‘Bake me off!’ illustration by Lisa Cradduck
The end of the year is at once the most stressful and the most rewarding time to work for The Quietus. Our co-founder John Doran has already explained the existential dread that list-making invites for a website that doesn’t believe in scoring music at all as part of his introduction to our top 100 Albums list, more eloquently than I could ever hope, but so too do the practical aspects of putting our three big lists together take their toll. I’ll try my very best not to whinge too much about what’s essentially my dream job, but on the other hand our website is so knackered we have to manually code every time we want to make something bold, italic or a bigger font, and when it comes to coding the dazzling array of links, embeds and subheadings you’re about to take in, the frustration makes me want to bash my computer’s stupid face in.
Yet for all those interminable hours spent trying to find the one missing forward slash that’s broken the whole website, there’s a real thrill to finally pressing publish on each of our end of year top 100s. Without wishing to blow our own trumpet, it’s so genuinely heartwarming when people tell us they’ve waited all year for our list, or discovered something they really love. It bolsters our resolve to cover the kind of music that we really don’t feel like anyone else is really covering, and the kind we feel so deeply passionate about sharing. I think I can speak for all of tQ’s staff when I say that we all get introduced to at least one or two new records we haven’t heard ourselves in the process; a particularly saucy, serene, sad or psychedelic record or two thrown our way by one of our columnists among their personal top 20s. When the top 100 gets published, I usually spend as much time as I hope you will devouring every one of our picks, whether for the first time or the fiftieth.
Which brings us neatly enough to the inevitable. The ability to bring you all this incredible music gets harder and harder every day, and without your help there’s every chance that this year’s end of year lists could be our very last. As more and more of the advertising that online publications like us rely upon to survive gets swallowed up by Facebook and Google, and as social media algorithms continue to squeeze out the kind of in-depth writing we try to provide in favour of clickbait and bilge, every year it becomes harder and harder just to keep the site running. If you’ve ever been introduced to any music you love via our website, and if you’re able to spare the money, please do consider donating to the site via the link below. Once you’ve done that, please enjoy our favourite 100 reissues, compilations, mixes, live albums, soundtracks and miscellany of 2019.
Patrick Clarke, Staff Writer
PLEASE DONATE TO THE QUIETUS HERE.
This chart was compiled from ballots by Jennifer Lucy Allan, Bobby Barry, Tristan Bath, Charlie Brigden, Patrick Clarke, John Doran, Christian Eede, Noel Gardner, Ella Kemp and Sean Kitching. It was compiled by Doran and built by Clarke and Eede
100. Beatrice Dillon –
RA.706
(Resident Advisor)
99.
Atomic ForestDisco Roar
98.
Kristian Eidnes AndersenAntichrist (Original Soundtrack)
97.
Cabaret VoltaireMethodology ‘74 – ‘78: The Attic Tapes
96.
Miss JayHNYPOT 334: Need For Speed Mix
95.
James HoldenA Cambodian Spring OST
94.
Laurel HaloDJ-Kicks
93.
VAMusic And/As Process
92.
VAMusic From Jarvis Cocker’s Sunday Service
91.
Sun Ra ArkestraLive In Kalisz 1986
90.
John ColtraneBlue World
89.
VAThird Noise Principle: Formative North American Electronica 1975-1984
88.
LeifFreerotation 2019
87.
Dome1-4+5
86.
Mark Fisher Justin BartonOn Vanishing Land
85.
David AxelrodSeriously Deep
84.
Fever RayLive At Troxy
83.
VAMogadisco: Dancing Mogadishu (Somalia 1972 – 1991)
82.
Scott Walker SiaVox Lux OST
81.
Sonic YouthBattery Park, NYC: July 4, 2008
80.
Tanita TikaramTo Drink The Rainbow (An Anthology 1988 – 2019)
79.
Blue Gene TyrannyOut of the Blue
78.
James RightonBenjamin (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
77.
Horace Tapscott With The PanAfrikan Peoples ArkestraLive At IUCC
76.
Eris DrewRaving Disco Breaks Vol. 1
75.
VAA Short Illness From Which He Never Recovered
74.
Boards Of CanadaSocietas X Tape
73.
Jerry Goldsmith, Leonard Rosenman and Tom ScottPlanet Of The Apes (Original Film Series Soundtrack Collection)
72.
Throbbing GristlePart Two: The Endless Not
71.
VAFracture Presents Turbo
70.
