[Falling Down]

It’s that time again.  Millions of songs, albums, mixes and live performances available on phones, computers, CD, cassettes and records.  Impossible to barely scratch the surface but there's so much great music coming out each year.  Here's what's caught my ear in 2018.

Kacy and Clayton - The Siren’s Song.  Kacy and Clayton are second cousins from rural Saskatchewan, Canada.  She’s got a lovely melodic and smoky voice.  He plays a mean guitar.  Their first album Strange Country was, well, strange country folk.  This is too, but it’s more electric and was produced by Jeff Tweedy from Wilco. I think me and W have listed to this more than most other new records this year.  We both love it. They’d be a perfect band for The Roadhouse in Twin Peaks. 

Meg Baird and Mary Lattimore - Ghost Forests.  Meg Baird is the singer in Espers and Mary Lattimore plays the harp.  This collaboration is a mysterious and very warm album of ambient folk. 

Nils Frahm - All Melody. Another one me and W have listened to a lot.  We both like Max Richter, Hans Zimmer, Floating Points and Jon Hopkins.  This album is like listening to them altogether.  Loads of orchestral instruments, a choir and underwater analogue synths all working in harmony.  It’s really beautiful.

Specter - Built to Last.  Quality deep Chicago house from Andres Ordonez on Theo Parrish’s Sound Signature label.  Spacious, instrumental and heavy.   

Gunn Truscinski Duo - Bay Head.  Improvised guitar and drum jams from Steve Gunn and Gregg Truscinski.  I love Steve Gunn so maybe I’m a bit biased, but these simple constructions are really absorbing and dreamy.

Low - Double Negative. I’ll leave the Prof. Popp to wax lyrically about this.  All mangled up via electronics and deconstructed.  It’s brilliant.

Cat Power - The Wanderer.  Chan Marshall’s first album for ages. It’s really understated and enchanting.  All hushed vocals, quiet piano, gentle guitar.  One for when the lights are down low.

Jon Hopkins - Singularity.  Massive epic soundscapes conjuring E flashbacks for elderly, wine sipping, sofa ravers.

Kurt Vile - Bottle It In. Each time I listen to this I think I have hit ’shuffle’ by accident.  It’s so varied and long. Great songwriting and playing. 

Tess Parks and Anton Newcombe - Tess Parks and Anton Newcombe. Another Twin Peaks Roadhouse band candidate.  All dreamy lysergic vocals and reverb drenched surf guitar.

Ryley Walker - Deafman Glance & The Lillywhite Sessions.  Two albums in one year that could be a double LP.  The first is Walker’s own compositions but heavily influenced by the latter which is a cover album of the music that Dave Matthew’s Band recorded with Steve Lillwhite that never saw the light of day other than on bootlegs.  Ryley Walker’s earlier stuff is brilliant but I can never avoid the nagging thought that he was really apeing Nick Drake and John Martyn.  This is much more his own material and is really bright and interesting and reminds me of The Sea and Cake.

Stuff that’s not new that I’ve discovered or was re-issued during the year.

Kimiko Kasai and Herbie Hancock - Butterfly.  This was as rare as hen’s teeth until the re-issue in April.  Recorded in Tokyo in ’79 it features Kasai working through Hancock’s repertoire and is a masterpiece of disco/jazz/funk.  “I thought it was you” - the full version, “Sunlight”, “Butterfly” and a wonderful cover of Stevie Wonder’s “As”.  I absolutely love this album.

Horselords - Interventions.  I went to see them live as I was in the area and a google search and was blown away.  They’re an instrumental avant-rock outfit from Baltimore playing guitar, drums, bass, sax and electronics.  All their songs are intensely noodly, repetitive, krautrock’esque in different time signatures.  Like a jammed ending to a song that goes on for ages and spirals around.  Maddening, brilliant and breathtaking.  They reminded me of Fridge - Keiren Hebden’s math-rock band before he became Four Tet but way more intense.

Bright Phoebus - Lal and Mike Waterson. This classic 1972 folk rock album had had been out of circulation for ages and really hard to find but was re-issued by Domino.  Recorded after the Waterson’s had gone their separate ways.  Brilliant.

Vainqueur - Reductions 1995-1999. Rene Lowe’s seminal dub-techno 12’s collected in one place.  Alongside Basic Channel and M-Series this is the touchstone of Berliner Techno.  Absolute bangers and essential listening.

Looking forward to listening to the UKB massive's contributions 

[moose]

Low - Double Negative. I’ll leave the Prof. Popp to wax lyrically about this.  All mangled up via electronics and deconstructed.  It’s brilliant.

I can't contribute anything new to this, as these days I regrettably spend more time listening to podcasts than music but I'm grateful to you for reminding me of Low.  I saw them live a few times during that incredible run of Secret Name - Things We Lost In The Fire - Trust.  I've had a quick search for excerpts of this new one and it's an incredible evolution.  The same austere beauty but now more redolent of a dystopian horror than a Cormac McCarthy neo-western. 

Thanks to you I will now likely spend at least one night this Christmas drinking scotch whilst listening to the Low - Christmas album and looking sad!  Frankly, I suspect I rarely listen to much music these days because I am afraid of how deeply it can affect me....

