For the next edition of our end of year guest posts, we have Jack Gordon of math rock band Irk and his Top Ten Albums of 2018. Irk just released their new album Recipes From The Bible (Self-Released) which they crowdfunded themselves and shows a lot of promise. We’ll be sharing lists, memories, and other shenanigans from our favorite bands, partners, music industry peers, and other folks we respect across the globe all month long.
1. Daughters – You Won’t Get What You Want
https://daughters.bandcamp.com/album/you-wont-get-what-you-want
This is one hell of a comeback, well worth the wait. Daughters continue to reset the paradigms of what they do. Fearless, exhilarating, intriguing; an excellent record.
2. Tal National – Tantabara
A fantastic frenzy of rhythm for Niger, both perfectly coherent and smooth, and simultaneously a riotous tumult.
3. Yves Tumor – Safe in the Hands of Love
A very haunting ethereal album of love songs from another world. Beguiling in its coyness and disarming in its emotional depth.
4. The Bad Plus – Never Stop II
A major line-up change in the form of pianist Orrin Evans has not dimmed the idiosyncratic jazz brightness of The Bad Plus in the slightest.
5. tUnE-yArDs – I Can Feel You Creep into My Private Life
Merrill Garbus continues to creative astoundingly relevant pop music in new and unexpected ways. Myriad musical and social influences from around the world come together here with impressive harmony.
6. Young Fathers – Cocoa Sugar
A captivating and mellifluous album from the Scottish trio which reaches surprising depths; political, religious, and emotional.
https://youngfathersofficial.bandcamp.com/album/cocoa-sugar
7. Shatner’s Bassoon – Disco Erosion
Arguably the best band in Leeds, this album captures their forthright yet psychedelic complexity, with profound moments of jazz clarity, and always with an unmistakable sense of humour which only enriches proceedings.
8. Bearfoot Beware – Sea Magnolia
Stalwarts of our very own Leeds DIY alternative music scene, this is easily their most accomplished and consistently engaging release to date. Angular post-hardcore with flashes of unexpected melody and patience.
9. Lonnie Holley – MITH
So many of these songs are unique artistic experiences, always able to be interesting and inventive, but first and foremost the album feels spectacularly personal. Hymns for modern times.
10. Tim Hecker – Konoyo
A successfully restrained descent into a sea of difficult-to-place textures, with waves of Japanese strings and bubbling bass and percussion, slowly and majestically stalking beneath the waters like some Leviathan.
Order Irk’s new album now – https://irkband.bandcamp.com
Irk is:
Jack Gordon – Vocals
Ed Snell – Bass
Matt Deamer – Drums