The Fashionably Late Top 125 of 2019: Hand Habits

Another rough year corresponded to another bumper crop of excellent music. Once again, my list is huge, because I fell in love with each of these 125 records and found it impossible to not include all of them in my fashionably late list.

I'm choosing to post my favorites in alpha order from A-Z again this year. You'll probably find some records that everyone and their fifth cousin raved about, but I hope you'll also find a few records that might be new to you, and that you'll fall in love with them as much as I have.

My thanks, as always, to the artists who created these records.

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Who: Hand Habits

What: placeholder

When: March 2019

Where: Saddle Creek

Why: A placeholder is something temporary, something to fill space or kill time until something else, ideally something better, comes along, or until time moves the tide along. Indeed, that's the heart of the matter with Hand Habits on the title track of latest record placeholder. But on this record mastermind Meg Duffy isn't the only one in that nebulous space. With willowy, honest vocals and a molten gold Upstate NY-meets-LA warmth, Duffy navigates uncertainty and relationships with tenderness and a loving (and often wry) touch.

[posted 3.24.20]