Best of 2019 • Cat Power • Horizon

Mother, I know your face 

Father, still hold your place 

Sister, I'm around you 

Remember me 

Brother, I'm on my way 

I'm visiting

Little sister, I know from where your brown eyes get 

Your face on horizon I cannot see 

Your face on horizon I cannot say

Chan Marshall is in the “Horizon” video, staring reflectively into the middle distance while playing an acoustic guitar. And the video also captures intimate, quiet moments from a few of Marshall’s friends and loved ones, including the pro skater Sean Pablo, the model Tess Sahara, and the actress and artist Lucia Ribisi. 

Georgia Maq • "Away From Love" • 2019

Her love of pop music is still rooted in the activism that made her band the perfect late-2010s act, but Pleaser purposely doesn’t address those same social issues. Instead, its lyrics are personal and earnest, focusing exclusively on unrequited love and rejection.

Best of 2019 • Turner Cody • Sleeping Is The Only Love

I heard they were taming the shrew.

I heard the shrew was you.

You might as well say, "Fuck me," 'cause I'm gonna keep on; keep on loving you.

I'd crawl over 50 yards of broken glass just to make it with you.

Sleeping is the only love.

Sleeping is the only love.

I had this friend his name was Marc with a C.

His sister was like the heat coming off the back of an old TV

Their folks were slain in their red boiling springs home.

It was the worst of the Lord; some of the worst of the Lord.

Later I'd come to find life was sweeter than Jewish wine.

Give a box of candy or a foot massage - some people don't take the time.

I'd crawl over 50 yards of burning coals just to make it with you.

Sleeping is the only love.

Sleeping is the only love.

Frederick the Younger • "Back to the Wall" • 2019

https://fredericktheyounger.com



Back to the Wall: I woke up one day and really wanted to write an upbeat song. I tend to write moodier songs. They're more in my DNA. Back to the wall is the song that came out of that intention. The funny thing is that the lyrics are pretty serious for what to me is an easy going song. It's about Aaron's and I's relationship. About the intensity of living, working and spending almost all your time with your partner. Things reach a tipping point and we have these almost scripted reactions. We play out the same patterns. The song is me trying to release some of my emotions. Obviously there are highs and lows in every relationship and I've written a lot of love songs to Aaron but this is more of a relationship song.

Best of 2019 • Wintersleep • Into The Shape of Your Heart

There's a light hanging over me

There's a beam running way down

Turning sorrow to ecstasy

As the dust comes to life

See the shape of Your heart

Where the margins collide

There's a life hanging over me, over me

Where Your love crossed the lines

You run deep like the wildest heavens

You run deep like the wild in me

Lyrically, it's a loose narrative of someone showing up to the house of someone he loves and trying to win her heart for the first time or to get it back. I guess there's room for interpretation but it's maybe also just trying to capture a snapshot of a moment of two people trying to have a conversation that ends in a dance.

Best of 2019 • Ada Lea • what we say in private

https://www.adaleamusic.com

When Alexandra Levy endured a recent breakup she used various creative outlets—painting, journaling, making music—in order to recall who she was before and redefine herself in the aftermath. As a result, the Montreal singer-songwriter came up with 10 songs that embody the tumultuous cycle of pain, anxiety, patience, and acceptance that accompanies major heartache. Her debut album as Ada Lea, what we say in private, is a peculiar vortex of intense emotion and experimental pop music.

“‘the party’ came about after spending a magical night on the town with close friends. The song kind of just wrote itself. I always kept trying to make it a longer song, but nothing seemed to fit—or it felt like it was divulging too much,” Lea recalls. “I wanted to capture that delightfully unsatisfying quality of the night; being together but wanting something more to happen, yet reveling in the power that had brought us all together at that special moment. That’s life, though … isn’t it? When you’re truly living the moment, you get home and wish you could live it again and again.”

