Best sounds of 2019
Graham Reid offers a personal selection of the year’s top albums – and some more to explore.
Graham Reid offers a personal selection of the top albums of 2019 – and some more to explore.
ALDOUS HARDING: Designer
Beguiling if cryptic lyrics woven into elegant, intimate, sometimes weightless personal and yet universal folk-pop. Harding again creates a spellbinding inner/out-there world. On Tour: Wellington’s Michael Fowler Centre, March 13; Auckland Town Hall, March 14; Christchurch Town Hall, March 15.
Now hear this: Purple Pilgrims, Perfumed Earth.
BILLIE EILISH: When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
The youngest-ever Grammy-nominated artist in four major categories delivers this ambitious, broody and subtle debut, produced by brother Finneas. The Lorde-influenced 17-year-old insinuates rather than shouts her way into attention.
Style and substance.
Now hear this: Charli
XCX, Charli. DEAD LITTLE PENNY: Urge Surfing
The Auckland trio reassemble widescreen shoegaze guitars, melodic power pop, goth gloom, 60s girlgroup melodrama and dream pop into engaging dense/light songs. Beths-like attention beckons. Now hear this:
Mermaidens, Look Me in the Eye.
EKITI SOUND: Abeg No Vex
Challengingly lo-fi London tenementblock sonics are filtered through Lagos hip-hop and bargain-basement electronics. Inner-city pressure and tribal dance infuse Nigerian producer/singer Leke’s debut, with dislocating rhythmic shifts from funk to drum’n’bass. Not for the faint-hearted.
Now hear this: Kim Gordon, No Home Record.
GRETCHEN PETERS: Dancing with the Beast
Monochromatic country-touched postcards out of Trump’s broken heartland from an abused girl, a truckstop hooker and marginalised middle-aged and older women. Disturbing female perspectives of an America beyond
the headlines.
Now hear this: Greg Fleming and the Working Poor, Get Off at Lincoln.
JAN HELLRIEGEL: Sportsman of the Year
An autobiographical book/CD collection signalling the return of the respected New Zealand singer-songwriter. The conversational book is peppered with kitchen-table wisdom and anecdotes; the sometimes flinty songs deliver with poetic precision and hardened insight. Now hear this: Mousey,
Lemon Law
JULIA JACKLIN: Crushing
The Melbourne singersongwriter’s insightful second album deals with her life in the sudden-fame lane, personal loss, keeping the interest alive in a long relationship and more. Preternaturally mature.
On tour: Laneway Festival, Auckland, January 27. Now hear this: Angie McMahon, Salt.
LANKUM: The Livelong Day
The Irish folk band explore entrancing drones and eerily timeless moods. Possibly more for avant-rock listeners than folk purists. Best not undertaken in one sitting but a disconcerting album to return to.
Now hear this: Groeni,
Nihx.
LEONARD COHEN: Thanks for the Dance
A posthumous PS to the farewell letters of his final album, You Want It Darker, these intimate songs don’t tarnish the legacy of the great Canadian who distilled art and truth into poetic songs. Now hear this: Bruce Springsteen, Western Stars.
NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS: Ghosteen
The subtext of these mostly understated, elegiac meditations on grief and spirituality is that even in the midst of life we are in death. Love and reassurance are everywhere, though, and “peace will come”.
Now hear this: Jenny
Hval, The Practice of Love.
75 DOLLAR BILL: I Was Real
Daring New York guitar
and percussionist duo (plus pals) thread together hypnotic sub-Saharan desert blues, avant-garde minimalism, Velvet Underground drone and psychedelic rock. Intoxicating. Now hear this: Tinariwen,
Amadjar.
TROY KINGI AND THE
UPPERCLASS: Holy Colony Burning Acres
Post-colonial, consciousness-raising, 70s-framed Aotearoa reggae for our time. Ravaged or stolen land, displaced peoples, resistance, positivity and more are the broad themes. An important, musically captivating album.
On tour: Womad, New Plymouth, March 13-15.
Now hear this: Lee “Scratch” Perry,
Rainford.
NÉRIJA: Blume
London’s jazz scene, where grime, hip-hop, hard bop, Afro-futurism, brass and more get mashed up, is where it’s at. This (mostly) allwomen collective leap into the vanguard with this boiling debut.
Now hear this: The Comet is Coming, The Afterlife.
YBN CORDAE: The Lost Boy
Downbeat, downtempo and articulate autobiographical debut by the 22-year-old US rapper who allows breathing space for strings and quiet passages while reflecting on how far he’s come, but still misses his late grandma and screwedup family. Gospel and blues in his DNA, too.
Now hear this: Church &
AP, Teeth.
YOLA: Walk Through Fire
Mature Black-British artist records in Nashville with Dan (Black Keys) Auerbach and creates her own space between classic Dusty Springfield, Dolly Parton, gospel and country-soul. Exceptional, enjoyable debut.
Now hear this: Brittany Howard, Jaime.