Ten Favorite Music Releases of 2015

by Douglas Slayton

My taste in music is myopic and driven entirely by emotional reaction. This list is not objective and is mostly about listening to sad music while being sad. The list is ordered in a haphazard manner; don't attach any significance or meaning to the order.

Time Spent Driving Passed & Presence

When I was in high school and developing a curated affectation that would solidify to the bullheaded personality that I now embody, seeing this group of older guys playing the sort of music that I was just discovering (I was five years younger than most of the band's fans, at the time) really made an impression on me.

Some number of years later, they made a record that feels like something that would have come out when I was still eighteen and still discovering this music.

I spent several cold winter weeks in 2015 sitting on curbs listening to this album and crying but feeling alright about it.

The Saddest Landscape Darkness Forgives

It is hard to talk about this record without feeling tears well up in my eyes.

The Saddest Landscape has perfected a certain sort of immediacy to their delivery. This record exhibits that and never feels well worn.

Foxing Dealer

This fucking record. Albatross was a seemingly insurmountable achievement that was annihilated when this was released.  

I was able to see them on either side of the release of Dealer this year and post-release was easily one of my greatest experiences from the entirety of 2015. I remember walking home, having my headphones on and not listening to anything, just going over it again and again in my mind, trying to make sense of it all, then sitting on my porch just breathing in the entirety of the night.

Envy Atheist’s Cornea

This has a lot in common with the Saddest Landscape's record. But where the Saddest Landscape are immediate, Envy is pensive and contemplative. Though not as sprawling as their previous efforts, the brevity doesn’t go against their strengths.

Envy has always been a band the matters greatly to me but I can never really explain why to anyone unless they already know.

Spraynard Mable

Spraynard says all the things they think and feel and don’t hide it under much metaphor, which makes them very antithetical to my usual favorites.

They fit into a style of punk that I don't usually like. But the uncut honesty makes this album something that I spent a lot of time listening to last year, and will probably continue to listen to in the future also.

Football, Etc. Disappear

This has a fair amount in common with the Time Spent Driving record, except it taps a separate vein of the same scene that birthed TSD a decade or so ago. Plus Football, Etc. is younger than those bands, so it still brings in other touches that are new and exciting.

They have lots of other EPs and even a full length but this is easily my favorite release of theirs.

Warm Thoughts Intangible

This record is two songs, and they are both really good. Like really good.

Dikembe Ledge

Dikembe released a really good full length in 2014 called Mediumship, but this EP is better.

They talk a lot about not being good enough or living up to your own expectations, and that is something I can really get behind. Plus their song titles are usually inside jokes, so it feels like they could be your cool friends who smoke a lot of weed in order to deal with their anxieties and insecurities.

Make Do and Mend Don’t Be Long

Make Do and Mend sound like Hot Water Music, which is hard to top.

I am a sucker for someone who shouts their feelings in songs, and that is a feature of most of this record—in the best way.

Hop Along Painted Shut

This is angular pop, and so much more. They manage to transcend that and everything else that they touch.

Plus Frances has a singular voice, one from which it is hard to turn away.

Doug Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine