Wednesday, January 15, 2014


Well, I dislike doing this more and more but it seems to be a requirement of the job....

As many have noted, 2013 yielded a bumper crop of outstanding music, for which I'm very grateful and, as ever, I sincerely thank those musicians and labels who choose to send things my way; it's greatly appreciated. It wasn't at all difficult to tease out more than twenty releases that I thought were fantastic in one respect or another. In alphabetical order, these included:

Adam Asnan - Inconsistent Images (Entr'acte/Senufo Editions)
Antoine Beuger - 24 petits préludes pour la guitare (Edition Wandelweiser)
Antoine Beuger - sixteen stanzas on stillness and music unheard (l'Innomable)
Antoine Beuger/Jürg Frey - Ensemble Dedalus (Potlatch)
Antoine Beuger/Michael Pisaro - this place/is love (Erstwhile)
Olivia Block – Karren (Sedimental)
Lucio Capece - Less Is Less - Music for Flying and Pendulating Speakers (Intonema)
Stephen Cornford/Samuel Rodgers - Boring Embroidery (Cathnor)
Richard Glover - Logical Harmonies (Another Timbre)
Anne Guthrie/Richard Kamerman – sinter (Erst AEU)
Sarah Hughes - accidents of matter or of space (Suppedaneum)
Haco/Toshiya Tsunoda – TramVibration (Skiti)
Nick Hennies - Duets for Solo Snare Drum (Weighter Recordings)
Nick Hennies - Flourish (Consumer Waste)
Tom Johnson/Samuel Vriezen - The Chord Catalog-Within Fourths/Within Fifths (Wandelweiser)
Mike Majkowski – Why is there something instead of nothing? (Bocian)
Lee Patterson/Vanessa Rossetto - Temperament as Waveform (Another Timbre)
Michael Pisaro - The Middle of Life (Gravity Wave)
Michael Pisaro – The Punishment of the Tribe by Its Elders (Gravity Wave)
Michael Pisaro/Greg Stuart – Close Categories in Cartesian Worlds (Gravity Wave)
Keith Rowe/Graham Lambkin - Making A (Erstwhile)
Peter Streiff – Vokal/Instrumental (Edition Wandelweiser)
Jakob Ullmann - fremde zeit addendum 4 (Edition RZ)

Forced to choose three that stood out, for me, among this stellar grouping, I'd go with Rowe/Lambkin, Capece and Glover.

Others I enjoyed almost as much (again alpha):

Peter Ablinger - Regenstücke Vol. 1 & 2 (God Records)
Jeffrey Allport/Joda Clément/Chandan Narayan - The Party (Simple Geometry)
Atolon – concret (Intonema)
Lali Barrière/Miguel A. Garcia - O⅃ƎUႱƎꟼƧƎ (Nueni)
Antoine Beuger - Cantor Quartets (Another Timbre)
John Butcher/Thomas Lehn/John Tilbury – Exta (Fataka)
Lucio Capece/Jamie Drouin - The Berlin Series no. 1 (Another Timbre) (that half of the disc)
Scott Cazan – Swallow (Care of Editions)
Johnny Chang/Stefan Thut - two strings and boxes (Flexion)
Edu Comelles - A Country Falling Apart (Audiotalaia)
Coppice - Big Wad Excisions (Quakebasket)
Stephen Cornford - Music For Earbuds (3LEAVES)
Devin Disanto - Tracing a Boundary (Task)
Bruno Duplant - Le rêve de la nuit est un rêve sans rêveur (diafani)
Lawrence English - Suikinkutsu no Katawara Ni (winds measure)
Ferran Fages - Radi d'Or (Another Timbre)
Patrick Farmer/David Lacey - Pictures of Men (Copy for Your Records)
Klaus Filip/Dafne Vicente-Sandoval - remoto (Potlatch)
Klaus Filip/Toshi Nakamura/Andrea Neumann/Ivan Palacky – Messier Objects (meenna)
Jack Harris/Samuel Rodgers - Wasted Five Years (Organized Music from Thessaloniki)
Jason Hoopes/Agnes Szelag - October Pieces and Shadows (Trestle)
Eva-Maria Houben - Piano Music (Irritable Hedgehog)
Eva-Maria Houben - lost in dreams - works for piano (Edition Wandelweiser)
Laurent Jeanneau/KINK GONG - Soundscape China (Kwanyin)
Kostis Kilymis – More Noise Ahead (Entr’acte)
Christoph Korn/Lasse-Marc Riek – collection II (Gruenrekorder)
Christina Kubisch/Eckehard Guther – Mosaique Mosaic (Gruenrekorder)
Graham Lambkin/Jason Lescalleet - Photographs (Erstwhile)
Sebastien Lexer/Grundik Kasyansky - The Fog (Dromos)
Hannes Lingens – Four Pieces for Quintet (Insub)
Joe Panzner/Greg Stuart – Dystonia Duos (Erst AEU)
David Papapostolou - Contrastes (Dispositifs d'écoute/C'est moi qui souligne) (winds measure)
Robert Piotrowicz - When Snakeboy Is Dying (Musica Genera)
Michael Pisaro - Tombstones (HEM)
Martyna Poznanska – Listening East (Polish Culture)
Ian Rawes/London Sound Survey - These Are the Good Times (Vittelli)
Matthieu Ruhlmann - This Star Teaches Bending (3LEAVES)
Philip Samartzis – Current (Bogong Sound)
Domenico Sciajno et. al. - Sonic Shuffle (Bowindo)
Grisha Shaknes – leave.trace (Glistening Examples)
Leo Svirsky – Songs in the Key of Survival (Ehse)
Michael Thieke Unununium - Nachtlieder (Mikroton)
Stefan Thut – drei, 1-21 (Edition Wandelweiser)
Toshiya Tsunoda - The Temple Recording/O Kokos Tis Anixis (edition.t)
VA AA LR - It Just Ain't Flapping (Consumer Waste)
Biliana Voutchkova/Michael Thieke - already there (Flexion)
Ralf Wehowsky/Anla Courtis - Aseleuch Tendrradero (Noise & Hate/Ultra-Mail Prod.)
Donato Wharton - Place and Presence (CDr)
Lao Yang - Untitled (Subjam)
(Various-Populista) - United States of America Triptych (Bôłt/Monotype)


Thanks again to everyone who allowed me to hear their work.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

oh i'm glad you do this!

Clarke Robinson said...

Thanks! I can imagine these lists are a pain, but very helpful for people like me who rarely buy new music until all of the "end of year" lists come out.

For the record, my favorite end of year list for 2013 was your piece about live shows over at Sound of Music: http://www.soundofmusic.nu/artikel/2013-brian-olewnick

Gerardo Alejos said...

Ha, so cool that you used the Tansey painting for this list! (As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I deeply love it)

Anonymous said...

that's too much music to get an honest end of the year list...