2019 has come and gone, and with it music releases that I found and missed. As usual this is about the stuff I picked up on this year rather then what was actually released in 2019.
Lonely Robot: John Mitchell’s trilogy concluded this year with ‘Under Stars’ following Please Come Home (2015) and The Big Dream (2017). If you like updated traditional style Prog Rock then this is for you. Good tunes, good playing and enough “modern” to stand apart from the 70s pastiches.
Jazz has had a bit of an off year for me. With much of Jazz Journal’s website disappearing behind a paywall, and off cuts of Miles and Coltrane being touted as earth shattering events I’m struggling to find much to recommend. However The Comet is Coming.
Work Of Art are an AOR/Melodic Rock group who in a parallel universe are the biggest band in the world. While still not quite equaling the highs of second album ‘In Progress’ ‘Exhibits‘ is still the best of a cracking year of releases from genre leading label Frontiers. I’m going to be talking in detail about this unfashionable corner of music soon so will save some more suggestions for then.
I’ve done a couple of round ups of what I was listening to as the year went on, in September and March. My views remain pretty much unchanged on those records, although I may be a little less harsh on the Miles Davis disc having listened some more, still not a classic though. I did a review of the Americana world, which has had a classic year HERE. Visit my colleagues Jonathan and Helen’s opinions on 2019 as well, clearly more music to pick up on in 2020. In fact read the whole of Americana UK from top to bottom.
One artist I have rather lost track of this year is Bill Nelson. His new website is slow to load, hard to navigate and thus I have largely stopped visiting. The forum is not the lively place it once was, and judging by the number of off topic posts those who do post are not finding anything to discuss in Bill’s recent work.
Thanks for continuing to read my ramblings. The first couple of months topics are already planned, so let’s see whats out there…
