It’s high time for our annual wank.  It’s only December 2nd (ferheavensake), and the barrage of Best of 2014 music lists is raining down like the (rare) storm outside our windows.  There remain a month’s worth of albums to be released in 2014, but the gun-jumpers need to rush their lists to you so that…what?  They can be first-read?  They can assist with your holiday shopping?  Please.  As usual, we will wait until the year is actually over.  But to jump on the band wagon, and get a jump on the gun-jumpers (and based mostly on our repeated listening to Los Angeles below), we hereby give you the Best Album of 2015: Phosphorescent’s Live At The Music Hall.

In our book, Phosphorescent can do no wrong.  We continue to be impressed by Matthew Houck and his crew (guitarist/pedal steel player Ricky Ray Jackson, pianist Scott Stapleton, drummer Christopher Marine, bassist Rustine Bragaw, percussionist David Torch and organ/keyboards player Jo Schornikow).  The honesty of Houck’s vocals, wedded to great songwriting and inspired playing, always win us over.  We also are repeatedly astonished by Houck’s way with cover songs (see HERE).  But we’ve only managed to catch Phosphorescent live just once (outstanding? bien sur!) and continue to have past-conflict regrets.  So we were thrilled today when word came down that Phosphorescent will release Live At The Music Hall on February 17th on Dead Oceans.  The album was culled from the band’s four-night stand at the Music Hall Of Williamsburg in Brooklyn at the end of 2013.  Friends of ours attended and raved, and we were sorely jealous.  During that stand, Houck fronted his seven-piece band, plus added string trio, and raged on while being recorded (he also performed solo one night).  From 10 hours of recording, 19 tracks were carefully culled to make up the three-album set (see the tracklist at bottom).

Houck was evidently inspired by live albums such as Bob Dylan’s Hard Rain (and we might suggest The Band’s Rock of Ages, one of the best live albums ever released).  Accordingly, Houck elected to present songs from his entire career rather than just a “greatest hits” compendium, and to play them in their evolved (rather than original) state.  So the album’s songs range from over 10 years and four Phosphorescent albums.  “Playing those four shows, it was clear something special was going on,” says Houck. “After eight months of touring, we’d gotten to a really good point where we weren’t quite exhausted yet with the material, but we’d had enough time to really grow with the songs. So we were in that sweet spot where we were pulling something great out of the songs every night.”

Based in part on their incendiary (yet dynamic and nuanced) take below on song Los Angeles (from Here’s To Taking It Easy), we have no doubt that Live At The Music Hall will be one of the best, if not THE Best Albums of 2015.  It’s also not a great leap of faith for us given that 2013’s Muchacho was our No. 4 Best Album of that incredibly-strong album-year.  Listen below to the 10-minute-plus transformation of Los Angeles.  Whatever you do, hang in until the 8:13 mark to hear the band truly take flight with blazing playing (Marine’s drumming is particularly inspired), Houck’s emphatic vocals and yelps, and the band’s burgeoning background vocals.  Outstanding work by the ensemble that bodes incredibly well for the album.  We can’t wait.

LIVE AT THE MUSIC HALL TRACKLISTING:

1. Sun Arise! (An Invocation, An Introduction)
2. A New Anhedonia
3. Terror In The Canyons (The Wounded Master)
4. The Quotidian Beasts
5. Tell Me Baby (Have You Had Enough)
6. Nothing Was Stolen (Love Me Foolishly)
7. Dead Heart
8. Down To Go
9. Song For Zula
10. Ride On / Right ON
11. A Picture of Our Torn Up Praise (Solo)
12. Muchacho’s Tune (Solo)
13. Wolves (Solo)
14. Joe Tex, These Taming Blues
15. Los Angeles
16. A Picture Of Our Torn Up Praise
17. South (Of America)
18. Wolves
19. At Death, A Proclamation