Having shared our Top 100 Albums of 2018, Glenn Kimpton selects his Top 10 albums of the year (an even harder task).
Glenn Jones The Giant Who Ate Himself and Other New Works for 6 & 12 String Guitar (Thrill Jockey)
Glenn Jones is the leading player in what many call the American Primitive style of solo guitar music, and this quietly confident set is one of his very strongest. The melodies throughout are terrifically woven into instrumental narratives, with the lovely liner notes explaining many of them. Although the banjo tune is on the cutting room floor for this one, it is still vintage Jones and reinforces his reputation as steel string master.
Try: Even the Snout and the Tail
Daniel Bachman Morning Star (Three Lobed Recordings)
This mammoth experimental set of field recordings, radio cuts, custom-made drones and acoustic guitar pieces takes the approach to his last self-titled album and amps it up several notches. The obvious unease Daniel was feeling at the time of composing and recording Morning Star has helped him achieve a hugely impressive work of nuanced artistry. It takes a little while to peel back the layers of this one, but once there, the rewards are made clear.
Try: Song for the Setting Sun III
Sarah Louise Deeper Woods (Thrill Jockey)
It’s a strong year for Thrill Jockey recordings, and this vocal led project from the inimitable Sarah Louise was a wonderful surprise. Whereas her previous works have focused closely on her twelve string guitar and its custom tunings informing the pieces, Deeper Woods started as a capella songs and built around them. As with all of Sarah’s work, nature runs deeply through the music, but this one broadens the palette and adds colour and texture with voice and instrumentation.
Try: Pipevine Swallowtails
Toby Hay The Longest Day (Cambrian Records)
Welsh instrumentalist Toby Hay takes a significant leap forward with his second full length album, allowing wider travels to inform his pieces and choosing jazz arrangements to create new environments. ‘Leaving Chicago’ nicely evokes a sense of excitement mixed with a hint of melancholy, while ‘Late Summer in Boscastle’ is his boldest song yet, a beautiful piece of music showcasing strong intuition between players.
Try: Late Summer in Boscastle
John Prine The Tree of Forgiveness (Oh Boy Records)
Legendary American singer John Prine’s first album of originals since 2005 is a lesson in concise story telling and unpretentious arrangements. In thirty-two minutes, Prine takes on life and death and other juicy topics and stitches them into a work of sharp wit and great musicianship, with a perfect blend of light and shade. How the hell can you fail to fall for an album with lines like ‘my Daddy said, he said, “Buddy, when you’re dead, you’re a dead peckerhead”’?
Try: The Lonesome Friends of Science
Marisa Anderson Cloud Corner (Thrill Jockey)
Cloud Corner is another meticulously crafted set of instrumentals displaying the skill and patience of this itinerant and wise guitarist. There are layered electric guitar pieces here with reverb tails mixing with spiky guitar lines that create a perfect storm of tranquillity. At the other end are pieces like ‘Sun Song’, a beautiful solo tune played on the nylon strung requinto jarocho, which in all its simplicity manages to work perfectly with the fuller pieces.
Try: Lift
Jim Ghedi A Hymn for Ancient Land (Basin Rock)
Jim went for a fuller sound to evoke his beloved countryside and terrain for his second album, which is a very different piece of work from his debut. Here, undulating rhythms from acoustic guitar, strings and brass create a busy environment that never gets overcrowded, while strong vocal performances salute old stories and artisanal traditions. It’s a love letter to nature and time that is a pleasure to listen to throughout.
Try: Home for Moss Valley
Nathan Bowles Plainly Mistaken (Paradise of Bachelors)
Since his debut banjo album, A Bottle, A Buckeye, Nathan Bowles has made an effort to bend and break the parameters of banjo led music with three more efforts, this trio set being his most successful. ‘Road Reversed’ rivals Whole and Cloven‘s ‘I Miss my Dog’ as a lengthy belter, while the vocal pieces blend better than ever and ‘Girih Tiles’ and ‘Umbra’ are arguably Bowles’s most abstract and interesting pieces yet.
Try: Girih Tiles
John Hulbert Leapfrog (Tompkins Square)
I just love Tompkins Square and what Josh Rosenthal does with obscure music. Both this album and Duck Baker’s Les Blues du Richmond are ace releases, but Hulbert’s won the toss here. Found from a set of tapes recorded in 1998, Leapfrog is as unpretentious as music gets, with short solo pieces showing his subtle prowess with the guitar. Everything on here is lovely, but how he manages to make such an impression in just over a minute (‘1:16’), is beyond me.
Try: 1:16
Colter Wall Songs of the Plains (Young Mary’s Record Co.)
Another ‘significant leap forward’ album comes in the shape of Canadian outback country singing phenomenon Colter Wall’s second, which strips things right back to the bones to bring native tales and the ghosts of Marlon Jennings and George Jones to the fore. Wall is modest about his playing, but it’s just right for his narratives and his ultimate weapon, that immense baritone, is a wonder. This is timeless music and an album you will just keep reaching for.