Here are our 30 favorite albums of 2019. It has been definitely hard to pick among the hundreds that we heard and liked last year! Let’s enjoy some of the best in indie rock, indie pop, folk, electro, post-punk, post-rock, hip-hop, experimental, ambient, and modern classical music released this year.
Top 30 of 2019 - Playlist and collage by GooMorninCaptn
The playlist will be best enjoyed on YouTube, Spotify or Deezer. A couple tracks are missing from Soundcloud and Qobuz.
Sasami – Sasami (Domino, US)
Matmos – Plastic Anniversary (Thrill Jockey, US)
Hand Habits – Placeholder (Saddle Creek, US)
Cate Le Bon – Reward (Mexican Summer, UK)
FKA Twigs – Magdalene (Young Turks, UK)
Kim Gordon – No Home Record (Matador, US)
Vanishing Twin – The Age Of Immunology (Fire Records, UK)
Holly Herndon – Proto (4AD, US)
Lizzo – Cuz I Love You (Deluxe) (Atlantic, US)
Susanna & The Brotherhood Of Our Lady – Garden of Earthly Delights (SusannaSonata, NO)
Big Thief – U.F.O.F. (4AD, US)
Lafawndah – Ancestor Boy (Concordia / !K7, EG/IR/FR/UK/US)
Jungstötter – Love Is (Pias, DE)
Anna Meredith – FIBS (Moshi Moshi Records, UK)
Christopher Tignor – A Light Below (Western Vinyl, US)
Grey McMurray – Stay Up (Figureight, US)
Julia Jacklin – Crushing (Polyvinyl / Transgressive, AUS)
Leafcutter John – Yes! Come Parade With Us (Border Community, UK)
Weyes Blood – Titanic Rising (Sub Pop, US)
Jesca Hoop – Stonechild (Memphis Industries, US)
JPEGMAFIA – All My Heroes Are Cornballs (EQT Recordings, US)
Bon Iver – i,i (Jagjaguwar, US)
Chelsea Wolfe – Birth of Violence (Sargent House, US)
Glen Hansard – This Wild Willing (Anti-, IE)
The Murder Capital – When I Have Fears (Human Season, IE)
Lower Dens – The Competition (Ribbon Music, US)
La Féline – Vie future (Kwaidan Records, FR)
Lingua Ignota – Caligula (Profound Lore Records, US)
Oiseaux-Tempête – From Somewhere Invisible (Sub Rosa, FR)
Clipping. – There Existed An Addiction To Blood (Sub Pop, US)
Here’s a playlist with songs from our 18 favorite records of 2018, filled with strong women, sensitive punks, beautiful noise in a troubled world, but also sweetness, nostalgia, sadness, fears, desires, hopes, and maybe a hint of joy.
Apart from our #1, the order doesn’t reflect any particular ranking, other than the inner playlist logic.
Listen via Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, or YouTube directly via the below player.
18x2018 Playlist and collage by GooMorninCaptn
1 – Low (US) — “Rome (Always in the Dark)”, from ‘Double Negative’ (Sub Pop Records)
2 – Amen Dunes (US) — “Time”, from ‘Freedom’ (Sacred Bones Records)
3 – Haley Heynderickx (US) — “Oom Sha La La”, from ‘I Need to Start a Garden’ (Mama Bird Recording Co.)
4 – Melody’s Echo Chamber (FR) — “Breathe In, Breathe Out”, from ‘Bon Voyage’ (Domino)
5 – Tangents (AUS) — “Swells Under Trio”, from ‘New Bodies’ (Temporary Residence Ltd.)
6 – Frigs (CA) — “Talking Pictures”, from ‘Basic Behavior’ (Arts & Crafts)
7 – Hilary Woods (IE) — “Sever”, from ‘Colt’ (Sacred Bones)
8 – Loma (US) — “Dark Oscillations”, from ‘Loma’ (Sub Pop)
9 – serpentwithfeet (US) — “mourning song”, from ‘soil’ (Secretly Canadian)
10 – Anenon (US) — “Two For C”, from ‘Tongue’ (Friends of Friends Music)
11 – Beach House (US) — “Black Car”, from ‘7’ (Sub Pop)
12 – Halo Maud (FR) — “Du pouvoir/power”, from ‘Je suis une île’ (Heavenly Recordings)
13 – Idles (UK) — “Samaritans”, from ‘Joy as an Act of Resistance’ (Partisan Records)
14 – Adrianne Lenker (US) — “terminal paradise”, from ‘abysskiss’ (Saddle Creek Records)
15 – Dirty Projectors (US) — “Zombie Conqueror”, from ‘Lamp Lit Prose’ (Domino)
16 – The Breeders (US) — “Nervous Mary”, from ‘All Nerve’ (4AD)
17 – Kathryn Joseph (SCO) — “From When I Wake the Want Is”, from ‘From When I Wake the Want Is’ (Rock Action Records)
18 – Mitski (US) – “Two Slow Dancers”, from ‘Be The Cowboy’ (Dead Oceans)
Here comes some of the best new music from Spring 2018 in indie rock, dream pop, psych fok, singer-songwriter, ambient… Listen to our carefully curated playlist on Spotify, Deezer, or YouTube via the below player.
