Here we go again.
Here’s another collection of some of the brilliant new music I’ve discovered during 2019. This collection is mostly for me really since it’s handy to make a record of all the good stuff so that I can revisit it all in future years.
But I hope anyone who comes across this finds something they like in here.
I shake my head when people bemoan the state of modern music without actually going out and listening to any of it. In reality, there’s just too much wonderful stuff out there for you to ever get around to listening to it all.
But as a start why not dip in and try some of this?
I’ve made a top 20 just because, despite the arbitrary nature of it all, ranking stuff is fun. And I’ll probably add a few more albums when I get through the Christmas treat of discovering what I can find on all the other best of year lists.
1) Wand – Laughing Matter
Where on earth did this come from? This is, I think, the fifth album from Ty Segall collaborators Wand. I’d heard some of their early stuff which frankly didn’t do much for me. This, however, is a major, major step-up. Seriously, this is as good as Yo La Tengo. Another touchstone would be Radiohead, this is that big and bold of an album that it definitely merits such comparisons. This is inventive and experimental rock music of the absolute first order. You should give it a listen.
2) The Comet is Coming – Trust in the Life Force of The Deep Mystery/The Afterlife
The Comet is Coming just grabs anything it wants from any genre and throws it seamlessly into the mix in this heady brew of an album that creates its own little world.
Then later in the year, just to take the piss, they drop an album of outtakes that’s as good as anything most people keep as their best work.
3) Nick Cave – Ghosteen
Whereas his last couple of albums were often bleak, this album lifts the sadness over a powerful undercurrent of acceptance. It’s beautiful, deeply moving music, spare in the way only the most powerful artists can be. And it’s ultimately uplifting and full of wonder.
Oh, and do yourselves a favour and subscribe to his Red Hand Files here https://www.theredhandfiles.com/ . He’s basically re-invented how an artist engages with his audience.
4) Craven Faults – Nunroyd Works/Springhead Works
What a discovery this is. There’s an album out early January and that is great news since this is steady, insistent, all-enveloping West Yorkshire electronic music inspired by the 70’s German experimentalists and the industrial history of the locale. Brilliant stuff.
5) Lingua Ignota – CALIGULA
I’ve never heard anything like this. Lingua Ignota is the powerful and visceral creation of classicly trained artist Kristin Hayter. Her subject matter is abuse, that suffered by others and also by herself at the hands of an ex-partner. Not an easy listen then, nor should it be. But it is, by turns, staggeringly beautiful, apocalyptic, horrific, empowering and deeply sad. It’s almost a redefinition of extreme music and, if you have the nerve, I can’t recommend it highly enough.
6) Hey Colossus – Four Bibles
Another band who can’t seem to put a foot wrong. This is another terrific album of inventive and exploratory guitar-based music. England’s best band? Probably.
7) Colored Music – Individual Beauty
This is a reissue of a Japanese album originally released in 1981. What can I say – I love it. I sent it to a few friends who I thought would love it too but it looks like I’m on my own. Help me out – give it a listen and tell me I haven’t further lost my mind. Not convinced? Here’s the Bandcamp writeup.
” An incredible mix of cosmic new wave, unconventional disco, avant-garde synth pop, and hybrid electronic funk, Colored Music is enchantingly unique, a sort of experimental and magnetizing take on David Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy with a psychedelic Haruomi Hosono touch. From the groovy post-punk glam title track to the proto-house dance floor killer “Heartbeat”, Ichiko Hashimoto and Atsuo Fujimoto hit all the right (and sometimes not-exactly-right-but-truly-genius) notes to create the odd and beautiful, an unparalleled audio escape to the best elsewhere you can think of. “
8) Julies Haircut – In The Silence Electric
One of the best bands around dropped this album in 2019. It’s a swirling fever-dream of a thing.
9) The New Pornographers – In The Morse Code of Brake Lights
More brilliance from the world’s best purveyors of power pop. Not much else to say other than to marvel, once again, at their brilliance and consistency.
