The Musical Advent Calendar - Overall Top 10

So, here it is. The final post of the final Musical Advent Calendar. Here you'll find the overall top 10 - using our patented, mutli-layered and highly sophisticated rating system (one point for a No. 24 nomination, 24 for a No. 1 and everything else in between), we've calculated what the panel rated as the best 10 albums of the year. You can see just how many points each one got below.

This year our panel picked between them 164 different albums, one shy of last year's tally. There was a remarkable convergence of picks in the last few days, as Sufjan Stevens, Laura Marling and Father John Misty picked up nominations in bunches. However, only so many of us ended up the same page - our winner took 111 points, the lowest tally yet (a record, I suppose, which can no longer be broken). 

Anyway, enough minutiae. This year we've made the decision that this should be the last Musical Advent Calendar. Since I had the ridiculous idea, sat outside a Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson gig in Leeds in 2007, we've had a blast doing this. The enthusiasm everyone brought to it was something I never expected, so a huge, huge thank you has to go to all those who contributed, and all those who read it and commented on it. 

Why is it coming to an end then? It's not that we've stopped loving it, but each year I know it gets harder and harder for some of the panel to take part in this project, and I was determined it would never be a burden for anyone. I figured it was better to stop it while we're all still having fun than to wait for that to change. A great philosophy in life is to always ask yourself, 'What would Neil Young do?' He told us this:

"It's better to burn out than to fade away..."

Thank you again. It's been an absolute pleasure.

1. Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell (Asthmatic Kitty) - 111 points

What they said: Dom Farrell: The candour with which he looks back on the happy respite of his childhood summers in Eugene in delicate, sepia tones is almost too much to bear at times. Carrie and Lowell is an unflinching, soul-bearing experience.

Matt Collins: Carrie and Lowell is a stripped back affair compared to his previous efforts, and this really allows the strength of the songwriting to shine right through. To say this is a breathtaking collection of indie folk songs with lush instrumentation would be an understatement. It is an unbelievable pleasure from start to finish.

Steve Pill: To me this is the sound of a man coming to terms with his past and working it all out, stepping forward with hope and clarity. More to the point, while I admire the project, I've also played it endlessly too. So number one it is.

Andrew Gwilym: It is so nakedly emotional it can bring you close to tears, but you cannot turn it off. It’s too good, too gripping, too essential.

Rory Dollard: Clearly it's beautiful, dead cert top-10 stuff. I'm not giving any more than that and I still got a little bit bored midway through Illinoise last time I tried. So there.

2. Father John Misty - I Love You, Honeybear (Bella Union) - 97 points

Steve Pill: What a hero. Josh Tillman settles rather lasciviously into his Father John Misty persona on album number two, a collection of baroque love songs for our self-obsessed age.

Andrew Gwilym: This is easily the loopiest album of the year. Part yearning and lovelorn, sometimes cruel, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes downright bonkers, but all brilliant.

Ian Parker: If you'd asked me in April, May or even June for the best albums of the year to date, this might have earned a passing mention. Roll on December, it has found its way into the top five.

Dom Farrell: Given Josh Tillman’s stated ambition of writing “about love without bullshitting”, I Love You, Honeybear fulfils its brief in sparkling fashion. Befitting of a record that contains suggested listening settings for each song, complete with recommended hallucinogenics, it’s a bit crackers at times but this attention to detail extends to a magnificent collection of lyrics - touching and poignant one minute, scathing and hilarious the next. Love without the bullshit, indeed.

Andy Welch: To think this guy was once 'just' the drummer in Fleet Foxes… The lyrics, the sumptuous arrangements, the humorous live shows, he's a master of it all.

3. Laura Marling - Short Movie (Virgin/EMI) - 95 points

Andy Welch: This record seems like the culmination of everything she's been moving toward since her debut. There's a coldness and cryptic nature to the lyrics that I love, and musically, it's great to hear all those electric guitars being plugged in.

Ian Parker: This won’t be everyone’s favourite Laura Marling album (given the harsher edge it might take many fans time to get their ears around it) but it seems to most neatly explain her own story – that of a restless spirit who keeps pushing herself in new directions, even if the results might not always be comfortable. It’s what makes her the most interesting, most vital artist in her field.

Andrew Gwilym: I know a few people were sceptical about Short Movie, but this just adds further evidence, not that any were needed, that Marling is a bonafide great who will come to be our generation’s greatest artists. 

Dom Farrell: Sonically, Short Movie is Laura going electric and wearing a US jaunt of self-discovery on her sleeve. Beneath an altogether louder approach musically is her most vulnerable lyrical persona to date - not quite as strident, touches of regret and acceptance. Another fascinating and rewarding chapter in a truly marvellous career.

Rory Dollard: I have no doubt now that she's on track to be our Joni Mitchell, and someone many of us will be talking about in 20 years. But Joni had her off days and this, by her own standards, seems like Marling's first in a while. It's good, but she's so often great. I had a quick check of the Advent Calendar's by-laws just to check you were allowed to vote her as low as 18. You are.

4. Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit And Think, Sometimes I Just Sit (Marathon) - 91 points

Dom Farrell: Barnett’s wit is jagged enough to slice through an under-ripe lemon and every bit as sharp as the juice within. It’s all carried by spiky new wave pop that slaps you across the face ('Pedestrian At Best', 'Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t Go To The Party') and gives you a sardonic nudge ('Depreston', 'Dead Fox') to equally great effect. The songwriting is exceptional and rarely misses a beat after the delayed chorus to Attractions-esque opener 'Elevator Operator' sends the record soaring. Like all essential albums, it’s devilishly hard to think of anything else you’d rather be doing that when you’re listening to Sometimes I Sit and Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit. 

Rory Dollard: There's rawness and playfulness, knowingness and vulnerability and a stack of easy-on-the-ear episodic gems. I can't wait to hear more.

Ian Parker: Just when I wondered if I'd kind of grown out of indie, a time when I figured I only bought such records as reissues to remember a time that had past, Sometimes I Sit... came along to remind how bloody brilliant this sort of thing sounds when it's done right. Thank you, Courtney. 

