Dionysus (PIAS)
A welcome return with more fusions of traditions with modernism, this time inspired by the Greek God of wine.
Dedekind Cut - Tahoe (Kranky)
One of the finest albums of the year - drones with longing as well as creeping unease.
Demdike Stare - Passion (Modern Love)
Clearest and most atavistic Demdike Stare album for a while.
Dinosaur - Wonder Trail (Edition)
The second long player from Laura Jurd's Mercury nominated band veers away from the Miles Davis fusion era inspirations towards playful experimentation with synths and angular rhythmic phrasing. It sounds like everyone had tremendous fun making this and it's equally exciting to engage with as a listener.
**Dirty Projectors - Lamp Lit Prose (Domino)**
In which Dave Longstreth deftly combines some of the musical concerns that first brought Dirty Projectors to a wider audience circa Rise Above and Bitte Orca with some of the more solipsistic production trickery he has been exploring more recently. The combination is urgent and effective. An impressive roster of guests including Amber Mark, Syd, Empress Of and Robin Pecknold also leave their mark.
**Domenico Lancelloti - The Good Is A Big God (Luaka Bop)**
Great, reflective album of contemporary samba influenced songs, with co-production and arrangement duties from Sean O'Hagen of The High Llamas.
Don't Problem - Don't Problem (Don't Problem)
Striking EP of original music from 8 piece South London based brass band. Heavy grooves, thrilling arrangements - maximum excitement.
Doug Paisley - Starter Home (No Quarter)
Stripped back, clear and deceptively simple country songs.
Dylan Carlson - Conquistador (Sargent House)
Typically slow, doom-laden, epically distorted, heavy tread solo excursions from the Earth guitarist.
Earl Sweatshirt - Some Rap Songs (Tan Cressida/Columbia)
Fragmented, warped, laconic and woozy hip hop.
**Eiko Ishibashi - The Dream My Bones Dream (Drag City)**
One of the year's most distinctive, ambitious and ultimately glorious works, very much occupying its own space in an exciting hinterland between modern composition, avant garde pop and improvisation.
Eleanor Friedberger - Rebound (Frenchkiss)
Unassuming but effective glossy, keyboard-heavy, outsider pop from the former Fiery Furnaces singer-songwriter.
Elephant Micah - Genericana (Western Vinyl)
Recorded with 'discarded or devalued' equipment, Genericana finds Joe O'Connell's ensemble forging a new relationship between the analogue and digital worlds, crafting some patiently unfolding, quietly stirring experimental rock along the way. Reference points - Songs: Ohia, Will Oldham.
Eli Keszler - Stadium (Shelter Press)
An abundance of rapid fire ideas but also somehow teflective and absorbing ninth solo album from the drummer-composer, someone I discovered this year thanks to his work with Laurel Halo. This is Keszler's ninth solo album, so there is plenty more to investigate.
Elliot Galvin - The Influencing Machine (Edition)
Quirky, fidgety contemporary jazz from the pianist (also a member of Dinosaur).
Elvis Costello and The Imposters - Look Now (Concord)
This first new Elvis Costello in aeons draws largely from discarded collaborations, including some further songs written with Burt Bacharach. It's a rich, polished set musically, but also comes with characteristic observational bite.
Elysia Crampton - Elysia Crampton (Break World)
Dazzling, detailed EP from the Brazilian sound collagist. Its liberal, scattershot approach to cultures and genres and cultures helps explore migration, travel and personal history.
Enemy - Enemy (Edition)
This trio of Kit Downes, James Maddren and Petter Eldh makes exceedingly complex, very modern music feel natural and effortless. More ways to refract and reshape the conventional piano trio.
Eric Chenaux - Slowly Paradise (Constellation)
I continued to find Eric Chenaux's warped and disorientating songscapes, reminiscent of some of Arthur Russell's work, a curious source of solace, and Slowly Paradise is one of his strongest.
Erik Friedlander - Thoroughbreds OST (Back Lot Music)
Friedlander's brilliant soundtrack to Thoroughbreds is percussive, driving and combative.
Erland Cooper - Solan Goose (Phases)
Orkney, birds and a majestic, sustained and swooning romanticism.
Espen Eriksen Trio with Andy Sheppard - Perfectly Unhappy (Rune Gramofon)
Very melodic, European chamber jazz.
Ezra Feinberg - Pentimento and Others (Related States)
Gently cascading solo debut from the former Citay member that slowly exerts a magnetic pull.
Fabled - Short Stories (Pictor)
Saxophonist Sam Rapley's band is something of a who's who of contemporary London based jazz - with pianist Matt Robinson, guitarist Alex Munk (who also leads Flying Machines), Conor Chaplin (Dinosaur, also Flying Machines) on bass and the superb Will Glaser on drums. It's a creative hybrid music, drawing from a range of sources to expound on literary themes and it journeys through a range of moods and sensations.
