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

2018 in New Music: A Top 20

For those of you interested in what might be my absolute favourites of the year:

20. Richard Thompson - 13 Rivers
19. Tirzah - Devotion
18. Hieroglyphic Being - The Red Notes
17. Anton Hunter - Article XI
16. Brigid Mae Power - The Two Worlds
15. Gwenifer Raymond - You Were Never Much Of A Dancer
14. Flying Machines - New Life
13. Ry Cooder - The Prodigal Son
12. Steve Tibbetts - Life Of
11. Dirty Projectors - Lamp Lit Prose
10. Red River Dialect - Broken Stay Open Sky
9. Domenico Lancelloti - The Good Is A Big God
8. Mary Lattimore - Hundreds Of Days
7. Eiko Ishibashi - The Dream My Bones Dream
6. Cory Smythe - Circulate Susanna
5. Park Jiha - Communion
4. The Necks - Body
3. Mary Halvorson - Code Girl
2. Dan Weiss - Starebaby
1. Low - Double Negative

2018 in New Music: Part 5

This is the final part!

Sloth Racket - A Glorious Monster (Luminous) 
Cath Roberts' gestural, impressively interactive improvising group continues to go from strength to strength, veering from playful mischief making to substantive force. Thematic preoccupations with animals notable.



Sonar with David Torn - Vortex (RareNoise) 
David Torn is such a versatile musician and it's great to hear his multi-faceted approach to guitar playing and live looping in a very different context from his recent solo work.



Sons of Kemet - Your Queen Is A Reptile (Impulse!)
Line-up and label changes seemed to drive Shabaka Hutchings' most successful project further, engaging with deep political and social concerns (attacking the hereditary nature of the British monarchy and celebrating the roles of black women) with steadfast, relentlessly kinetic music. It's been really pleasing to see this band reach wider attention this year, from the Mercury nomination to scoring Wire magazine's album of the year.



SOPHIE - Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides (Transgressive)
Adventurous, questing and subversive pop music.



Stefan Schulze - System Tribe (WhyPlayJazz)
I'm grateful to Chris Elcombe from the BBC for including this in the Late Junction year end list as this is an important late discovery that sits very neatly alongside Kelly Moran's Ultraviolet in intriguing approaches to prepared piano music. System Tribe is vibrant, restless, inquisitive music that really does sound like clockwork.



Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - Sparkle Hard (Domino)
One of Malkmus' strongest post-Pavement works, neatly combining his psych-rock preoccupations with the more angular and unpredictable aspects of his work.



Steve Hauschildt - Dissolve (Ghostly International)
The Ghostly International label has a had a phenomenal 2018, and this thoughtful, reflective and detailed ambient work is a major contribution to that.



Steve Lawson and Pete Fraser - Restless (Bandcamp)
For all of the moanings about the internet in 2018 - here is one of the great things it has enabled: This live improvisation between two outstanding musicians was captured in Birmingham on the 25th November and released via Bandcamp before the year was out. I've long admired Steve Lawson's approach to music (and his willingness to discuss it on social media) and Pete Fraser is a hugely versatile musician with a brilliant range of inspirations. The combination yields fascinating and often surprising results.



**Steve Tibbetts - Life Of (ECM)**
The superb guitarist returns with an album of mostly concise, gently evocative pieces accompanied by his own stately piano playing, the hand percussion of Marc Anderson and the cello and drones of Michelle Kinney.



Stuart A. Staples - Arrythmia (Lucky Dog/City Slang) 
Something of a departure for Staples in the immediate context of his solo work but something that makes more sense in the lineage of Tindersticks' soundtrack work, this album consists of four pieces, two of which are long (one very long and constructed from studio improvisations).



Sunwatchers - Sunwatchers II (Trouble In Mind) 
Glorious, incandescent jam band rock with added skronk.



Supersilent - 14 (Rune Gramofon)
Still one of the best and most significant improvising units in Europe. But is it jazz? (!!)



Sweet Billy Pilgrim - Wapentak (self released) 
Now a very different proposition from the group that received a Mercury nomination for Twice Born Men, Wapentak finds a more collaborative Tim and Jana focusing on song craft and compelling vocal harmonies, and occasionally veering into inspired groove-heavy tangents.



Szun Waves - New Hymn To Freedom (Leaf)
An intriguing supergroup featuring pastoral electronica producer Luke Abbott, Jack Wyllie from Portico Quartet and Laurence Pike, the inventive drummer from PVT. The resulting meditative, synth heavy music is refreshingly far from anything these musicians have done before.



Teresa Winter - What The Night Is For (The Death Of Rave)
Deeply unsettling and nightmarish dissonant crescendos.



Thalia Zedek Band - Fighting Talk (Drag City)
Another set of daring, excoriating music from Thalia Zedek, who continues to breathe new, brave life into the rock band format.



Thandi Ntuli - Exiled (Self released)
A substantial and assured work from the South African pianist and vocalist.



The Body - I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer (Thrill Jockey)
Superb title presaging some heavy and visceral music.



The Breeders - All Nerve (4AD)
There could hardly have been a more welcome comeback in 2018, and All Nerve is refreshingly, bracingly alive.