10) The Quiet Temple – The Quiet Temple
Super-chilled jazz psych.
11) Umwelt – Ecopoiesis/Superior Life Forms
The prolific French producer Umwelt makes fierce electro/techno with a strong futurist twist. This music builds on the legacy of groups like Drexciya to forge forward with super intense, pulsing, floor fillers.
12) Death and Vanilla – Are You a Dreamer?
This excellent Swedish band make dreamy sixties-influenced pop music, very much in a Broadcast mould. The songs are great and this is an album I found myself coming back to again and again.
13) Gnoomes – MU!
Russia’s Gnoomes are one of the most interesting bands out there. They are happy to experiment with the fabric and form of all kinds of sounds and here they bring elements from as far afield as hip-hop into their Krautrock-rooted sound creations.
14) Danny Brown – Uknowhatimsayin?
I know exactly what the mighty Mr. Brown is saying, that’s because nobody else in the universe could possibly hope to match his machine-gun-fire delivery over the kinds of loping, looping, off-kilter beats he skips over with ease. A true original.
15) Craig Leon – Anthology of Interplanetary Folk Music Vol II
This music producer was massively influential in launching the careers of U.S. artists like Blondie, Talking Heads and The Ramones. None of which potted history prepares you for this delightful, well… anthology of interplanetary folk music. That’s exactly what this sounds like. Unique and excellent.
16) Fennesz – Agora
Christian Fennesz is one of ambient and electronic music’s most exploratory and innovative exponents. This is, I think, the best thing he’s ever done. This is active ambience that buzzes and fizzes with life. There’s far too much going on for this to ever be background music.
17) TVAM – TVAM
Just listen to the wonderfully-titled “Porsche Majeure”. Gleeful 80’s synths abound in a great retro/modern combo that’s super catchy and extremely moreish.
18) Rozi Plain – What A Boost
This is a laid-back and extremely catchy Jazz-tinged treat.
19) Angel Olsen – All Mirrors
Bang! Extremely talented artist decides to knock the ball out of the park with a bunch of massive, massive tunes. Essential and hopeful a route to stardom.
20) Uzeda – Quocumque jeceris stabit
I’d never heard of these Italian noisemakers. Perhaps because this is just their third album in 20 years. It’s a marvel of concision too. Eight terse tracks of super-tight noise rock. Whilst comparisons are, of course, reductive, it would definitely help if you thought of Kim Deal fronting Shellac.
Acid Rooster – Acid Rooster
It’s psych, but you know that from the name already don’t you? In fact it’s quite accomplished deep instrumental psych from this promising new band from Leipzig.
Aesop Rock & TOBACCO – Malibu Ken (2019)
The juicy mangled synths of TOBACCO prove to be the perfect backdrop for the dictionary-draining flows of the mighty Aesop Rock.
Alexander Tucker – Guild of the Asbestos Weaver (2019)
This is a very strange concept album from the eclectic Alexander Tucker. He uses repetition to compelling, almost hypnotic effect in this collection of immersive space-folk opuses. I listened to this one a lot.
Beirut – Gallipoli (2019)
I’m not sure what people expect from this artist. He makes excellent wistful Eastern-European tinged music just as he has always done. This is what this is. It’s really great.
Betsayada Machada – Loe Loa (Rural Recordings Under the Mango Tree) (2019)
Exuberant Venezuelan music comprising voices, drums and tons of fun. Wish I’d been there at the party.
Big Brave – A Gaze Among Them
Big Brave continue to develop their “less is more” thesis. Sparse thumps of guitar are interspersed with very human vocals conveying some powerful subject matter.
Blackwater Holylight – Veils of Winter
You run out of categories, don’t you? I do anyway. Good. Categorization is lazy, but, it has to be said, handy. So, this is splendid pastoral doom, if that wasn’t a thing it is now – and, trust me, it’s worth checking out.
