[Falling Down]

I think this thread's been running for at least a decade now after Soapy officially kicked it off in 2006.  A year ago I suggested someone younger with more contemporary taste should kick it off and gave CSL a nudge on Twitter earlier last week when he said he'd got his list ready but no-one's taken up the baton so here goes. I'm not young anymore, tend to listen to music closely at home on the stereo and it's mostly much older music so I have no idea why I'm kicking off this thing again.. Can someone else kick it off next year?

2016 has been a great year for music.  A poignant one with David Bowie, Prince, Lemmy, Leonard Cohen among the greats and other less well known luminaries like Phife Dawg, Alan Vega & David Mancuso and many others passing over to the other side. I suspect the next two years will be an even more fertile period with everything that's going on here in the U.K. and the rest of the world.

Here's some stuff that's been bought on vinyl/CD or had repeated playings on Tidal or Spotify. 

Mark Ernestus' Ndagga Rhythm Force - Yermande: Ernestus, one half of Basic Channel and then Rhythm and Sound (all three R&S albums should be in anyone's record collection), aka Maurizio and founder of Berlin's Hardwax takes a headlong deep dive into Senegalese and Gambian music.  It's absolutely mesmerising and I can't stop playing it. It's pulling in multiple directions Polyrhythms, Dub, Techno... elastic body/head music.  Although these aren't in any order, if I had to pick a #1 to keep this would be it.  Go to "Simbe" or "Yermande" if you're on Spotify but play it loud or on headphones for when the kick drum drops in.

Idris Ackamor and the Pyramids - We be all Africans:  Its great to see and hear spiritual free-jazz getting an airing with a new audience appreciating it and this year thanks to Kamasi and  the coverage on the radio and TV.  Ackamor is a time served  workman touring with Cecil Taylor back in the 70's and this band las played together back then.  Think Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis and Sun-RA restrung for 2016 and you get the picture.  There's more good stuff in the reissues down below...

Steve Gunn - Eyes on the lines.  I didn't quite take to this at first after the really laid-back last two albums but it's really grown on me.  Just great songs, immaculate musicianship and a lovely vibe.  Joint top with the first one...  went to see him the other week and he's really grown in confidence, warmth and style.  Brill...

Shirley Collins - Lodestar.  The matriarch of English folk-music records her first album for over thirty years.  Her voice has deepened and is richer for it.  She's ancient.. and the backing musicians have a long history and respect for her.  Cyclone/Coil's Steven Thrower and Oysterband's Ian Keary set the stage perfectly.. dark evenings with a glass of something in front of the fire.

Zomby - Ultra: Post dub/rave/garage/bass/jungle.  Ghost memories and fragments from banging clubs and drowsy dawns a long time ago with the urban bass sounds of now.  The standout is S.D.Y.F which someone else described as like finding an LTJ Bukem mixtape covered in tobacco under the leather seat of an old M3.   

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - The Skeleton Tree.  Most of these songs were already written around the time of his son's tragic death and follow the musical template of Push the Sky Away with Warren Ellis calling the shots on arrangements. A tragic, raw and powerful piece of work in mourning but radiating and moving towards the light.

Jenny Hval - Blood Bitch: A visceral concept album anchored around her impressive vocal range from whispered poems to jagged angry hymns.  Powerful stuff.

22a - I've bought a load of 12"'s from this independent label this year.  Broken beats, hip-hop, UK garage, downbeat house, jazz, and noodly instrumentals all on the same records.  All brilliant.  Checkout Henry Wu, Jeen Bassa, Tenderlonius, Al Dobson Jr, Dennis Ayler on Soundcloud or Spotify.  All this stuff would have disappeared off the shelves from Mark Jones' Store record shop in Sheffield in the mid 90's.  I love it all... proper party music and nice to listen too at home with a big glass of red and a loaded vape mod.

Wilco - Schmilco:  The best album for years with Nel's Cline in top form on guitar following his decade long Lovers project.  Amazing songs, brilliantly arranged and recorded.  Cry all Day is Ace.

Shackleton with Ernesto Tomasani: Shackleton continues his departure from bass/dub into really esoteric territory with this double pack 12" that's more Coil/NWW/Psychic TV/Current 93.  Really strange.

David Bowie - Blackstar. I kind of missed out on Bowie being born in 1970.  Most of my mates a few years older quite rightly hold him in very high regard but he's never been part of my musical canon as my first exposure was him rolling around in the sea on China Girl, singing on Live Aid, Tin Machine or his later stuff and knowing all the big songs through the radio and driving around in my school mate's big fan bohemian Mum's Volvo as a kid.  I just don't know his albums inside out like some do so & whilst I appreciated the outpouring earlier this year I didn't feel the oh-my-god-Bowie's-died thing that gripped the media.  It's a brilliant album anyway, and I kind of get it now..

