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The duco01 Top 40 Favourite New Albums of 2015

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The duco01 top 40 Favourite New Albums of 2015 – Nos 40-21

Here are my 40 favourite new albums of 2015. Some of them I only received recently, and I haven’t really had time to digest them, so placing them in a 1 to 40 ranking list was pretty tricky.
Back in my teens, 20s and 30s, almost all my favourite new albums of any year had vocals on them. They were basically albums of songs – pop, rock, folk, reggae, blues, country, world music. All with singing on them. Looking at this list now, I see that only about 12 or 13 of the 40 records have vocals on them. The rest are basically instrumental music, mainly in the ambient / modern classical / chamber jazz genres. I like these albums – of course I do – but I could sort of understand it if someone declared this list to be rather polite, sedate and overly cautious. There’s nothing here that’s going to rock your house to its foundations, if I can put it that way.
Finally, I spend quite a bit of my time listening to classic 70s roots reggae and dub, and the music of Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead. You won’t find any of that here, as it’ll feature in my other list for 2015: Reissues and Historical Recordings, which will be coming along when I can put it together.

Just to make the whole thing more exciting, we’ll count down the chart in reverse order, starting today with numbers 40 down to 21

5

Comments

  1. 40. Rachel Grimes – The Clearing
    US pianist expands her band to much fuller chamber jazz sound, featuring a 15-person/10-instrument line-up.

    39. The Unthanks – Mount the Air
    I’m a huge Unthanks fan, and I loved the three Diversions albums. And I assumed that I’d love “Mount the Air”. But somehow, it never quite moved me as I’d expected it to.

    38. Ben Chatwin – The Sleeper Awakes
    Electronic and analogue ambient sounds by English musician who sometimes records under the pseudonym of Talvihorros.

    37. Nat Birchall – Invocations
    Mancunian tenor saxman once again evokes the spirit of John Coltrane.

    36. Jake Xerxes Fussell – Jake Xerxes Fussell
    Proper-job, no-messing-about American folk from deep in the North Carolina woods.

    35. Spiro – Welcome Joy and Welcome Sorrow
    Lively instrumental chamber folk from the Real World stable.

    34. Kamasi Washington – The Epic
    You know this one. Gratifying to see that such a lengthy, huge-sounding jazz triple CD can be such a sales success. Washington sounds like he’s got so much music in him, he’s going to explode.

    33. Tom Carter – Long Time Underground
    Double vinyl set of lengthy guitar tracks which veer from a calm acoustic beauty to distortion and dissonance. A set that’ll take a while to digest.

    32. The Breadwinners – By the Sweat of Your Brow
    Al Breadwinner follows up the greatest UK dub album of all time with an album of vocal cuts, featuring several guest singers. Recorded at the Bakery in Stockport, but sounds like it comes from the Black Ark.

    31. Carlos Cipa – All Your Life You Walk
    Second album of fine ambient piano pieces by Munich-based musician.

    30. Eberhard Weber – Encore
    A collection of live encore pieces by the veteran ECM double-bassman, accompanied by Ack van Rooyen on the flugelhorn

    29. Paolo Fresu & Daniele di Bonaventura – In Maggiore
    Italian ECM duo of trumpet and bandoneon. Sounds just like you think it will, i.e. irresistibly plangent.

    28. Nils Økland Band – Kjølvatn
    Quintet interpret traditional Norwegian folk tunes in an icy ECM jazz style, led by Økland’s hardanger fiddle and viola d’amore.

    27. Third Reel – Many More Days
    Sophomore outing by Swiss/Italian outfit on ECM – sparse sounds from an unusual trio: drums, guitar and tenor sax/clarinet.

    26. Chilly Gonzales – Chambers
    Solo piano pieces by Canadian producer, MC, Feist collaborator and all-round dude.

    25. Julia Kent – Asperities
    Electronically treated cello sounds by Canadian musician whose material just gets stronger and stronger.

    24. Bruce Brubaker – Glass Piano
    Selected works by Philip Glass played as solo piano pieces. Extra tracks on the vinyl double LP.

    23. Vic Mars – The Land and the Garden
    Pastoral, very English instrumental music. Makes me somehow nostalgic for decades-old BBC documentaries or information films, with everything in black-and-white, or very early, washed-out colour.

    22. Ryley Walker – Primrose Green
    He’s got the voice. He’s got the guitar. Great to hear the resonances from the work of John Martyn, Bert Jansch and Tim Buckley

    21. Espen Eriksen Trio – Never Ending January
    Third and best-so-far studio album by classy Norwegian chamber jazz outfit

    Numbers 20-11 coming up tomorrow!