Blanck Mass – Animated Violence Mild
Street Horrrsing was probably my favourite album of the first decade of this century. This feller was half-responsible for it. I miss the all-consuming white noise of that earlier creation but this is still a heavily laden table of in-your-face electronics.
Carter Tutti Void – Triumvirate
I was slow to latch on to the appeal of this at first. Then it clicked. These are intense, dubby, electronic workouts that are best digested as a whole. Kind of what you’d expect from members of Throbbing Gristle.
Chris Forsyth – All Time Present
I suspect this guy plays guitar in his sleep. He finds a nice riff, jumps in, tucks up the covers and choogles off into dreamland.
Cult of Luna – A Dawn to Fear
Growly stuff. Very good growly stuff.
Dengue Dengue Dengue – Zenit and Nadir
The drums, the drums! What Peru’s Dengue Dengue Dengue are all about is bringing you hypnotic rhythms and funky, rump-shaking tunes. Great fun.
Elder – The Gold and Silver Sessions
This represents a bit of a departure for Elder, a band that is better known for rocking out a bit more conventionally. Here they set their controls for the heart of the sun and it works a treat, particularly on the epic 18-minute closer.
Follakzoid – I
Good progress here from this mighty Chilean psych outfit. Where their previous releases (I, II, and III) featured long-form creations this is a carefully produced assembly of individual pieces of their sound. The meticulous production presents their music in a new and fascinating way.
Giant Swan – Giant Swan
The duo who call themselves Giant Swan want to be a punk or noise rock band but someone must have locked them away in a room with a synthesiser. This is what they made. It’s mad, but good.
Grey Hairs – Health and Social Care
Super gnarly noise from Nottingham.
Greg Foat – The Mage/The Dreaming Jewels
The prolific Greg Foat was in last year’s list twice with his mate Hampshire. And here’s a couple more outings of super-cool jazz.
Josefin Ohrn and the Liberation – Sacred Dreams
Sweet and lovely poppy psych from this Swedish band. Great tunes, deserving a wider audience.
Juju – Maps and Territory
More deep grooves from this Italian artist. The funkiest psychedelic music around.
Julies Haircut – Music From the Last Command
Everyone seems to be doing soundtracks to old silent movies at the moment. I haven’t actually seen the film that this accompanies but it stands alone just fine, by turns comic and poignant.
Kandodo 3 – K3
“Everything Green’s Gone” is the track title of the year and the Kandodo 3 have made one of the albums of the year here. These are sleepy and spaced instrumental jams that take you to another place.
Kenya Special: Selected East African Recordings from the 1970s & ‘80s
I think this compilation came out a few years ago but, basically, I don’t care. This would be top 5 of this list if it had been released this year. A wonderful collection of Kenyan artists from a little-known golden age of music. I can’t stop playing it.
In researching this I discovered that the issuing label is Soundway Records. They have loads of compilations from all over the place and time which, if anything like this, are a project to drool over.
Kikok – Sauna
Kikok produces busy and bubbly electronic music that rattles along and puts a grin on my face.
Kim Gordon – No Home Record
This is the best solo work I’ve heard from any of Sonic Youth’s mighty ex-members. Without looking like she’s working too hard to do it Kim Gordon has dropped all kinds of modern sound innovation into this to make a stand-out example of modern experimentation. Go on, listen to the first track – absolute class.
Klamp – Klamp
There’s a track on here called “Bongo Dave”, what a title. This is fierce and feral noise rock. Scuzzed out vox, shrieking guitars and lots of attitude.
Kokoko – Fongola
A cracking album of modern African dance music from this Congolese band.
Lana Del Rey – Norman Fucking Rockwell!
I’m the first to admit I’m a bit wary of music that enjoys resounding success and critical acclaim. This reverse snobbery suggests that if everyone likes it then it probably isn’t that good. Terribly elitist, I know, but as it turns out, an alarmingly effective rule.
Anyway, every so often there’s an exception – like this one. This is a great album, well-composed songs, well performed and the treat for me was Del Rey’s lyrics – smart, surprising and knowing.
