Welcome back, for the fourth year running, to the first of two roundups of 50 and more favourite albums of 2019 as nominated by, and popular with the Song Bar and readers. The second part is here.
As in previous years, this isn’t a countdown to leading to the so-called best album, or reviews, or anything as subjective or as flawed as that, it simply flags them up as worth a listen, and each offers something different, and again the list, which can only ever be a cross-section, reaches across genres, and goes from the mainstream to more obscure. The order is not significant but simply alphabetical by title, and most tracks are chosen as a sample. Feel free to point out different ones.
Richard Dawson – 2020
We start with one of the very finest of the year. The Newcastle multi-instrumentalist who brought out the fantastic Peasant album in 2017, and more recently with the band Hen Ogledd, shone in 2019 with a new solo album of wonderful pathos, subtle ranges of emotion and oddball lyricism, with narratives from the point of view of different characters living difficult, often isolated lives. Dawson moved slightly from his starker, unaccompanied folk style to something slightly more accessible to a non-folk audience, but still remains just as strange and alluringly original with his unusual chord progressions and vocal range. His technique is to fit lyrics to his music, stretching out lines, and in doing so creates a droll, moving delivery. He is a Robert Wyatt of another time. Jogging is perhaps the most rock-rock-pop and tuneful, from the perspective of a depressed person who finds fulfilment in solitary runs, and the song is filled with wonderful lines of passing social commentary, but there are many other moving gems, from Fulfilment Centre, about a trapped factory packer, Two Halves, from the view of a footballer who disappoints his dad, or Black Triangle, where man becomes a UFO enthusiast after seeing a silent shape in an Aldi car park. This album has definitely run and run. Out on Domino.
Richard Dawson – Jogging
Chali 2na and Krafty Kuts – Adventures Of A Reluctant Superhero
Of another genre altogether, ,a very welcome return for the former Jurassic 5 rapper with longtime friend and breakbeat producer Krafty, with their first together LP for a decade, 2009's Fish Outta Water. This is a proper old-school, cartoony combination that simply can't lose – slick beats combined with the wit and delivery of that rich, deep voice, clever samples and skit inserts, this delivers on everything promised since their tours of 2017 with the brilliantly upbeat Hands High, joined here by Distance, Guard The Fort (featuring guests Lyrics Born and Gift Of Gab) and Waste No Time (with Dynamite MC) among many highlights. A joy from start to finish. Out on Manphibian Music.
Chali 2na and Krafty Kuts – Hands High
Angel Olsen – All Mirrors
As the title suggests, and its opening line, “to forget you is too hard”, all is not as it seems on this equally brilliant follow-up to the acclaimed 2016 album My Woman.The American singer-songwriter has gradually moved from alt-folk-indie to something altogether bolder, bigger and unpredictable. It might be an actual relationship breakup that fires this endeavour, and the songs Lark and the title track, typify what goes on here – they begin slowly and perhaps sound conventional, but then stir up into a storm of emotion, huge orchestral production and disquieting key changes, shifting styles, oscillating between escape and despair, energy and oblivion. It's a sign of the times - disturbing, dissonant unpredictable change, but captured by an artist who does so with plenty of surprises. Listen out for oddities everywhere, such on the tracks, Spring, What It Is, and New Love Cassette. Out on Jagjaguwar.
Angel Olsen – Lark
Amyl and the Sniffers – Amyl and the Sniffers
The punk-rock band from Melbourne’s first full LP after a couple of EPs and it's turned up to 11 throughout. They are perhaps more enjoyable live, with the sexy, charismatic, ever-grinning persona of singer/shouter Amy Taylor making for a great show, but this is an album to blow away the cobwebs, even if each track is similar to the next, such as Punisha and Shake Ya and Some Mutts (Can't Be Muzzeld). Angel in particular is the big singalong anthem. Out on Rough Trade
Amyl and the Sniffers – Got You
Marika Hackman – Any Friend
Earthy, refreshingly candid and undeniably emotional breakup album by the British indie singer-songwriter with her third LP, this one following her four-year relationship with fellow musician Amber Bain. Female masturbation but no satisfaction? You got it, on Hand Solo. I'm Not Where You Are is a brutal slap in the face, literally, about differing perspectives, and The One, as with much of the albums, as a desperately funny black humour. If you're breaking up, this is the way to do it, with sharp, funny, excellent songwriting. Out on EMI.
