Favorites of 2015...
You can LOVE or HATE these “top whatever” year-end lists, but I must say that 2015 was a great year for music. I’m sure that gets said by me every year, but I truly enjoyed a bit more music this year than I normally do. Being an over-avid record collector, that’s actually saying a lot.
Due to my relationship with Drawing Room, I’ve excluded any of the label’s releases in the lists below. However, releasing both “To The Firmament” by 500mg and the “Two Album Set” anthology from Chinese Girls were a big dream come true. Anyone that knows me has certainly heard me declare Bardo Pond being my personal Grateful Dead, and working with Michael Gibbons on his finest solo LP to date has been a great honor. Though I’ve resided in Brooklyn for over a decade now, I will always be a proud Little Rock native. With that said, seeing the Chinese Girls get a vinyl treatment has been a labor of love, and I’m humbled for a band I hold so close to my heart to have received such wonderful feedback with this release.
Without further ado, here is my list for 2015. A couple of these albums may have been released in late 2014, but, as that’s not always enough time to digest, I have included them here. Also, I have to give a major shout out to Bill Roe and his Trouble in Mind Label. 2015 was an incredibly good year for Trouble in Mind, and I have multiple albums from the label on my list though I have a few more I liked too. Although, I think anything that I have listed is worth seeking out.
New Releases:
Elisa Ambrogio – “The Immoralist” (Drag City)
Meg Baird – “Don’t Weigh Down the Light” (Drag City)
Bjork – “Vulnicura” (One Little Indian)
Tom Carter – “Long Time Underground” (Three Lobed)
Damon and Naomi – “Fortune” (20-20-20)
Dick Diver – “Melbourne, Florida” (Trouble in Mind)
Express Rising – “Fixed Rope” (Numero Group)
Godspeed You Black Emperor! – “Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress” (Constellation)
Helen – “The Original Faces” (Kranky)
Holly Herndon – “Platform” (RVNG/4AD)
Jenny Hval – “Apocalypse, girl” (Sacred Bones)
Chuck Johnson – “Blood Moon Boulder”(Scissortail)
Heather Leigh – “I Abused Animal” (Ideologic Organ)
Shawn David McMillen- “On the Clock with JJ and Mitch” (12XU)
MV & EE – “Midden Mound” (Golden Lab)
Jim O’Rourke – “Simple Songs” (Drag City)
Salad Boys – “Metalmania” (Trouble in Mind)
The Silence – “The Silence” and “Hark the Silence” (Drag City)
Ultimate Painting – “Green Lanes” (Trouble in Mind)
Viet Cong – “Viet Cong” (Jagjaguwar)
Reissues:
The Apartments – “The Evening Visits” (Captured Tracks)
Bikini Kill – “Revolution Girl Style Now” (Bikini Kill)
Christina Carter – “L’etoile de Mer” (Emerald Cocoon)
Dredd Foole – “In Quest of Tense” (Feeding Tube)
Lilys – “Eccsame the Photon Band” (Frontier)
Los Crudos “Doble LP Discografía” (MRR)
Mariah – “Utakata No Hibi” (Palto Flats)
Oppenheimer Analysis - “New Mexico” (Minimal Wave)
Sun City Girls – “Torch of the Mystics” (Abduction)
Unwound – “Empire” (Numero Group)