Steve Pill: To my mind, this is pure stoner Britpop though - a slacker Sleeper or loose Elastica, if you will. Listen to the bored female vocals, melodic bass lines and skronky chords of 'Pedestrian At Best' or 'Elevator Operator' and you can half imagine it's being played live on Big Breakfast circa 1995. What elevates this is Barnett's Sahara dry, self-deprecating wit in lines like "Put me on a pedestal and I'll only disappoint you" or the topical ennui of 'Depreston''s tale of house price woes: "We don't need to be around all those coffee shops... I'm saving $23 a week". While Wener, Frischmann and co. were often flirty and sex-obsessed, Barnett has a matey charm that is clever, winning and just a little shambolic.

Andy Welch: Like her early EPs, Courtney Barnett's debut is full of nods to Pavement and Mudhoney, but I was amazed to hear the likes of Sleeper and Elastica as influences. And being a big fan of Sleeper and Elastica, very pleased. Brilliant lyrics too.

5. Guy Garvey - Courting The Squall (Polydor) - 72 points

Matt Collins: Definitely pretty weird to hear Guy Garvey’s voice over anything but Elbow’s radio friendly prog stylings. Apparently he’s now all about the Afrobeat after checking out recommendations from his 6Music listeners. That might be stretching it a bit - Elbow were always a fairly experimental lot, and the title track in particular is an Elbow ballad in all but name. All in all though, a delightfully sparse, synthy, Afrobeat-lite collection of tunes.

Steve Pill: The urgent Beefheart-meets-Black Books skronk of 'Angela's Eyes' is a thrilling beginning, but much of the rest could easily have drunkenly snuggled its way onto any of Elbow's earlier albums. However, given that the Bury boys topped my chart last year and Garvey’s duetting partner Jolie Holland came third, you’ll realise why more of the same is no bad thing in my book.

Rory Dollard: For the 3mins 44secs of 'Angela's Eyes', it sounds like this solo outing is going to directly address the Elbow haters - it's slinky and funky and angular and not at all fit for a sunset festival singalong. In fact, you could drop a Tom Waits vocal on top and not change a note - which you probably couldn't say for 'One Day Like This'. Largely, that's a red herring because things take a turn for the familiar as Garvey's brooding humanist poetry takes hold. There's a stillness to his writing here, with the ebbs and flows less obvious than in his day job, but delicacy brings its own delights.

Dom Farrell: He does hand-on-the-shoulder romance, packed with delicate imagery, better than anyone else I can think of. Blasts of brass throughout and the shuffling, jazzy interlude of 'Electricity' see Garvey continually hit the spot as he deftly picks apart loves old and new - probably no closer to sussing out what it all means but finding richness in the journey. It’s one we should all be happy to join him on.

6. Bjork - Vulnicura (One Little Indian) - 61 points

Pranam Mavahalli: Right at the heart of the record is 'Family'. A song so incredibly staggering that six months on I'm still blown away it every time I hear it. Over the course of its eight minutes, it acts as a microcosm of the album as a whole – mirroring the way the tracks (and I suppose broken relationships in general) move from sorrow and darkness, to acceptance and finally optimism. Starting with dissonant, inchoate, droning strings, the music gradually rises and rises, before reaching a summit of intensity - and collapsing into a scattershot confusion of broken arpeggios that seek resolution yet never quite reach it. Then, as if from nowhere, things coalesce. The key switches from minor to major, the melody rises, and waves of synths gently lap over each other as Bjork sings “I raise a monument of love/There is a swarm of sound/Around our heads/And we can hear it/And we can get healed by it/It will relieve us from the pain”. Goddammit, I think it's incredible. It's about as good as music gets. If you've not heard it, listen to it. If you have heard it, listen to it again. It's perfection.

Rory Dollard: This is, quite simply, the best break-up space opera you'll ever hear. 

Ian Parker: This is such a personal record, such a raw one - as the cover art suggests - from such a wonderfully complex, demanding artist that it requires a good deal of emotional energy to really do it justice. On those rare occasions you find it in you, the rewards are amazing. 

7. Sleater-Kinney - No Cities To Love (Sub Pop) - 54 points

Steve Pill: No Cities To Love is superb rock'n'roll music: loud, brash, rousing, fun and just a bit cleverer than it initially seems.

Guy Atkinson: I’ve rarely seen such widespread fawning over a band as when Sleater-Kinney made their return earlier this year. Thankfully, no-one was left with egg on their face with the trio delivering a meaty and layered rock album that would, frankly, be beyond many bands going into their third decade.

John Skilbeck: After almost 10 years away, they returned with a record teeming with electrifying force and conviction: a set of instant Sleater-Kinney classics. After going on “indefinite hiatus” in 2006, a step that Brownstein’s book reveals was more agonising than many realised, it was a joy to welcome them back.

Andrew Gwilym: Their first album in a decade won rave reviews and it’s easy to see why. Angular, taught, edgy and fiery. As bracing and brilliant as any rock record this year.

8. My Morning Jacket - The Waterfall (ATO) - 49 points

Andy Welch: The Waterfall comes close, but this features so high on my list because of 'Thin Line', one of the most beautiful songs I've heard all year. Sublime. 

Ian Parker: Their constant reworking and reinvention of their sound has kept them vital, and while The Waterfall doesn't quite top the likes of Z or Circuital, it reminds you why you can still believe that after 16 years, their best record might still be to come. 

Dom Farrell: In the post-Musical Advent Calendar age, where I will revert to my previous habits of buying loads of back catalogues en masse, I reckon Jim James and the boys will have a few of my pennies rolling their way now I’ve worked out they’re not Slipknot’s long-time tour support buddies.

Andrew Gwilym: For a band who sound remarkable when cutting loose on stage, MMJ almost sounded clinical. Here, the warmth is evident again. Opener 'Believe' and 'In Its Infancy' stretch out, while 'Get the Point' includes wonderful tender vocals from Jim James, who is on superb form throughout. It’s the sound of a great band getting back on track and stepping up the quality control

9. Four Tet - Morning/Evening (Text) - 41 points

Pranam Mavahalli: The samples of Indian playback singer Lata Mangeshkar provide an emotional and spiritual counterpoint to the clubby throb of the techno that lies beneath. It's another great release from one of this country's true innovators.