Leafcutter John – Yes! Come Parade With Us
Another new discovery for me but Leafcutter John has quite a CV, having worked with a diverse collection of interesting and influential artists. This is literate and intricate electronic music without any of the fun taken out. The title track is one the songs of the year. Listen to it.
L’epee – Diabolique
Anton Newcombe is too talented to miss out on an end-of-year list. Here he’s teamed up with actress Emmanuelle Seigner who provides cool-sounding vocals that are a perfect accompaniment to Newcome’s enigmatic rattletrap sixties evocations.
Little Simz – Grey Area
Super English hip-hop. This has won all kinds of accolades, how nice that great music is, at least occasionally, recognised.
Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard – Yn Ol I Annwn
I really like doom metal but it’s probably fair to say that, as a genre, it isn’t always the most inventive. This is a great exception though as this Welsh band build on and expand their sound into all kinds of interesting areas.
Mark Lanegan – Somebody’s Knocking
OK, he’s got one of the best voices ever. I’ve been a fan since his days in the wonderful Screaming Trees. But as a solo artist, I’ve found him a little too serious at times. That’s why this is great. Basically he’s made a late 80’s New Order album in 2019. The sound is that sound with, of course, Lanegan’s amazing gritty voice. And there’s a huge sense of fun. That’s what this is. Fun.
Modern Nature – How to Live
Modern Nature was formed after the end of Ultimate Painting, a sadly underrated act. This is compelling and accomplished Velvets and jazz-influenced music. Recommended.
Moon Duo – Stars Are the Night
Psych-ramblers Moon Duo decide to throw a party. Good for them! They’ve taken their sound and put a bit of dance in it and it works a proper treat.
Mercury Rev – Bobbie Gentry’s The Delta Sweet Revisited
Mercury Rev re-records a country classic with an A-List of the very best female vocalists around.
Monolord – No Comfort
Whisper it, but these Swedish doom-metallers are getting a bit poppy on this, their new album.
Nodding God – Play Wooden Child
A whole album of tinkling almost childlike electronic backdrops over which are laid incomprehensive spoken-word ramblings in some made-up language. Why? I suspect nobody knows. Deeply strange, quite unsettling and pretty funny, all in one.
Pact Infernal – The Gehenna Odyssey
Remember when Witch House was a thing? This lot do. This is dark and spooky stuff.
Paranoid London – PL
A seedy homage to acid house. Thumps, bumps and juicy squelches in all the right places.
Pat Thomas & Kwashibu Area Band – Obiaa!
famous in Ghana, not so much elsewhere. Pat Thomas should get a lot more attention after this belting collection of songs which are ably filled out by the excellent Kwashibu Area Band.
Penguin Cafe – Handfuls Of Night
The latest from these modern chamber classicists is a sleek and accomplished addition to their impressive catalogue.
Prince – Originals
It’s Prince. That’s all you need to know.
Prins Thomas – Ambitions
In which the admirable Prins Thomas continues his adventures into the world of gleaming, immaculate space-house.
Richard Fearless – Deep Rave Memory
Death in Vegas maestro Richard Fearless continues to explore depth -charged, murky house. Some of it is chilly and sparse and some of it properly kicks arse.
Rose City Band – Rose City Band
Country-Psych? Something like that I guess. This is a lovely, relaxed ramble through some nice and comfy countryside.
Saraty Khorwar – More Arriving
This is excellent and inventive modern hip-hop/jazz album from this Indian/English star.
Sex Blender – Hormonizer
Great name, great band. Massive album of high-octane psych-rock. I like it more every time I hear it.
Space Funk – Afro-Futurist Electro Funk in Space 1976-84
The world owes a great debt to Soul Jazz Records for their tireless crate digging and impeccable selections across a vast range of musical eras and genres. Once again they’ve dug up some rare treasure in this belting collection.
Spaceship – Outcrops
An ambient album inspired by and about types of rock. Hang on, where are you going? Might not sound that sexy, I know, but this is really rather good and well worth your time.
