I'm listing!(?) My 10 most-played albums, purchased this year

Here is (probably) the only top-10 list I will post this year: the most-played albums I purchased this past year. The listing will be, kinda-sorta, in ascending order of current preference.

#10. DIAMONDS & DYNAMITE, DONNA GRANTIS — Grantis’ (“GRANTIS”?) playing swings from meditative to off-the-charts-killer. Had this album been all-meditative it would have scored higher with me, but that’s just me admitting the mood I am mired in, and is in no way a dis on a very fine album from a prodigious talent.

#9. Daylight, Grace Potter — Potter’s most powerful album to date. My elder daughter is especially taken with it and I’m enjoying the conversation that has opened up.

#8. Inscape, Alexandra Stréliski — the Montreal artist was a recommendation from an unexpected source. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard one or two of these tracks in movies or television shows, which tends to distract me from slipping into the album’s depths. “Where the HECK have I heard this?” is a recurring question of increasing frequency, alas. Ignoring its seeming urgency is a skill I’ve yet to acquire.

#7. ‘87, The Bros. Landreth — if you haven’t yet seen ‘em, The Bros. put on an infectious, jolly show, so much so that I tend to associate them with lite, good times. Lo and behold, this sophomore album plumbs unexpected depths! Not only that, the physical packaging is the finest “rock ‘n’ roll commodity fetish” I have encountered all year.

#6. Periphery IV: Hail Stan — Periphery has melodious djent nailed down, plus a few other surprises. Great fun. Erm, that is to say . . . crushingly brutal! Speaking of which . . .

#5. Tower, Irata — I can’t help noticing this year’s top 10 Metal lists include all the usual suspects and very few surprises. Not to take anything away from the accomplishments of those who find themselves thus elevated, but c’mon: this killer album from this scrappy band should have made everyone’s top 5.

#4. Don’t Give Up On The Blues, Giles Robson — Robson’s best album to date, and that is saying something. As for what Giles Robson brings to the table as a blues player, my friend Darko said it first and he said it best, “Robson’s band is this generation’s J. Geils.” And people — that is yooj.

#3. Joy In Spite Of Everything, Stefano Bollani — my record store must have ordered a surplus of this 2014 album, because its preeminence of display could not help but catch my eye. Joining Bollani and his usual bandmates Jesper Bodilsen and Morten Lund, are Mark Turner and Bill Frisell, and how can a listener lose with a line-up like that? Five years after its release I am grateful to finally catch up with it.

#2. The Invisible Light: Acoustic Space, T Bone Burnett — kinda gets played by default, really. If I am alone in the car, and I am in the mood I'm in, this is the music I reach for.

#1. Little Big, Aaron Parks — I picked this up last January, after I saw it mentioned here. Little Big is one hour and twenty minutes long, the exact amount of time it takes to drive to the care home where my mother-in-law currently resides. My wife and I have listened to this album for many if not most of those Saturday morning trips, and neither of us has tired of it yet. Far and away the most-played album in 2019.

And finally, THE ONE ALBUM that came out of left-field and captured my enduring affection — NO TOWN NO COUNTRY: EPs AND RARE RECORDINGS 1981-1984, DUB RIFLES.

As our family sorted through the details and arrangements set in play by my mother's death, I managed to catch a fifteen-minute break at McNally Robinson’s, where I set eyes on this oddity.

I never caught a Dub Rifles concert — they broke up shortly after I graduated high school. But they sat on the periphery of my consciousness as the very pinnacle of Winnipeg cool. An edgy group of guys who threw down edgy, infectious beats and bops.

Thirty-five years later it’s a pleasure to bring them into my living-room or car and let them rule the airwaves for 80 or so minutes. The music is surprisingly tight, and founder Colin Bryce’s liner-note recollections are clear-eyed and remarkably free of either treacly nostalgia or acrid bitterness. A personal treasure, delightfully evocative of a time and scene and frame of mind I was losing touch with.

Post-script: further Dubs:

The band was packed into the bay window of a large double front room, which in dim hazy Victorian times might’ve been the parlour and dining room – I’d come along with my gang of friends, not really knowing what to expect, having had virtually no exposure to actual punk bands at the time. There was no lighting set-up, just the harsh white overhead clangor of fluorescent tubes. I examined the impressive stacks of monitors set up on either side of the bay windows, and the enormous drum kit in the middle. While I was standing there, a finger curled around the neck of my beer bottle, a skinny, long-jawed guy climbed into the drum kit like a gunner climbing into the turret of a tank. A lean, inward-looking guy with close-cropped blonde hair stepped up to one of the mics, electric guitar at the ready. Then the sax players and the bassist stepped up. The guitarist nodded, the drummer counted down by banging his sticks together, and the band exploded in our faces.

Vince Tinguely unpacks the Dub Rifles in a most delightful way. Also check out Boo Eyeplug’s track by track appraisal of No Town No Country over here.