Steve Pill: I'm in danger of talking out of my arse a little here, but the music has that effect - you want to match Hebden's ambition and vision with a worthy response. With Morning/Evening, he has crafted two delicate, immersive and unpredictable suites of music here that sound at first like background music yet demand your attention, front and centre.

10. Tame Impala - Currents (Fiction) - 40 points

Steve Pill: Currents is a step up again, taking those retro elements and adding moogs, falsetto vocals, wooshy noises and all those other things that people in 1968 thought the future sounded like.

Andy Welch: Tame Impala has always been about the vision of one man, Kevin Parker, and his seemingly limitless imagination. Tame Impala's second album perfected what he'd started on the debut, but this is something genuinely exciting and new, moving forwards, like all the best psychedelic music does, rather than endlessly gazing backwards.

The Musical Advent Calendar - Door Number Twenty-Four

So here it is, the final full day of the final Musical Advent Calendar. We're going to wait until tomorrow's bonus post - and that all-important overall top 10 - to get overly emotional, because right now we must crack on with our No. 1 albums of the year. Oh yeah, and wish a Merry Christmas to everyone.

Andy Welch
Laura Marling – Short Movie (Virgin/EMI)

Never let it be said I'm not predictable. Laura Marling's topped my list a couple of times before, and been a runner up, so in this final year of the Advent, it seems fitting that she should once again reign supreme. This record seems like the culmination of everything she's been moving toward since her debut. There's a coldness and cryptic nature to the lyrics that I love, and musically, it's great to hear all those electric guitars being plugged in. Even in a year as strong as 2015, so packed with greats that I couldn't find room for my beloved Richard Hawley, and weirdly forgot about Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats, Foals, Bjork, Sleater-Kinney and Destroyer, this still stands head and shoulders above them all. What an artist. What a record.

Rory Dollard
Joanna Newsom - Divers (Drag City)

Until October 23, Courtney Barnett sat in the number 1 slot. But if this is to be the last Ragged Glories hurrah (am I allowed to throw in an 'if'? … come on Ian, let's talk again about the Ragged Glories podcast) I wanted something more. Something authentically breathtaking and remarkable. Deep down I knew Joanna Newsom would provide it and in truth I mentally slotted her into top spot before the end of track 3. In the past she's been wilfully tricksy - 17 minute free verse, self-referencing triple albums - but here she presents a rabbit warren of literate, lyrical philosophy and virtuoso musicianship in atypically accessible nuggets. This is an album to think to, to drink to, to stop for, to wallow in, to wander in, to ponder on and to marvel at. If there are any parts that don't make me do any of those things, well that's my fault and not hers. When the time comes for the obligatory reunion calendar in 20 years I'll still be unpacking this one.

Matt Collins
Sufjan Stevens - Carrie and Lowell (Asthmatic Kitty)

A new album by Sufjan Stevens is always going to make it to the top of a lot of album of the tear lists just by virtue of the fact that it is his new album. Carrie and Lowell is a stripped back affair compared to his previous efforts, and this really allows the strength of the songwriting to shine right through. To say this is a breathtaking collection of indie folk songs with lush instrumentation would be an understatement. It is an unbelievable pleasure from start to finish.

Dom Farrell
Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit and Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit (Marathon)

Sifting back through my list, it seems to be more heavily comprised of miserable, whiny white guys than usual. Hopefully I can atone for this early onset male menopause by sticking Courtney Barnett’s tour de force of a debut at number one. The title induces a smirk and a chuckle and there are numerous lyrical gems to maintain this effect throughout. Barnett’s wit is jagged enough to slice through an under-ripe lemon and every bit as sharp as the juice within. It’s all carried by spiky new wave pop that slaps you across the face ('Pedestrian At Best', 'Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t Go To The Party') and gives you a sardonic nudge ('Depreston', 'Dead Fox') to equally great effect. The songwriting is exceptional and rarely misses a beat after the delayed chorus to Attractions-esque opener 'Elevator Operator' sends the record soaring. Like all essential albums, it’s devilishly hard to think of anything else you’d rather be doing that when you’re listening to Sometimes I Sit and Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit. 

It’s been a pleasure gentlemen, an absolute ruddy pleasure. 

Andrew Gwilym
Kurt Vile - B'lieve I'm going down (Matador)

This album secured top spot by the time the opening track had finished. ‘Pretty Pimpin’ is the best song I have heard by anyone all year. A guitar riff that worms its way deep into your brain, clever lyrics, expertly delivered. Catchy, wry, funny, and the album never lets up. Vile is on a real hot patch at the moment – his previous two albums were also exceptional – and he is going stride for stride with old pal and War on Drugs cohort Adam Granduciel in making top-notch album after top-notch album. This is only my second year on the advent calendar but I sign off content knowing this cracker is my final choice. Cheers and Merry Christmas folks!

John Skilbeck
Chastity Belt - Time To Go Home (Hardly Art)

This Seattle band, four women in their mid-twenties who met at college, got treacherously drunk and started Chastity Belt as a campus joke, are wonderfully wayward and sharp-tongued, or that was certainly how it seemed on their spellcheck-challenging debut No Regerts. Singer Julia Shapiro also plays in Childbirth (find them behind door two) who are, in reductive terms, a feminist comedy band. But while wryly observant themselves, Chastity Belt have a darker side than the side project. Guitarist Lydia Lund plays tricksy, melancholic six-string, garlanding the edges of their post-punk stylings, while Shapiro's woozy voice drips with cold sarcasm one moment, before being flushed with indignation the next. She recoils at “just another man trying to teach me something” on 'Drone', and on the standout 'Joke' there are few laughs to be had. "Let's light everything on fire" is less a call to arms than a moment of breakdown, set atop an incongruously blissful instrumental melody. There are moments of light to partly offset such shade, but Time To Go Home ends with the title track and a dark realisation - "Everything is beautiful, because we're delusional". And on that cheery note, merry Christmas. Whatever will we do at this time next year?