**Fatoumata Diawara - Fenfo (Republic of Music)**
Excellent, outward reaching second album from the Malian singer that also manages to engage fully with contemporary cultural issues (one song calls for an end to the ban on marriages between different ethnic groups).
**Field Music - Open Here (Memphis Industries)**
Peter and David Brewis continue to hone their tradmark sound, blending classic pop melodies with arty, angular grooves and, on this particularly impressive album, intriguing string arrangements. Open Here might be their strongest work to date and it's one from relatively early in the year that I keep returning to again and again.
**Flying Machines - New Life (Ubuntu)**
The much hyped 'new jazz explosion' may have dominated most of the column inches when it came to UK jazz this year, but this is a major contender for my favourite UK jazz album of the year. In working with producer Sonny Johns, Alex Munk's band have crafted an album dominated by improvisation but which still succeeds in using the recording studio as a creative resource. There's an impressive dynamic and textural range here, and the music draws from rock, classical and folk forms too.
Fofoulah - Daega Rek (Glitterbeat)
A greater emphasis on both vocals and electronics makes this second album from the London based group even more adventurous and open minded than their first, drawing as much from dub and club music as from West African rhythms.
Gang Gang Dance - Kazuashita (4AD)
Great to have GGD back after seven years. As ever, it's a heady and genre bending concotion. There's an interesting piece where Brian DeGraw talks about some of the influences on this album here:
https://www.factmag.com/2018/09/15/7-things-that-influenced-gang-gang-dances-triumphant-album-kazuashita/
Garcia Peoples - Cosmic Cash (Beyond Beyond is Beyond)
For all your expansive psych pop needs.
GAS - Rausch (Kompakt)
Another powerful, dark journey from Wolfgang Voigt, creating dense layers of sound until they become overwhelming.
Gaye Su Akol - Istikrarli Hayal Hakikattir (Glitterbeat)
Exploratory contemporary Anatolian rock from the Turkish singer on her second international release.
Gazelle Twin - Pastoral (Anti Ghost Moon Ray)
A very 'of the moment' record in that it uses notions and ideas from English folklore to create something sinister and apocalyptic.
Gemini Sisters - Gemini Sisters (Psychic Troubles Tapes)
John Kolodji of High Aura'd and Matt Christensen collaborate on this reflective, sensory guitar music.
Georgia Anne Muldrow - Overload (Brainfeeder)
Intricate, surreal and evocative neo soul.
Grouper - Grid of Points (Kranky)
Liz Harris returned after a relative hiatus with this mercilessly concise but breathtakingly beautiful, pure sounding set of haunting miniatures.
Gruff Rhys - Babelsberg (Rough Trade)
An experiment in lush, Jimmy Webb-ish country pop from the Super Furry Animals frontman.
Guided By Voices - Space Gun (Guided By Voices Inc.)
Bob Pollard keeps on going with more of the artful same. It's unlikely to win any new converts at this stage but the faithful can only be delighted,
**Gwenifer Raymond - You Were Never Much Of A Dancer (Tompkins Square)**
Radical folk music with common ground with artists such as Laura Cannell. This music feels traditional and inhabited, but it is mostly a set of remarkable originals from Raymond.
Gyan Riley - Sprig (National Sawdust Tracks)
The great Terry Riley's son is an impressive musician in his own right and Sprig is a fine and warm recording of his guitar compositions.
**H.C. McEntire - Lionheart (Merge)**
H.C. McEntire's set of affecting, graceful country rock songs from a queer perspective is triumphant. Also features a stirling set of special guests including Mary Lattimore, Tift Merritt, William Tyler and the ubiquitous Phil Cook.
Hailu Mergia - Layla Blu (Awesome Tapes From Africa)
A new release from the excellent Awesome Tapes From Africa, this captures the unusual accordion-lead jazz of Washington DC based Ethiopian bandleader Hailu Mergia. Tony Buck from The Necks plays drums.
Haley Hendrickx - I Need To Start A Garden (Mama Bird)
A stark and captivating album of songs celebrating small details and emotional nuances. Hendrickx manages to sound both in touch with folk traditions and remarkably resonant and contemporary at the same time. It's also a great example of reverb being used to bring songs into sharper relief rather than to obfuscate.
Hannah Read - Way Out I'll Wander (Hudson)
Beautiful modern day folk songs from the Scottish singer-songwriter now residing in New York City, sometimes reminiscent of Anais Mitchell or Gillian Welch.
**Harmony Rockets with Peter Walker - Lachesis/Clotho/Atropos (Tompkins Square)**
An all star line-up featuring the great rediscovered Woodstock guitarist Peter Walker, the robust former Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, avant garde guitarist and Wilco member Nels Cline, Jonathan and Grasshopper from Mercury Rev, Jesse Chandler and Martin Keith. It's every bit as majestic and resplendent as you'd expect such a collaboration to be.
