Best of 2019 – Recorded Music

• The Delines, The Imperial – This album was the moment where The Delines outstripped both predecessor bands, Richmond Fontaine and Damnations TX, for me – and that’s saying something because they were two of my favorite bands of all times. Willy Vlautin’s writing the kind of torch songs Amy Boone was born to sing with sympathetic, keening backing highlighting Cory Gray’s keys and Tucker Jackson’s steel.
• Allison Miller’s Boom Tic Boom, Glitter Wolf – Allison Miller’s been one of my favorite drummers since I first caught her subbing for Kenny Wollensen in Steven Bernstein’s MTO and her compositions blow me away. This is her strongest collection yet with the rhythm section hookup between Miller, Todd Sickafoose on bass, and Myra Melford on piano sliding into a rare telepathy with stratospheric frontline playing from Ben Goldberg, Jenny Scheinman and Kirk Knuffke. A record as full of joy and curiosity as any I heard this year.
• Moor Mother, Analog Fluids of Sonic Black Holes – Moor Mother digs deeper into universes only she could create on this intriguing, mesmerizing record. A head-nodding, grimy, noise-soaked paean to all the reasons to stay alive and fighting.

• Angel Bat Dawid, The Oracle – This lo-fi solo record (there’s only one guest drummer throughout) was a powerful debut statement from Angel bat Dawid and took me on journies of joy and discovery, tied in with the history of Chicago jazz and fire music but with a voice that could never be mistaken for anything else.
• Steve Earle, Guy – Earle’s last record, So You Want to Be an Outlaw was a poignant look at the potential of a scene and the way it starts to confine you, a goodbye and embracing his youth. This tribute record to one of the greatest American songwriters and a personal mentor to Earle, Guy Clark, uses exactly what Earle wants from that era and takes on these tunes with the kind of irreverence that affirms why they’ll live forever – whether he’s opening “Dublin Blues” into a riotous stomp, rearranging “Out in the Parking Lot” ZZ Top style (and drawing connections to Earle’s own “Devil’s Right Hand”), or drawing out all the poignancy of “Desperados Waiting for a Train,” Earle and band are clearly having a hell of a time.
• Ryan Jewell Quintet, Vibration! – One of the great Columbus exports to the world in a victory lap with his perfectly calibrated jazz quintet.

• Raphael Saadiq, Jimmy Lee – One of my favorite songwriters with his darkest, thorniest, most personal record yet. The hooks are just as strong but sometimes Saadiq makes us dig for them.
• Purple Mountains, Purple Mountains – I still don’t quite know what to say about this staggering David Berman reappearance with perfect backing from Woods. It’s impossible to separate this – at least yet – from the autobiography surrounding it but I’m more glad than I can express for these songs.
• Jaimie Branch, Fly or Die II: Bird Dogs of Paradise – Jaimie Branch, the most exciting new trumpet voice in a while, followed up her stellar debut with this knottier, wilder, stranger record. Featuring the fantastic rhythm section of Jason Ajemian on bass and percussion and Chad Taylor on drums along with Lester St. Louis on cello and percussion and a series of stellar guests who followed these tunes down every dark alley and through every hairpin turn.

• Chuck Mead, Closer to Home – Chuck Mead, your favorite Americana artist’s favorite Americana artist since the days of BR549, took a moment to pay tribute to the rich tradition of Memphis – including some of its finest players such as John Paul Keith and Mark Andrew Millar – with his most consistent solo record yet.
• Craig Finn, I Need A New War – I’m not sure if you told me in 2019 I’d be so moved by a new Craig Finn record, I’d have believed you. But with I Need a New War he honed and perfected the formula of the last two for a gorgeous, glowing look at people trying their best, in fits and starts, and sometimes not trying their best but knowing it and hoping they’ll get another chance. Probably the record I played most often all year and kept finding comfort in.
• Weyes Blood, Titanic Rising – Weyes Blood continues her more streamlined trajectory with the rapturous Titanic Rising. Poems to longing, dread for the future, all set in backgrounds that unsettle and feel perfect.

• Brian Harnetty, Shawnee, Ohio – One of Columbus’ best composers’ most fully realized works. Grown out of a residency in its eponymous city, Harnetty builds tribute landscapes to the memory of a place still holding on, archival material stands on its own with gripping chamber music in a way few others achieve. I interviewed Harnetty for a preview when the Wexner Center premiered the work live, I’ve been a fan and friend for years, and I’m still finding new things to marvel at in the record.
• Mark Lomax II, The 400 – Another of Columbus’ best composers made a truly massive statement with Lomax’s 12-album length look at the African diaspora. Settings his fans are used to – the Ogun Meji duo with Eddie Bayard is still the best free jazz in town – mix with more expansive work like the Urban Art Ensemble, the cello quartet Ucelli and, in my favorite piece, the Atlanta percussion ensemble Ngoma Lungundu. A sprawling, engaging, focused work that would reward anyone interested in contemporary music.
• Jamila Woods, Legacy! Legacy! – Jamila Woods’ grappling with her antecedents is as catchy as it is brave. An uncanny record full of tracks named after Baldwin and Basquiat and Miles that does the subjects justice without drifting into pastiche or sacrificing Woods’ individual voice. Breathtaking.
• Kris Davis, Diatom Ribbons – I’ve been a fan of Kris Davis for a long time, I think going back to the first time I saw Paradoxical Frog, and with every release she surprises me but I had to hold onto my seat for Diatom Ribbons. A Rauschenberg-worthy combine of both the contemporary world and the human heart with a stellar cast of players including JD Allen, Tony Malaby, Marc Ribot, Nels Cline, Trevor Dunn, and Teri Lynne Carrington.

• Nathalie Joachim/Spektral Quartet, Fanm d’Ayiti – Composer/flutist/vocalist Nathalie Joachim teamed with an adventurous string quartet for a stirring, gorgeous tribute to the women of Haiti. One of the warmest,most rewarding records I heard all year, still rolling through my bones.
• Carolina Eyck, Elegies for Theremin and Voice – A composer/performer new to me with a record I couldn’t get out of my head. Intimate, intricate, layered topographies of loss that often reminded me of Christina Carter’s early solo work.
• Jesse Malin, Sunset Kids – Jesse Malin, going back to D Generation, always has a couple songs that destroy me, that are my favorite songs of the year. And he’s defined a chunk of New York in my brain that syncs with my 20 years of regular visiting. But Sunset Kids is the first Malin record that sounds like no one else could have made it, all the friends (with special attention to producers Lucinda Williams and Tom Overby) helped distill his approach so he’s still tipping his hat to all his influences singing purely and cleanly in his own voice. From the Xpensive Winos-esque stomps “Meet Me At The End Of The World Again” and “Dead On” to the buoyant ebuillence of “Strangers and Thieves” through the wistful sweetness of “Shane” and “My Little Life,” these are vital dispatches from a lifer who still has plenty to say.
• Guillermo Klein y Los Guachos, Cristal – One of the finest big band composers gets better and better on this sparkling collection of beguiling tunes. Jeff Ballard’s drums never sounded better than they do driving with Fernando Huergo’s thick bass and Klein’s glittering piano, fused to blue-flame front line work especially from Chris Cheek and Paul McHenry on reeds.