Some Of The Best Albums of 2015

I should confess that this year I feel I have listened to less "new" music than in any recent year I can recall. The reasons for this are I suspect, twofold. 

First I have been quite deeply immersed in my fairly large collection of old jazz and blues recordings and absorbing this wonderful music has taken up quite a large portion of the time I have available to listen to music. I mean, why have the stuff if you don't listen to it?

The second reason is that this year there have been fewer new albums that have appealed to me or which have been recommended by friends. In the past few years, I have made some terrific new discoveries and have as a result delved into the back catalogues of artists like Anais Mitchell, These New Puritans, The War On Drugs and Steven Wilson. Not so this year I'm afraid, so consequently I have played it fairly safe when listening to new releases and have stuck with acts that I have tried and tested in the past and who invariably come up with the goods.

As a result, I can hardly call the following selection "The Best of 2015". Instead I shall just say that these are among the finest newly released albums I have listened to this year. Of course I also acknowledge that there will have been some wonderful releases that I have missed and hopefully will catch up with at a later date. I am still annoyed with myself for omitting the superb Blake Mills album 'Heigh-Ho' from my list last year, but I did not discover it until early in 2015.

So, for what it's worth, here are some of the best 2015 releases I have listened to.

Villagers - 'Darling Arithmetic' first written about here.
Calexico - 'Edge of the Sun'  written about here.
Sufjan Stevens - 'Carrie & Lowell'
The Decemberists - 'What a Terrible World, What a Wonderful World'. My comments from January can be read here.
Blitzen Trapper - 'All Across This Land' . Read all about it here.
Wilco - 'Star Wars'. Click here for my views on that one.
Sun Kil Moon - 'Universal Themes'.  You know what to do - here.
Jason Isbell - 'Something More Than Free'. Click here to read about that one.

They are all very fine albums which I am sure I will continue to listen to for months and perhaps years to come. However there are three which I have not listed but which I regard as the absolute best of my listening experiences in 2015.
Try to curb your curiosity. They will appear in my next post.