Harriet Tubman - The Terror End of Beauty (Sunnyside/Early Future)
I'm slightly ashamed to admit that this is the first time I've heard the progressive jazz trio Harriet Tubman, but I'll definitely be investigating more from their 20 year career on this basis. This is fiery and urgent jazz rock.
Heather Leigh - Throne (Editions Mego)
Heather Leigh and Peter Brotzmann - Sparrow Nights (Trost)
Dramatic, excoriating songs with theatrical vocals and pedal steel.
Leigh's collaboration with the legendary Peter Brotzmann certainly has its predictably unsettling moments, but it also has moments of surprising romanticism and stateliness.
Helena Deland - 'Altogether Unaccompanied' Series (Vols I-IV) (Luminelle)
Not intended as an album, but more a collection of songs that live on their own - they vary from the stripped bare and unadorned to unexpected experiments with electronics, but always in service to Deland's intrepid melodies.
Helena Hauff - Qualm (Ninja Tune)
One of the year's best titled albums (Qualm means smoke or fog in German, or a sense of uneasiness in English). Qualm is one of the year's more abrasive and radical electronic albums.
Helena Kay's KIM Trio - Moon Palace (Ubuntu)
The award winning saxophonist's trio neatly blends a rich understanding of the jazz tradition with more turbulent contemporary forms. The music is melodic, thoughtful and compelling. NB: Misha Mullov-Abbado plays bass in the video below but Ferg Ireland plays on the recording.
Henri Texier - Sand Woman (Label Bleu)
Thanks must go to Peter Slavid for pointing me in the direction of this one - an open and expressive example of great European jazz.
Henry Lowther's Still Waters - Can't Believe, Won't Believe (Village Life)
A slight conflict of interest should be declared here as trumpeter Henry Lowther's justly acclaimed album is currently available exclusively from Jazz CDs, where I work for part of the week. Nevertheless, it's essential to recognise that Henry remains one of the UK's most significant musicians - adaptable to a wide range of contexts, and his compositions here are calmly authoritative.
http://www.jazzcds.co.uk/artist_id_113/cd_id_2090
**Henry Threadgill 14 or 15 Kestra: Agg - Dirt...and More Dirt (Pi Recordings)**
Two typically questing, cerebral and ambitious long form works from the pioneering saxophonist, flautist and composer.
**Hieroglyphic Being - The Red Notes (Soul Jazz)**
In a year that seemed to amplify and highlight the musical lineage and innovation of Chicago, Jamal Moss' latest album for Soul Jazz made a substantial contribution, drawing from both acid house and experimental and improvised music. Comfortably some of the best dance music of 2018.
High Aura'd - If I'm Walking In The Dark - I'm Whispering
High Aura'd and Asama - Oil Pourer (Noble Rot)
John Kolodji can lay some claim to being 2018's most prolific and consistent artists - I enjoyed three of his project this year (see also Gemini Sisters).
Hilary Woods - Colt (Sacred Bones)
The former JJ72 bassist explores entirely different, unexpected and more intimate concerns on this excellent album of meditative ambient, atmospheric, ethereal folk pop.
Hop Along - Bark Your Head Off, Dog (Saddle Creek)
Excellent, dynamic, rhythmically driving self produced third album from the alt-rock band with little respect for genre boundaries. Also thematically timely in its exploration of 'man's misuse of power'.
How To Dress Well - The Anteroom (Fat Cat)
Designed to play as a single piece, Tom Krell's fifth album of manipulated electro soul is his most ambitious and elaborate to date.
Ian William Craig - Thresholder (Fat Cat)
A collection of material spanning the period of Vancouver singer/composer Ian William Craig's first three albums and typically aching, haunting and magical.
Idris Ackamoor and The Pyramids - An Angel Fell (Strut)
Improvised music that is both in the moment and transcendent, powerfully addressing necessary contemporary themes.
**Ingrid Laubrock - Contemporary Chaos Practices - Two Works For Orchestra With Soloists (Intakt)**
This new work from the saxophonist and composer is both dramatic and cerebral and feels like a major artistic statement.
Imarhan - Temet (City Slang)
Very strong, rhythmically driving second album from the Tuareg band from Algeria.
Insecure Men - Insecure Men (Fat Possum)
Sleazy low budget electro pop.
Israel Nash - Lifted (Loose)
A widescreen, shimmering take on country rock.
Itasca - Morning Flower (Dove Cove)
Excellent, contemplative cassette only release from Kayla Cohen.
**Ivo Neame - Moksha (Edition)**
At times Ivo Neame's grooviest and most immediate music, but also characteristically willing to explore musical ideas in great depth - an entirely irresistible recording.
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