Dan LevyI Lost My Body (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
69.
Yoshi WadaLament for the Rise and Fall of the Elephantine Crocodile
68.
Re:niCrack Mix 254
67.
Gene Clark
66.
Masayuki Takayanagi New Direction UnitApril is the Cruellest Month
65.
SybilDIM167
64.
VATaxi Sampler 01: Rhythms & Vibes from the Spirit of Young Africa
63.
Nicholas BritellIf Beale Street Could Talk (Original Motion Picture Score)
62.
James BernardDracula / The Curse of Frankenstein
61.
VTSSDiscwoman 62
60.
Robert AshleyAutomatic Writing
59.
VAWXAXRXP Sessions
58.
Ben FrostDark (Cycle 1)
57.
Jane WeaverLoops In The Secret Society
56.
Maleem Mahmoud Ghania with Pharoah SandersThe Trance of Seven Colors
55.
Ben UFORainbow Disco Club 2019
54.
Roland KaynScanning (1982-1983)
53.
Mark HollisMark Hollis
52.
The FallHex Enduction Hour
51.
Louis Moholo OctetSpirits Rejoice
50.
Robert Eggers’ follow up to The Witch, a similarly unique affair about the trials and tribulations of a pair of lighthouse keepers, continues to use the work of Mark Korven, who washes up a darkly evocative work that seems to balance on the edges of sanity, if not beyond. Low strings mimic the swelling and bowing of wood against the sea, while the drones of whales and the seductive sighs of sirens permeate the air, whispers of the water. But this relative calm is soon broken with portentous strings, doom-laden accordion, and penetrating foghorns, all working in tandem to seemingly illustrate a further downward spiral into madness, and what can seem like ambience suddenly reaches out to grab you by the throat. And it doesn’t let go. After The Lighthouse, silence feels unbearable.Mark KorvenThe Lighthouse OSTMilan
49.
2019 marked 30 years since Fabio & Grooverider launched their upstairs room at Charing Cross club Rage where they supported numerous emerging sounds such as bleep techno, hardcore and darkside jungle. 30 Years Of Rage revisits those days and pulls together some of those parties’ biggest tracks taking in classics by Leftfield, Nightmares On Wax and Foul Play across two volumes.Fabio Grooverider30 Years Of RageAbove Board Projects
48.
Alice Coltrane SextetLive at the Berkeley Community Theater 1972
47.
Warp kick-started its 30th anniversary celebrations midway through 2019 with a weekend of broadcasts on NTS taking in shows and music from some of its key acts. One of those acts was Autechre who, over the course of two hours, dug deep into the vaults back to a time when they were more directly taking influence from the early techno and rave-inspired sounds of the time. This was a rare insight into the pair’s earliest material from a time that gave us such twisted bangers from them as ‘Cavity Job’ and ‘Accelera 1 & 2’.AutechreWarp Tapes 89-93NTS / Warp
46.
Few before or since have demonstrated comparable ease in connecting with other musicians, regardless of background or ethos, like Cherry. His ability to locate the deepest, most humanistic, and spiritual links in disparate traditions remains sublime. Lots of musicians profess that they don’t recognise genre, but it’s hard to think of an artist who lived it as much as he did. Earlier this year, Brown Rice was reissued on vinyl for the first time in more than four decades, and its contents sound more prescient, beautiful, and unique than ever.Don CherryBrown RiceA&M
45.
Michael AbelsUS (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
44.
Peter IversBecoming Peter IversRVNG Intl.
43.
Emile MosseriThe Last Black Man In San Francisco (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
42.
Martin BartlettAnecdotal Electronics: Live Experiments & Other RecordingsArc Light Editions
41.
Barker’s debut solo album, Utility, was one of 2019’s finest albums with the Berlin-based producer exploring rich melodies entirely unshackled from kick drums. This mix of all-original material places those kinds of sounds alongside hefty drums and a more direct techno sound, giving an insight into what you might expect from one of Barker’s own live sets at a club.BarkerFACT Mix 720FACT
40.
The latest posthumous Arthur Russell release is the result of a decade of archival work by Steve Knutson and Russell’s partner Tom Lee. Across the stripped back and beautiful record, there are collaborations with the likes of Rhys Chatham, David Van Tieghem and Henry Flynt. Multi-instrumentalist Peter Broderick also worked alongside Audika Record on the compilation, to complete a number of almost-finished songs.