Turn Around, Little Heart. Wait Slowly, Halfway Home. This Is The Dark Glow. April 2018 digital collage by GoodMornincaptn
The Breeders (US) — “Wait in the Car”, from ‘All Nerve’ (4AD, 2018).
Preoccupations (CA) — “Espionage”, from ‘New Material’ (Flemish Eye Records / Jagjaguwar, 2018).
MGMT (US) — “Little Dark Age”, from ‘Little Dark Age’ (Columbia Records, 2018).
tune-yards (US) — “Heart Attack”, from ‘I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life’ (4AD, 2018).
Dominique A (FR) — “Toute latitude”, from ‘Toute latitude’ (Cinq7 / Wagram, 2018).
Anenon (US) — “Two For C”, from ‘Tongue’ (FoF Music 2018).
Adrian Crowley (IE) — “Halfway To Andalucia”, from ‘Dark Eyed Messenger’ (Chemikal Underground, 2017).
Son Lux (US) — “Slowly”, from ‘Brighter Wounds’ (City Slang, 2018).
Sylvan Esso (US) — “PARAD(w/m)E” (Loma Vista Recordings, 2018).
Ought (CA) — “Disgraced in America”, from ‘Room Inside the World’ (Merge Records, 2018).
Beach House (US) — “Lemon Glow”, from ‘7′, the duo’s new album coming up May 11th, 2018 on Sub Pop Records / Bella Union.
Lucy Dacus (US) — “Addictions”, from ‘Historian’ (Matador Records, 2018).
Olivia Kaplan (US) — “This Is What I Do”, from ‘At the Seams’ EP (2018).
Nils Frahm (DE) — “Human Range”, from ‘All Melody’ (Erased Tapes, 2018).
Laurence Pike (AUS) — “Life Hacks”, from ‘Distance Early Warning’, 2018 debut solo album of the PVT drummer, on Leaf Label.
Superorganism (UK/JP/AUS/NZ) — “Reflections On The Screen”, from the self-titled 2018 debut album of the young international collective on Domino Recording Company.
Haley Heynderickx (US) — “Untitled God Song”, from ‘I Need to Start a Garden’, her 2018 debut solo LP on Mama Bird Recording Co.
Melodies collide with melancholy and psychedelia in our January 2018 playlist, featuring some of the finest in indie pop, folk, rock and electronica released in the Fall-Winter 2017/2018.
Loud Open Mind, Cry Out For The Cause - collage by GoodMorninCaptn
“Passage“, our new playlist and digital collage, compiling new releases from January and February 2017.
Passage - February 2017 digital collage by GoodMorninCaptn
Surprisingly, this edition tends to heavily eye California (Foxygen, Ty Segall, Xiu Xiu, Banana, Cherry Glazerr). Hope for a political counterweight? Or is it a mere longing for sun? The latter could be confirmed by the presence of a couple artists from Toulouse in the French South West (Aquaserge, Laure Briard) as well as PVT from Australia. To get us back to the seasonal grayness, let’s welcome a couple Mancunians (Jesca Hoop, Irma Vep), and of course a few brilliant Scandinavians (Rainbrother, Lowly, Linnea Olsson)…
Beyond this reductive geography, let’s notice the first solo adventures of singers breaking away from Ought (Tim Darcy) and The Antlers (Peter Silberman), souls to console (Jesca Hoop, Shannon Wright, Peter Silberman), retro nods (Laure Briard, Molly Burch, Tim Darcy, Foxygen), and joyful or hypnotic loops to fly away (Banana, Aquaserge, Rainbrother, Six Organs Of Admittance, Mind Over Mirrors, PVT, Avec le soleil sortant de sa bouche). Enjoy!
Enjoy our December 2015 song selection and digital collage featuring indie pop, ambient, modern classical, folk, rock, and electronic from Scandinavia, Germany, Ukraine, Poland, France, UK, Canada, Venezuela and USA.
