Albums of the Year 2015 - 16 to 20

Mrs S had a bad case of the dreaded lurgy for a couple of weeks in the run-up to Christmas, though thankfully felt a lot better come the big day. Now, somewhat inevitably, I can feel myself going quickly downhill with similar symptoms. Joints are aching, throat is sore and my brain is even more cloudy and befuddled than usual. So I'll be keeping my spiel to a minimum over the next 4 days as I unveil my favourite 20 albums of the year. Most of these artists have put in an appearance on the blog at some point, some more than once. Any that haven't will no doubt feature in greater depth in due course. I've included a tune with each entry, though not necessarily my absolute favourite, as I've tried not to duplicate any previous postings. Here's the first batch....

16) Bill Wells & Friends - Nursery Rhymes

17) Four Tet - Morning/Evening

18) Ryley Walker - Primrose Green

19) Colleen - Captain of None

20) Föllakzoid - III

Colleen

I'm not sure how I'm going to mark the end of the year on the blog. At the conclusion of 2014 I put together a long, sprawling post looking back over the music of the previous 12 months (it's here if you're interested), though still managed to miss out some absolute corkers. I doubt I'll have time to produce anything quite so elaborate this time round, but while I wait for inspiration to hit, I've been re-listening to some much loved albums of 2015 that, up to now, haven't put in an appearance on these pages.

French sound sculptor Cécile Schott, who performs as Colleen, released her sixth LP, 'Captain of None', in the Spring and it's a beautiful thing, full of rhythmic loops and delicately catchy vocal shenanigans. Here's 'Lighthouse', my favourite song from that record, plus a live version, filmed in the Summer, that shows just how she makes those glorious noises.

I'm somewhat alarmed to note that I bought Colleen's first album, 'Everyone Alive Wants Answers', back in 2003 - 12 years ago. 12 years! Aaargh! The spooky 'Ritournelle', from that very record, was the first thing I ever heard by her.