Pranam Mavahalli
Africa Express - Presents Terry Riley's In C (The Orchard)

Taking two things you love and mixing them together doesn't always work. Marmite and peanut M&Ms make uneasy bedfellows. So who would have thought that African folk music and contemporary minimal classical could mesh so well? Oh but they do. Even if you have no interest either genre, I urge you to take a listen. This is beautiful, warm, hypnotic, spiritual and life-affirming music, played with verve and a fresh take and a fresh take on the classical canon, which if nothing else proves that music is a great leveller of spirits. In a world that looks increasingly chaotic and fragmentary, this album shines a light on the rare and unique power that music has to unite.

Ian Parker
Laura Marling - Short Movie (Virgin/EMI)

There has always been a frenetic element to the way Laura Marling has constantly reinvented herself, but Short Movie is the fullest realisation of that mood yet – stripping away her own comfort zone to truly challenge herself (“When you’re winning, you’re already losing” – from ‘Divine’). The frustration and loneliness Marling felt during a year living in the US - having followed her boyfriend there only to see the relationship end - is expressed in the most forceful, at times outright aggressive, album she has produced to date. This won’t be everyone’s favourite Laura Marling album (given the harsher edge it might take many fans time to get their ears around it) but it seems to most neatly explain her own story – that of a restless spirit who keeps pushing herself in new directions, even if the results might not always be comfortable. It’s what makes her the most interesting, most vital artist in her field.

Guy Atkinson
The Wonder Years – No Closer to Heaven (Hopeless Records)

I’ve been accused by one of my colleagues this year of pretending to like certain music to “be cool”. However, if there’s one thing that disproves that theory it’s my ongoing love affair with pop-punk. A staple of my end-of-year lists over the past five years, this latest effort by The Wonder Years continues to move the genre forward and ensures this 31-year-old won’t be growing up anytime soon.

Steve Pill
Sufjan Stevens – Carrie and Lowell (Asthmatic Kitty)

In a year of many excellent records but no true standouts, this has as good a claim as any to my top spot. Individually, the songs are impossibly pretty, harmonically adventurous and heartfelt slices of folk pop, but together they become more special again - a cohesive, conceptual whole in an era of 79p downloads and Spotify playlists. After a series of albums that have been too dominated by gimmicky themes (US states or robots), Sufjan instead tackles his absent mother and unusual family set up on each of these 11 tracks. The details are heartbreakingly precise ("she left me at the video store") and that high, forlorn register in which he sings is also strangely detached or numb in a way, furthering the feeling that the words are being sung without filter. Some reviews (or friends I've recommended this to) have said how bleak it sounds, but I honestly don't get that. To me this is the sound of a man coming to terms with his past and working it all out, stepping forward with hope and clarity. More to the point, while I admire the project, I've also played it endlessly too. So number one it is.

The Musical Advent Calendar - A Quick Recap

In order that you might more easily be able to mock panel members for the more glaring omissions from their lists, here's an easy at-a-glance look at their complete top 24s.


Andy Welch

1. Laura Marling – Short Movie (Virgin/EMI)
2. Tame Impala – Currents (Fiction)
3. Wolf Alice – My Love Is Cool (Dirty Hit)
4. The Maccabees – Marks To Prove It (Fiction)
5. Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Multi-Love (Jagjaguwar)
6. New Order – Music Complete (Mute)
7. Father John Misty – I Love You, Honeybear (Bella Union)
8. Half Moon Run – Sun Leads Me On (Caroline)
9. The Staves – If I Was (Atlantic)
10. Tobias Jesso Jr – Goon (True Panther)
11. Pond – Man It Feels Like Space Again (Universal)
12. Belle And Sebastian – Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance (Matador)
13. Leon Bridges – Coming Home (Columbia)
14. Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Sit And Think, Sometimes I Just Sit (Marathon)
15. Blur – The Magic Whip (Parlophone)
16. Natalie Prass – Natalie Prass (Spacebomb)
17. Ryley Walker – Primrose Green (Dead Oceans)
18. My Morning Jacket – The Waterfall (ATO)
19. Alabama Shakes – Sound & Color (Rough Trade)
20. The Charlatans – Modern Nature (BMG)
21. Roisin Murphy – Hairless Toys (Play It Again Sam)
22. Will Butler – Policy (Merge)
23. Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds – Chasing Yesterday (Sour Mash)
24. Ryan Adams – 1989 (Pax-Am)

Rory Dollard

1. Joanna Newsom - Divers (Drag City)
2. Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit (Marathon)
3. Bjork - Vulnicura (One Little Indian)
4. Girlpool - Before the World Was Big (Wichita)
5. Guy Garvey - Courting the Squall (Polydor)
6. Ibeyi - Ibeyi (XL)
7. Public Service Broadcasting - Race for Space (Test Card Recordings)
8. Titus Andronicus - The Most Lamentable Tragedy (Merge)
9. Sufjan Stevens - Carrie and Lowell (Asthmatic Kitty)
10. Mountain Goats - Beat the Champ (Merge)
11. Tallest Man on Earth - Dark Bird is Home (Dead Oceans)
12. Ryan Adams - 1989 (Pax-Am)
13. Richard Hawley - Hollow Meadows (Parlophone)
14. Jenny Hval - Apocalypse Girl (Sacred Bones)
15. Holly Herndon - Platform (4AD)
16. Ghostface Killah and BBNG - Sour Soul (Lex)
17. Nadine Shah - Fast Food (Apollo)
18. Laura Marling - Short Movie (Virgin/EMI)

19. Sun Kil Moon - Universal Themes (Rough Trade)
20. Jessica Pratt - On Your Own, Love Again (Drag City)
21. Songhoy Blues - Music in Exile (Transgressive)
22. The Unthanks - Mount The Air (Cadiz)
23. Eskimeaux - OK (Carrot Top)
24. Wilco - Star Wars (Epitaph)