AFTER THE TOP #30 TO #19 RECORDS, LET’S KEEP ASCENDING THE STAIRS OF 2010 WITH THE SECOND PART OF OUR FAVORITE RECORDS, MOSTLY POP AND FOLK, WITH SPARSE JAZZY OR NOISY TOUCHES.
12 years after “Swans Are Dead”, Michael Gira’s noble bird turns into a Phoenix and resuscitates with a strikingly powerful album. Eden Prison by Swans
> Listen to My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky on Spotify.
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15) CLOGS – “The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton” (Brassland)
For the first time, the instrumental quartet has invited some distinguished friends over to sing along: Sufjan Stevens, Matt Berninger (fromThe National, with whom Clogs share one of their founders and masterminds, Bryce Dessner), and most notably Shara Worden (aka My Brightest Diamond) all take turns and grace the lush and brilliant compositions with their unique vocal presence. Not the least of its qualities, Clogs‘ fifth album is nicely packaged in a beautiful hommage to Douanier Rousseau by Hvass&Hannibal, also known for designing recordcovers and directing a video for Efterklang.
Listen to “On The Edge“, featuring Shara Worden, from “The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton“:
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> Listen to The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton on Deezer.
Wildbirds & Peacedrums‘ third album is the reunion of 2 EPs, Iris and Retina, where the Swedish duo mixes its warm, soulful voice and tribal rythms with the Icelandic avant-garde. Rivers indeed was recorded by Ben Frost and mixed by Valgeir Sigurðsson, with an Icelandic chamber choir arranged by Hildur Guðnadóttir.
Thomas is back with a beautiful EP, the poetry of which we love to get immersed and lost into. A nice preamble to his new full-length album to be released in 2011.
Listen to “Climbing The Fjelds Of Norway” from “Cardiac Maformations“:
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> Listen to Cardiac Malformations on Deezer or Spotify.
Björk’s protégée and Múm collaborator Ólöf Arnalds releases a lovely new album produced by Kjartan Sveinsson (Sigur Rós), at times heavily orchestrated with uplifting choirs, and at times stripped down to only Ólöf’s high-pitched voice and simple strings.
Snaking away from the indie pop accents of her debut Hands Across the Void, Jesy Fortino aka Tiny Vipers releases her second full-length album on SubPop and risks her folk inheritance to higher spheres: an immense step up.
The first play of this sixty-four minutes record will most certainly leave the hearer at a loss to tell one song apart from another, or to even discern any sort of conventional pattern in the composition of the eleven tracks. But if you think this sounds boring, the young viperidae from Seattle may prove you wrong.
Her influences include Townes Van Zandt, Neil Young, Nico, and Micheal Cashmore, and yes, from its mere primitive shape to more experimental ventures, the folk spirit quietly walks through the full length of the record. It is nevertheless difficult to label Life On Earth as a folk album, unless you think of it as a distorted and elongated entanglement of Joni Mitchell’s “Tin Angel” and Melanie Safka’s “Pebbles In The Sand“, remixed by Aidan Baker in a “Green and Cold” fashion. She inherited the almost medieval austerity of the first’s earliest works, the proto-Joanna Newsom-esque vocal figures and untechnical spontaneity of the second, and the surprising neo-classical approach to grimy contemporary pop of the last.
Yet, few comparisons will let you grasp the full horizons of Fortino’s Earth.
Only a long and worthy intimacy with her voice and minimalist guitar will help unravel its uncatchable personae and ever-changing sceneries. From the disarming introduction lyrics, “Do you remember when the world was still young…” in “Eyes Like Ours”, and the airy timelessness of “Dreamer”, to the nihilist sense of emergency and confusion of “Outside”, she ushers you through an imaginary mythology for an imaginary people, a lost volume in-between the Bible and the Verda; she tells you about death and ghosts, about the origins and future of the world, and of otherness, but, at the same time, through some fascinating and unaffected trick, leaves you the serene and immobile witness to the nearly organic attachment to memory, to the doubts and fears, and fascination for the beyond, to the unbearable self-consciousness and isolation of a thousand individuals, whose faces become blurred as centuries are swept by around you. If “Cm” sounds like a recess and is more in the traditional style of her early songs, the darkness and deconstructed frame of the following tracks, and especially the sinuous sine waves of “Twilight Property” will only hit you as a more fatal blow. There is no poison distilled in this nest of vipers though, only a miracle recipe of how to turn casual yet mysterious singing and songwriting into a mesmerising and modern ambient work.
Undoubtedly, Life On Earth is not an easy-to-share experience, but if it has not played a special part in your Summer already, it is high time you gave it a special place in your life, for it is a true and very secret gem.