The best music in 2018

Happy to see that you liked the Teskeys! Just want to make sure you havn’t missed the great blues/soul singer Terry Evans. He’s made some stellar recordings in the past. "Blues for tonight" and "Live like a hurricane" are good starters but any will do. Audiophile quality. Really. Ry Cooder is playing his best guitar on most of Evans albums.

Buddy Guy - "The blues is alive and well" from 2018. James Bay has the hounour to sing on one of the tracks. You can check him out on a You tube concert. Not too bad. His cd’s unfortunately has the modern (unlistenable ) sound.

@n80 Just qurious. When you say too loud. What are you reffering to? Too me the Tidal quality is perfect because I can play the album as loud as it gets with no fatigue. Do you mean not enough DR? I’m too lazy to play cd or vinyl anymore, Unless they are not to find on Tidal. Just zapping around too much...Last cd I bought this year was the only from David Forman and BBA - Live in Japan and the Alessi Brothers first.

Thanks for the tip on Terry Evans. Will check that out. I'm fairly familiar with most of the older traditional blues guys...including Buddy Guy, but have not kept up with the newer artists. I'm pretty picky. I feel like a lot has to go into a blues song to make it feel genuine and authentic. It is very easy to get blues technically right but without 'soul' for a lack of a better word.

Yes, by loud I mean compressed DR. The Teskey CD has not been tested on the DR database. Compared to the range of my few reference CDs (DR of 12-16)  and a few of my newer, quite awful CDs (DR of 5-6) I'm guessing the Teskey CD is somewhere in the middle. Tedeschi Trucks first CD is in this range and I'd describe it and the Teskey CD as very listenable...but could be better. Both Tedeschi Trucks and the Teskey Brothers have their own studios so I would kind of expect better. Tidal's offerings of new music vary in regard to DR. Some are better than the CDs but most are exactly the same.

I've probably become too sensitive to this issue. And some of it might just be in my head....like a lot of things in audio.

Anyway, I'm perfectly happy with the Teskey's CD. There is one song, I don't remember which, that causes a little ear fatigue. My wife, daughter and her husband (all three of whom like the CD ) commented all at the same time and they are not audiophiles. It seemed louder than the other tracks volume wise. The rest sound good even at higher volumes.

@gosta,

I have Terry Evans "Puttin' It Down" on Audioquest vinyl. Great artist and excellent SQ. All of the Audioquest lps have Ex SQ! I saw Buddy Guy years ago at a local auditorium. Really enjoyed that show. He's an excellent entertainer as well as a great musician.

Will study Teskey more ambitious soon and compare it to Tedeschi. Thanks. Of the Terry Evans albums in think "Blues for tonight" stands out. Best songs, most heavy sound (not without ballads) and best recording (or at least most loud :-)). The live album is very live - though havn’t listened to that one as much as "Blues for tonight" - a reference recording for me since the middle of the 90’s. Also need to recommend Aaron Neville - "Warm your heart".

Listening to Destroyer now - great band (guy). Studio live on You tube. Varying but lots of fine material on cd. 

I agree, finding a very dynamic cd is great fun. Or at least some tracks on a cd. But most important for me is no distortion and other artefacts that gives me headache (I mostly listen loud). I also appreciate very clear recordings with lots of details and separation between the soundsources. And you wouldn't want to listen to live drums 10 feets away from you for a longer time - would you?

@n80 & @gosta,

I just finished my first listen to "Half Mile Harvest". Extremely enjoyable, very good at first and gets better as the (lp) goes along. Not one dud. AsI said, (my first listen), I thought side one was half notch below side two in SQ but will listen again. 

They seem to be one of the many bands of this type music that have been making a resurgence in the last few years.....St Paul & the Broken Bones, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, and The Marcus King Band to name a few. Love it!