Matt Collins

1. Sufjan Stevens - Carrie and Lowell (Asthmatic Kitty)
2. Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds - Chasing Yesterday (Sour Mash)
3. This is the Kit - Bashed Out (Brassland)
4. Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars (Bella Union)
5. Adem - Seconds are Acorns (Caroline)
6. Everything Everything - Get to Heaven (RCA)
7. EL VY - Return to the Moon (4AD)
8. Dutch Uncles - O Shudder (Memphis Industries)
9. Guy Garvey - Courting the Squall (Polydor)
10. Django Django - Born Under Saturn (Because)
11. Gaz Coombes - Matador (Hot Fruit)
12. Admiral Fallow - Tiny Rewards (Nettwerk)
13. Beirut - No No No (4AD)
14. Black Rivers - Black Rivers (Ignition)
15. The Charlatans - Modern Nature (BMG)
16. Diagrams - Chromatics (Full Time Hobby)
17. Wolf Alice - My Love is Cool (Dirty Hit)
18. Jose Gonzalez - Vestiges and Claws (Peacefrog Records)
19. Blur - The Magic Whip (Parlophone)
20. SOAK - Before We Forgot How to Dream (Rough Trade)
21. Sweet Baboo - The Boombox Ballads (Moshi Moshi)
22. FFS - FFS (Domino)
23. The Unthanks - Mount the Air (Cadiz)
24. Waxahatchee - Ivy Trip (Wichita)

Dom Farrell

1. Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit and Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit (Marathon)
2. Sufjan Stevens - Carrie and Lowell (Asthmatic Kitty)
3. Father John Misty - I Love You, Honeybear (Bella Union)
4. Public Service Broadcasting - The Race For Space (Test Card Recordings)
5. Guy Garvey - Courting the Squall (Polydor)
6. Laura Marling - Short Movie (Virgin/EMI)
7. Ghostpoet - Shedding Skin (Play It Again Sam)
8. Tallest Man On Earth - Dark Bird Is Home (Dead Oceans)
9. My Morning Jacket - The Waterfall (ATO)
10. The Charlatans - Modern Nature (BMG)
11. Django Django - Born Under Saturn (Because)
12. Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Multi-Love (Jagjaguwar)
13. Drenge - Undertow (Infectious)
14. Destroyer - Poison Season (Dead Oceans)
15. Bop English - Constant Bop (Blood and Biscuits)
16. The Arcs - Yours, Dreamily (Nonesuch)
17. Jessica Pratt - On Your Own Love Again (Drag City)
18. Matthew E White - Fresh Blood (Spacebomb)
19. Pinkshinyultrablast - Everything Else Matters (Club AC30)
20. Leon Bridges - Coming Home (Columbia)
21. Richard Hawley - Hollow Meadows (Parlophone)
22. Natalie Prass - Natalie Prass (Spacebomb)
23. New Order - Music Complete (Mute)
24. Paul Smith & The Intimations - Contradictions (Billingham Records)

Andrew Gwilym

1. Kurt Vile - B'lieve I'm going down (Matador)
2. Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell (Asthmatic Kitty)
3. Gretchen Peters - Blackbirds (Proper)
4. Laura Marling - Short Movie (Virgin/EMI)
5. Wilco - Star Wars (Epitaph)
6. Sleater-Kinney - No Cities to Love (Sub Pop)
7. Titus Andronicus - The Most Lamentable Tragedy (Merge)
8. Keith Richards - Crosseyed Heart (Virgin EMI)
9. Heartless Bastards - Restless Ones (Partisan)
10. Father John Misty - I Love You, Honeybear (Bella Union)
11. My Morning Jacket - The Waterfall (ATO)
12. Bob Dylan - Shadows in the Night (Columbia)
13. Jesse Malin - New York Before the War (One Little Indian)
14. Jason Isbell - Something More Than Free (Southeastern Records)
15. AC/DC - Rock or Bust (Columbia)
16. Paul Weller - Saturns Pattern (Parlophone)
17. Tallest Man on Earth - Dark Bird is Home (Dead Oceans)
18. Buddy Guy - Born to Play Guitar (Sony)
19. Idlewild - Everything Ever Written (Empty Words)
20. Modest Mouse - Strangers to Ourselves (Columbia)
21. Craig Finn - Faith in the Future (Partisan)
22. Ryan Adam - 1989 (Pax-Am)
23. Neil Young & The Promise of the Real - The Monsanto Years (Reprise)
24. Frank Turner - Positive Songs for Negative People (Polydor)

John Skilbeck

1. Chastity Belt - Time To Go Home (Hardly Art)
2. Hop Along - Painted Shut (Saddle Creek)
3. Screaming Females - Rose Mountain (Don Giovanni Records)
4. Marina and the Diamonds - FROOT (Neon Gold/Atlantic)
5. Joanna Gruesome - Peanut Butter (Fortuna Pop)
6. Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat - The Most Important Place In The World (Chemikal Underground)
7. Sleater-Kinney - No Cities To Love (Sub Pop)
8. Downtown Boys - Full Communism (Don Giovanni Records)
9. Kodiak Deathbeds - Kodiak Deathbeds (self-released)
10. Tove Lo - Queen Of The Clouds (Island)
11. Shopping - Why Choose (FatCat)
12. Girlpool - Before The World Was Big (Wichita)
13. Ought - Sun Coming Down (Constellation)
14. Hurry Up - Hurry Up (Army Of Bad Luck)
15. Chvrches - Every Open Eye (Universal)
16. Trust Fund - No One’s Coming For Us (Turnstile)
17. The Cribs - For All My Sisters (Sony RED)
18. Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly (Interscope)
19. The Apartments - No Song, No Spell, No Madrigal (Microcultures)
20. Desperate Journalist - Desperate Journalist (Fierce Panda)
21. Escort - Animal Nature (Escort)
22. Prinzhorn Dance School - Home Economics (DFA)
23. Childbirth - Women’s Rights (Suicide Squeeze)
24. Dilly Dally - Sore (Partisan)

