Best of 2019 • Field Medic • used 2 be a romantic

“Used 2 Be a Romantic” is the second advance track from Fade Into the Dawn, following its stellar lead single “Henna Tattoo,” which we highlighted as our Daily Dose upon its release. Where “Henna Tattoo” was concerned with the anxiety and uncertainty surrounding a tenuous romantic connection, “Used 2 Be a Romantic” finds Patrick coping with other problems: the everyday stresses of being a touring musician. “I used to be a romantic / now I’m a dude in a laminate,” Patrick laments, looking back on a show gone wrong (“Those fuckers talked over my whole set”). The singer-songwriter resolved to quit drinking while recording his new album, only to return to it halfway through a particularly grueling run of shows, an uphill battle manifested by lines from “Used 2 Be a Romantic” like, “I can’t see shit, I’m blinded by the light / I swore that I quit but I need a drink tonight.” It’s an honest look at how hard and dehumanizing the daily grind can be—a reminder that artists are also just people.



I need a cigarette
Those fuckers talked over my whole set
But I don't have any time to reflect
I gotta sell some shirts to try and make the rent

The Raconteurs • “Somedays (I Don’t Feel Like Trying)” • 2019

TheRaconteurs.com

The Rentals • 9th Configuration • 2019

Mai and Sharp returned to this magical place multiple times to explore the endless visual possibilities contained within the 15’ x 15’ mirrored cube. Mai on the experience said, “It was extraordinary. You could simply stand in one place and everything around you would change… the lighting conditions, the depth of field, the mood of the room itself all were in constant flux.” Inside the ever-changing mood swings of “ILLUSION”, Sharp was inspired, with some urgency, to find a way to share this experience with folks that may be on the outside of the interactive art community. With this, he invited the two European born artists, Cabrera (Barcelona) & Duverger (Paris) to expand their creation with the help of Chinese designer/director, Yuan (Wuhan, China) and the result of this unlikely global collaboration is a six-minute, trance inducing, lyric video for The Rentals’ "9th Configuration".

Maybird • In Technicolor (For The First Time) • 2019

http://maybirdmusic.com

Shortly after uploading a few songs to SoundCloud in 2016, bandleader and frontman Josh Netsky received a cold call from Danger Mouse, the Grammy-winning producer and songwriter behind such hit records as "The Grey Album" (a mashup of Jay-Z's "The Black Album" and The Beatles' "White Album"), Gorillaz's "Demon Days," Beck's "Modern Guilt" and Adele's "25."

The band quickly released their Turning Into Water EP for 30th Century that same year, followed by the four-song Unraveling EP produced by Patrick Carney of the Black Keys.

2019 has seen the band deliver their first album, Things I Remember From Earth. It's an immaculate debut, showcasing a band with real songwriting chops and effortless hooks. On the album and final single, Netsky writes -

Prophecy Playground • Politely Polluting • 2019

Prophecy Playground shows, Izekson is currently performing a tribute solo act dedicated to Nick Drake's album masterpiece 'Pink Moon!!
"Check these guys out - they're fantastic! (...) showing great promise to the future" York Calling magazine, England
"Think the spirit of Nick Drake and the quiet musical irreverence of Devendra Banhart" Post To Wire, Australia,

Combining gently written melancholic songs and instrumental themes with a carefully arranged string section deriving elements from classic European chamber music, Prophecy Playground’s music creates a semi-forgotten, semi-newly imagined sound - a kind of Folk which combines the melancholic, mysterious & dramatic, thus drawing interest and curiosity to a sometimes predictive genre.

Gaffa Tape Sandy • My Desperate House • 2019

“Thrilling slices of punk rock, interlaced with killer melodies that most bands would be dying for” – NME

“Electrifying garage rock with a distinctly modern twist” – The Line Of Best Fit

“Off kilter indie with some terrific hooks” – Clash

Run For Cover Records • 2019 Sampler

runforcoverrecords.com

Best of 2019 • Leonard Cohen • Thanks for the Dance

After the grand farewell of 2016's You Want It Darker, Cohen's son gathers his father's scraps and unfinished ideas and lovingly fleshes them out with help from collaborators like Beck, The National's Bryce Dessner and Feist.

Jay-Z is not the Dylan of Anything

I am the Dylan of anything

I am the Kanye West of Kanye West

The Kanye West

Of the great bogus shift of bullshit culture

From one boutique to another

Cohen famously approached his death with clarity, and Thanks for the Dance honors his late-career habit of seeming to write elegies for himself.

Ostrea Lake • Don't Sway Above Me • 2019

allwevegot.com

Don’t Sway Above Me is Ostrea Lake’s debut full-length record, following up on 2015’s Rippling Waters EP. Combining atmospheric and rippling sounds with carefully woven imagery, the lullaby folk quartet deliver a cohesive and powerful offering that will draw you into it’s calm depths, before wrapping you in the rise and swell.

Best of 2019 • THE OCEAN BLUE • Kings and Queens / Knaves and Thieves

https://www.theoceanblue.com/kings-and-queens-knaves-and-thieves

There have always been comparisons to The Smiths, U2, R.E.M, as The Ocean Blue has covered some of their music in the early days. As well, lead singer David Schelzel sounds a lot like Bernard Sumner. The comparisons should end here as over the years, they have evolved, and in a way improved upon, their dreamy/jazzy/jangly sound. They now are a tight indie pop outfit. If one did not know their history, they would think that this is an unknown gem band whose songs are enjoyable on repeat.

Best of 2019 • This Is​.​.​.​Tunng - Magpie Bites and Other Cuts

tunng.co.uk

"Heatwave" is the first track from the compilation to be shared. It was originally released as a bonus 7” included with deluxe version of last year's album. Tunng co-founder Mike Lindsay says that "Heatwave" was "written on one hot and sticky morning whilst working on what would become Songs You Make at Night. It gleefully wrote itself while Sam (Genders, co-founder) was dancing around the mixing desk."

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. 

Best of 2019 • Georgia Maq • "Away From Love"

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