Marika Hackman – The One
Sudan Archives – Athena
Fabulously original debut by the LA-based artist Brittney Denise Parks who channels her African roots using the traditions of Sudanese violin playing put into loops, mixed with electronica and R&B. She explores the instrument and equipment to great aplomb and sizzling panache, from the pizzicato of Did You Know to distortion and feedback on Pelicans In The Summer, African rhythms and hip hop (with guest D-Eight) on Glorious, and R&B on Confessions. Gloriously innovative and sexy. Out on Stones Throw Records.
Sudan Archives – Glorious
Edwyn Collins – Badbea
This ninth solo album from the former Orange Juice frontman, and his first for six years, sounds like he never even had that stroke in 2005 which left him with many problems, including speech. Here he seems to sing as much gusto and freedom as ever, recalling a previous high point in the 1990s with A Girl Like You. There's a swagger and strut to his work, full of vigour, cheeky, catchy melodies and riffs, and his relocation to his grandfather’s old house in Sutherland in the Scottish Highlands seems to helped. He's also revisited lyrics written before his stroke. It feels like a full-circle triumphant album from the title track, to Outside, to It's All About You, and Glasgow to London, a funky, funny number about his heady days of ambition during Orange Juice. How great it is that he is still with us, and still being so productive. Out on AED.
Edwyn Collins – It's All About You
Pom Poko - Birthday
One that was released a month ago but now finally reviewed after catching them live, the Norwegian band's debut (they are named after a Studio Ghibli film) is a thrilling post-punk tour de force of brilliance. From the shrieky, bouncing energy of high-voiced singer to Ragnhild Fangel to the shimmering glacial shards of Martin Miguel Tonne’s extraordinary guitar technique (backed superbly by drum and bass playing) this is one of the finest punk-pop debuts for some time. Singles My Blood and Follow The Lights are are shot of adrenaline from this record that thrills throughout. Out on Bella Union.
Pom Poko – Leg Day
Self Esteem – Compliments Please
Rebecca Taylor has made several albums as Slow Club with Charles Taylor, she's toured with the anarchic Moonlandingz, and has guested on with other artists including Django Django, but this time, after a bitter relationship breakup, this album is the new her, no more pleasing others, but doing it her way, and Self Esteem, with this ironic title, says it all. The Sheffield singer is fulfilling her ambition to do soulful pop – think Destiny's Child with a northern twist of humour, passion and powerful vocal harmonies with her mostly female backing backing band who also have the moves. Standout tracks include The Best, I'm Shy, Favourite Problem, and the way Peach You Had to Pick. Go Rebecca. You’ve got the voice and you’re worth it. Out on Fiction.
Self Esteem – The Best
Lizzo – Cuz I Love You
Bursting out to many new fans, if singer Melissa Jefferson's voice and energy could be harnessed, it could power the national grid in an album that bursts open with joyously big soul-pop really turned up to a dirty 11. Other elements, bold as you like from doo-wop, hip hop, and the perfect fit and presence of Missy Elliott comes in on Tempo: "Slow songs, they for skinny hoes… I’m a thick bitch, I need tempo.” Echoes of Prince (check out Juice) and Janelle Monae are also here, but this album isn't about originality but unstoppably positive, big-voiced lady talent, love and lust, and there's no shortage of that. Out on Nice Life/Atlantic.
Lizzo - Cuz I Love You
Julia Jacklin – Crushing
Exquisitely beautiful, but also powerfully devastating work from the Sydney singer-songwriter who has a style that roughly falls into the Americana category, yet with much more. She has a voice that expresses vulnerability, a quality of purity coloured by experience, alongside a cutting lyricism that matches her fellow Australian Courtney Barnett, with whom she shares producer Burke Reid. We've previously highlighted two of her songs, Body, and Head Alone on Song of the Day, which in different ways expose the consequences of poor or abusive relationships with a clinical and strong understatement, and the rest of the album continues this level power – ghostly and resilient. Crushing indeed. Out on Transgressive.