Pranam Mavahalli

1. Africa Express - Presents Terry Riley's In C (The Orchard)
2. Bjork – Vulnicura (One Little Indian)
3. Julia Holter – Have you in My Wilderness (Domino)
4. Floating Points – Elaenia (Pluto)
5. Andy Stott – Faith in Strangers (Modern Love)
6. Alabama Shakes – Sound and Color (Rough Trade)
7. Four Tet – Morning/Evening (Text)
8. Low – Ones and Sixes (Sub Pop)
9. Percussions – 2011 until 2014 (Text)
10. Jamie xx – In Colour (Young Turks)
11. Kendrick Lamaar – To Pimp a Butterfly (Polydor)
12. Owiny Sigoma Band – Nyanza (Brownswood)
13. Seven Davis Jr – Universes (Ninja Tune)
14. Mbongwana Star – From Kinshasa (World Circuit)
15. R Seiliog – In Hz (Caroline)
16. Panda Bear – Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper (Domino)
17. Boxed In – Boxed In (Nettwerk)
18. Aphex Twin -  user18081971 (Self-released)
19. Glenn Astro – Throwback (Republic of Music)
20. Kamasi Washington – The Epic (Brainfeeder)
21. George Fitzgerald – Fading Love (Double Six)
22. Paradise Bangkok Molam International Band – 21st Century Molam (Studio Lam)
23. Holly Herndon – Platform (4AD)
24. Sufjan Stevens – Carrie and Lowell (Asthmatic Kitty)

Ian Parker

1. Laura Marling - Short Movie (Virgin/EMI)
2. Benjamin Clementine - At Least For Now (Barclay)
3. Ryley Walker - Primrose Green (Dead Oceans)
4. Father John Misty - I Love You, Honeybear (Bella Union)
5. Natalie Prass - Natalie Prass (Spacebomb)
6. Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit (Marathon)
7. Matthew E. White - Fresh Blood (Spacebomb)
8. Barna Howard - Quite A Feelin' (Loose)
9. Bjork - Vulnicura (One Little Indian)
10. Blur - The Magic Whip (Parlophone)
11. Admiral Fallow  - Tiny Rewards (Nettwerk)
12. Jason Isbell - Something More Than Free (Southeastern Records)
13. My Morning Jacket - The Waterfall (ATO)
14. Richard Hawley - Hollow Meadows (Parlophone)
15. Leon Bridges - Coming Home (Columbia)
16. Madisen Ward and the Mama Bear - Skeleton Crew (Glassnote)
17. Smoke Fairies - Winter Wild (Full Time Hobby)
18. Kristin McClement - The Wild Grips (Willkommen)
19. Neil Young & The Promise of the Real - The Monsanto Years (Parlophone)
20. The Arcs - Yours, Dreamily (Nonesuch)
21. Kurt Vile - B'lieve I'm Going Down (Matador)
22. Saun & Starr - Look Closer (Daptone)
23. Paul Weller - Saturn's Pattern (Parlophone)
24. Sun Kil Moon - Universal Themes (Rough Trade)

Guy Atkinson

1. The Wonder Years – No Closer to Heaven (Hopeless Records)
2. Desaparecidos – Payola (Epitaph)
3. Turnover – Peripheral Vision (Run For Cover Records)
4. Defeater – Abandoned (Epitaph)
5. Deafheaven – New Bermuda (ANTI-)
6. Joanna Gruesome – Peanut Butter (Fortuna POP!)
7. The World is a Beautiful Place and I am no Longer Afraid to Die – Harmlessness (Epitaph)
8. The Weeknd – Beauty Behind the Madness (Republic Records)
9. Julien Baker – Sprained Ankle (6131 Records)
10. Beach Slang – The Things We Do to Find People Who Feel Like Us (Big Scary Monsters)
11. Lights & Motion – Chronicle (Deep Elm)
12. Sleater-Kinney – No Cities to Love (Sub Pop)
13. Gallows – Desolation Sounds (Venn Records)
14. Wavves/Cloud Nothings – No Life for Me (Ghost Ramp)
15. Turnstile – Nonstop Feeling (Reaper Records)
16. Blacklisted – When People Grow, People Go (Deathwish)
17. Title Fight – Hyperview (ANTI-)
18. Chain of Flowers – Chain of Flowers (Alter)
19. Caspian – Dust and Disquiet (Big Scary Monsters)
20. Toundra – IV (Superball Music)
21. Westkust – Last Forever (Luxury)
22. Menace Beach – Ratworld (Memphis Industries)
23. Annabel – Having it All (Tiny Engines)
24. Joey Bada$ - B4.DA.$ (Cinematic Music Group)

Steve Pill

1. Sufjan Stevens – Carrie and Lowell (Asthmatic Kitty)
2. Four Tet – Morning/Evening (Text)
3. Jamie XX – In Colour (Young Turks)
4. Father John Misty – I Love You, Honeybear (Bella Union)
5. D'Angelo and the Vanguard – Black Messiah (RCA)
6. Jim O'Rourke – Simple Songs (Drag City)
7. Tame Impala – Currents (Fiction)
8. Beach Slang – The Things We Do to Find People Who Feel Like Us (Big Scary Monsters)
9. Guy Garvey – Courting the Squall (Polydor)
10. Floating Points – Elaenia (Pluto)
11. Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Sit and Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit (Marathon)
12. Rival Consoles – Howl (Erased Tapes)
13. Julia Holter – Have You in My Wilderness (Domino)
14. Bill Ryder-Jones – West Kirby County Primary (Domino)
15. Destroyer – Poison Season (Dead Oceans)
16. LoneLady – Hinterland (Warp)
17. Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment – Surf (Self-released)
18. Nils Frahm – Solo (Erased Tapes)
19. Yo La Tengo – Stuff Like That There (4AD)
20. Songhoy Blues – Music in Exile (Transgressive)
21. Sleater Kinney – No Cities To Love (Sub Pop)
22. Blur – The Magic Whip (Parlophone)
23. Ryan Adams – 1989 (Pax-Am)
24. C Duncan – Architect (Fatcat)

The Musical Advent Calendar - Door Number Twenty-Three

The nearly men and women, here are the records that had their shot at glory on the final Musical Advent Calendar, but ultimately had to settle for second best behind Door 23. 

