POST-GENRE MUSIC My favorite album of the past year or so is Emily Wells’ Regards to the End. It is beautiful, emotionally powerful and transcendent, even; and it is unclassifiable. It is not really rock, or pop, or electronica, or hip-hop, although it contains elements of all. It’s not classical, or jazz, or soul. The best qualifier is simply to call this album Music, with a capital M. Pure music. Then take Nels Cline, one of the most innovative guitarists...
Editor’s note: There’s spectacular power in a simple list. It’s just so potentially affecting; there’s no pomp, no ceremony, no nonsense — all the power is just what’s there. That sense of power is what leapt to mind when Ground Control’s own Aging Punk Murray Thomas presented his list of the best albums released in 2016 to me as nothing more than a list of ten titles and about a sentence in the way of description for each. It was...