    • I’ve always liked that lovely sound Eberhard Weber gets from his bass and duets with a flugelhorn seem just the ticket for me. Obviously I’ll have to check that “Encore” album out.
      Agree about Jan Garbarek, Moosey. His trademark (for donkey’s years now) sax sound just grates these days, somehow.

    • Weber’s first two albums for ECM, The Colours of Chloë (1973) and Yellow Fields (1975), are both very fine.

      Yes, I’ve sort of gone off Jan Garbarek’s music a bit, too.

    • Oh yes – “The Land and the Garden” should be made available on prescription for all flu sufferers!
      I’m sure I’ll be buying more recordings from Clay Pipe Music in the future. I like the whole concept of that label, and I particularly dig the artwork.

  9. 5!! (OK, would have been 4 without the Julia Kent wonder recommended to me by the Duke)
    It and Spiro will be in my toppermost of the poppermost, unless the fun I am having making up excuses to go for a drive, to deplete my pile of to-listen-to. I am hoping Gwenno may appear in both my list and in the top half of of this
    Maybe we should be worried by your, um, new direction?!

  12. duco01 40 Favourite New Albums of 2015 – Nos 20-11

    Oooh, it’s getting exciting. It’s time for nos 20 to 11 of the best-of-year albums list that’s captured the imagination of the entire internet. Probably.
    Oh, hang on a minute –Yikes! I’ve forgotten Max Richter’s “From Sleep” (modest, 1CD version). It sort of slipped through the net. Oh well. If I’d remembered it, it would’ve been somewhere in this batch of ten.

    20. Chuck Johnson – Blood Moon Boulder
    Johnson really has that superb American Primitive guitar sound, and his instrumental compositions just get better and better.

    19. Ludovico Einaudi – Elements
    The Italian pianist/composer returns with another strong instrumental set.

    18. Arooj Aftab – Bird Under Water
    This is the only release in my 40 which is not a CD or LP. Download-only mini-album by a young Pakistani woman based in New York, and her band. The sound is an appealing half-Eastern, half-Western jazz hybrid, and the real trump card is Aftab’s beautiful voice. Remember the name: she’s good.

    17. Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch – Like Water Through the Sand
    Debut by UK-based French pianist and her chamber quintet. A lovely collection of pieces, and a broad range of textures.

    16. Laura Cannell – Beneath Swooping Talons
    Do you want to know what this music feels like? Have you read Helen McDonald’s book “H is for Hawk”? Well, that’s what Laura Cannell’s violin and recorder music feels like.

    15. Joe Jackson – Fast Forward
    Like most 70+ minute albums, this could do with 2 or 3 tracks being pruned. But the rest of it shows JJ in rude health, romping through a fine and varied set of songs.

    14. Akira Rabelais – The Little Glass
    I first came across Rabelais through his remixing work with Harold Budd’s “As Long as I can Hold My Breath.” Here he give us one CD of solo piano stuff and one 69-minute full-on ambient mood piece. The latter is very fine indeed.

    13. Joan Shelley – Over and Even
    This second album, shows a real progression from Shelley’s debut, with the upper reaches of her vocal register given freer rein and accompaniment from the redoubtable Nathan Salsburg on guitar.

    12. Daniel Bachman – River
    Absolutely first-rate American Primitive guitar album, with echoes of John Fahey, Sandy Bull, Robbie Basho and Leo Kottke.

    11. Joanna Newsom – Divers
    Maybe not up to the stratospheric standards of Ys and Have One On Me, but still a thoroughly enjoyable set by the artist who’ll always polarise opinion.

    The Titanic Top Ten coming up tomorrow!

  15. Excellent stuff as usual @duco01 – lots of new music to explore. So far, I’ve got maybe 3 or 4 – already tracking down the Vic Mars – the Eric Coates revival starts here! Would like to see more use of the word “plangent” and possibly “pellucid” in the eagerly awaited top 10!

    • Yes, the Vic Mars is a lovely album, somehow redolent of an older England. Clay Pipe Music seem to underestimated the demand for physical copies of it, though. There’s no CD release at all, and the 300 vinyl LPs all went in a few hours – I got up at 6 o’ clock in the morning to purchase mine on the day of release! As you may have seen, there’s another run of 500 vinyl copies of “The Land and the Garden” coming out in the spring, as the intriguingly named “Hollyhock” edition.