Andy Welch
Tame Impala – Currents (Fiction)

Tame Impala has always been about the vision of one man, Kevin Parker, and his seemingly limitless imagination. Tame Impala's second album perfected what he'd started on the debut, but this is something genuinely exciting and new, moving forwards, like all the best psychedelic music does, rather than endlessly gazing backwards. Parker is no retro revivalist. It puts an interesting spin on the heartbreak theme, too, with Parker casting himself as the villain of his own creation. It's not a perspective we hear too much, but he's the one who did the leaving, which only adds to the uniqueness of the music. 

Rory Dollard
Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit and Think and Sometimes I Just Sit (Marathon)

This album provided me with proof of two very important things: 1) That I am a dick. 2) That the condition is not irredeemable. I knew, peripherally, about Courtney Barnett for ages. I heard exclusively good things, mostly from good people, but I decided it wasn't my bag. I can't entirely recall why now, but when I finally buckled under the critical mass, I fell hard and fast. There's rawness and playfulness, knowingness and vulnerability and a stack of easy-on-the-ear episodic gems. I can't wait to hear more.

Matt Collins
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds - Chasing Yesterday (Sour Mash)

Album number two from Noel Gallagher as a solo artist has arrived. Pre-release interviews went on about it being psychedelic, and that is definitely an overstated way of referring to a few nice guitar sounds. Closing track 'Ballad of the Mighty I' might be his best song in a decade or more. 

Dom Farrell
Sufjan Stevens - Carrie and Lowell (Asthmatic Kitty)

An album inspired by the death of Sufjan’s wayward mother was hardly going to be a companion piece to We Are All Delighted People. The candour with which he looks back on the happy respite of his childhood summers in Eugene in delicate, sepia tones is almost too much to bear at times. Carrie and Lowell is an unflinching, soul-bearing experience. That you never find yourself longing for one of his gloriously daft songs about Superman or God knows what is a testament to its beguiling brilliance.

Andrew Gwilym
Sufjan Stevens – Carrie & Lowell (Asthmatic Kitty)

Stevens has always been the sort of man ready to lay bare his emotions. He may hide them under lovely melodies and hushed vocals, but he has already had the ability to unsettle with a turn of phrase or passing detail. Given this record came shortly after his mother died, there are plenty of such moments on Carrie & Lowell. It is so nakedly emotional it can bring you close to tears, but you cannot turn it off. It’s too good, too gripping, too essential.

John Skilbeck
Hop Along - Painted Shut (Saddle Creek)

Frances Quinlan had been building towards her Painted Shut masterpiece for a decade, having formed Hop Along while she was still in school. Initially a dalliance into anti-folk, Hop Along have mutated into what at face value is a standard indie-rock quartet. Yet Hop Along are far from trad, Quinlan sees to that. Her singing voice is extraordinary: lilting and tuneful in places but growing increasingly gravelly (Bonnie Tyler-level gravelly) as the drama soars, the guitars clang loudly and lyrical stormy clouds descend, emoting with the don't-stop-me-now conviction of, say, a Corin Tucker or Tanya Donelly. Visceral and vital.

Pranam Mavahalli
Bjork – Vulnicura (One Little Indian)

At first I found this album quite hard to listen to. Detailing a breakup, at first it felt too emotionally raw, with lyrics frank to the point of being uncomfortable. Listening to it felt almost voyeuristic. Yet the more I heard it, the more I became convinced that it's one of the Bjork's finest records. Right at the heart of the record is 'Family'. A song so incredibly staggering that six months on I'm still blown away it every time I hear it. Over the course of its eight minutes, it acts as a microcosm of the album as a whole – mirroring the way the tracks (and I suppose broken relationships in general) move from sorrow and darkness, to acceptance and finally optimism. Starting with dissonant, inchoate, droning strings, the music gradually rises and rises, before reaching a summit of intensity - and collapsing into a scattershot confusion of broken arpeggios that seek resolution yet never quite reach it. Then, as if from nowhere, things coalesce. The key switches from minor to major, the melody rises, and waves of synths gently lap over each other as Bjork sings “I raise a monument of love/There is a swarm of sound/Around our heads/And we can hear it/And we can get healed by it/It will relieve us from the pain”. Goddammit, I think it's incredible. It's about as good as music gets. If you've not heard it, listen to it. If you have heard it, listen to it again. It's perfection.

Ian Parker
Benjamin Clementine - At Least For Now (Barclay)

I can't quite remember where I first heard Benjamin Clementine's 'Cornerstone', his truly beautiful song about his experience of homelessness, but I remember what a project it became to get hold of the actual 2013 EP on which it featured, which I eventually landed some time in early 2014 on import from France. Thankfully a copy of this album was much easier to acquire as it landed in my lap in March, since when it became something of an obsession. Clementine was raised on gospel and classical music, but has found his own voice amid a troubled life which took him from a harsh background in north London to the streets of Paris and back to London again, and he picked up plenty of jazz inflections along the way. Until a few weeks ago, this record was still devilishly hard to get hold of (unless a PR company sends you one). In attempting to buy it as a gift I struck out when trying several shops in and around his native north London and was about to turn back to the import market before a surprise but well-deserved Mercury win persuaded his label it might actually be worth distributing the damn thing. 

 

Guy Atkinson
Desaparecidos – Payola (Epitaph)

The Jamie Vardy of my list (without the racism and hideous face). If you’d have told me at the start of the year that a post-hardcore band fronted by the mope from Bright Eyes would be one of my most listened to albums, I’d have thought there was something wrong with you. As it turns out, you’d have been entirely correct.

Steve Pill
Four Tet – Morning/Evening (Text)

Kieran Hebden continues his quest to make spiritual music for atheists with an album divided into two tracks, 'Morning' and 'Evening', clocking in at about 20 minutes. While the concept sounds deceptively simple, these are not just obvious contrasts. 'Morning' builds slowly, the Indian vocal sample arriving as a shock at first but then weaving into the fabric of the music for much of the duration. There's a warm, analogue glow to the production, but still breathing space for a minute or two of pure electronica and a delicate, burbling coda.  The Indian vocals resurface in the 'Evening' side, more fragmented and melancholy this time, but there is still no bruising beats as one might expect for a nocturnal flip. At times you can hear what appears to be a chirruping sound, as if surrounded by crickets in a moonlit field. I'm in danger of talking out of my arse a little here, but the music has that effect - you want to match Hebden's ambition and vision with a worthy response. With Morning/Evening, he has crafted two delicate, immersive and unpredictable suites of music here that sound at first like background music yet demand your attention, front and centre.