Arthur RussellIowa Dream
39.
“An original drone was created very separate to the film but then I realised it might work as a score. From there I created a set of about 12 drones (eight of which are on the album) which were mostly variations on a theme and I began to place them in the edit to match the score. The drones work very well with the sounds of the sea, which is pretty much omni-present throughout the film and makes it easier to embed a drone without it being a big ‘musical’ statement.”Mark JenkinBait (Original Score)Invada
38.
The first new entry in Strut’s Nigeria 70 series for almost a decade is one of its very finest. Focusing on a time in Nigerian music where established styles like highlife and juju began to intersect with jazz and funk, as well as exploring musical links between Nigeria and Benin, it is a glistening and essential listen.
VANigeria 70: No Wahala Highlife Afro Funk & Juju 1973-1987
37.
Rupa Sen Biswas’ ‘Disco Jazz’ sold barely any copies in 1982, and the Bengal-born singer quickly faded into anonymity. However after someone uploaded the record to YouTube, original copies suddenly became worth hundreds. Dan Snaith, aka Caribou’s use of one track ‘Aaj Shanibar’ in his DJ sets has garnered it over a million views. Newly reissued by Numero Group, the record stands up to its sought-after reputation. A wild and immensely enjoyable lost gem from the golden age of Indian disco, Disco Jazz is a must-listen.RupaDisco JazzNumero Group
36.
Levi’s score sounds instinctive, and its first appearance in the film is an intense and wavering synth melody, juddering away while the Monos train, their bodies and stamina being mercilessly pushed by the Messenger. But the tune isn’t brutal, there’s a warmth to it despite what it sounds like, which seems to illustrate the contradiction of what is less a group and more a family – albeit an incredibly dysfunctional one.Mica LeviMonos (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)Invada
35.
From the synth strut of ‘Baby Tears Blues’ to ‘You Don’t Have to Walk a Begonia’, Mother Earth’s Plantasia continues to hold special dominion within a nebulous sonic sphere that has trickled into 1980s Library Music, 16bit RPG-soundtracks and far beyond. Now, thanks to the efforts of Sacred Bones, we have a chance to view it as something more than Garson probably ever wished for it to be. Not least from the vantage point of an era where mass plant extinction, from the Chile sandalwood to Saint Helena olive, is no longer some idle cosmic threat but a we-could-actually-be-fucked reality, let’s honour Garson by not simply viewing his 1976 album as something lovely, or even groundbreaking, but as a cue to heed the red flag for what it is.Mort GarsonMother Earth’s PlantasiaSacred Bones
34.
If you don’t know much about CCL, this mix for Unsound is a great way to get acquainted with them as the Seattle-based DJ runs through various sub-aquatic sounds mostly shy of the 100 BPM mark. In little over an hour, they hit on UK dancehall, D&B, jungle, various chugging delights, EBM and electro, all of it blended to perfection.CCLUnsound Podcast 56Unsound
33.
Mary Lou Williams’ discography as a musician, composer, arranger and band leader is among the most imperious in the history of jazz, but among her hundreds of releases, this slender 1964 LP might be the very best of them all. For its breathtaking opener ‘Black Christ Of The Andes’ alone, this LP is an absolute must.Mary Lou WilliamsMary Lou WilliamsSmithsonian Folkways
32.
2019 felt like they year that DEBONAIR deservedly finally broke through following years of excellent sets at clubs across the country alongside hosting one of NTS’ best shows. This mix for Resident Advisor shows off various sides of her club sound, touching on EBM from Front 242 and A Split Second, banging techno by LSDXOXO and great recent material by Yves Tumor and Nkisi, amongst lots more.DebonairRA.677Resident Advisor
31.
Shellac of North America played their first Peel Session in 1994, three months before their first album, At Action Park, was released on Touch And Go. Of the four songs they played for BBC radio, only ‘Crow’ made it onto the debut, with ‘Canada’ and ‘Disgrace’ ending up on Terraform in 1998 and ‘Spoke’ only surfacing on Excellent Italian Greyhound in 2007. The second part of the album is more of an honorary Peel Session, given that it is an eight-track live album recorded in front of an audience at Studio 4 of Maida Vale. According to Ken Garner’s very useful book The Peel Sessions, after the DJ died unexpectedly in October 2004, Rob Da Bank hosted his show for the rest of the year, “using Peel’s already planned running orders, and already commissioned or recorded sessions” which included this blistering December 1 set. The band dedicated the session “and probably the rest of our career” to the DJ. The undoubted highlight is a strident but poignant ‘The End Of Radio’, complete with alternate lyric: “John Peel was a hell of a man.”ShellacThe End Of RadioTouch & Go
30.
