It’s Young Fathers, but very glad to have King Creosote offering a late in the year scottish challenger
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I’m probably going to go through and randomly highlight a bunch of albums over the next few weeks, but I want to start with one that feels almost completely overlooked.
Colin Miller - Haw Creek
Very melancholic and autumnal.
https://songwhip.com/colinmiller/haw-creek
Here’s a great one I didn’t post in the other thread
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Went for the 5 my phone told me I’ve listened to most (Agriculture, Mandy Indiana, Nabihah Iqbal, The Armed, Yeule) but there were loads of others I could have gone for, liked a lot more new records this year than last. My top 2 is solid, but any of these could have been in the top 5.
Tomb Mold : The Enduring Spirit
Ragana : Desolation’s Flower
Sofia Kourtesis : Madres
Yves Tumour : Praise a Lord Who Chews …
Militarie Gun : Life Under The Gun
Young Fathers : Heavy Heavy
Feverchild : Altering a Memory
Caroline Polachek: Desire, I Want to Turn Into You
Deathcrash : Less
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Weird year this for me. Normally I’ve got either a clear winner in my head, or at least two or three absolutely definite prospects. Lots of good music this year as always of course but I don’t think there have been any obvious classic albums.
I ended up with a list of nine candidates for my top five-
LDR
Mitski
Lil Yachty
Sufjan
Boygenius
Susanne Sundfør
The Clientele
Anhoni
Nabihah Iqbal
Of these only the top two and probably Susanne Sundfør were definitely going to make the cut. Lil Yachty made it too, partly to provide a bit of variety, which left a tough choice for the last place. In the end it came down to Sufjan against boygenius and I had to accept that Sufjan had a greater emotional impact on me. Plenty of others will vote for Boygenius so they’ll live.
Even though I really liked all of those nine albums (and another 6 or 7) none of them really felt like obvious AOTY to me. Went for LDR because it is the closest to that feeling.
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Found loads of EPs and singles this year I’ve adored (Spoon, Jessica Winter, Chalk, mclusky, etc) but not actually found many entire records I love.
Aesop Rock, Killer Mike, billy woods and Jpegmafia were all good but I haven’t really listened to either tons.
Caroline Poliachek, Model Actriz, PJ Harvey, Fever Ray, Young fathers and JOHN I liked, but the album’s as a whole were a bit samey.
Some fun pop stuff. Yeule was the stand out, had a lot of time for chunks of albums by Lana del Rey, Olivia Rodriguez and Carly Rae Jepsen.
Roisin Murphy was shaping up to be a cracker until… 
Still need to listen to CMAT as I love the singles…
Standouts were by far St Pierre Snake Invasion, which is blistering and imaginative. Fusion of proper awesome rock, bits of electronics, chanting, screaming, you name it. It’s one of the most creative rock records I’ve heard in ages.
And by far, my number 1 is Caroline Rose. I simply adore it. You can feel and hear the emotion they put into the record bleeding out of it. It’s one of the best produced and holistic albums I’ve heard in years and I love it. It’ll be one of my favourites of the decade for sure.
Give it a listen!
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I’d say in terms of DiS vote its probably theirs to lose aye, but maybe not quite as clear cut as BC,NR aand Big Thief were last year?
Been working my way through your albums of the year list from earlier in the year, interested to see what new ones are in there.
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TSPSI were probably the best band I’ve seen this year where I haven’t really listened to or bought the album … Only really as I’d already bought two Chat Pile records minutes before (they were the headliner) and ordered the Codeine reissue bundle earlier in the day. I was trying to make sure I didn’t spend about £200 on records in less than 24 hours! I should probably revisit.
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The top 5 is locked in, so here are the next 5 after that.
- Matana Roberts : Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the garden…
Phenomenal experimental jazz/living history lessons. Best of a series that has been more and more revelatory with each release.
- Tele Novella : Poet’s Tooth
Slightly magical, understated and deft baroque pop with a Texas twang to go with it. Knew nothing of them previously, so one of the year’s best and most unexpected surprises for me.
- Teeth of the Sea : Hive
I spent a lot of time earlier in the year listening to Sea Power’s soundtrack for Disco Elysium: The Final Cut. This scratched a similar itch, but the drums go harder and some of the textures are a bit spikier. Very good stuff.
- Chain Whip : Call of the Knife
There’s always a need for a record that, from the second you press play, sounds like a physical force that wants to yank you head-first through a brick wall. This band can’t do anything wrong in that regard.
- Young Fathers : Heavy Heavy
Was a latecomer to the Young Fathers believers group, but I’m all in now, and better late than never. Some absolute bangers on there, and the very best are transcendental.
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Guess I can’t include SZA here?
Could always big it up here!
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I’m voting SZA. If voting opened last year before it release, it’s fair game.
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Was pretty concrete on Boygenius as my AOTY for a long time but now Cmat is seriously a contender. P sure they’ll be top two in some order or another. SZA probably third, and then I gotta sort two from Young Fathers, Caroline Polachek, 100 Gecs, Feist, Fall Out Boy, Sufjan and Suzanne Sundfør.
Carly Rae Jepsen breaks a 5 album streak of being in my top 5. I’m sure she won’t mind tho.
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I think it’s been a really really strong year. Top 5 would be
1, Empty Country: ECII
2, Young Fathers: Heavy, Heavy
3, Wednesday: Rat Saw God
4, Home is Where: The Whaler
5, Dougie Poole: Rainbow Wheel of Death
Honourable mentions to Ratboys, Spanish Love Songs, Strange Ranger, Hotline TNT, Sufjan, Bell Witch and, to my complete surprise, Metallica
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Going by my most-listened, the top three would be Fever Ray, James Holden and Overmono. But there’ve been some fantastic releases the last month or so that I need to spend more time with (Aïsha Devi, Bored Lord, Evian Christ, Gazelle Twin, KAVARI, Space Afrika,…), and others that I know I’ve really enjoyed but need to revisit.
I suspect whittling down to a top 5 will prove difficult.
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Haven’t decided yet but like last year most or all of my top 5 will probably end up being Irish, love to see it
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Reckon my top two are nailed on. Maybe top three. Still a month of music to come, though. Doubt it’ll change tbh, but you never know.
Spent a lot of time commuting this year so I have a lot more than I usually do. Top 4 are pretty much nailed in, going to wait to think about no 5
Need to hold back a few weeks before finalising my top five. Sofia Kourtesis, King Creosote & Hotline TNT have all blown me away over the last month, but want to mitigate any recency bias.
boygenius are the strange one this year for me. According to Last.fm my most played album of the year…and I know I enjoy listening to it when it’s on, but with a couple of exceptions I can’t recall a single melody or song title between plays. For some reason it just doesn’t stick in my head.
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It felt like a very strong year without any across-the-board acclaimed albums by big artists, which in some ways is nice because it often overshadows the mid and low level stuff around this time of year.
Need to juggle some stuff around but off the top of my head I’ll probably use some of
Forest Swords - Bolted
Kelela - Raven
Lana Del Rey - Did You Know etc
Tim Hecker - No Highs
Young Fathers - Heavy Heavy
Anohni - My Back Was A Bridge
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