I’ve finally cobbled together a list of my favorite albums of the year. Gosh, sorting out the top four albums was tough! Any one of those four could have been No. 1, really. At the top here, I’ll just note, too, as I always do, that this list skews toward Americana and other roots-y sounds. Because I do, y’know.
10. J.S. Bach: The Sonatas for Violin & Harpsichord, Rachel Barton Pine & Jory Vinikour – Among a recent series of stellar releases by violinist Pine comes this charmer. There’s some, erm, beautiful math to these Bach sonatas, but there’s nothing clinical or sterile about Pine’s playing. It’s historically informed but always warm and expressive. Vinikour’s harpsichord work is striking, too, but it’s Pine’s violin that lingered with me.
9. Downey to Lubbock, Dave Alvin & Jimmie Dale Gilmore – I love Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s High Plains-Goes-Buddhist-y twang more than just about anything. His Braver Newer World is one of my Desert Island discs…. That said, I wasn’t sure how Gilmore’s distinctive voice would pair with Alvin’s more rockin’ baritone. I needn’t have worried. Both performers shine, and the result is a little bit transcendent, goshdarnit. Check out Gilmore’s cover of “Silverlake” and the title track. P.S. One of the highlights of my year was seeing Alvin and Gilmore in concert at World Cafe Live.
8. Kacey Musgraves’s Golden Hour – Golden Hour is eminently listenable. Its first single, “Space Cowboy,” buried itself deep into my noggin early in the year—and never really let go. I’m always a sucker for a falling-out-of-love song, y’know. But fun wordplay, too (“you can have your space, cowboy”)?! So much fun! “Cowboy” is not the only gem on the album, of course: “Butterflies,” “Slow Burn,” and “High Horse” are stand-outs. Hell, the whole album is somethin’. Musical and smart.
7. Cocoa Sugar by Young Fathers – With their third full-length album, the Mercury Prize-winning Young Fathers wanted to do something a little more “linear.” It still seems pretty experimental to me! (What does that say about me?) Anyway, the lyrics—about politics, race, masculinity—are smartly packaged in approachable-but-unusual rhythms *and* unexpected-but-welcome sounds. “In My View,” a single you might plausibly describe as both ‘catchy’ and ‘disjointed,’ really shows that off. In my view (see what I did there?), the entire album is pretty much the ideal combination of innovation and sonic friendliness. See also: “Lord.”
6. Anthony Roth Costanzo’s ARC – One of the highlights of my 2018 was seeing Costanzo, a brilliant countertenor, perform Glass Handel at Opera Philadelphia’s annual festival. The piece—a sort of fancy art installation, really—marries Philip Glass with Handel’s Italianate music from 200+ years earlier. Both give a countertenor something to do, y’know. But the album stands on its own. And how. Costanzo has chosen the pieces well: The Handel pieces seem, somehow or other, to be near-ancestors of Glass’s minimalism. And the Glass pieces seem, well, sorta downright Baroque. Start with: Glass’s “Liquid Days” (with lyrics by David Byrne, of course).
5. Wild Hxmans by Christian Kjellvander – I’ve suggested before that Sweden’s(!) Kjellvander is the greatest Americana(!) singer of our time—and I meant it. With Hxmans, Kjellvander offers up a small set of long, experimental songs. The album is more brooding than most of Kjellvander’s work, and that’s saying something. But I loved it. You will, too, especially if you open yourself up to “Curtain Maker,” a nearly 10-minute epic told from the point of view of a Syrian refugee. See also: “Faux Guernica.”
4. Your Queen Is a Reptile, Sons of Kemet – As I said, I really wrestled with ranking my Top 4 albums, which are so different from one another. One of the contenders was this amazing jazz album from a sax/tuba(!)/drum/drum quartet. That line-up gives you, of course, a heavily percussive sound—but also one with a bit of a sideways palette (hello, tuba!). There are vocals and a Caribbean-centric vibe, too. The focus is still often on the sax, but, gosh, Reptile just doesn’t sound like anything else. Bonus: Each track honors a different Black woman.
3. Liberty by Lindi Ortega – I played the dickens out of this album, and I’m kinda surprised that it’s not my top album. It easily could be. Ortega, a Canadian country singer, wrote and recorded—in, erm, naturally enough, the style of a spaghetti Western soundtrack—this concept album about a rebirth from hard times (her own?). She’s never sounded better, and all that pedal-steel energy (thanks to the guys from Steelism) makes everything sizzle, y’know. The album is lyrically smart, too. In my mind, Liberty is the most under-rated album of the year. “In the Clear” is one of the best songs of the year, too. Also: “You Ain’t Foolin’ Me” and the title track.
2. Jeremy Dutcher’s Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa – Dutcher, a Wolastoqiyik member of New Brunswick’s Tobique First Nation, won this year’s Polaris Prize for this marvel. A classically trained tenor, he worked with Wolastoq songs from a 110-year-old wax cylinder, sampling songs from that collection and building songs (arias?) around them. Dutcher preserves the past *while* interacting with it. The result is both new and old. And beautiful. Check out: “Mehcinut,” “Oqiton,” and “Pomok naka Poktoinskwes”
1. To the Sunset by Amanda Shires – If she’d asked my opinion, I probably would’ve warned Shires against adding synth-y and poppy fun to her new album. She’s Americana royalty, after all! But I would’ve been wrong. Completely wrong. With To the Sunset, Shires has taken us in a new—and fresh—direction. Shires’s quirky folk/country vocals are still there, to be sure. But they’ve been brightened by new surroundings. And the songwriting is so, so stellar. Song-of-the-year “Parking Lot Pirouette” captures that disorienting realization that you’re in love, dammit. “Leave It Alone” smartly explores the physical intoxications of love. And “Wasn’t I Paying Attention” asks some smart and uncomfortable questions about a lost friend. Swoon.
Honorable Mentions: Mr. Jukebox, Joshua Hedley; Ashley Monroe’s Sparrow; Karim Sulayman’s Songs of Orpheus; Dirty Computer, Janelle Monáe; Víkingur Ólafsson’s Johann Sebastian Bach; Western Movies by Traveller; Cruzando Brothers, Los Texmaniacs; H.C. McEntire’s Lionheart; Other Arrangements by Parker Millsap; Dancing with the Beast, Gretchen Peters; and Tuscumbia by Belle Adair.