The Musical Advent Calendar - Door Number Twenty-Two

Gwilym's dad has the hot tips as we reach Day 22 of the Musical Advent Calendar and the podium section of our top 24s.

Andy Welch
Wolf Alice – My Love Is Cool (Dirty Hit)

British guitar music is pretty dire, let's face it. For every Maccabees and Foals, moving things on, there seems to be 10 Catfish And The Bottlemen, clinging on to the 90s like cultural limpets but crucially, forgetting to add anything of their own too. Just as looks as if the game is completely up, along come Wolf Alice, who show that there's life in the genre, providing your 90s record collection goes beyond Britpop and on to the likes of The Breeders and Pixies. It's another brilliantly produced record, too, polished and slick without being overly so. They might not have much competition at the moment, but this is Britain's best new band.

Rory Dollard
Bjork - Vulnicura (One Little Indian)

This is, quite simply, the best break-up space opera you'll ever hear. Increasingly, Bjork seems to be operating at one remove from the rest of us - re-entering our orbit every few years to scatter gems like this. This is sad and beautiful - good combo, that - and embraces her inherehent 'otherness' so organically that you wonder if it isn't you that is the alien.

Matt Collins
This is the Kit - Bashed Out (Brassland)

Surely one of the most underrated bands around, This is the Kit seem to be stuck on the support slots of bigger bands like the National. It would be nice to think that Bashed Out will change all that (though I’ve said that before), because it really is it a terrific collection of gentle tunes, lush vocals, and exactly the kind of music you would expect to see played on a boat as in the video here. 

Dom Farrell
Father John Misty - I Love You, Honeybear (Bella Union)

Given Josh Tillman’s stated ambition of writing “about love without bullshitting”, I Love You, Honeybear fulfils its brief in sparkling fashion. Befitting of a record that contains suggested listening settings for each song, complete with recommended hallucinogenics, it’s a bit crackers at times but this attention to detail extends to a magnificent collection of lyrics - touching and poignant one minute, scathing and hilarious the next. Love without the bullshit, indeed. However, Tillman could be reciting the phonebook against this impeccable musical backdrop and it would still be a captivating listen. 'Chateau Lobby #4' sounds like a great lost Glen Campbell track, launching the warts-and-all love story that “I Went To The Store One Day” closes in devastating style. 

Andrew Gwilym
Gretchen Peters – Blackbirds (Scarlet Letter)

Confession time. My Dad recommended this album to me. Elwyn Gwilym, man of the people, Twitter obsessive and a man who has professed a liking for Sheeran and Swift. He beat me to this one. He went on and on about this album so long I eventually caved and bought it. I’m glad I did. Peters has created a melancholy album, but one imbued with an infectious spirit.

John Skilbeck
Screaming Females - Rose Mountain (Don Giovanni Records)

Sixth album time for the New Jersey trio, and with Rose Mountain there were swift accusations levelled at Screaming Females that their sound had been smoothed down. Pitchfork reckoned it “lacks much of their former wildness”. And perhaps the talk was true. What they had returned with was a different, cleaner sound, allowing singer-guitarist Marissa Paternoster’s spectacular shredding to occupy greater prominence, and if that meant it came at the expense of a sound befitting a DIY aesthetic it did not dial down the level of the songwriting. 'Wishing Well' was triumphantly anthemic and contained a great whacking Paternoster guitar solo. Try on 'Hopeless', and its ghoulish video, for size.

Pranam Mavahalli
Julia Holter – Have you in My Wilderness (Domino)

At the time of writing, it looks like Julia Holter's album is making it to the top of a lot of end of year polls. I guess the critics got it right. The melodies are beautiful, the production is lush and the arrangements appeal to the jazzist in me. Really I'm not sure what's not to like in this album. 'Vasquez 'is my standout track. When the jazzy abstraction off the verses gently yet unexpectedly morph into the most beautiful of choruses, letting Holter's vocal soar over the strings, my eyes well up and I get goosepimples. Every fricking time. Isn't that what this whole music lark's about?

Ian Parker
Ryley Walker - Primrose Green (Dead Oceans) 

With a style that recalls greats like Tim Buckley and John Martyn, Ryley Walker creates records you can get lost in, and I've spent a good deal of 2015 with my head wandering across Primrose Green. Expanding his sound with an extensive cast of musicians, Walker pays homage to his heroes with a blissful mix of psych- and jazz-influenced folk, and in doing so makes a great record of his own. 

Guy Atkinson
Turnover – Peripheral Vision (Run For Cover Records)

Spearheaded by my favourite song of the year, ‘Cutting My Fingers Off’, this album took everything that was great about their debut and crystallised it into a woozy indie rock masterpiece.

Steve Pill
Jamie XX – In Colour (Young Turks)

A Jamie XX DJ set is normally a pretty full-on affair, mixing up garage anthems, electro re-edits, 1990s house and vintage soul into a celebratory, inclusive whole. His first album is an altogether different proposition however. This is proper head music, tracks designed for the imagination as much as the feet. He was apparently listening heavily to the first Walls album when he made this and a little of that sun-frazzled ambience has crept in here, aided and abetted by his trademark steel drums. In Colour is also surprisingly nostalgic for a record made by a guy in his early 20s. Tracks like 'Gosh' and 'I Know There's Gonna Be (Good Times)' feel like celebrations of a very specific time and place. There's something wistful about the production too. It often reminds me of that old REM lyric about being "alone in a crowded room". Several tracks feel as if the party is going on elsewhere, like the beats are being heard through a wall and over a wash of crowd noise and chatter, the first aural recreation of what it's like to be in the chill-out room at a big club night like Warehouse Project. It could so easily have been too cool and calculating, but the lyrics reveal this to be a very personal, honest and occasionally lonely paean to club culture.