[Fiend]

Mostly death metal hth.

[lagerstarfish]

Frankly, I suspect I rarely listen to much music these days because I am afraid of how deeply it can affect me....

similar here, but I have started playing to stuff deliberately (usually whilst doing the washing up) to try to break the seriousness of this slump

not sure I could cope with Just Listening - that would be too much

[moose]

An "avoidance of feeling" tactic can back-fire; I was at the wall today and "Love Will Tear Us Apart" came on....  I started to feel dangerously emotional.  Thankfully it wasn't "Atmosphere".... things could have got messy!   Moose is known for his combat muscles and jacked, thick frame; if I had started blubbing, my fans would have been  shook!

[TobyD]

  Moose is known for his combat muscles and jacked, thick frame; if I had started blubbing, my fans would have been  shook!

Referring to yourself in the third person is a worrying trait. That basically makes you Donald Trump.

[andy popp]

Thanks for such a great list Ben. I've been terrible at listening to new music recently so this is inspiring - lots of stuff that sounds really interesting. Low's "Double Negative" is indeed remarkable - and not just in terms of their own music - and that they should produce it 25 years into their career is something else. Its the soundtrack America needs in 2018. I was lucky enough to see them last month. They play the new songs straight, without all the distortion and deconstruction, revealing that they're actually some of the most beautiful songs they've written.

[36chambers]

Tommy Guerrero - Road to Knowhere. Easy listening, instrumental, guitar based music. I can't really think of the genre right now. You'll get the idea after the first 20 seconds. The first song reminds me a lot of Cymande.



Anyway, this album came out just over a month ago and I've probably listened to it about 30 times now, good vibes. His other stuff is just as good.

[Fiend]

Rolo Tomassi - Time Will Die And Love Will Bury It
Unarguably the most exciting guitar-based release this decade. Beauty and extremity in perfect harmony.


The DJ Producer - Future Incognito
Fantastic intense intelligent hardcore for a 25 year scene stalwart.


Ingested - The Level Above Human
As good as it gets, varied but unrelentingly exhilerating.


Dolphin - Information Asymmetry
Another peerless intelligent hardcore album from a veteran, this time on a more uplifting tip.


Abysmal Torment - The Misanthrope
Malta in the house! Refined, purposeful extremity without any fillers.


Jumping Jack Frost - Chronicles
DnB has been typically high on quality but light on actual albums, this one is classic and palatable dancefloor fun.


Aborted - Terrorvision
Yet another great metal album that shows the depth of quality in this still-flourising scene.

(Incidentally I also saw Rolo, Ingested, Dolphin and Aborted live/DJing, all brilliant)

[jwi]

Kimiko Kasai and Herbie Hancock - Butterfly.  This was as rare as hen’s teeth until the re-issue in April.  Recorded in Tokyo in ’79 it features Kasai working through Hancock’s repertoire and is a masterpiece of disco/jazz/funk.  “I thought it was you” - the full version, “Sunlight”, “Butterfly” and a wonderful cover of Stevie Wonder’s “As”.  I absolutely love this album.

Fantastic! Sounds very Shibuya-kei-esque to me, even if I realise it is the other way around.

[jwi]

Damso
Belgian hip hop artist who doesn't shy away from difficult topics. This one is about paedophilia

[Johnny Brown]

Hookworms - Microshift

Album of the year for me. I've been aware of this Leeds-based psych act for a few years but on brief listens had always been put off by the obtuse unlistenability the genre is often marred by. They've  managed to keep that to a mercifully short single track on Microshift - the rest being a glorious and contemporary meld of krautrock and electro pop which sails impressively close to the mainstream without ever being too obvious. Recognisable influences include Arcade Fire, New Order and Hot Chip. Recommended.

Public Service Broadcasting - White Star Liner

I've always loved the idea of PSB - Krautrock plus archival spoken word recordings - slightly more than the reality, but this EP is up there with their best. Four tracks artfully chart the life of Titanic, worth dedicating your full attention.

Primal Scream - Original Memphis Recordings

Watch the brilliant doc first: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0brzps8
Damn, it's expired. No doubt will repeat soon.

Chris Watson - El Tren Fantasma

Not a new release but one I've just discovered through getting into field recording. This is a masterpiece of composition masquerading as straight recording. I now have a lifetime ambition of dropping 'Divisadero' at 7am at the Works party.

Thanks again FD, will be digging through much of that. Anything like Cymande also sounds good 36C. Fiend, well, you tried.

[fried]

Ty Segall - Freedom's Goblin

Ty cherry picks his way through every imaginable 60s/70s music sub-genre, sprawling double LP. and a Hot Chocolate cover too.

[andy popp]

Late breaking: "Negative Capability" from Marianne Faithful. Aged and ailing, Faithful delivers a pretty brutal set of songs on ageing, loneliness and mortality. Her voice is kind of wrecked but delivers huge emotional clout, and there's sympathetic backing from the likes of Mark Lanegan, Warren Ellis and Nick Cave. Its no barrel of laughs and I expect many will hate, but I love what I've heard so far.

