What are your favorite albums of the year / of the last months?

[d6jg]

Only got about 30 from 2016

Highlights

Bowie - Darkstar
Michael Kiwanuka - Love & Hate
Charles Bradley - Changes
Ferry - Avonmore (Remix)

[Pascal Hibon]

Added 100 albums in 2016 but only 9 of them are from 2016:

David Bowie - Blackstar
Hooverphonic - In Wonderland
The Liminanas - Malamore
Michael Kiwanuka - Love & Hate
The Rhythm Junks - It Takes a While
Soldier's Heart - Night By Night
Sting - 57th & 9th
SX - Alpha
Tony Joe White - Rain Crow

Bowie's latest and last album contains great music but the sound quality is unfortunately terrible - a good example how mastering should not be...
The Liminanas was probably the highlight in terms of new discoveries. It very much reminds me of Gainsbourg.
And happy to see a new album of Tony Joe White. The man still has it...

[Grumpy Bob]

Added 100 albums in 2016 but only 9 of them are from 2016:

David Bowie - Blackstar
Hooverphonic - In Wonderland
The Liminanas - Malamore
Michael Kiwanuka - Love & Hate
The Rhythm Junks - It Takes a While
Soldier's Heart - Night By Night
Sting - 57th & 9th
SX - Alpha
Tony Joe White - Rain Crow

Bowie's latest and last album contains great music but the sound quality is unfortunately terrible - a good example how mastering should not be...
The Liminanas was probably the highlight in terms of new discoveries. It very much reminds me of Gainsbourg.
And happy to see a new album of Tony Joe White. The man still has it...

The Liminanas album is indeed very good indeed. I also liked Nick Cave's new album. I bought a fair few reissues this year. The Super Deluxe edition of PiL's Metal Box was a high point.

Robert

[Wombat]

The Mission - Another Fall From Grace
Matt Elliot - The Calm Before
Blixa Bargeld & Teho Teardo - Nerissimo
Jóhann Jóhannsson - Orpée
King Dude - Sex
Paul Simon - Stranger To Stranger
David Bowie - Blackstar

Looking over my collection it was a slow 2016 for me, not to many new ones.

The Agnes Obel mentioned is really nice also.
I couldn't arange with the Nick Cave. I guess his mourning didn't allow more.
Cohen did very strong with his goodbye.

[reinholdk]

Time to look back to this year's music.

I'm considering here only albums released in 2017 (of which I have more than 100). I had to think about it quite some time to build a list of what I liked most this year. There were many good albums but not the one outstanding album.

Here are my top ten (in descending order):

Fink - Sunday Night Blues Club, Vol.1
Lunatic Soul - Fractured
Ray Wilson - Time & Distance
Martin Kolbe & Ralf Illenberger - Essentials
Anna Ternheim - All The Way To Rio
Steven Wilson - To The Bone
Anathema - The Optimist
Markus Stockhausen - Far Into the Stars
Michael Chapman - 50
Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile - Lotta Sea Lice


Wish you all a good and healthy 2018 with plenty of music!

[SlimChances]

I am still lost in my 70's music but here are a few new releases I bought in 2017 that are quite good

Deeper Understanding --War on Drugs
Slowdive --Slowdive
Here on Earth--Jenny Scheinman
If It's Alright With You-Songs of Gene MacLellan--Catherine MacLellan

[w3wilkes]

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - Nashville Sound
Whitehorse - Panther in the Dollhouse
Iron & Wine - Beast Epic
Lindsey Buckingham Christine McVie - Self Titled

To me it was a good year. Not often anymore that entire albums are enjoyable which I found to be the case with these 4.

[RonM]

I've not acquired as much new music this year as in the past, but a few records have impinged my musical consciousness. In no particular order:

The Order of Time by Valerie June inhabits a new kind of territory among blues, r&b and mountain music; her wonderful voice and phrasing brings these songs wonderfully to life.

Feist's new album Pleasure is a long way from 1234, but for me is probably her most compelling, maybe her best, yet.

Eric Bibb's Migration Blues addresses one of the important features of the modern world, with a look towards both the past and future. Wonderfully supported by JJ Milteau on harmonica and Michael Jerome Browne on guitar.

Are they retro rockers or millenial posers? I don't know and don't care, I just know that Whitehorse makes really excellent rock and role, and their new album Panther In The Dollhouse is a pleasure.

Jenny Scheinman's Here On Earth is the soundtrack to a documentary about the Piedomont regions of North Carolina in the 30s and 40s. As you might expect, it tilts a bit toward bluegrass, but is so much more. Scheinman's jazz violin stars, and she's ably supported by folks like Bill Frisell.

One of my favorite moments of my live-music year was seeing Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn live in Toronto, and their newest album Echo In The Valley continues my infatuation. These are two banjo experts who can play jazz to mountain and everything in-between. Washburn's claw-hammer chops are almost a match for Fleck and his picks, and that is saying a very great deal. Outstanding.

