It’s something of a tradition in these parts for your trusty Craven Hermit to list his favourite records at the end of each year. I’m certain you all awake in great anticipation on each and every New Year’s Day and race to your devices to see which mopey, middle-aged, mid-tempo rock jams the Hermit has been spinning. No?
So, what the hell happened in 2019? Or in 2018, for that matter?
Long story short – I caught the travel bug again. Growing up on a family farm, I wasn’t afforded the luxury of traveling too far from home. Saskatchewan seemed like another planet to us, a place of exotic sights and undulating terrain (true story!). Then I put myself through university, and dove straight into a career thereafter. No gap years, no aimless wandering, missed opportunities which I’ve incidentally grown to regret (at least a little). It’s tough to simultaneously see the world and build a professional engineering career – or at least it was in the 1990s and 2000s. But if you’ve perused these pages, you might have noted that in my fearless forties I’ve made an effort to intertwine my two first loves – travel and music. That’s partly to blame for my radio silence since Denver in 2018.
As time marched on, I’ve seen most of Canada, made a few forays into the USA, and crossed the equator – twice. Publishing my 2019 best-of list was thwarted by a month-long adventure tourism trip to New Zealand. My 2018 year-end list was likewise waylaid by a five-week hiking trip through South America and all points south. I actually spent New Year’s Eve 2018 on a Soviet-era cruise ship, crossing the Drake Channel for a nine-day Antarctic expedition. As you can imagine, Internet access was not easy to come by amongst the four-metre swells! Not to mention that there was a steady stream of mind-blowing experiences at arm’s reach as we toured the Antarctic Peninsula.
If you’re curious to hear stories about my travels, leave a comment below. I came home from my antipodean adventures with thousands of photos, many videos, and a lifetime of memories. How I miss the “old” world order, when people could travel without a paralysing fear of viral catastrophe…
Without further ado, let’s get caught up on those year-end lists that I’ve put off publishing until now. Yes, I realize it’s mid-summer 2020 – just go with it! The usual caveats apply. I’m not a professional music writer, so nobody sends me thousands of freebie review-copy albums across myriad genres each year. Side note – do the pros even get these any more? Is there such a thing as a professional music reviewer in the era of YouTube? Perhaps that’s a metaphysical argument for another day. For now, I can only comment on what my ears have extracted from the cultural zeitgeist and, generally, bought with my own hard-earned money at my local vinyl emporium. Your mileage may differ.
Craven Hermit’s Favourite Albums of 2018:
To be honest, I thought 2018 was a disappointingly ‘meh’ year for new album releases. Plenty of my favourite, more established acts released new music, but I have serious misgivings about elevating them to “best-of” status. Artists like Death Cab for Cutie, Calexico, Lord Huron, Okkervil River, Smashing Pumpkins, and Spiritualized seemed to be treading water, not pushing the needle into the reds. That said, the following albums connected with me and still get played in semi-regular rotation.
- Solarize by Capital Cities
- Open Here by Field Music
- Always Ascending by Franz Ferdinand
- Microshift by Hookworms
- Resistance is Futile by Manic Street Preachers
- Simulation Theory by Muse
- Wide Awake! by Parquet Courts
- Hope Downs by Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
- Pretty Colours for Your Actions by Tall Heights
- Performance by White Denim
Craven Hermit’s Favourite Albums of 2019:
By contrast, I’m struck by how much harder it was to prune my list down to ten albums for 2019. Great records seemed to drift out of the ether all year. I’m almost ashamed to leave some really terrific nominees off my list (nodding at you, Steve Mason and Lana del Ray). Perhaps I’ll circle back and do an ‘Honourable Mentions’ post some day, if you’re interested. At any rate, these ten albums rattled the walls in the Craven’s man cave, and definitely hiked and biked across New Zealand with me.
- Hyperspace by Beck
- South of Reality by the Claypool Lennon Delirium
- Giants of All Sizes by Elbow
- Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost by Foals
- San Isabel by Jamestown Revival
- I Am Easy To Find by the National
- Help Us Stranger by the Raconteurs
- Mettavolution by Rodrigo y Gabriela
- This Mess Is A Place by Tacocat
- Remind Me Tomorrow by Sharon Van Etten
Epilogue:
I’m chuffed to report that I’ve heard plenty of cool new music in 2020 so far. Shouldn’t be too tough to find ten new favourites to celebrate on New Year’s Eve. And now that the world is irreparably broken and international travel is but a fading memory, I’m reasonably confident that I’ll actually be home to write about it this time.
Happy Canada Day, everyone!
Craven Hermit 