Possibly a bit early in the year to start this thread, but what the hell. This has been an excellent year for comebacks. Three LPs in my top five from artists who haven’t released an LP (under the chosen name) in decades. So my current* top ten reads like this
Sonic Boom: All Things Being Equal
Cabaret Voltaire: Shadow of Fear
The Orb: Abolition of the Royal Familia (particularly the ‘In Dub’ version)
The Wolfgang Press: Unremembered Remembered
The Asteroid No 4: Nothern Songs
Rose City Band: Summerlong
Sunda Arc: Tides
Carlton Melton: Where This Leads
Sault: Untitled(Black Is)
Mammal Hands: Captured Spirits
I also hugely enjoyed Miles Davis: Double Image but that is a collection of outtakes from Bitches Brew, all of which were previously available. Live LPs from Mogwai ‘2018’ and The Twilight Sad ‘It won’t be like this all the time:Live’ are excluded but have seen very heavy play play.
*I’ll have forgotten loads of things. There is nothing in the list from Zone Six or Electric Moon which worries me. I may need to make this a top 20 .
I forgot to add in my OP that one reason I am looking for people’s ‘Best Ofs’ is that Xmas is coming. The kids want to buy me LPs. Jackie has cornered the 4 Durutti Column re-issues that came out just before lockdown V2.0 so I’m at a loss for what to suggest might be interesting and don’t need any more socks & jocks.
I’ve found lots of good stuff recently, but not all 2020. These are my highlights of the year:
Bruce Brubaker - Glassforms
Max Richter - Voices
Kelly Lee Owens - Inner Song
Ghostpoet - I grow tired but I do not fall asleep
Olafur Arnalds - Some kind of peace
Craig Armstrong - The edge of the sea
Been a cracking good year imo.
Personal highlights are:
1). Courtney Marie Andrews - Old Flowers
2). Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher
3). Black Match - Nowhere
4). Margo Price - That’s How Rumours Get Started
5). Joff Oddie - To Mr Fahey
Most of the squillions of records bought this year have been pre-2020, but here is my list of 2020 releases:
Bohren & Der Club Of Gore - Patchouli Blue
Dopelord - Sign Of The Devil
Electric Moon - Live At Freak Valley Festival
Four Tet - Sixteen Oceans
Matthew Tavares & Leland Whitty - Visions
MJ Guider - Sour Cherry Bell
Ozric Tentacles - Space For The Earth
Slift - Ummon
Sonic Boom - All Things Being Equal
Sophia Loizou - Untold
I have listened to shedloads of of music this year and found some great recs on here but no idea what was released this year. Only thing I will say is the my find of the year was Rush, a band I somehow had managed to totally ignore.
The second is a facebook group of thrash fans doing an album of the fortnight as well as good thrash banter and pushing some good british thrash metal. Proves that there is actually a use for facebook and that grown up people can actually discuss music with intelligence and wit without acting like a bunch of, well, facebook users.
Surprised to see this appear in 2020, still trying to get my head around it but I keep listening so that must mean something, Mike Patton ,Scott Ian and Dave Lombardo might have something to do with that.
Hopefully I can properly remember what actually came out this year!
(In order of recall rather than actual suggested merit).
Run The Jewels - RTJ4: Hard hitting, bang on topical and unflinching lyrics from El-P and Killer Mike.
Porridge Radio - Every Bad: Voyeurism into the gamut of human emotion with some guitars
Sault - Black is: Funk, soul and gospel back drop to a punch in the guts to systemic racism
Sault - Rise: Another go around as above but more relaxed and less urgent
Rose City Band - Summerlong: Sunny pysch folk melancholia
Working Mens Club - self titled: Moody synth pop rave
Taylor Swift - Folklore: Biggest surprise of the year as Taylor teams up with National’s Aaron Dessner and produces a quite beautiful personal album full of Autumn songs that sound even better stripped back a la Long Pond Sessions.
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