Steve Gunn – The Unseen In Between
Another of the USA’s modern royalty of guitar maestros keeps on keeping on with crafting excellent guitar rock.
Sungaze – Light in All of It
Sungaze take what is, I suppose, a well-worn template of woozy country-tinged shoegaze as the basis for their sound. So, no surprises, except that the songs are lovely and the vocals are lovely and the whole thing is, well, lovely.
Sunn 0))) – Life Metal/Pyroclasts
Crack sound engineer Steve Albini is a great fit for Sunn 0)))’s mighty sound and he teases every little buzz and hum out of their monolithic mountain of guitar. Life Metal is tight, Pyroclasts is looser, both are great.
Swervedriver – Future Ruins
Swervedriver’s return has been less lauded by some than that of some of their contemporaries. But I really like this, their second return album. It’s accomplished and catchy shoegazy rock.
Teeth of The Sea – Wraith
This band have roped off their own little corner of modern experimental music and sound quite unique. Categorisation doesn’t work on their complicated, atmospheric music which builds tension brilliantly, sometimes bursting into life and sometimes not.
Terminal Cheesecake – Le Sacre Du Lievre
Weird, weird music from a weird band. This is very different from their last album and pretty much just revels in rolling around in dirty noise and chaos.
The Future Sound of London – Yage 2019
Prolific isn’t the word for these two artists. It just annoys me sometimes that you have to be Hercule Poirot to track down all the stuff they do under different aliases (I just found their “Blackhill Transmitter” work from a few years ago – well worth a look).
So, no surprise that they release and album-length series of reworks of a 1996 single. And, of course, it’s brilliant, strange, psychedelic music.
The Hold Steady – Thrashing Thru the Passion
These Springsteen stalwarts and Minnesota chroniclers have exuberantly relocated their mojo.
The Utopia Strong – The Utopia Strong
Steve Davis; yes that one, the ’80s snooker maestro, joins up with prog luminaries to craft an excellent, exuberant, album of exploratory electronica. Never thought I’d type that sentence. Davis turns out to be a demon at twisting interesting sounds out of analogue synths.
Tomorrow Syndicate – Future Tense
Gleaming Motorik pop music, excellently executed.
Torche – Admission
Nobody has managed to make sludge-rock with a pop sensibility the way Torche have. It works marvellously and this album takes their sound to a few new places as well.
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – Watchmen
Along with Cave and Ellis, these two are the best soundtrackers working at the moment. Their work for Watchmen takes them very close to their home territory with some very NIN-ish industrial electronics.
Underworld: Drift Series
So, Underworld commited to make and release new music every week from last year onwards. This is their first year’s work and there’s some marvellous stuff in there. What a brave move from artists who could happily rest on their laurels. Their collaborations with The Necks are particularly good and it is a shining example of what can be achieved when you’re willing to take risks and challenge yourself.
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Uniform & The Body – Everything That Dies Someday Comes Back
A right nasty racket. If you like your industrial music at the bleeding edge of listenability then give this a go, because it’s very well done.
Vanishing Twin – The Age of Immunology
Vanishing Twin continues to flesh out their imagined world. It’s definitely in a parallel universe, possibly in the ’60s, but it’s a steampunk ’60s where maybe aliens have invaded and all kinds of weird occult stuff are happening.
W.H. Lung – Incidental Music
Named after my favourite Manchester Asian-food-hypermarket, W.H.Lung are a promising new band.
Waste of Space Orchestra – Syntheosis
This splendidly named band is an unholy marriage between Oranssi Pazuzu and Dark Buddha Rising. Basically it answers that burning question, you know the one, “What happens when a black metal and a doom metal band combine to make a progressive rock album.” This is a proper beast of a record.
Zonal – Wrecked
Helpful hint: Don’t go to parties where this is the party music.
Deep, phenomenally grimy, fractured bass music from the Techno Animal collaborators Kevin Richard Martin and Justin Broadrick.