Julia Jacklin – Body
Beck – Hyperspace
The 14th studio album by the evergreen artist is something of a mish-mash of styles, perhaps in part because more than half of it is has collaborative input and production by Pharrell Williams. This includes low-key R&B on the song See Through, or Saw Lightning's slide guitar, electronica and whooping. With Chris Martin, who has his own album out too, getting in on the act with some backing vocals, it's an odd mixture, experimentally slow and minimal at times, infused with melancholy (Everlasting Nothing) but far more spaced out than 2014's beautfully sun-bleached Morning Phase. But this is Beck. It’s out there. It’s cosmic. Is it Beck to the future. Not his most groundbreaking, but is never without great moments, such as on the rather Pink Floydish track Stratosphere, or Die Waiting, co-written with Cole MGN and Kossisko Konan. Out on Capitol Records.
Beck – Dark Places
Aldous Harding – Designer
Gorgeous third album by the New Zealand singer-songwriter, this time produced by John Parish. With guests including Stephan Black (Sweet Baboo), Gwion Llewelyn (drums) and Clare Mactaggart (violin). Parish's part seems to have added a lusher, fuller sound, but Harding's songs are still delicate and otherworldly, a folk speckled with her magical voice, ghostly and tender, flecked with echoes of other artists too, past and present from Cate Le Bon and Vashti Bunyan. There's also a new, impish bounce to her performance in this album. Standout tracks include Fixture Picture, Zoo Eyes and The Barrel, which exemplifies her cryptic lyricism ("I know you have the dove, I’m not getting wet … show the ferret to the egg") and on the video she expresses an impish, eccentricity, dressed somewhere between a ritualistic Jodorowsky character crossed with an Amish or traditional Welsh maiden. Or maybe she just likes the hats. It’s an exquisite barrel of laughs. Out on 4AD.
Aldous Harding – The Barrel
Fontaines D.C. – Dogrel
Fabulously fresh, familiar vibrant debut from the Dublin punk band, coming from a thriving scene in their city and with frontman Grian Chatten's accent sneeringly, but gently clear through all their songs, there's also something, perhaps not by accident, of the Ian Curtis about him in his attire and gait. From opener Big to the ranting preacher on Chequeless Reckless, to narrative-rich Liberty Belle, from the Mark E Smith-inspired Hurricane Laughter to shades of The Modern Lovers on Boys in the Better Land, sharp, wry lyrics and an angry energy abound. An album of the year for many, but better as a live gig. Out on Partisan Records.
Fontaines D.C. – Big
Minyo Crusaders – Echoes of Japan
A wonderful fusion of Colombian cumbia, Afrobeat, reggae, salsa, Cuban, jazz, Ethiopian traditional and a whole lot more played and sung by the Japanese 10-piece big band, whose mission is to rescue min’yo, originally workers' songs, from its now established formal ritual style, back into something for the people. Wonderful rhythms, energy and style ensue. A gem of an album in every way, oozing with fun and genre-bending originality. On on Mais Um.
Minyo Crusaders – Tanko Bushi
WaqWaq Kingdom – Essaka Hoisa
You don't hear this kind of thing every week, and it is the second of two Japanese entries. It is nifty "minyo footwork" by renowned Japanese musicians Shigeru Ishihara (DJ Scotch Egg / Seefeel) and Kiki Hitomi (ex-King Midas Sound) under their mind-bending WaqWaq Kingdom disguise. Wonderfully quirky, catchy indie pop that also leaps nimbly into Jamaican dancehall and 8-bit techno, African polyrhythms and experimental electronica. From songs like Warg, Third Eye or Gift From God, everything is a joyful discovery of infinite offbeat jest. Find of the week. Out on Phantom Limb.
WaqWaq Kingdom – Doggy Bag
Sleaford Mods – Eton Alive
Return of the Notts duo brings more menacing, darkly clever lyrics and beats, including a greater diversity of sounds from stagemate Andrew Fearn, and even some melancholy singing from spitting rapper Jason Williamson on the songs Firewall and When You Come Up To Me. The album's title refers of course to the consequences of nine years of the privately schooled and privileged Tory government, and the Eton mess left (not, unfortunately, the creamy pudding). The lyrics, spat out as ever with perfect humour, bit and timing, are not specifically political, but detail, with their usual cutting edge, all that the Eton lot have done to society. This is especially pertinent on the numbers Policy Cream and Into the Payzone. Out on Extreme Eating Records.
