My Favourite Music of 2019

Well, what a wonderful year that was!

Alright alright, yes, 2019 may have been a cavalcade of calamity, much like literally other year since… a while back tbh? But, there was some decent music that got released, eh? Here’s what I’m looking forward to soundtracking the opening 20 mins of the films I hope we survive to make about this period of our history. (Skip to the end if you just want a playlist without the overwrought prose, I won’t hold it against you.)

Favourite Album: Proto - Holly Herndon

The looming threat of AI superintelligence seemed to take a bit of a back seat in 2019, what with all the climates and politics happening, but it was still occasionally hopped back into the public consciousness, in the manner of an ominously balletic Boston Dynamics robot.

One exception was much of the press around Eternal, which focussed on the role of ‘Spawn’, the AI baby raised by Herndon et al. as a musical collaborator. And that’s fair enough — Holly Herndon’s work has always been focussed on the tech-infused lives we live today. Indeed, employing machine learning in her music is clearly something that she’s approached with greater ethical consideration than a majority of tech companies give the subject.

Hearing the end result, with the clipped and distorted echoes of the vocal training the model received, is every bit as beautiful and disorientating as the rate of progress in our world. However, it’s never entirely alien — this is an artisanal, hand-reared AI, and it’s influences are never buried too deep or averaged out into anonymity. Nowhere is this clearer than on the track Evening Shades (Live Training), a call-and-response with human singers that the model babbles back like a toddler. That interaction sums up the optimism at the heart of the album — of a future where technology can be personal, private, collaborative, and above all human.

When I saw Holly Herndon live in London, Spawn was entirely absent (issues with latency/stage fright), and the performance was left to the remaining six of the vocal ensemble. Those human voices are just as much the heart of the record as the artificial seventh. As members of the London Sacred Harp choir suddenly rose from the audience to join in album highlight Frontier, this was music that felt like it was somehow a connection to everyone in history, and the future, who’s ever sung and danced together.

Closest to making me want to go to a club again, at my age!: Melody of Love - Hot Chip

As the title of the album ‘A Bath Full of Ecstasy’ suggests, this is music to sink into and let wash over you. It’s Hot Chip at their best — upbeat, dancey, euphoric, but aching with nostalgia and a sense of loss. It’s music that evokes the all-encompassing technicolor experience of a night out, even if, in the year I turned 30, I’d rather be sinking into an actual bath.

Favourite album from a Cheltenham-born artist: Magdalene - FKA twigs

Until I drop my much-anticipated and long-awaited debut, FKA twigs pretty much has this sewn every year she puts something out.

Country album for people who listen to “anything except country”: Pony - Orville Peck

Imagine if Elvis was a mysterious gay Canadian masked cowboy, that would cool wouldn’t it.

Favourite Grime record / favourite opening line: SYM - Kano

Hilarious and full of righteous anger, the whole of Hoodies All Summer is a masterpiece, and this is the perfect final track.

Music I haven’t put under a silly header, it’s just good?

If you want to actually listen to stuff I’ve enjoyed rather than read about it (probs sensible), you can listen to some of my highlights in this handy playlist! There’s all sorts in there, so if something seems interminably awful to your ears just give it a skip and you might have better luck. Again, there’s definitely more great music that I haven’t got round to listening to than I have, so let me know if I’ve missed something I really shouldn’t.