Best of 2019 • Big Thief • Two Hands

The second landmark album this year from Big Thief is raw, tactile, and essential. The intimate songs zoom in on a band that feels, at this moment, totally invincible. PF

Nearly every song overflows with tears and blood, bared teeth and broken tongues; living, killing, dying. There are few overdubs, and sometimes you hear the band members instructing each other when to step back or take a solo, like they’re just rehearsing for the actual performance. It makes for a specific kind of rock record: an attempt to capture a band’s imperfect, raw essence, to show what happens when they simply count to four and take off. The approach is best known for accentuating a tough, ragged cohesion, like Neil Young records in the ’70s, but this record goes somewhere different. The more Big Thief zoom in, the more magical they sound.

Big Scary Monsters • 2019 Sampler

bsmrocks.com

Big Scary Monsters is an independent currently label based in Oxford. It has so far been responsible for releases from the likes of Minus The Bear, Andrew W.K., Pulled Apart By Horses, Gnarwolves, Kevin Devine, Into It. Over It, Cursive, Meet Me In St Louis, Bear vs Shark, Toe, This Town Needs Guns, Tall Ships, Matt Pryor, Walter Schreifels, Joyce Manor, Algernon Cadwallader and many, many 

(Sandy) Alex G Covers Compilation • 2019

ztapesrecords.com

A tribute to the best musician of our decade - (Sandy) Alex G. 

All digital profits will go towards a beneficial cause - Bahamas Disaster Relief. 

SPIDER BAGS • "A Celebration of Hunger" • 2019

Spider Bags got it's start in Muskogee, OK at the Air Force base there. Dan McGee was training to be a cadet, as was Gregg Levee. They were both unceremoniously discharged from the Air Force in 2006. Dan is very near-sighted and Gregg is flat-footed. They were waiting for the bus back to New Jersey and they both had guitars, so they started writing songs. By the time they got back to their stop in North Carolina, they had written 20 some-odd songs. They had some friends in North Carolina so they called them up and made a record. 

twain • Adventure • 2019

city squirrel • defeat • 2012

Thanks ornaMENTAL xo

Alan Getto • "Jeff Buckley" • 2019

 www.alangetto.com

"Alan’s lyrics are often literary (he studied literature in college), but have simplicity and poetry at heart. This aspect mirrors some early influences: Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, David Bowie. His lyrics and sound seat Alan’s music alongside contemporary artists like Big Thief, Deer Tick, Andrew Bird, and Lady Lamb."
- Glide Magazine

"Getto‘s guitar-driven, simple melodies act as a backbone for the lyrical emphasis in his music. Having studied literature, theology, and philosophy in college, his lyrics pay homage to these intense, existential topics, but with a unique, irreverent spin."
- No Depression

"Getto’s simple acoustic number is soft, sweet, and easy to pick-up on.  The melody is familiar like a lullaby or, more fittingly, a campfire sing-along."
- Atwood Magazine

DRALMS • Gracious Host • 2019

We roamed the caves for hours 

Slept amidst the fossils 

We laid on beds of shade grown flowers Why would you roam? 

Unless to be homesick 

Is it taking its toll? 

Are we burning at both wicks? 

Please don't go if you're never coming back 

Am I the gracious host? 

Stuck to your side 

Know that it's you I want the most But why would you shout? 

I'm standing at arms length 

Is it taking its toll? 

Are we pushing past the brink? 

Please don't go if you're never coming back

Damsel Adams • 2019

“I knew I wanted to make a sexy video that was raw and paid homage to my roots in East LA. Every shot in the video is my hometown of Highland Park. I frequent all the bars there, that is my local movie theater, that is my friend’s bedroom, that is my favorite overpass. I was inspired by LA nights,” says Adams. 

Blending classic noir with modern production, 808s beats, synths, sound effects and inspired by LA nights, Adams is delivering an honest and distinctive art.

https://www.threadofficial.com/stories/2019/3/19/damsel-adams

Corridor • Junior • 2019

airplane_arms new to this band. really loving this album. fun, dancy, post-punk guitar riffs with clean thudding bass and crisp propelling drums. vocals sung in french with the psychedelic elements of the band sound at times like a more jangly post punk, guitar driven version of stereolab. lots of attention to detail.