I probably listened to less new music this year than any year in the last decade, although I definitely listened to each new record more, which was very much my intention at the start of the year. I also reverted to buying physical copies of music wherever possible (either on vinyl or on CD), which lead to me setting up my old stereo in my study and only really listening to digital music through Spotify or when I was on the move.
Did this change the sort of music I listened to? I don’t think so, but I definitely found myself exploring the back catalogues of several of the artists responsible for the records below in a way I probably wouldn’t have in previous years, and I think that might have lead to the list being slightly more biased towards established artists I already owned music by than new discoveries and more diverse genres.
The list I’ve come up with for this year (in alphabetical order) is:
Aldous Harding – Party
Belle & Sebastian – How to Solve Our Human Problems (part 1)
The Big Moon – Love in the 4th Dimension
Big Thief – Capacity
Bjork – Utopia
British Sea Power – Let the Dancers Inherit the Party
Cigarettes After Sex – Cigarettes After Sex
Colter Wall – Colter Wall
Conor Oberst – Salutations
Destroyer – Ken
The Fall – New Facts Emerge
Father John Misty – Pure Comedy
Here Lies Man – Here Lies Man
Idles – Brutalism
The Indelicates – Juniverbrecher
Lorde – Melodrama
Los Campesinos! – Sick Scenes
Lost Horizons – Ojala
Mac DeMarco – This Old Dog
Mark Eitzel – Hey Mr Ferryman
Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band – Adios Señor Pussycat
The National – Sleep Well Beast
The New Pornographers – Whiteout Conditions
Richard Dawson – Peasant
Ryan Adams – Prisoner
Slowdive – Slowdive
Sun Kil Moon – Common as Light and Love are Red Valleys of Blood
This is the Kit – Moonshine Freeze
The Unthanks – Diversions vol. 4 : The Songs and Poems of Molly Drake
The Wedding Present – George Best 30
Yorkston/Thorne/Khan – Neuk Wight Delhi All-stars