Rhiannon Giddens continued her tour-de-force sequence with an outstanding new album, delivered with her typical big and robust voice which nonetheless can effortlessly create intimacy. She has had a background in historical black music (via the Carolina Chocolate Drops), as well as in Irish/Scottish music (she speaks Gaelic), and is steeped in traditional American folk and "protest" music. It all comes together seamlessly.

I've been working on liking Mary Halvorson, and although I've only had one listen I think her new album in Quartet form, Paimon, might do the trick. The compositions are by John Zorn and his writing style is a bit warmer than Mary's has been. I think this one's a keeper.

R.

[reinholdk]

New Albums in 2018

Like in the previous years I have added about 100 albums that have been released in the current year.

Selecting my number one album was easy:
it's Nils Petter Molvær's album Nordub, actually a corporation with Sly & Robbie, Eivind Aarset and Vladislav Delay.
This project and album greatly combines the Jamaican rhythm section of Sly & Robbie with the Scandinavian Electronic Jazz of Molvær, Aarset and Delay.
It's also a great experience to see these guys live on stage.

Here's my top ten list:

Nils Petter Molvær - Nordub
Tangerine Dream - The Sessions II
Tangerine Dream - The Sessions III
Cowboy Junkies - All that Reckoning
Riverside - Wasteland
Laura Gibson - Goners
Nils Frahm - All Melody
Christian Kjellvander - Wild Hxmans
Ben Howard - Noonday Dream
Glen Hansard - Between Two Shores

And here are some more albums of 2018 that I really like. These are in alphabetical order and grouped by genre.
They include the albums from above to give some orientation.
Especially for the Jazz albums I could definitely add more to this list, but since they usually require more attention while listening,
I don't listen to them as much as I do to others. So they typically fall a bit short in my year-end retrospect.

Jazz
Mathias Eick - Ravensburg
Shinya Fukumori Trio - For 2 Akis
Tord Gustavsen - The Other Side
Sly & Robbie meet Nils Petter Molvær feat Eivind Aarset and Vladislav Delay - Nordub
Aaron Parks - Little Big
GoGo Penguin - A Humdrum Star
Nils Wülker - Decade Live

Electronic, Ambient, Avantgarde
Ólafur Arnalds - re:member
Nils Frahm - All Melody
Jon Hassel - Listening to Pictures (Pentimento Volume One)
Anna von Hausswolff - Dead Magic
Tangerine Dream - The Sessions II
Tangerine Dream - The Sessions III
Unifony (feat. Mathias Eick) - Unifony

Rock
Joe Bonamassa - British Blues Explosion Live
Florence + the Machine - High as Hope
Gazpacho - Soyuz
Lunatic Soul - Under The Fragmented Sky
The Pineapple Thief - Dissolution
Riverside - Wasteland
Emma Ruth Rundle - On Dark Horses

Singer/Songwriter, Folk, R&B, Soul
17 Hippies - Kirschenzeit
Sarah Blasko - Depth of Field
Cowboy Junkies - All that Reckoning
Tina Dico - Fastland
Laura Gibson - Goners
Glen Hansard - Between Two Shores
Ben Howard - Noonday Dream
Christian Kjellvander - Wild Hxmans
Mark Knopfler - Down The Road Wherever
Ida Sand - My Soul Kitchen


Would love to hear from others what they liked the most.

[DJanGo]

Would love to hear from others what they liked the most.

• Vincent Taurelle, Ludovic Bruni, Nicolas Godin: Au service de la France
• ZAZ: Effet miroir
• Dimitri from Paris Presents Le CHIC Remix
• De-Phazz: Black White Mono

[Paul Webster]

Playing on Dandelion Radio at some point each day until the end of January (and then up on MixCloud) is the Festive 50 as voted for by you* the listener.
50 tracks released in previous 12 months.
Been doing this since a couple of years after John Peel's death when BBC R1 stopped doing theirs.

https://www.dandelionradio.com

*Probably not you in particular

[d6jg]

I’ve bought a lot of music this year but very little that was released in 2018.
If I have to choose one it’s John Coltrane. Both Directions at Once, The Lost Album which is really rather good.

[mark wollschlager]

In no particular order:

Alco Frisbass - Le Bateleur
Nik Bärtsch's Ronin - Awase
Piniol - Bran Coucou
Sonar with David Torn - Vortex
The Messthetics - The Messthetics

[garym]

In terms of new music, my favorite this year has been, Vanished Gardens by Charles Lloyd & the Marvels, with both Lucinda Williams and Bill Frisell. Fantastic integration of jazz & americana.

Not new, but somehow I never listened to John Mayall's "USA Union" (even though I have over a dozen Mayall releases). Released after "Turning Point" and similar in style (acoustic, no drums). A really nice use of violin too.

(lots of re-releases this year. I have very much enjoyed the Dylan "More Blood, More Tracks" set and the Beatles "White Album" box set.)

[dolodobendan]

My favorite non-classical album this year is Leaving This Town by Jenni Ojibwe.