The Cradle - Bag of Holding (NNA Tapes)
Beautiful, delicately ornate song narratives from New York musician Paco Cathcart.



The Dead Tongues - Unsung Passage (Psychic Hotline)
This one seems to have slipped under the radar a bit, but it's a wonderfully captivating set of country tinged songs.



The Good, The Bad and The Queen - Merrie Land (Parlophone)
Damon Albarn's detractors remain vocal, but this strange mix of English folklore and myth making with the Afrobeat grooves of Tony Allen is undeniably potent and mysterious.



The Internet - Hive Mind (Columbia)
Forward and imaginative neo soul with the deep glow of a lava lamp.



**The Necks - Body (ReR)**
Just when you think The Necks have covered just about every angle for their meditative improvisations, they return with a slightly different perspective. Body's insistent but fluttery groove hints at Laughing Stock-era Talk Talk.



The Nels Cline 4 - Currents, Constellations (Blue Note)
Nels Cline's new band has a dream line-up - a dual guitar frontline with Cline and Julian Lage, ably supported by a nimble rhythm section of Scott Colley and Tom Rainey. This is biting, nimble improvisation.



The Other Years - The Other Years (No Quarter)
The duo of Anna Krippenstapel (fiddle player for Joan Shelley) and Heather Summers play absorbing bare bones American folk music with grace and poise.



The Sea and Cake - Any Day (Thrill Jockey)
Bright and driving alternative guitar rock with laser sharp melodies.



The Skiffle Players - Skiff (Spiritual Pajamas)
The brilliant collaborative project helmed by Neal Casal and Cass McCombs yields a second superb of wild narratives and reframed traditions.



The Wave Pictures - Look Inside Your Heart (Moshi Moshi)
The Wave Pictures - Brushes With Happiness (Moshi Moshi) 
One of the UK's most prolific and best indie bands, The Wave Pictures continue to refine their oddball songwriting over the course of two albums this year. Brushes With Happiness is the looser, weirder of the two, recorded in just one day.





Theotis Taylor - Something Within Me (Big Legal Mess)
A gospel singer and pianist from Georgia who had garnered a substantial reputation without ever releasing a full length album - until now. Something Within Me augments a rediscovered recording from 1979 with additional accompaniment and is a superb showcase for Taylor's resonant gospel blues.



Thom Yorke - Suspiria (XL)
Appropriately eerie and evocative soundtrack for Luca Guadagnino's reinterpretation of Suspiria shows that Yorke can play Jonny Greenwood at his own game.



Thumbscrew - Ours/Theirs (Cuneiform)
Companion albums from the outstanding, adventurous trio of Michael Formanek, Tomas Fujiwara and Mary Halvorson, the first featuring original compositions and the second devoted to radical reinterpretations. A great example of a band making the jazz tradition malleable.




Tigercats - Pig City (El Segell del Primavera)
Another of the most surprising, playful and inventive UK indie bands make effective forays into Afrobeat-influenced rhythms.



Tim Garland - Weather Walker (Edition)
The great saxophonist and composer continues to explore new contexts for his impressive composition and arrangement skills - here with a new orchestral work with inspirational roots in the Lake District.



Tim Hecker - Konoyo (Sunblind Music)
Hecker's best work since Ravedeath, 1972 - Konoyo finds him working with a gagaku group put together by Tokyo musician Motonori Miura, using electronics to manipulate some intriguing, traditional acoustic sounds in fascinating and empathetic ways.



Tim Rutili and Craig Ross - 10 Seconds To Collapse (Jealous Butcher)
The second collaboration between the Califone frontman and Craig Ross is something of a duopoly between insistent, melodic classic rock and gently manipulated folk music.



**Tirzah - Devotion (Domino)**
Radical, refracted and warped pop music that is also open and tender. Bits of it remind me of Leila's unfairly forgotten masterpiece 'Like Weather', which is clearly no bad thing.



Tomberlin - At Weddings (Saddle Creek)
Beautiful spare songs and the condition of youth.



Tom Ward and Adam Fairhall - Sussurus (Madwort)
Studio recording from the improvising duo, brilliantly utilising both space and sound to create a shifting range of moods and feelings. Brilliant track titles too!



Tori Freestone and Alcyona Mick - Criss Cross (Whirlwind)
Another excellent duo recording characterised by idiosyncratic ideas and inspired playfulness. The superb vocalist Brigitte Beraha guests on two tracks.



Tracyanne and Danny - Tracyanne and Danny (Merge)
Collaboration between two singer-songwriters - Camera Obscura's Tracyanne Campbell and Crybaby's Danny Coughlan. Melodic and imbued with honey drenched classic pop influences. A little subtler and less ebullient than Campbell's work with Camera Obscura.



Trampled By Turtles - Life Is Good On The Open Road (Thirty Tigers)
Modern bluegrass of a piece with Old Crow Medicine Show.



Traveller - Western Movies (Refuge Foundation For The Arts)
Country rock supergroup comprised of Robert Ellis, Cory Chisel and Jonny Fritz.



