These are the fifty albums from 2019 that have meant the most to the world of Concrete Islands, along with our favourite archival releases of the year

Accept the arbitrariness and embrace the moment. Vague but sort of necessary words of self-help when attempting to construct an albums of the year list. Or else a survival brief for a Kafkaesque world – you decide, I’ve made enough decisions for now.

2019 has been a particularly rich year for music, so that made the sorting and ranking of favourites all the more challenging. On the other hand, the first full year of Concrete Islands meant there was a lot more material to draw from on the site than before. Significantly, it was also a less lonely task this time around, with input from the Concrete Islands team, particularly Adrian, who has helped shape the various musical directions of the site over the course of 2019.

We’ve increased the albums of the year from twenty-five to fifty for 2019 and added a shorter section for archival releases. Even with this additional capacity to highlight more of the music we love, a lot of great stuff had to be left out. But that’s the nature of any list, so we’ve just had to go with it. Apologies if we’ve missed something that you think should really be on there (you’re probably right). Although every release that does appear below is something we want to shout about. Links have been provided to anything that was reviewed or featured on the site. If it helps even a single person discover any of these artists then the list will have been worth it.

So, without further ado, here’s the year that was in the world of Concrete Islands, represented by some albums that spoke to us. We hope they speak to you too.

Archival releases:

12. Stereolab – Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night (Duophonic / Warp)

11. Burial – Tunes 2011 to 2019 (Hyperdub)

10. Rupa – Disco Jazz (Numero Group)

9. Fad Gadget – The Best of Fad Gadget (Mute)

8. Shakti – Verboden Dromen (Stroom)

7. Algebra Suicide – Still Life (Dark Entries)

6. Ela Orleans – Movies for Ears (Night School)

5. A Certain Ratio – ACR:BOX (Mute)

4. Various – The Daisy Age (Ace)

3. Elisa Waut – Elisa Waut (Numero Group)

2. Fernando Falcão – Memória das Águas / Barracas Barrocas (Optimo Music / Selva Discos)

1. Patrick Cowley – Mechanical Fantasy Box (Dark Entries)

Albums of the year:

50. Pictogram – Trace Elements (Miracle Pond)

49. Alexander Tucker – Guild of the Asbestos Weaver (Thrill Jockey)

48. Handspan – The Dark Is Rising (The Dark Outside)

47. Drew Mulholland – Three Antennas in a Quarry (Buried Treasure)

46. The Utopia Strong – The Utopia Strong (Rocket Recordings)

45. Grand Veymont – Grand Veymont (Outré)

44. Dean Hurley – Anthology Resource Vol II: Philosophy of the Beyond (Sacred Bones)

43. Dog in the Snow – Vanishing Lands (Bella Union)

42. Vanishing Twin – The Age of Immunology (Fire)

41. Rozi Plain – What a Boost (Memphis Industries)

40. Loraine James – For You & I (Hyperdub)

39. The Slow Engineer – Where Comes the Dark? (Polytechnic Youth)

38. Beirut – Gallipoli (4AD)

37. Charles Rumback & Ryley Walker – Little Common Twist (Thrill Jockey)

36. Mark Fisher & Justin Barton – On Vanishing Land (Flatlines)

35. Gabe Knox – ABC (Polytechnic Youth)

34. Jonathan Sharp – Divided Time (Castles in Space)

33. The Shining Levels – Music Inspired by the Novel: The Gallows Pole (Outré)

32. Burd Ellen – Silver Came (self released)

31. Special Interest – Spiraling (Anxious Music)

30. The Heartwood Institute – Tomorrow’s People (Polytechnic Youth)

29. Various – Weaponise Your Sound (Optimo Music / Weaponise Your Sound)

28. The Detox Twins – Dead Horse Ghost (Polytechnic Youth)

27. Carter Tutti Void – Triumverate (Conspiracy International)

26. De Ambassade – Duistre Kamers (Knekelhuis)

25. Penelope Trappes – Penelope Redeux (Houndstooth)

24. Madder Rose – To Be Beautiful (Trome)

23. Tomorrow Syndicate – Citizen Input (Polytechnic Youth)

22. Listening Center – Retrieving (Polytechnic Youth)

21. Clesse – Clesse ( Café Kaput)

20. Western Edges – Prowess (Sound in Silence)

“Greece’s unsung Sound in Silence label unveils yet another imaginative venture from veteran Yorkshire-based journeyman Richard Adams.”

19. Jorja Chalmers – Human Again (Italians Do It Better)

“The synth-based tracks of Jorja Chalmers’s deep-dreaming debut Human Again are a cartography of unreal things that feel very real indeed.”

