Some Awe's Best of 2012 - Additions

Alt-J – An Awesome Wave

Beth Orton – Sugaring Season

Black Country Communion - Afterglow

Bobby Womack – The Bravest Man in the Universe

Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale – Buddy & Jim
Don Williams - And So It Goes
Goat - World Music

Jimmy LaFave – Depending on the Distance

Johnny Parry Chamber Orchestra - Fields & Birds & Things

Patti Smith – Banga

Thomas Wynne and the Believers - Brothers & Sisters

Tift Merritt - Travelling Alone

As I said having compiled my first list, and for what it's worth, these additions include unintentional omissions as well as very recent releases. Perhaps a couple of these will actually make my top 20 which I'll decide at the end of the month.

I don't know how I forgot the Bobby Womack - that has a few truly great tracks on it. Similar with the Tift Merritt who I have always liked, and this is an excellent album. I was urged to revisit the Black Country Communion, which I have, and it should be on the whole list, though it wouldn't make my top 20. The Miller/Lauderdale is just released, and Miller will always be right up there for me. The Jimmy LaFave is also a recent discovery, and as I explore his earlier work I have been so impressed with this. I am, as ever, in awe of how I could have missed out on such distinctive excellence until now: not because it is me [!] but because there is always some 'new' discovery to make, whether literally of the moment or a hidden gem from the past.

No one seemed concerned to comment on perhaps surprise omissions in the initial list, which is fine. The only one that causes me some strong pang of guilt is Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Psychedelic Pill [and there is also his Americana]. The former seemed to be universally praised in the music press, the latter less so. With PP, there is the undoubted sublime guitar work - and listening to this is genuinely awesome. The narratives too are always so utterly honest. But the melodies are, for me, bland and even banal [it hurts to say]. Harmonies dress these is real beauty, but returning to the melodic lines deflates so much, and that too hurts.

I will be weary now of bolts of lightening.