My favorite non-Merge releases for 2019:
Album of the Year: Aldous Harding, ‘Designer’
Other Favorites:
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, ‘Ghosteen’
Dead C, ‘Rare Ravers’
Doleful Lions, ‘Hidden Thunderdomes’
Kim Gordon, ‘No Home Record’
Francisca Griffin, ‘The Spaces Between’
Peter Jefferies, ‘Last Ticket Home’
Hamish Kilgour, ‘Franklestein’
Operators, ‘Radiant Dawn’
Pixies, ‘Beneath the Eyrie’
Purple Mountains, s/t
The Renderers, ‘This World Just Eats Me Up Alive’
Bruce Springsteen, ‘Western Stars’
Sleater-Kinney, ‘The Center Won’t Hold’
Versus, ‘Ex Voto’
Wilkes Central High School Marching Band, ‘iBand’ (halftime show)