BBC 6 Music ushered in Halloween this year with a gloriously autumnal live session by Sunn O))). On her mid-morning prime-time show the next day, Mary Anne Hobbs played a reverberant section of their 30-minute drone metal track Troubled Air, and introduced the band to her large audience as the “overlords of experimental metal”. Using a dizzyingly large backline at Maida Vale studios, they summoned warm waves of overdriven guitar noise, complemented by a heavenly swell of trombone, which crashed up against current hyped playlist hopefuls and canonical heavyweights including Depeche Mode, Missy Elliott and Tom Waits.Sunn O)))BBC 6 Music Session for Mary Anne Hobbs
29.
What these recordings show is a musician, and philosopher, who was ahead of his time. Sadly he died at a time when electronic music was starting to get recognition as a serious art form, not just a fad, and this might be the reason why Bartlett isn’t as well-known as his peers. Plus there isn’t a lot of his recordings, but what is available shows in inquisitive mind, with an innate understanding of melody and composition. With these albums we are being given vital recordings that will hopefully shine the spotlight on an underrated and long forgotten composer, producer and pioneer.Martin BartlettAnkle OnArc Light Editions
28.
Dekmantel’s main stage, at which Dutch DJ upsammy played this set, isn’t the most intimate of spaces which makes her steadfast commitment to playing the music she wants to play all the more admirable. In this case, that involved angular techstep, jungle and various IDM curios all put together and paced impeccably.UpsammyDekmantel Festival 2019Dekmantel
27.
When he’s not assembling end time animist raves and possession cult rituals with a mass of musicians and performers, Dan Jones also performs strident techno as a solo producer, also under the UKAEA name. He can be found once a month testing battle weapons on Threads, a London community radio station in Tottenham.UKAEAThreads Mix, 21 October 2019Threads
26.
Batu is a DJ very much at the top of his game right now, adept at playing various styles and tempos, as he evidenced in numerous sets around the world this year. This set for the Truants blog’s long-running mix series is an example of his wide-ranging ability as he fuses together all manner of tripped-out modern club sounds and psychedelic techno while crossing tempo boundaries with ease.BatuTruancy Volume 240Truants
25.
On the introductory ‘Saturday Morning Doze’, birds’ singsong and sounds of a hazy and lazy Saturday are framed within glossy synth lines and tender zither strums. While the ambient music tropes he uses would today soon be renounced as kitsch, Hood’s earnestness elevates them to pure sonic euphoria. Like the “olly olly oxen free” melody that a girl first sings on ‘After School’ only for Hood’s keyboard to repeat it, with glee. Or the nocturnal ‘August Haze’ that employs distant dog barks, insect chirrups, and a faint swinging radio transmission to masterfully preserve the essence of a sweltering hot and careless summer night. It all ends at night, too, with a game of Kick the Can and the Happy Days theme song hummed in passing, as the time to go home approaches.Ernest HoodNeighborhoodsFreedom To Spend
24.
150 copies of limited edition cassette album Receiving The Law were given away during a rare British Murder Boys set at fabric earlier this year. This was recorded at their residency at the Willem Twee Studios earlier this year – but obviously it isn’t twee at all, and features a markedly different sonic palette from what you might expect. Piano, sordid mutterings, Regis channelling Jhon Balance, David Tibet and Marc Almond all at once feature, along with a cover of Lou Reed’s ‘Real Good Time Together’.
British Murder BoysReceiving The Law
23.
Brian Eno once remarked that his intention was not to soothe those awaiting a flight but to remind them that death, should it come, need not be feared. A far flight from Spotify’s akimbo onslaught of pre-packaged ambient playlists and an integrated Headspace subscription. Leon’s record is similarly interruptive in this landscape. This is music for interplanetary airports and as much as it soothes, it sonically unsettles. But that said – when the project is taken holistically – the listener also risks being unsettled by the contexts that lie in its peripheries.Craig LeonAnthology of Interplanetary Folk Music Vol. 2: The CanonRVNG Intl.
22.