      • I confess to finding their limited low number runs a great irritant, and have some suspicion that many copies are snaffled as investments rather than for their content. I’m simply not interested in acquiring albums with an eye on their future monetary worth. Taking umbrage, I’ve stopped watching for their releases until the material becomes available through more sensible channels, which is a great shame, especially as the visual presentation is so gorgeous. You don’t get a nicely made artefact with a torrent, but you can still listen to the music perfectly well. I’m afraid that’s what a lot of people will conclude.

    • Hi again, Morrison,

      Well, I’m afraid I wasn’t able to use the word ‘pellucid’ in any of my reviews of the Top 10, but to make up for it, I’ve just ordered an album called “Pellucidar”, by the Dreamers and John Zorn.

      We do have a few John Zorn fans on this board, don’t we? It’s impossible to keep up with the man’s production, as he’s now released well over 400 studio albums – everything from the most wild-ass, out-there electic jazz to the most discreet, low-key chamber music.

      “Pellucidar” features a six-piece ensemble including regular Zorn collaborators Kenny Woolesen on vibes and the great Marc Ribot on guitar – I’ve loved his playing since I first heard “Rain Dogs”.

  18. Greetings from Ringarum, a transport caff south of Söderköping.

    I would dearly love it if our in car DJ treated us to a few DuCool faces but there’s little chance of that.

    Seriously Urban here.

    I suspect that JME will not be making onto the Duke 40 in the foreseeable future.

    I get my blues

    On the E22.

      • I’m afraid, ernie, that the top spot this year is occupied by a really predictable choice. I would’ve liked to have had a Faroese chamber folk album by a band playing ocarinas as my Number One, but sadly it wasn’t to be. I suspect there’ll be sighs of disappointment and cries of “Boring!” when all is revelaed tomorrow morning.

  20. Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch – Like Water Through the Sand was the other direct recommendation when I was seeking modern “classical” or whatever it’s called. Stunning stuff. Even better than Asperities, but both absolute stonkers of that needsabettername genre.
    Play it loud.

    • Do you mind if I drop a few more recommendations your way, retro, in the genre that needs a better name?
      I don’t know whether all of these dozen albums fit into that genre, but at least they’re knocking on the door.
      And they’re all really good….

      North Sea Radio Orchestra – North Sea Radio Orchestra
      A Winged Victory for the Sullen – Atomos
      Collectress – Mondegreen
      Espen Eriksen & Gunnar Halle – Psalm
      Three Cane Whale – Holts and Hovers
      Phil France – The Swimmer
      Chris Morphitis – Where to Go
      Bugge Wesseltoft & Henning Karggerud – Last Spring
      Eple Trio – In the Clearing/In the Cavern
      Ketil Bjørnstad & Svante Henrysson – Night Song
      Ballaké Sissoko & Vincent Ségal – Chamber Music
      Håkon Kornstad – Dwell Time

        • But I didn’t! Julia Kent is at 25, while the hard-to-remember-the name-of Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch is at no. 17. That’s 8 places higher.

          And, come to think of it, Emilie carried off the prize for the Debut Album of the Year in my chart. As far as I can see, the sixteen artists above her have all made records before.

          • Ooops, missed her in the list, making me overall getting close to the daddyo-dudeness of the Squeezer.
            (Hey, Duco, how do you deal with all this, um, responsibility? Even the absent Saucepot gets negligible equivalent credence for his best Rod Stewart LPs list of the year)

  21. Joanne Newsom’s is fine. Musically and vocally, it is an amalgam of her first three albums. The problem I have is when she sings about the real life. It doesn’t seem righ somehow. I much prefer her occupying her own strange, little world. Then, the music matches much better.

  22. Joanna Newsom is my Tom Russell Tigs, I have tried very hard but her voice is like fingernails on a blackboard.
    2 in thew bottom 20, nothing in the next 10 so not much hope for the top 10.

    You are right about Kendrick Lamar though – splendid album, coming to it too late to finish in my top 10.

    • I suppose I can’t be wrong all the time. I understand your viewpoint for Newsom. I like the full-on duck voice best, the one on Milk-Eyed Minder but I can absolutely appreciate its truly annoying nature.

  23. You’re spoiler about the number one spot will dash the spirits of some young Faroese hopefuls.

    How can I break it to my pals in the Fabulous Ocarina Chamber Klubb of Faroese Folk ( usually just known as Fock Off) that fame and fortune will not be theirs this year?