Sleaford Mods – Kebab Spider
Vampire Weekend – Father Of The Bride
First album in six years by the New York alt-rockers, with a double album that expands from their previous albums of clever baroque pop. While the singles Harmony Hall and This Life have that light clever perkiness that echo Paul Simon, the kitchen sink is open to all sorts of other styles - gospel choir, soul, country, flamenco, 80s Pet Shop Boys style pop, African, early 70s psych a la Grateful Dead. With its planet Earth cover, and as the album moves into the territory of How Long?, Unbearably White, and Rich Men, it is all tinged with a sense of upbeat gloom, a discursive experimentalism contemplating our political and climate demise. "“The rising tide’s already lapping at the gate,” sings Koenig on Flower Moon. A bold, album filled with strange sounds, dialogue, bird sounds and uncertainly, ending in the wary unease of piano ballad Jerusalem, New York, Berlin. Plenty here to contemplate. Out on Columbia.
Vampire Weekend - Harmony Hall
Anna Meredith – Fibs
More genre-mixing now from the 41-year-old Scottish classical composer alongside film music (Eighth Grade) who releases an album of crazed energy and invention to follow up her 2016 debut Varmints. There are high-pitched disco synths on the opener Sawbones morphing into rave and hardcore, going poppy on the next track Inhale Exhale, rave on Calion, soft, sweet singing on Killjoy, then Bump jerks in all kinds of directions, before Moonmooms goes spacey with a violin backing, Limpet is more of a guitar indie track, while Ribbons is a little bit Laurie Anderson. Expect anything and everything. There are no rules on planet Meredith and this what makes it special. Out Moshi Moshi/Black Prince Fury.
Anna Meredith – Paramour
Shura – Forevher
The artist also known as Alexandra Lilah Denton, who hails from Manchester with a Russian mother, returns for a second album of synth funk pop. It's all smooth grooves, and at its best in first half, this is crisply made 80s stuff that certainly owes a lot to Prince. Standout tracks include Religion, Side Effects, and Skyline, Be Mine. Out on Secretly Canadian.
Shura - Religion (u can lay your hands on me)
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Ghosteen
The follow-up to the stark, grief stricken 2016 album Skeleton Tree, the first after the death of his son Arthur the year before, takes an unexpected direction, from grief to a form of transcendental bliss. Not unlike Cave's live performances as a quite extraordinary figure for audiences, it filled with messianic references – Jesus, Elvis, and fairytale, elegiac stories, but in particular and gradual, gentle peeling away of past torments, particularly that central track Sun Forest, in which "the future rolls in like a wave… and the past, with its savage undertow, lets go". It is as if, after extreme grief, and then his very candid Q&A tour, as well as much open dialogue with fans online, Cave is seeking balm for the soul, and finding it. The album is full, as usual, of memorably profound lines, but musically, is is strangely minimal, a beach without mountains or trees, virtually no drums, simply piano, or Warren Ellis's atmospheric, eerie keyboards, and Cave's voice – strong of course, but no red right hand of anger, just calm, whispery at times, but still emotionally charged. Exquisitely haunting in all sorts of ways, but from start to forest, quite uniform, like a lake or forest of calm, not the usual stormy seas we expect from this brilliant, tormented spirit. Out on Ghosteen Ltd.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Ghosteen
Peter Perrett – Humanworld
Having made a glorious return after a very long absence with How The West Was Won in 2017, this second solo album is even better. There's something unique and rather moving about The Only Ones frontman and his history. Responsible for one of the greatest ever pop songs – Another Girl, Another Planet – and now 40 years on, playing with his two sons Peter Jr (bass) and Jamie (guitar), who had previously been in Babyshambles with Pete Docherty, it seems an unlikely renaissance after he his wife and former Only Ones manager Zena (they were sweethearts since 16) could easily have not survived after decades of heavy drug addiction. Yet these 12 tracks are all great examples of how to do catchy, concise, powerful, emotional, storytelling pop-rock, from Walking In Berlin's fabulous strolling riff, to the power of Master of Destruction to the soft beauty of Heavenly Day, and the raw honesty of Once Is Enough. Threading through it all is Perrett's distinctively nasal, but tender voice, one that expresses a wealth of raw and tender experience with redemption and hope. Long may it continue. Out on Domino.