Every new mix from Call Super feels like a treat and this one wastes little time getting going as the Berlin-based DJ and producer sets things off just north of the 140 BPM mark. Finding a course through spaced-out techno, classic hardcore, electro, jungle techno and more, he soon winds down proceedings a little in the home straight via head-scrambling polyrhythms and blissed-out house.Call SuperCrack Mix 300Crack
21.
Eighth Grade is a comedy of awkwardness, a drama of social unease and stomach-knotting cringe. In this sense it resembles – or is at least some kind of z generation heir to – TV shows like The Office and Curb Your Enthusiasm. But unlike those older peers, a great deal of Eighth Grade’s tension is generated by the brilliant score from Anna Meredith. The one-time Camberwell Composers Collective co-founder has produced an electronic soundtrack of dizzying intensity, like EDM with all the macho drops and pumping bass stripped out, still left with all of its thrills, its high-wire fervour, its maximalist delirium.Anna MeredithEighth Grade (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)Columbia
20.
Die Nibelungen comes from the mighty Årabrot’s live soundtrack to Fritz Lang’s classic silent films of the same name. Kjetil Nernes’s shifting collective brought in members of Gnod, Nurse With Wound and Current 93 for a five hour long performance, now honed and trimmed into two extraordinary 20-minute movements. ‘Part I’ is disparate, ominous and intense in its sparseness, showing Nernes’ brilliance when it comes to atmospherics. Disparate industrial grinds and screeches cut arrhythmically through the drone, but so to do moments of real beauty. Then, on ‘Part II’, the band begin to let loose a little. Rumbles of guitar give way to a hint of the hard-riffing power of Årabrot’s last two studio LPs, but always handled with a deft dynamism that betrays the depth and skill of one of the modern greats.rabrotDie NiebelungenPelagic
19.
The Complete Matrix Tapes takes in 43 tracks in total, offering alternate live versions of the same song in some cases. The recordings featured on the 8xLP box set were captured across two nights at San Francisco’s North Beach club the Matrix.The Velvet UndergroundThe Complete Matrix Tapes
The shows (on November 26 and 27, 1969, which was Thanksgiving) formed part of an 18-date residency that the band took up in San Francisco across November and December of 1969, which saw them play shows at the Matrix and before that another venue called the Family Dog.
18.
The closest Western comparison to the genre of electro acholi could be the trend of hiring a DJ at your wedding as opposed to paying for a cover’s band. The early pioneers of the genre, featured here between 2003 and 2008, found a niche in a culture where wedding troupes have up to twenty-five members. The computerised sounds these producers made mirrored the rhythms traditionally performed with a large-scale percussive range of calabashes, ankle bells and call and response vocals. To give a contemporary twist the tempos of electro acholi tracks were sped up using multi-layered drum machines.The result is a high-energy album that’s universally familiar as party musicVAElectro Acholi Kaboom from Northern UgandaNyege Nyege Tapes
17.
Arriving in mid-summer, this two-part addendum to SOPHIE’s excellent 2018 album, Oil Of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides, serves as a treasure trove of previously unreleased tracks from the producer that have become favourites over the course of her tour dates of the last couple of years. There’s also a generous helping of new takes on tracks from last year’s album, complete with SOPHIE’s distinctive, metallic sound design.SophieOil Of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides Non-Stop Remix AlbumMSMSMSM
16.
VASTUMM433
"John Cage’s ‘4’33’ has been present in my musical life for as long as I can remember as an important and inspiring composition. When the idea of every Mute artist doing their own interpretation of the piece came up during a conversation with Simon Fisher Turner, I immediately thought this was the perfect way to mark the label’s MUTE 4.0 (1978 > TOMORROW) series."
The Normal, aka Mute’s Daniel Miller
15.
The former Gesamtkunstwerk DJ and current NTS Manchester and CITS resident comes up with an incredible mix for Discwoman which ranges from Klein to Loraine James via Moor Mother, Afrodeutsche and DEBBY FRIDAY.HesskaDiscwoman 77Discwoman
14.
“There was no conversation saying, ‘Oh ‘Rocket U.S.A.’ should be the first track on the album.’ We just recorded our set live in the studio, exactly as we had been playing it for years, all in the order that you hear it on the album. It took us the amount of time it takes you to listen to the album for us to record it. About 35 minutes.”SuicideSuicideMute
13.