A Tribe Called Quest - We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service: A really late entry; 26 years on from their first album; a fine tribute to Phife Dawg who features heavily before his untimely death earlier this year ; a fitting curtain call and wake-up-call for a post Obama political landscape.



Individual tunes and albums of note... De La Soul - Royalty Capes off And the Anonymous Nobody; Ryley Walker - Roundabout off Golden Sings That Have Been Sung; Cate le Bon - Crab Day; King Creosote - The Long Fade off Astronaut Meets Appleman; Aphex Twin - Cheetah; Solange - A Seat at the Table; Sex Swing - Sex Swing (only just heard this and I suspect it might have been in the top ones); Fat White Family - Songs for our Mothers.

Re-issues, yet again there's loads of stuff that's way better than anything that's new.

Mariah - Utukata No Hibi.  An amazing 80's Japanese album ranging from electro pop through prog rock to jazz funk.  It's really fantastic... seriously.

Betty Davis - The Columbia Years 68-69.  Betty Davis heads into the studio with Miles Davis as producer with Jimi Hendrix's and Miles' backing bands to record a smoking album of heavy soul and funk originals.  It's amazing..  especially listing to Miles and Betty discussing the recordings on the intros and outros.  Betty and Miles married shortly afterwards.  Essential...

Bert Jansch - Avocet.  This is a flipping' amazing record that could have only come out of the time it was recorded.  A concept album about birds recorded with various luminaries from ape tangle, the Albion Band and Fairport convention.  A folk album on the surface, it plumbs ambient, cosmic jazz and rock.  If you have a record player buy the double box set. 

Twin Peaks soundtrack - A remastering and pressing of Angelo Badalament and David Lynch's score pressed on heavy 180g vinyl.  It's beautiful.

Jack Rose - All his original LP's. Red Horse, White Mule; Opium Music; Raag Manifestos and Kensington Blues all reissued on CD and pressed on new vinyl.  I was lucky enough to be around the first time so have them already but if you like instrumental weird Americana, post-Fahey finger style drone then these are utterly essential to own. 

Dadawah - Peace and Love.  Ras Michael's Rasta hymn. Mind expanding spiritual dub. Perhaps the greatest cosmic reggae album of all time?

Manuel Gottsching - E2-E4: THE ur-techno record made by AshRa Temple guitarist Gottsching in 1984. An hour long minimalist electronic and guitar track named after a chess move.  Amazing stuff.

John Coltrane - Offering Live at Temple.  A recently unearthed high quality live recording of JC's performance at Temple Uni in Philly not long before he passed away.  Probably his greatest live performance. The apotheosis of his traditional and wild atomic free jazz.  At one point in the transcendental version of My Favourite Things he pulls his sax away and starts ululating into the microphone, beating his chest in ecstatic abandon.  Maybe one for the fans but my god it's utterly breathtaking, makes your hair stand on end and brings tears to the eyes.

Julius Eastman- Feminine.  My mate who runs a record label Frozen Reeds in Finland released this to great acclaim this year.  Eastman was a black, gay contemporary/modernist composer who wrote and recorded some incredible music and yet died destitute in 1990.  Sleighbells, minimalist, clapping, hypnotic - the only known recording. 

This Heat - Deceit, This Heat, Health and Efficiency.  Re-releases of the seminal albums of the Camberwell experimental post-rock band that linked early 70's Krautrock with post-punk, industrial noise and industrial music.  No This Heat  = No PiL, No Birthday Party, No Wire, No Pop Group, No LSD Soundsystem, No Sonic Youth, No Swans etc. Etc.

Steve Reich - Four Organs; loads of cool stuff on Norway's Jazz Aggression label; Axiom.

Loads of stuff I've not heard, post them up.  Happy Christmas and best wishes for the New Year.

[nai]

Cheers FD, this thread means I'm only 12 months out of date rather than somewhere between three and five decades.

[Durbs]

Cheers for the tips, several I've not even heard of on there...

In no particular order, stuff what I have been listening to:

Gold Panda, Good Luck and Do Your Best - Delightful beepy-clicky music.

Radiohead, A Moon Shaped Pool - Not their best, but some standout tracks on there. A final decent recording of True Love Waits is a stonker of a closing track

De La Soul ad the anonymous nobody - A welcome return to form

Other random tracks...

Riton, Rinse & Repeate - Fine minimalist house stuff

Coldcut w/ Roots Manuca, Only Heaven - Top tune

Nothing really's grabbed me this year that leaps to mind...

