Best Albums of 2015

There were so many quality albums released in 2015, spanning a wide diversity of tunes, genres, and sonic textures. The one common thread I found weaving through all was, simply, permanence.   

Most of 2015's albums sound so familiar.  Young, developing, and veteran artists alike all seemed devoted to enjoying and exploring existing genres and scenes, enriching, cultivating, and building on prior strides and deepening the traditions that feed the deep inheritances of today's polyphonous world.  

Kind of like a garden blossoming or canopy of trees thickening.  So many sounds we've grown to value and love, renewing themselves and growing stronger, more dialectical, more conversant with each other and ourselves.  Permanence: within music this means shared appreciation and exchange of where we came from and how we carry our sources forward into a deepening harmonics of today's world.  

(Albums listed in order of personal faves)

Best: Future Classics

1.  Night Beds "Ivywild"

2.  Joanna Newsom "Divers" 

3.  Benoit Pioulard "Sonnet" 

4.  Beach House "Depression Cherry"

5.  White Poppy "Natural Phenomena"

6.  C. Duncan "Architect"

7.  Beach House "Thank Your Lucky Stars" 

8.  Fog Lake "Victoria Falls"

9.  Valet "Nature"

10.  Panda Bear "Meets the Grim Reaper"

11.  Helen "The Original Faces"

12.  Lord Huron "Strange Trails"

13.  The Albert Square "I (Assume I) Know What I'm Doing

14.  Julia Holter "Have You in my Wilderness"

15.  Wolf Alice "My Love is Cool"

16.  The Underground Youth "Haunted"

Better: Enjoy these Music Presents

17.  Kurt Vile "b'lieve I'm going down"

18.  US. Girls "Half Free"

19.  No Joy "More Faithful"

20.  Tripwires "Watermelancholia"

21.  Noveller "Fantastic planet" 

22.  Echo Lake "Era"

23.  Flying Saucer Attack "Instrumentals 2015"

24.  Kendrick Lamar "To Pimp a Butterfly"

25.  Deerhunter "Fading Frontier"

26.  To Kiss the Anus of a Black Cat "To Live Vic."

27.  Chelsea Wolfe "Abyss"

28.  Maserati "Rehumanizer"

29.  Eternal Tapestry "Wild Strawberries"

30.  The Black Ryder "Door behind the Door"
31.  Other Lives "Rituals" 

32.  Die Verbotten "2007"

33.  The Moving Panoramas "One"

34.  Sheer "Uneasy"

35.  Malka "Marching to Another Beat"

36.  Colleen "Captain of None"

37.  Bjork "Vulnicura"

38.  Teen Daze "A World Away" EP

39.  Belle & Sebastian "Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance"

40.  Bill Ryder-Jones "West Kirby County Primary"

41.  The Black Dog "Neither/Neither"

42.  Nokeen "The Gamble"

43.  Sophie "Product"

44.  Doomsquad "Pageantry Suite"

45.  Heaters "Holy Water Pool"

46.  Singapore Sling - "Psyche Fuck" 

47.  Broken Water "Wrought"

48.  Hiatus "Parklands"

49.  Mercury Rev "The Light in You"

50.  Beliefs "Leaper" 

51.  Vaadat Charagim "Sinking as a Stone"

52.  Will Butler "Policy"

53.  Pool Holograph "Mortals"

54.  Cold Beat "Into the Air"

Good: Ole Standards to Pass Your Time

55.  Cloud "Zen Summer"

56.  Levantine "Exploding Boxes"

57.  Snow in Mexico "Prodigal Summer/Juno Beach"

58.  Lana Del Ray "Honeymoon" 

59.  Widowspeak "All Yours" 

60.  The Leaf Library "Daylight Versions"

61.  Moon Duo "Shadow of the Sun"

62.  Sunny day in Glasgow "Planning Weed Like it's Acid/Life is Lost"

63.  Lower Dens "Escape from Evil"

64.  Deaf Cult "Deafcult"

65.  Cristobel & the Sea "Sugar Now"

66.  Hundred Waters "The Moon Rang Like a Bell (Remixed)"

67.  U/V Light "Cenotaph"

68.  Lanterns on the Lake "Beings"