  24. Funnily enough, Noel is covering one of Fock Off’s tunes on the High Flying Birds forcoming E.P, along with a Joanna Newsom medley and some French piano led jazz given the full Cum on Feel the Noize treatment. Could have next year’s number one slot sewn up by the end of January.

    In the meantime I am off to explore the Spiro and Fussell albums.

    • Blimey Ernie. Some people will go to extraordinary lengths to get mentioned by the Duke.

      Mousey. I promise you that you’ll find some thing that you like on this list. DuCool is like Santa: he always delivers the goods.

      Right now I’m sitting nervously in a hotel room in Kalmar, like a child on Xmas Eve or a TOTP viewer on Xmas Day back in the 70s, waiting for the Top Ten to be posted.

  26. And now, finally….

    the duco01 40 Favourite New Albums of 2015 – Nos 10-1

    10. Mathias Eick – Midwest
    Eick’s third ECM set as leader, and his best work yet: His trumpet fronts up a big, wider-scale sound, evoking the vast open spaces of the US, and actually includes a few proper tunes that you can hum.

    9. Michael Chapman – Fish
    I like Chapman’s instrumental tracks most of all, and here’s a whole album’s worth of them from the Yorkshire acoustic guitar maestro.

    8. James Elkington & Nathan Salsburg – Ambsace
    A terrific set of acoustic guitar duets on my favourite US record label, Paradise of Bachelors. Salsburg seems to be involved in so many fine recordings. Bonus points for an unlikely cover of the Smiths’ “Reel Around the Fountain”

    7. Dave Rawlings Machine – Nashville Obsolete
    He and Gillian have it all, don’t they? Great writing, singing, playing and production. They’re consummate performers. Everything they’ve ever done is absolutely top class.

    6. Greg Foat Group – The Dancers at the Edge of Time
    Foat adds an Isle of Wight church organ to his soulful, relaxed UK jazz sound. Hard to say if I prefer this to his first two studio outings. Hell, they’re all great!

    5. William Basinski – Cascade
    What does the very best tape loop-based ambient music sound like? It sounds like this. Basinski’s best work since the genre-defining “Disintegration Loops Vol. 1,” back in 2002. With this album, it’s a good idea to heed Brian Eno’s advice from the “Discreet Music” days: don’t listen to it actively – just have it on in the background.

    4. Decemberists – What a What A Terrible World, What A Beautiful World
    A long album, but unusually strong all the way through. Maybe a slightly lighter, pop-based sound than earlier Decemberists records. Colin Meloy is a superior lyricist.

    3. Roger Robinson – Dis Side A Town
    As LKJ’s “Forces of Victory” was to 1979, so “Dis Side aTown” is to 2015. UK/Trinidadian dub poet and King Midas Sound member Roger Robinson reflects on London during the Tottenham riots. An engrossing record.

    2. Anouar Brahem – Souvenance
    A double CD set from ECM that needs a lot of listening to. Tunisian oud player Brahem works with a larger ensemble than usual, including his old sparring partner pianist François Couturier. The music is his own interpretation of the events of the Arab Spring in Tunisia in 2011. Serious, ambitious and beautiful work.

    1. Sufjan Stevens – Carrie and Lowell
    In my annual albums lists, I always try to highlight some less well-known music that people may not have heard. But what’s No.1 in this year’s 40? A mainstream album that’s topped many other lists all over the internet, and has already been discussed to death on this board. Some people love it; other’s feel it’s hopelessly overpraised. I still find it a naked, profoundly moving set of songs that finally comes to rest in something like reconciliation. Oh, and Sufjan sings like an angel from start to finish.

    Watch out for the duco01 2015 Top 20 Reissues and Archival Recordings list, coming sometime in the next 2 weeks.

    • Are the two acts that you’ve seen live this year Sufjan Stevens and the Decemberists, Lando?

      I’d love to see the Decemberists in concert, but so far they’ve not been too keen on playing Stockholm.

  32. I have 4 so I am not worst. The Dave Rawlings is wonderful, not least his terrific sinewy guitar playing. I like the Sufjan when I think to listen to it but that’s generally when I’m working from home as it is hardly a boshing about album.

    • re: Dave Rawlings; did you really think so? I enjoyed the first three minutes, and then it carried on in the same vein, interminably. After half an hour I wasn’t even sure how many songs I’d heard. By the end I’d found it dull, ponderous and annoying. His missus always delivers the goods, but he always disappoints, I find. I never seem to learn from that mistake; it even crossed my mind as I doled out the cash for this last one.

