A Difficult 2015—Top 15 Albums

I never did finish summarizing my 2015 in music, so here's a quick list.

1. Elder—Lore (Armageddon Shop)

2. Iron Maiden—The Book of Souls (Parlophone)

3. Guapo—Obscure Knowledge (Cuneiform)

4. Zombi—Shape Shift (Relapse)

5. Uncle Acid—The Night Creeper (Rise Above)

6. VHOL—Deeper Than Sky (Profound Lore)

7. Anekdoten—Until All the Ghosts Are Gone (Virta)

8. Teeth of the Sea—Highly Deadly Black Tarantula (Rocket)

9. Trans Am—Volume X (Thrill Jockey)

10. Steven Wilson—Hand. Cannot. Erase. (Kscope)

11. Windhand—Grief’s Infernal Flower (Relapse)

12. Six Organs of Admittance—Hexadic (Drag City)

13. Pugs & Crows & Tony Wilson—Everyone Knows Everyone 1

14. Krallice—Ygg huur (self-released)

15. The Fierce and the Dead—Magnet (Bad Elephant Music)

A Difficult 2015—Reissues and Archival Releases

2015 was such a lousy year for music that I found most of my fun in the reissues pile. Each one of these was an exciting discovery.

 

Alice Coltrane—Universal Consciousness (Superior Viaduct)
This is a fantastic reissue of Coltrane’s 1971 album for Impulse!—one which Fact magazine declared the third best album of the 1970s. The music shimmers and prickles you, surging in ways that I can’t comprehend—how do you play like that? The spiritual journey that Coltrane describes in the liner notes isn’t something I can understand either, but I’m certainly glad it sparked the creation of this music.

Six Organs of Admittance—Dust and Chimes (Holy Mountain)
Ben Chasny is in full folk/psych acoustic splatter mode on this set originally released in 2000. A little frantic and spindly to really mellow you out, it’s mind-expanding stuff nevertheless.

 

Besombes/Rizet—Pôle (Gonzaï Records)
This French duo operated in the same synth/freakout realms as Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream and especially Heldon. It doesn`t sound like they had the latest gear (in an era when being two or three years behind could mean a lot), but they made the most of it. The original 1975 LP was a double. This reissue is a single disc, but you get the whole set of tracks with the download card.

 Soft Machine—Switzerland 1974 (Cuneiform)
Allan Holdsworth joining Soft Machine made for a heavy, volatile mix. Ace Soft Machine archivists Cuneiform Records have outdone themselves with this CD/DVD combo.

Sensations Fix—Music is Painting in the Air (1974-1977) (RVNG)
Italo/American outfit Sensations Fix were led by Franco Falsini, who returns to his cache of tapes recorded in the mid-seventies for this collection of lost tracks and remixes. The songs are driven by Falsini’s cosmic guitar playing and plentiful Minimoog. It’s whacked-out and hapless enough to have considerable obscurist allure.