18. Kim Gordon – No Home Record (Matador)

No matter how discordant Kim Gordon gets on the playfully experimental No Home Record, there’s always a tell-tale pop heart beating underneath.

17. HTRK – Venus in Leo (Ghostly International)

“A seemingly subdued work that is violent in its quiet, loud in its intimacy. The sonic palette is restrained, allowing Standish to climb inside the dream and report back from the interior.”

16. Cosey Fanni Tutti – TUTTI (Conspiracy International)

“This album is, after all, an act of dissection; a series of examinations reconfigured as visionary works. With TUTTI, Cosey Fanni Tutti has cut into the present to bleed the past and let the future breathe.”

15. Kinbrae – Landforms (Truant Recordings)

“Kinbrae’s second LP is an enchanting psychogeographic evocation of the River Tay that channels the cycle of renewal through analogue ambient soundscapes.”

14. Dalham – Heat Death (Castles in Space)

“Heat Death is Music Has the Right to Children by way of Ray Bradbury’s ‘The Veldt’.”

13. Julie’s Haircut – In the Silence Electric (Rocket Recordings)

“An intoxicating man-machine howl and propulsive groove somewhere along the lines of Roy Orbison making the dirtiest kosmische musik possible.”

12. The Home Current – Civilian Leather (Castles in Space)

“Goblets of synth-pop squelch and elegiac Cocteau Twins-meets-One Dove blissfulness, refractions of early-OMD, pulsing ambient-technoscapes, nods to Kraftwerk’s somewhat misunderstood Electric Cafe, diced-up mid-80s New Orderisms and rippling Tangerine Dream-laced sprawl”.

11. Pye Corner Audio – Hollow Earth (Ghost Box)

“Hollow Earth is ripe with dark potentiality, although that’s not to suggest it’s a wholly dark journey. There’s a Space Age optimism that runs through its core, an open curiosity in the potential of sound and music to affect.”

10. Polypores – Flora (Castles in Space)

“This ten-track collection channels thoughts on Buckley’s outdoor explorations of tree-heavy countryside environments in north-west England to grow organic reflections with nurturing synthetic tools.”

9. Vic Mars – Inner Roads and Outer Paths (Clay Pipe Music)

“That Inner Roads and Outer Paths expresses both the localised and personalised (from vintage British Railway posters to the Herefordshire countryside of the artist’s youth), and yet carries an internationalist outlook and universal relatability, makes listening to this imaginative long player an intimate, open experience.”

8. Patience – Dizzy Spells (Night School)

“Patience navigates an uplifting experience of sadness, building upon elements of Veronica Falls, but going in new directions. The music here has the clean architectural lines of Julius Shulman’s photographs of modernist glass houses, but inside the figures, for all their sophistication, are in turmoil. Like New Order with a Grey Gardens heart then.”

7. Oliver Cherer – I Feel Nothing Most Days (Second Language)

“Whilst there are many exceptional Cherer releases out there already for late-comers to find, I Feel Nothing Most Days is certainly an outstanding place to begin a listening relationship with this uniquely gifted artisan.”

6. The Golden Filter – Autonomy (4GN3S)

“Autonomy is a sparse, purposeful and powerful sonic declaration. Where minimal wave meets acid house and subterranean pop music.”

5. Moor Mother – Analog Fluids of Sonic Black Holes (Don Giovanni)

An astonishing set of truth-exposing psychic blasts from the Afrofuturist frontier that are as visceral as they are necessary.

4. Purple Mountains – Purple Mountains (Drag City)

“A mournfully-rousing and upliftingly-sad collection”.

3. Justin Hopper & Sharron Kraus with The Belbury Poly – Chanctonbury Rings (Ghost Box)

“If only the children of today and tomorrow could be encouraged to express themselves through movement and dance to Ghost Box number 33. For Chanctonbury Rings encourages magic to occur. Magic to think, breathe and dream more. The campaign to have it installed in assembly halls and played in primary schools across the country begins here.”

2. Andrew Wasylyk – The Paralian (Athens of the North)

“Wasylyk taps into something personally profound and universally powerful. His seemingly soothing meditations will drag you below their shimmering surfaces. The Paralian is the first great record of 2019.” (Written in January and it remains one of the great records.)

1. Free Love – Extreme Dance Anthems (Optimo Music)

“That Free Love have followed up the magnificent Luxury Hits (2018) with an even more vital musical statement is some kind of walk-on-water performance. For Extreme Dance Anthems feels like a way of living through the darkness and Free Love might just be the most essential band of the moment, on this or any other plane of existence.”