[dave]

Banks & Steelz - Anything But Words
De La Soul - and the Anonymous Nobody
Last Shadow Puppets - Everything You've Come To Expect

And I should also mention Daft Punk's new single "Get Lucky". Sound of the summer.

[cjsheps]

James Blake - "The Colour in Anything". More intelligent glitch-piano sweetness to follow up his debut Overgrown.

Bon Iver - "22, a Million" . Divisive, and sometimes the production gets a bit much. All the same, has some really beautiful moments.

Chance the Rapper - "Coloring Book" .  Joyous and raising stuff - a nice contrast to a lot of the uninspired rap of 2016. On frequent rotation in the Obama household.

[fatneck]

Cheers Ben! As ever, I feel woefully out of touch and mainstream 

Thanks for the Steve Gunn shout though...

In the last year, and in no particular order, I have enjoyed;

Tame Impala - Currents - proper bo...
The Tallest Man on Earth - Dark Bird is Home (technically a 2015 release) - lovely
Christine and the Queens - didn't expect to like this but did..
Bon Iver - 22, A Million - excellent
Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Denial - A real grower this one!

Dare I say that after being forced to listen to it by the Noodle, I also  quite enjoyed Purpose by Justin Bieber?

[chillax]

Agree with mentions of James Blake, Bowie, and Radiohead. Been getting really into what seems like a new wave of jazz, getting away from both standards, and more muso-centric tunes (e.g. stuff by the likes of Mehldau, The Bad Plus, Kurt Rosenwinkel even though I do love it). Loads of good stuff coming out of the UK. Hoping some of that filters over to Ireland, thought theres some good stuff brewing over here. My favourites recently have been:

Gogo Penguin - Man Made Object
The Comet Is Coming - Channel The Spirits (my favourite album of the year)
Sons of Kemet - Lest We Forget What We Came Here To Do
Bill Laurance - Aftersun
Vulfpeck - The Beautiful Game (Vulf also get my vote for best gig of the year, they're incredible)

[slackline]

And I should also mention Daft Punk's new single "Get Lucky". Sound of the summer.

 

[tomrainbow]

A fantastic year for music.

Dawn Richard - Redemption Best track: LA

Kevin Morby - The Singing Saw Best Track: I Have Been To The Mountain

Katie Gately - Color Best Track: Tricky as they are all so good, maybe Lift

King - We Are King Best Track: The Greatest

Margaret Glaspy - Emotions and Math Best track: Memory Street

Solange - A Seat At The Table Best Track: Don't Touch My Hair

Okkervil River - Away Best Track: Judey On the Street

Meilyr Jones - 2013 Best Track: How To Recognise a Work Of Art

Also, worth checking out: Dele Sosimi - Too Much Information. Amazing.

[SA Chris]

Not listened to much new beyond Last Shadow Puppets

Blossoms - Blossoms - great if you liked early 90s indie.

Green Day - Revolution Radio - more of the same, but still good.

Christine And The Queens – Chaleur Humaine - strangely compelling.

[mr chaz]

Some highlights of mine in no particular order:

Milk Teeth - Vile Child
Bon Iver - 22, A Million
Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
Man Made - TV Broke My Brain
A Tribe Called Quest - We Got It From Here
The Japanese House - no album as of yet
Kaytranada - 99.9%
James Blake - The Colour In Anything

[bigtuboflard]

A few obvious stand outs in the year from me, and not massively different to a few other peoples too;

A Tribe Called Quest - We Got It From Here
James Blake - The Colour In Anything
GoGo Penguin - Man Made Object
DJ Shadow- The Mountain Will Fall
Badbadnotgood- IV
The Cinematic Orchestra - To Believe (only a single but their first release in what feels like a decade)

Also seeing both Cinematic Orchestra and Beth Orton live this year were real highlights. I missed seeing Beth Orton live years ago in Sheffield in about 1996 I think and regretted it for a long time so good to finally close that out, location this year was Manchester Cathedral too which was an excellent venue for an artist like her.

[SA Chris]

Gogo Penguin - Man Made Object

Cheers, missed this.

[Catcheemonkey]

There are some good records listed here. A few others I've enjoyed this year:

M Craft - Blood Moon, really ghostly and intimate late night music

Fanfare Ciocarlia - Onward to Mars, crazy big brass Romanian gypo dance, a fave for chasing the kids round the house to

Parquet Courts - Human Performance, I like the the retro 90s Pavement/Pixies/Sonic Youth vibe of this

Skepta - Konnichiwa, coz I'm down wiv tha kidz cuz

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - EARS, hard work but I got into this in a wonky background music kind of way

Explosions in the Sky - The Wilderness, a real grower

[cjsheps]

Skepta - Konnichiwa, coz I'm down wiv tha kidz cuz

One hundred times yes. I was going to include this but had horrible doubts about whether it came out in 2016 or not. And God help me if I'm ever wrong on the Internet.