  33. Pencil you would be the most happening cat in N Wales in any case.

    But a quick query about terminology used to describe this list. The word hip is used more often than at a gatherings of NHS surgeons when talking about the Duke.

    No facial hair
    No black beret
    No sandals
    No gitanes
    No bike made of organic materials
    No tattoos (well not any parts of his body that I have seen)
    No dreadlocks

    My pal is not a hipster!

    To paraphrase Robert Frost, this is a list of the tracks less travelled.

    Or has anyone a better description?

  37. Love Midwest and Dis Side Ah Town.

    I’m disappointed. Where’s Julia Holter, Max Richterand The Unheard Karen Dalton? I had those pinned as right up your street.

    I recommend you expand your jazz listening, duco. There is more than one label, you know.

    • Hi Tigger,

      1. Max Richter. As I mentioned above, I simply forgot him. The album just slipped my mind when I was puting the list together. Actaully, I can’t really assess “From Sleep” as a whole, as every time I put the album on in the evening, I (and Mrs duco) fall asleep long before the end. So I’ve never heard the last couple of tracks. I wonder what they’re like.

      2. Julia Holter. Here, I hang my head in shame. I borrowed the album from the library, listened to about 15 seconds of each of the first two tracks, decided that I didn’t like it, and then returned it. I simply didn’t give it a chance. Poor show from duco.

      3. Jazz. When I first started posting on the old Word site, I was a real jazz-head, listening to proper, full-on skronky jazz from a multitude of jazz labels. I don’t really know why, in the past couple of years, my tastes have drifted towards the quieter end of the genre, and the ECM sound in particular. It’s hard to say why one’s tastes change over time. Maybe 2016 will see me making a bit of a return to the jazz fold…

      • Cuh! I bet Anouar Brahem needed a lot of listening to before it ‘clicked’. I think you should give her a proper listen.

        Your list is as lovely as ever, duco. However, your enthusiasm in the lower reaches of the top forty seems less than usual. Do you think 2015 has been a poor year?

          • Apologies. The ‘her’ refers to Julia Holter. Brahem’s is an album that takes a lot of effort on behalf of the listener (well worth it, though). I was admonishing the duke for not putting much effort into Juia’s.

            Mind you, I can talk. I’m quite happy to dismiss an album within 15 seconds if the mood takes me.

    • Have you seen “The Wire’s” Top 50 Albums of 2015, ernie? They’re incredibly obscure, even by The Wire’s standards.

      I’m a Wire subscriber, and try to seek out a fair bit of music in less popular genres, but I’ve got to say that this year, the Wire’s list has got me scratching my head. I own 3 out of the 50 records, and have just about heard of a further 12. With the other 35 albums, I draw a complete blank.

      The full list is here:

      http://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/tracks/2015-releases-of-the-year

      • You know you’re in trouble when you don’t know which is the band and which is the track name. Worse still, it’s always possible that some wag has brought out a track called ‘Joanna Newsom’.

      • I found it quite a mainstream list for The Wire this year. There are a number of youngsters making bleeping noises, including Jlin of course, and you either like that kind of thing or you don’t. I like it. You have the Kendrick, Kamasi, Thundercat axis. They have always rated Jeck. Personally, I find one of his is enough. Sleaford Mods are consistent and are discussed here on The Afterword quite often. Plus, they like their arty types, Joanna and Julia. But why no FKA Twigs? Perhaps the lack of a physical format disqualified her.

        As a lover of Roger Robinson, duco, I expect you’ve at least heard the King Midas Sound collaboration. I was hoping for much more from it.

      • Astonishingly, I have four. They are obvious ones, mind you. Out of curiosity, are the 35 you say you haven’t come across available on Spotify or Bamdcamp etc ?

        In the meantime, following your disclouse that you now veer towards the quieter end of jazz, I will be interested tonsee if that trajectory continues. Will we see The Temperence Seven feature in next year’s reissues chart ?

          • Well, you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve compiled the 20 albums on my reissues chart, but I haven’t written the extensive annotations yet. I should think I’ll be posting it, or at least the first half of it, in the next 2 or 3 days.

            There’sa few reggae/dub and African releases on there that you’ll probably like, Tigger, but there’s also a whole lot of stuff that will incure the wrath and scorn of most Afterworders – all of you who aren’t deadheads, actually. Hah!

  39. I did this for my own listening pleasure and to explore further. But please dig in.

    Here are the first 20 albums, If I couldn’t find DuCool’s choice, I took another album by the same artist to get a taste of their work. All ECM releases missing of course.

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