Top 5 Albums of 2016

Let’s do this!

1. Ryley Walker – Golden Sings That Have Been Sung. This is the album that’s had the most play by far, it’s dense and unpredictable and has a bonus 45 minute version of one of the songs, and is somehow different in every situation you play it. Great for cruising along the river too! Yeah it’s a bit of a mish mash of 70s alt rock classics but I like listening to Tim Buckley, Van Morrison, Alice Coltrane and Pentangle all at the same time OK… He’s immense live too.

2. Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool. I was really surprised by how much I liked this, but it seemed a lot more open than their other material, and sounds genuinely incredible in parts.

3. Leonard Cohen – You Want It Darker. This would be here even if he was still alive, but what an amazing final album, particularly Treaty and its reprise at the end.

4. Leveret – In The Round. It’s a just an album of folk tunes which are played very very beautifully and that’s quite enough.

5. Lady Maisery – Cycle. I was looking forward to this a lot but it didn’t *quite* hit it for me, maybe needed a bit more weird in there… Having said that, it’s got some great moments, amazing musicianship, and ‘A Father’s Lullaby’ and ‘Order & Chaos’ are two lovely pieces of songwriting.

Special awards to Like An Old Fashioned Waltz by Sandy Denny and *ahem* Red by Taylor Swift for being the non-2016 albums I’ve listened to most this year!