When it comes to folk horror soundtracks, Midsommar – like many modern folk horror films – doesn’t follow in any obvious way, the legacy of its forebears. Like 1973’s The Wicker Man, Krlic’s music makes use of diegetic folk singing but it’s nothing like the bucolic, folk jollies of Paul Giovanni’s imagination. And while it has the compositional finesse of scores like Luboš Fišer’s Valerie and her Week of Wonders and Mark Wilkinson’s Blood on Satan’s Claw, it sounds nothing like either.Bobby KrlicMidsommar (Original Score)
Lara C Cory
12.
Sun & Sea (Marina) represented Lithuania at this year’s Venice Biennale, winning the prestigious Golden Lion for Best National Participation. The exhibition consisted of a single and unbroken eight hour opera, viewed from platforms by a public who had queued up to 3 hours to get in, and performed by a cast of holidaymakers, reclining on a beach artificially created in a disused military warehouse. Singing at times alone, and at times in sweeping unison, each character’s concerns, foibles and neuroses become entwined with simple but gorgeous grace – a pushy mother, a workaholic father, a long distance couple anxious about when they’ll next be together. Viewed in person it is moving in the extreme, finding immeasurable depth in the most basic aspects of humanity, made all the more powerful by its transience. Such is the strength of the music, written and arranged by Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė and Lina Lapelytė, that Sun & Sea (Marina)’s brilliance is preserved, at least in part.Rugil Barzdiukait, Vaiva Grainyt and Lina LapelytSun & Sea (Marina)Skira
11.
“I wanted to approach this more like a compilation than a stand-alone ‘mix’. To me, compiling a DJ-Kicks is a significant statement of intent and representation, so with that in mind, I thought more about the selection than the mix.”Leon VynehallDJ-Kicks!K7
10.
Selections from 100 Models of Hegikan Roku is an essential record; it is a marvel that we can finally hear what happened that night in Stockholm, under conditions as ideal as they ever were for long-form sonic exploration. Remember, as Brouwer wrote, that “right through the walls of causality ‘miracles’ glide and flow continually, visible only to the free, the enlightened.” Hennix and her compatriots enlighten.The Deontic MiracleSelections from 100 Models of Hegikan RokuBlank Forms Editions
9.
Popol VuhThe Essential Album Collection Vol. 1
8.
Together, the twenty three tracks here promote a warmth that feels somewhere close to paradise. In fact, Kankyō Ongaku leaves you wondering what would happen to our society, to Britain in 2019, if we toned things down a bit and tuned into these frequencies in our public spaces? My god. That’s nirvana right there.VAKankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980-1990Light In The Attic
7.
It can’t be overstated just how key Hildur Guðnadóttir’s music was to the success of Sky and HBO’s acclaimed retelling of the Chernobyl disaster when it was broadcast in Spring. Incorporating recordings from an actual nuclear power plant, Geiger counter clicks, the occasional drip of an unseen fluid and the distant whirrs and thuds of machinery ground scenes in stark reality, while Guðnadóttir’s sparse and looming compositions capture both the chaos of the explosion itself, and the unshakeable existential terror of the aftermath. Listened to on its own terms, it is just as harrowing as the story it scores.Hildur GunadttirChernobyl (Music From The Original TV Series)Deutsche Grammophon
6.
To even summarise each moment of Drift is a challenge. What I can say is the elements of surprise and familiarity work together to form a deep, dark and wonderful hole, unmanageable by its very nature, and beautifully chaotic. The essential ingredients of Underworld are all there. Karl Hyde’s mesmerising and monotonous stream-of-consciousness vocals over Rick Smith’s glitchy techno and disorientating acid synths often come into the mixture, but often new elements reveal a new side to Underworld’s ever-growing pasture of material.UnderworldDRIFT Series 1Smith Hyde Productions
5.
I think the key to the Speedy Wunderground sound is to be heard in its agility and can be summed up by number four of producer Dan Carey’s ten commandments: “Recording of all records will be done in one day and finish before midnight. The recordings will be a snapshot of the day. Mixing will be done the day following the recording, also in one day only. This will prevent over-cooking and ‘faff’.” There is literally no faff whatsoever to Scottibrains’ liquid Kraut belter ‘Sustained Threat’; even the merest threat of faff has been eradicated by the track being mixed by Carey’s 13-year-old daughter, Orla. ‘BmBmBm’, a berserk volley of dynamics in future funk, that somehow doesn’t lose sight of the dancefloor despite ending up a corruscating ray of noise and grindcore ferrocity, a Speedy Wunderground anthem for the ages, if ever there was one.VASpeedy Wunderground: Year 4Speedy Wunderground
4.