[36chambers]

Swing Ting, a Manchester dancehall collective. Everything else pales into insignificance.

[Catcheemonkey]

Skepta - Konnichiwa, coz I'm down wiv tha kidz cuz

One hundred times yes. I was going to include this but had horrible doubts about whether it came out in 2016 or not. And God help me if I'm ever wrong on the Internet.

You had me worried there, but I've checked and it's alright. 

[csl]

Thanks for starting this FD, i had meant to start it following your prompting but some of life's bad bits got in the way.

In no particular order

Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Denial
Anderson Paak - Malibu
Black Marble - It's Immaterial
Junior Boys - Big Black Coat
Parquet Courts - Human Performance
Margo Price - Midwest Farmers Daughter
Hiss Golden Messenger - Heart like a Levee
Whitney - Light up the Lake
Lambchop - FLOTUS
Moodymann - DJ Kicks Compilation

[Wood FT]

I tried to make a list but this track summed up the year for me, featured in the best set I've ever seen by James Ruskin and then played again at the May 13th Sheffield climbers party. A great uplifting track that makes you shake your thing like it ain't no. Grimer - you'll love this.

Floorplan - Tell you no Lie

[Fiend]

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Indicates it was another fucking boss year for drum and bass just like 2015. Which is nice.

Other than that I've really enjoyed intelligently brutal technical death metal from Cattle Decapitation and wall-of-noise industrial hip-hop from Dalek but I think they're both older albums. So I guess this year's albums have to be N-Vitrals "Louder Than A Bomb" and Digital's "Synthesis" 

[Yossarian]

Vaguely by genre:

Epoch - Tycho
Love this. Desperately want to see them live sometime.
For All We Know - Nao
Loved this too...
Low Kii Savage EP - Kiiara
And love this, esp Feels and Tennessee
Roosevelt - Roosevelt
This year's BBQ album.
Zanaka - Jain
Fun French pop...
Malibu - Anderson Paak
Sept 5th - dvsn
Got really into this sort of stuff this year...
Freetown Sound - Blood Orange
Ditto...
I Remember - Aluna George
Post Exotic - Bosco Rogers
Discovered them the other day, and bizarrely they spend half the year living down the road...
Save Yourself - SBTRKT
Glad to see more quality dropped vwls...
III - Moderat
99.9% - Kaytranada
Zawadi - Kimyan Law
Silicon Tare EP - Com Truise

Surf the Web - Daye Jack
Chaos 93 - Ocean Wisdom
Big Bossin Vol 1 - Payroll Giovanni & Cardo Got Wings
A Fistful of Peril - Czarface
Feature Magnetic - Kool Keith
Cut the Body Loose - Astronautalis

Parallax - Phronesis
Brilliant Scandi / UK jazz trio, who I failed to see live multiple times this year. This was recorded in a day at Abbey Road and it's pretty amazing.
Snowmelt - Marius Neset
Together, As One - Dinosaur
UK group lead by trumpeter / composer Laura Jurd. Random radio 3 discovery.
New Direction - Herlin Riley

Mozart String Quartets - Quatuor Van Kuijk
Super talented young French quartet - another random Radio 3 discovery a couple of months back and who I employ via headphones to help recover from child-induced psychosis.
Orphée - Johann Johannsson
Icelandic composer who has scored a few films, and who signed to Deutsche Grammophon for this.

And I loved the Major Lazer / Justin Bieber single Cold Water...

[andy_e]

36 - The Infinity Room is the only one I can think of but it's absolutely incredible and I've listened to it about a billion times.

[dontfollowme]

Albums I've enjoyed this year:

DIIV - Is the Is Are
Gold Panda - Good Luck And Do Your Best
MJ Guider - Precious Systems
Romare - Love Songs: Part Two
Jim James - Eternally Even
The Last Shadow Puppets - Everything You've Come To Expect
Broncho - Double Vanity
Devendra Banhart - Ape in Pink Marble
Tycho - Epoch

[andy popp]

Jesu/Sun Kil Moon - "Jesu/Sun Kil Moon"

I'm not sure I bought anything else new.

[dave]

Badbadnotgood- IV

Will have to check this out - had not come across them but this year I did stumble upon their album they did in 2015 with Ghostface Killah, which is very good.