In fear to hear the dear so near or longing loth and loathing longing?

Gotta put 2019 behind me!  This will be the final post on last year's music - despite the fact that I keep discovering new things I'd missed (WaqWaq Kingdom, anyone?) and also questioning my final top 10, which admittedly I was doing at the time I compiled the list.

Inevitably this will omit many things of note: no doubt I could keep writing until words were written about every album I liked in 2019, but that ain't happening. 2020 is here, and we're all off to hell in a handcart. Looking back is ultimately futile - there is only now and now plus one.

It's time to move on, new music is already appearing in 2020 - thank you, Wire, for getting the year off to a great start - gigs are getting booked, starting with Julian Cope, who has a new album, 'Self Civil War', due out in February, and, from what I've heard so far, it's his best in while. 

With that in mind, for the final time then, let's wind the clock back to 2019 and just see what else shouldn't be forgotten...

Shamefacedly I have to confess that le butcherettes album 'Bi/MENTAL' should have been in my top 10.  In my defence, it came out very early in the year (beware, Wire!) and somehow got forgotten. 'Til now. When I played it a week or so ago, it all came flooding back: how could I have forgotten it? There are so many good songs to choose from it's hard to pick one to represent the album, but 'strong/ENOUGH' is a good candidate.  There's a punky undercurrent to the songs, hinted at by Jello Biafra guesting on the opening track.  Many of the songs burn with a suppressed Magnesium-hot intensity and, if the back story of Teri Gender Bender (not her real name!) is even half-true, this is not surprising.

Switching from 'Mea Culpa' mode to a category of albums which I've not yet touched upon: compilations, specifically multi-artist compilations.  There were quite a few good ones last year, some covering a musical genre, some a period of time and some, like 'Dreadzone Presents Dubwiser Volume 1', whose contents come from a specific record label.

Dreadzone follow the maxim, 'it's our record label so we're gonna appear on the compilation too', and, to their credit, include only new songs that don't appear on any of their own albums, to date.  Great though their contributions are, especially the ones with Professor Skank, let's leave it to Louchie Lou & Michie One to represent for Dubwiser...

Other Various Artists compilations worth a shout include Rough Trade Shops annual 'Counter Culture' set, imaginatively titled 'Counter Culture 19', and one of a couple of great Japanese music compilations on the Light In the Attic Records label: 'Kankyo Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980-1990', from which comes 'Glass Chatterng' by Yoshio Ojima.

'Kankyo Ongaku' is an album for those quieter moments though it's deceptively easy listening, for within the calm there are hidden depths - explore!  The compilation is a thing of beauty in itself, presented as a book with information about the artists and tracks - a real labour of love.  The cover is just so 'right', I have to include it here.

The more I write, the more I realise there's so much I've not mentioned, in fact one whole category has barely had a word written on it: reissues.  Reissues comprises albums from the past that have been re-released, typically to celebrate an anniversary or to reappraise an album or artist neglected on first release.

One series of reissues was unmissable last year: Stereolab's seven albums from 'Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements' through to 'Margerine Eclipse', all re-released as double CDs.

From 'Mars Audiac Quintet' Stereolab hit us with 'Ping Pong'...

...and from 'Margerine Eclipse', 'Margerine Melodie'

Returning to new albums released during 2019, before consigning the year to history, there are four, yes, four, I'm afraid so, more albums I'd like to say something about.

Gong? Haven't we mentioned them already? Aah, yes, but this is Gong now, not Gong way back when.  The Kavus Torabi-fronted Gong did something unexpected - they made an album which captured the spirit of Gong, whilst delivering something entirely new and, crucially, lighter on its feet than 2016's 'Rejoice! I'm Dead'. They then took 'The Universe Also Collapses' on the road and performed storming sets built around the album, with the best from 'Rejoice!...' and the odd oldie, but as Kavus regularly pointed out, this is a band about the future not the past...and they certainly proved it live! Chose 'The Elemental' rather than one of the really long tracks...

Kim Gordon. Icon. Riot Girrrl touchstone.  Co-founder of Sonic Youth. Proof you could be a woman in a rock band and be just as vital, maybe more so than your male band members.  Raw, earthy voice that powered many of the great Sonic Youth tunes. Since the split of SY, she's worked with various people, but this is her first solo album. You won't be surprised to hear this is not an album of dreamy pop songs about love and kittens, nope, this is the real thing, red in tooth and claw.

Whilst there's no rap, this is an album influenced by hip hop, there's plenty of noise as you might expect from a former member of Sonic Youth and also some full on broadsides at aspects of capitalist society.  A few tracks from the album have received a fair bit of airplay and 'Murdered Out' was released as a single ages ago, so, cantankerous to the end, I've chosen 'Don't Play It', just because.

Sean O'Hagan, along with his former songwriting partner Cathal Coughlan back from the days of the criminally under-appreciated Microdisney, will always have a place in my heart, so when I heard Sean had a new solo album coming out, I was on high alert.

'Radum Calls, Radum Calls' didn't disappoint.  Better still it featured Cathal Coughlan's vocals on three tracks (he also co-wrote the lyrics for these), though Microdisney this is not - it's well publicised that neither of them are keen to look back or return to their previous work. The arrangements on the songs are always intriguing, and Sean's arrangements are never less than interesting (fun fact pop pickers: Sean did a lot of the brass/orchestral arrangements on Stereolab's mid-period albums, to the extent he was almost a member of the band) and the instrumentation is equally out of the ordinary in rock music terms, with the harp figuring strongly on many tracks. Sadly the release of this album was accompanied by the news that Sean is quite seriously ill, damn it. Get well soon, Sean. 

From 'Radum Calls...' comes 'Candy Clock', which features both Sean and Cathal on vocals.

Finally, because I have to draw a line under 2019 somewhere, we come to William Doyle aka the artist formerly known as East India Youth. Before I came across this album I'd not heard of East India Youth or indeed William Doyle. A reminder that however much you hear, you cannot hear everything that's good.

'Your Wilderness Revisited' is a set of songs built around the theme of the Hampshire suburbs where William grew up and that he subsequently escaped from. It's one of those 'hermetically sealed' albums that has a single subject and creates its own world and which exists entirely on its own terms.  I'll leave you with 'Nobody Else Will Tell You'...

There's so much more I could say about 2019.  So many albums that were worthy of note or discussion, or something.  Albums by Sleaford Mods, Peter Perrett, Lana Del Ray, Moon Duo, Ed Wynne, The Chemical Brothers, The Murder Capital, Elbow and many more ought to get more than a name check, but they won't. 2019. The end. No more to be said. At last I can move on.