1) The Waterboys, “Life, Death and Dennis Hopper” / Mike Scott and Co. fold in the likes of Steve Earle, Taylor Goldsmith, Fiona Apple and Bruce Springsteen for an epic concept album as weird, intimate and appealing as Dennis Hopper himself.
2) Ambrose Akinmusire, “honey from a winter stone” / Rarely sitting still—and never standing on one genre alone—the tremendous trumpeter and composer turns in another narratively satisfying, emotionally cathartic set that could never be replicated.
3) Tobacco City, “Horses” / The Chicago collective achieves a seamless blend of country and rock on an album that also flawlessly unites the impulses within the head, heart and body.
4) Kazuo Ishiguro, “Nocturnes” / In this 2009 collection, the masterful storyteller delivers five—loosely connected—tales that intoxicate and quietly rattle with the power of music, night, dashed hopes and hanging-by-a-thread loves.
5) Oliver Baez Bendorf, “Consider the Rooster” / One of the truly stellar poetry collections of last year, “Consider the Rooster” is a formal feat without ever growing overly cerebral; indeed, Bendorf’s poems excavate around the heart, beautifully and breathlessly considering love, sex, friendship, god/s and queerness.