Another year done and dusted in the world of music and as always there were some exceptional records released. These lists always do our head in so this time around we’ve shaken things up a bit. Instead of just doing a ranked top 50 list we’ve narrowed down our top ten and then listed the 40 other albums that we highly rate and recommend you checking out if you haven’t heard them. As always, we’d love to hear what your favourite records of the year.
Top Ten
1. Parquet Courts – Wide Awake!
“A record that shakes off any restrictive genre shackles, shakes shimmies and grooves with garage rock, baggy dance and an enviable level of cool.”
2. Suicide Swans – La Jungla
“Suicide Swans are seemingly a band on a mission. The dust has barely settled on the release cycle for their excellent Augusta album of last year and they’re already releasing it’s followup – the sprawling, psych, rock and cosmic country double album that is La Jungla.”
3. Marlon Williams – Make Way For Love
“‘Make Way For Love’ is a heavy album at times but it leaves you with a feeling of stepping out of the darkness and into the light, optimism replacing despair and with the desire to explore the mysteries of love still tantalisingly intact.”
4. Halfway – Rain Lover
“Halfway are a modern treasure on the Australian musical landscape, always cutting to the heart and soul of their music with each record they produce. On ‘Rain Lover’ they’ve topped even their own lofty standards.”
5. Low Double – Negative
“‘Double Negative’ is bold and powerful music, fusing the avant-garde and traditional song with both friction and harmony. It’s unnerving, visceral and wholly compelling.”
6. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever – Hope Downs
“Effortless and endless melodies that are both melancholic and enervating at the same time. A songwriting collective in perfect unison and right on top of their game”
7. Cash Savage & The Last Drinks – Good Citizens
“‘Good Citizens’ is a bold and astute album that thrives on its balance and range. It pulls on heartstrings as effectively as it raises questions and it thrillingly blends musicality with Savage’s emotionally and intellectually-based commentary.”
8. Tropical Fuck Storm – A Laughing Death In Meatspace
“Tropical Fuck Storm are a glorious detour into deconstructed rock music, reflective of societal malaise and unafraid to tell it like it is. Qualities desperately needed in the current musical climate.”
9. Khruangbin – Con Todo El Mundo
“Soulful, funky, tripped-out pan-global grooves that hit you in the head and the hips”
10. Nils Frahm – All Melody
“The result of disciplined, studied genius, a wildly creative mind and open musical borders. This is ambient electronic music for the headphones and the heart.”
11-50 unranked, in alphabetical order:
Alice In Chains – Rainier Fog
Charles Lloyd & The Marvels + Lucinda Williams – Vanished Gardens
Choir Boy – Passive With Desire
Colter Wall – Songs Of The Plains
Damien Jurado – The Horizon Just Laughed
Eleanor Friedberger – Rebound
Darren Cross – Peacer
Davey Craddock – One Punch
Avantdale Bowling Club – Avantdale Bowling Club
Courtney Barnett – Tell Me How You Really Feel
Earthless – Black Heaven
East Brunswick All Girls Choir – Teddywaddy
Field Music – Open Here
GAS – Rausch
Gouge Away – Burnt Sugar
Harmony – Double Negative
Harmony Rockets – Lachesis / Clotho / Atropos
Jack Ladder – Blue Poles
Jamie Hutchings – Bedsit
John Prine – Tree Of Forgiveness
Kurt Vile – Bottle It In
Kyle Craft – Full Circle Nightmare
Moaning – Moaning
Okkervil River – In The Rainbow Rain
Phosphorescent – C’est La Vie
Richmond Fontaine – Don’t Skip Out On Me
Roadhouses – Roadhouses
Ruby Boots – Don’t Talk About It
Ry Cooder – The Prodigal Son
Ryley Walker – Deafman Glance
Sarah Blasko – Depth Of Field
Space Afrika – Somewhere Decent To Live
Stuart A. Staples – Arrhythmia
The Breeders – All Nerve
The Caretaker Everywhere at the end of time – Stage 4 & 5
The Goon Sax – We’re Not Talking
The Messthetics – The Messthetics
The Necks – Body
Windhand – Eternal Return
Wooden Shjips – V