Peter Perrett – Once Is Enough
Little Simz – Grey Area
This third album by the rapper, aka Simbi Ajikawo seemed something of a breakthrough into the big time, after commendations from Kendrick Lamar, Lauren Hill and working with the likes of Gorillaz. Cute grooves, swinging rhythms and slick rapping seem to hit a funky sound that pulls away from the grime bracket previously attached to her, and indeed this grey area might be just the right shade, helped by longtime friend and producer Inflo. Out on AGE 101.
Little Simz feat. Cleo Sol - Selfish
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy – I Made A Place
“I can still see the light of day," sings Will Oldham, on The Glow, Pt. 3, from his first album as the Prince of beautiful DIY Americana, punk-folk bleakness and depression, since 2011's The Wolfroy Goes To Town, although 2018’s Songs of Love and Horror did come out under his real name. On these 13 songs there's a renewed spring in his step, buoyed, most likely by life with wife Elsa and his two pet dogs, and this is certainly evident on the true love on You Know the One. The usual minimalism is also lifted throughout by flutes, organs, horns and strings. As he puts it on Squid Eye, "Give me a pile of hell, give me a minute or three, I do what I do well, get gown on my hands and my knees, and take from the awful and awesome, and find in the maelstrom a face." Out of the blackness he sees the light. Out on Domino.
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy – Squid Eye
Nilüfer Yanya – Miss Universe
The 23-year-old British singer-songwriter of Turkish-Irish-Bajan heritage releases her debut album, a mixture of soul, jazz, pop and funk with fuzz guitar. She has a distinctive sound, deep voice, a lazy, confident delivery, wry lyrics and inventive rhythm. She has what appears to be commercial accessibility, but underneath is an edgy restlessness as shown the tracks Heavyweight Champion of the World, and Monsters Under the Bed. Despite releasing tracks for the past five years on Soundcloud, she's still a new voice with a promising future. Out on Ato Records/Pias.
Nilüfer Yanya – In Your Head
International Teachers of Pop – International Teachers of Pop
Sheffield veterans Adrian Flanagan and Dean Honer of The Moonlandingz and Eccentronic Research Council team up with singer Leonore Wheatley of The Soundcarriers to deliver beautifully clean, nostalgically old-school keyboard funk disco pop. Their ten consistently great tracks do what exactly it says on the tin, with After Dark, The Age of the Train and The Ballad of Remedy Nilsson among the standouts, and there's even a fun, bouncy, Kraftwerky German language version of Pink Floyd's Another Brick In The Wall. Joyous. Out on Desolate Spools.
International Teachers of Pop - After Dark
Brittany Howard – Jaime
Fresh, direct, wonderful singer-songwriting from the frontwoman of Alabama Shakes mixing gospel, blues, rock’n’roll, soul as well as lo-fi, tastefully rough-edged, acoustic work in this solo album. Full of gems in variety of style and emotional range, from Goat Head, which addresses racism connected to her parents mixed-race relationship, to Georgia, a wonderfully raw soulful number, to the more manic, electronic, declamatory 13th Century Metal or the complex History Repeats. A great talent and personality, especially in her singing, which at times illuminates her as something of a female Al Green. Out on Columbia Records.
Brittany Howard – Stay High
Michael Kiwanuka – Kiwanuka
Third album from the acclaimed British-Ugandan singer-songwriter sees him join forces with star producer Danger Mouse. It's a more dynamic affair than his previous work, with instrumental section that features Burt Bacharach-type orchestrations, strings and harps, samples of civil rights campaigners, Hendrix-type guitars. It builds slowly and pensively, but has beautiful, profound power, with police shootings a running theme from the martyrdom on Hero (comparing 60s activist Fred Hampton current cases) and on Rolling, moving then to Final Days at the threat of nuclear holocaust. This both retro and current, Marvin Gaye meets Donny Hathaway meets Terry Callier. Well worth listening from start to finish to get a sense, in the old-fashioned way, of full album shape, crossing into psychedelia, breakbeat, rock, Afro, but above all, timeless soul that grows o you each time A worthy place to end our first part of favourites of the year. Out on Polydor.
Michael Kiwanuka – Hero
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