Trembling Bells - Dungeness (Tin Angel)
The Glasgow band continue to craft a freewheeling, disorientating and discombobulating blend of folk, medieval, psychedelic, rock and improvised music that feels removed from time.



Tropical Fuck Storm - A Laughing Death In Meatspace (Joyful Noise)
Very weird and wonderful deconstructed rock.



Tune-Yards - I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life (4AD)
For me, the least effective of Merrill Garbus' albums so far (and one that seems to be consciously reaching for a wider audience) - but this is still at the more unusual and experimental end of modern pop music and it still packs a rhythmic punch.



Ty Segall - Fudge Sandwich (In The Red)
Magnificent slacker rock covers album.



**Tyshawn Sorey - Pillars (Firehouse)**
Tyshawn Sorey is not a musician to do anything by halves, or to make concessions to an audience's ease of access. Pillars is a monumental creation comprising three CDs and four hours worth of deeply patient, meditative, ritualistic and innovative modern music, blending composition and improvisation in increasingly creative ways.



Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Sex and Food (Jagjaguwar)
Inspired, psychedelic antipop capturing the chaos and confusion of modern living.



Vaudou Game - Otodi (Hot Casa)
One of the most striking world music albums of 2018, Otodi is named after the long dormant studio in Togo at which it was recorded.



**Wayne Shorter - Emanon (Blue Note)**
Wayne Shorter's remarkable late career period has been characterised by his finding of new ways of presenting his iconic compositions. Emanon is a gargantuan triple disc set capturing a performance of Shorter's superb quartet in London and one disc comprising a collaboration with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. The set also comes with a graphic novel penned by Shorter himself. The full set is expensive and sadly there is no digital version, or indeed any music to sample online. One has to respect Shorter's choices here, but it's a shame I can only include the all-too-brief album trailer. At 85, Shorter is still arguably the greatest living musician, and has closed 2018 by receiving a greatly deserved Kennedy honour.



Virginia Wing - Ecstatic Arrow (Fire)
Recorded in Switzerland with Misha Hering (who also worked on the two A Grave With No Name albums on which I contribute drums and percussion), this is wide ranging and distinctive song craft, with the added inspirations drawn from Yellow Magic Orchestra and Fourth World.



Weeping Bong Band - Weeping Bong Band (Feeding Tube)
Yes there's actually a band called Weeping Bong Band and yes they sound much as you might expect.



White Denim - Performance (City Slang)
Yes they draw heavily (and perhaps a little reverently) from the past, but White Denim execute this music so skilfully that they remain an exciting proposition.



Will Oldham - Songs of Love and Horror (Drag City)
Never one to shy away from revisiting his back catalogue (his songs live and breathe to the extent that he rarely plays them the same way twice), Will Oldham here delivers unadorned and touching acoustic versions of older songs, including three of his most enduring (I See A Darkness, Ohio River Boat Song and New Partner).



Willard Grant Conspiracy - Untethered (Loose)
Stark and haunting final work from the much-missed Robert Fisher.



Willie Hightower - Out of the Blue (Ace)
77 year old rediscovered soul singer returns in excellent voice with a superb set of new southern soul material, produced by 95 year old Quinton Claunch. Remarkable.



Witch Prophet - The Golden Octave (88 Days of Fortune)
Fascinating, wide ranging debut from the Toronto singer-songwriter.



Wolfgang Muthspiel - Where The River Goes (ECM)
Beautiful compositions performed and developed by an all star band (Brad Mehldau, Larry Grenadier, Ambrose Akinmusire, Eric Harland).



Wume - Towards The Shadow (Northern Spy) 
Third album from the Baltimore duo, but the first to cross my radar, blending tight grooves with kosmische influences.



Xylouris White - Mother (Bella Union)
George Xylouris and Jim White return with another strange and thrilling meeting of musical minds.



**Yo La Tengo - There's A Riot Going On (Matador)**
As wonderful as they undoubtedly are, it's maybe been a bit too easy to take Yo La Tengo for granted over their past few releases. This one, boldly referencing Sly and the Family Stone's pioneering album, is a substantial work, drenched in hazy beauty and emphasising their gifts for simple melody.



Young Fathers - Cocoa Sugar (Ninja Tune)
I'm still not sure how to describe Young Fathers' music, which seems to be their own distinctive blend of modern pop, R&B, soul and hip hop.



Yves Tumor - Safe In The Hands of Love (Warp)
Yves Tumor's first album for Warp is kaleidoscopic.



Mu-Ziq - Challenge Me Foolish (Planet Mu)
Reliably addictive, whimsical electronica from Mike Paradinas.

ZULI - Terminal (UIQ)
Last but not least, this Egyptian electronic producer makes abrasive, fractured and challenging music that is also hugely exciting too.




That's it - more than 300 albums released this year that caught my attention. I'm not completely sold on all of them, and some I'm unlikely to return to in future years - but I think there's enough of interest on every release I've included here to invite discussion and thought. Some of this music is truly inspiring.

I'd like to take the opportunity to thank all the people who contributed to this list by recommending me albums I might not otherwise have heard. Also thanks to all the musicians and music journalists I follow on Twitter, who remain a great source of information and new enthusiasms. Onwards to 2019!