“These days I cannot perceive things in quite the same light as previously. The finite nature of our physical bodies is made painfully apparent by David’s accident. I feel fragile, like a Japanese house or a piece of lace. I am touched in a very deep and sensitive place by the people around me… David, Richard, George and Steven – some of the men that mean much, they are parts of me I don’t want to lose. But I am reminded not too gently that other forces will make their power felt beyond my conscious efforts to endear and be endeared… to inspire & be inspired to probe and develop and ease the pain and to serve as material to others for similar exploration. To love and be loved is a simple thing, as simple as life and death. I am growing.”Patrick CowleyMechanical Fantasy BoxDark Entries
Patrick Cowley, an excerpt from the Mechanical Fantasy Box
3.
As well as producing one of 2019’s best EPs in the Tri Angle-released and departt from mono games, AYA (FKA LOFT) blends through modern distortions of club music at a dizzying pace on this mix for FACT, finding time along the way for delightfully silly edits by The South Yorkshire Mick Mucknall and HMT Hard Cru’s DJ Space Heater, as well as her own banging donk-esque take on Caterina Barbieri’s ‘Fantas’.AYAFACT Mix 738FACT
2.
It’s a release full of very groovy, but often intense music, getting high off its own sense of mission. There are some fabulous cuts to get lost in, such as the edit of Igor Wakhévitch’s piece, ‘Materia Prima’ (from his must-have Docteur Faust LP), a menacing space rock plod driven by bubbling synths that then turns tail and wades into Tago Mago territory. The great Philippe Besombes is here too, with a moody reflection from his 1975 LP Libra. ‘La Plage’ (The Beach) is the soundtrack to the most uninviting beach you can imagine and not at all like the rumbustious compositions he made with Jean-Louis Rizet. Rather it feels like a sonic prompt to those arty post-punks waiting just around the corner.VAStrain Crack & Break: Music From The Nurse With Wound ListFinders Keepers
1.
Stage 6 is heart-breaking, distressing, overwhelming. Once immersed you genuinely feel lost. It’s impossible to understand what is happening around you. It is confusing, overwhelming. You feel isolated. You might ask yourself why you would put yourself through such an experience but then isn’t that the power of all great art anyway – to experience and to feel unknown emotions, states, and perspectives? It’s not an easy journey but you feel different for undertaking it.The CaretakerEverywhere At The End Of TimeHistory Always Favours The Winners
The Quietus Albums Of The Year 2019
- 1: The Caretaker – Everywhere At The End Of Time
- 2: V/A – Strain Crack and Break: Music from the Nurse with Wound List, Vol. 1
- 3: AYA – FACT Mix 738
- 4: Patrick Cowley – Mechanical Fantasy Box
- 5: V/A – Speedy Wunderground: Year 4
- 6: Underworld – DRIFT Series 1
- 7: Hildur Guðnadóttir – Chernobyl (Music From The Original TV Series)
- 8: V/A – Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980-1990
- 9: Popol Vuh – The Essential Album Collection Vol. 1
- 10: The Deontic Miracle – Selections from 100 Models of Hegikan Roku
- 11: Leon Vynehall – DJ-Kicks
- 12: Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė and Lina Lapelytė – Sun & Sea (Marina)
- 13: Bobby Krlic – Midsommar (Original Score)
- 14: Suicide – Suicide
- 15: Hesska – Discwoman 77
- 16: V/A – STUMM433
- 17: SOPHIE – Oil Of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides Non-Stop Remix Album
- 18: V/A – Electro Acholi Kaboom from Northern Uganda
- 19: The Velvet Underground – The Complete Matrix Tapes
- 20: Årabrot – Die Niebelungen
- 21: Anna Meredith – Eighth Grade (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
- 22: Call Super – Crack Mix 300
- 23: Craig Leon – Anthology of Interplanetary Folk Music Vol. 2: The Canon