The title is taken from some lines in a letter Keats wrote in 1817 he which he describes how:

"several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement ... I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge."

These are probably the most important lines in English literature for me.

[andy_e]

Vainqueur - Reductions 1995-1999. Rene Lowe’s seminal dub-techno 12’s collected in one place.  Alongside Basic Channel and M-Series this is the touchstone of Berliner Techno.  Absolute bangers and essential listening.

Whoa! Missed that one. Thanks for the tip-off.

[Falling Down]

Hope everyone had a restful Christmas.

I've been enjoying all these recommendations (even some of yours Fiend).  The Marianne Faithful album is really great,   Tommy Guerrero's guitar noodling is very relaxing, the Hookworms and PSB both brill and I'm still working through the rest.

Andy - I've been writing (well trying to write) poetry since the Summer. One of my how-to books illustrates Keats' negative capability in relation to Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem "Windhover' about the kestrel.  It also crops up in Bion whom I'm studying as part of my psychotherapy training.  A bit off topic, but I've been reading the most amazing book called 'The Master and his Emissary' by Iain McGilchrist.

[andy popp]

Andy - I've been writing (well trying to write) poetry since the Summer. One of my how-to books illustrates Keats' negative capability in relation to Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem "Windhover' about the kestrel.  It also crops up in Bion whom I'm studying as part of my psychotherapy training.  A bit off topic, but I've been reading the most amazing book called 'The Master and his Emissary' by Iain McGilchrist.

Fascinating - would love to know more about that. I find it hard to express how important the negative capability concept is to me.

[lagerstarfish]

I find it hard to express how important the negative capability concept is to me.

sorry to deviate from literature here

I draw similarities with my enjoyment of repeatedly performing low grade / easy moves on rock to the extent that I will run out of skin repeating things in pursuit of a smoother feeling rather than going for more ticks or higher grades/difficulty on other rocks -  a pursuit that has little benefit to anyone but me

I regard most of my fishing in a similar way

(many hobbies are like this - self empowerment in a very personal way)

I am unsure whether I have taken a naive interpretation of negative capability or have just misinterpreted it and carried on thinking about it in that way for a long time. Either way, I have spent a long time doing that thing.

[csl]

I've been enjoying.

Aquaduct Ensemble - Improvisations on an Apricot. Not sure what genre it is, and I don't really care. Have listened to this more than anything else this year I think.

Parquet Courts - Wide Awake!

Khruangbin - Con Todo El Mundo

Chip - TEN10

Young Fathers - Cocoa Sugar

Maribou State - Kingdoms in Colour

[andy popp]

I find it hard to express how important the negative capability concept is to me.

sorry to deviate from literature here

I draw similarities with my enjoyment of repeatedly performing low grade / easy moves on rock to the extent that I will run out of skin repeating things in pursuit of a smoother feeling rather than going for more ticks or higher grades/difficulty on other rocks -  a pursuit that has little benefit to anyone but me

I regard most of my fishing in a similar way

(many hobbies are like this - self empowerment in a very personal way)

I am unsure whether I have taken a naive interpretation of negative capability or have just misinterpreted it and carried on thinking about it in that way for a long time. Either way, I have spent a long time doing that thing.

I think the only relevant question is: does it help you make sense of an experience? If so, then that's all that matters.

[lagerstarfish]

I find it hard to express how important the negative capability concept is to me.

sorry to deviate from literature here

I draw similarities with my enjoyment of repeatedly performing low grade / easy moves on rock to the extent that I will run out of skin repeating things in pursuit of a smoother feeling rather than going for more ticks or higher grades/difficulty on other rocks -  a pursuit that has little benefit to anyone but me

I regard most of my fishing in a similar way

(many hobbies are like this - self empowerment in a very personal way)

I am unsure whether I have taken a naive interpretation of negative capability or have just misinterpreted it and carried on thinking about it in that way for a long time. Either way, I have spent a long time doing that thing.

I think the only relevant question is: does it help you make sense of an experience? If so, then that's all that matters.

it does

I was trying to grasp how others might do a similar thing

anyway, this reminded me to do a bit more reading around the subject

thanks 

[al]

Lagers, there's a chapter about neg cap in Oliver burkeman's 'the antidote' its worth a look   
This year my faves; reduxer (alt-j) new energy (four tet) delia derbyshire appreciation society & jamie xx version of we're new here (gill scott heron, it's not new but have just found it!)

[Fiend]

Lagers that was a nice post above. Capturing the beauty of movement.

Since FD wasn't totally appalled by mine, I should throw this in, it's from back in 2015 but I only discovered it in 2018 and it's by far the best thing I've heard this year, I listened to it 6 times in the first week and since then I don't think I've managed to put it on just once, it always gets reloaded:

[lagerstarfish]

Lagers, there's a chapter about neg cap in Oliver burkeman's 'the antidote' its worth a look   

thanks Al

interestingly, I saw you a couple of times today as you were cycling through the city's heart and wished I was suitably placed to say "hi".

Anyway - "Hi" 

[andy popp]

Hi Al!