- 24: British Murder Boys – Receiving The Law
- 25: Ernest Hood – Neighborhoods
- 26: Batu – Truancy Volume 240
- 27: UKAEA – Threads Mix, 21 October 2019
- 28: upsammy – Dekmantel Festival 2019
- 29: Martin Bartlett – Ankle On
- 30: Sunn O))) – BBC 6 Music Session for Mary Anne Hobbs
- 31: Shellac – The End Of Radio
- 32: DEBONAIR- RA.677
- 33: Mary Lou Williams – Mary Lou Williams
- 34: CCL – Unsound Podcast 56
- 35: Mort Garson – Mother Earth’s Plantasia
- 36: Mica Levi – Monos (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
- 37: Rupa – Disco Jazz
- 38: V/A – Nigeria 70: No Wahala: Highlife, Afro-Funk & Juju 1973-1987
- 39: Mark Jenkin – Bait (Original Score)
- 40: Arthur Russell – Iowa Dream
- 41: Barker – FACT Mix 720
- 42: Martin Bartlett – Anecdotal Electronics: Live Experiments & Other Recordings
- 43: Emile Mosseri – The Last Black Man In San Francisco (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
- 44: Peter Ivers – Becoming Peter Ivers
- 45: Michael Abels – US (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
- 46: Don Cherry – Brown Rice
- 47: Autechre – Warp Tapes 89-93
- 48: Alice Coltrane Sextet – Live at the Berkeley Community Theater 1972
- 49: Fabio & Grooverider – 30 Years Of Rage
- 50: Mark Korven – The Lighthouse OST
- 51: Louis Moholo Octet – Spirits Rejoice
- 52: The Fall – Hex Enduction Hour
- 53: Mark Hollis – Mark Hollis
- 54: Roland Kayn – Scanning (1982-1983)
- 55: Ben UFO – Rainbow Disco Club 2019
- 56: Maleem Mahmoud Ghania with Pharoah Sanders – The Trance of Seven Colors
- 57: Jane Weaver – Loops In The Secret Society
- 58: Ben Frost – Dark (Cycle 1)
- 59: V/A – WXAXRXP Sessions
- 60: Robert Ashley – Automatic Writing
- 61: VTSS – Discwoman 62
- 62: James Bernard – Dracula / The Curse Of Frankenstein
- 63: Nicholas Britell – If Beale Street Could Talk (Original Motion Picture Score)
- 64: V/A – Taxi Sampler 01: Rhythms & Vibes from the Spirit of Young Africa
- 65: Sybil – DIM167
- 66: Masayuki Takayanagi New Direction Unit – April is the Cruellest Month
- 67: Gene Clark – No Other
- 68: re:ni – Crack Mix 254
- 69: Yoshi Wada – Lament for the Rise and Fall of the Elephantine Crocodile
- 70: Dan Levy – I Lost My Body (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
- 71: V/A – Fracture Presents: Turbo
- 72: Throbbing Gristle – Part Two: The Endless Not
- 73: Jerry Goldsmith, Leonard Rosenman and Tom Scott – Planet Of The Apes (Original Film Series Soundtrack Collection)
- 74: Boards Of Canada – Societas X Tape
- 75: V/A – A Short Illness From Which He Never Recovered
- 76: Eris Drew – Raving Disco Breaks Vol. 1
- 77: Horace Tapscott With The Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra - Live At I.U.C.C.
- 78: James Righton – Benjamin (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
- 79: “Blue” Gene Tyranny – Out of the Blue
- 80: Tanita Tikaram – To Drink The Rainbow (An Anthology 1988 – 2019)
- 81: Sonic Youth – Battery Park, NYC: July 4, 2008
- 82: Scott Walker / Sia – Vox Lux OST
- 83: Various Artists – Mogadisco: Dancing Mogadishu (Somalia 1972 – 1991)
- 84: Fever Ray – Live At Troxy
- 85: David Axelrod – Seriously Deep
- 86: Mark Fisher & Justin Barton – On Vanishing Land
- 87: Dome – 1-4+5
- 88: Leif – Freerotation 2019
- 89: V/A – Third Noise Principle: Formative North American Electronica 1975-1984
- 90: John Coltrane – Blue World
- 91: Sun Ra Arkestra – Live In Kalisz 1986
- 92: V/A – Music From Jarvis Cocker’s Sunday Service
- 93: V/A – Music And/As Process
- 94: Laurel Halo – DJ-Kicks
- 95: James Holden – A Cambodian Spring OST
- 96: Miss Jay – HYPNOT 334: Need For Speed Mix
- 97: Cabaret Voltaire – Methodology ‘74 / ‘78: The Attic Tapes
- 98: Kristian Eldnes Andersen – Antichrist (Original Soundtrack)
- 99: Atomic Forest – Disco Roar
- 100: Beatrice Dillon – RA.706
