Favorite musical stuff from 2007
2007 Releases:
The more things change...."The Room" and "sight" are my two favorites of the year and couldn't choose between 'em if I tried. Very different, of course, the first claustrophobically intense, the latter wonderfully ephemeral. Both the brainchildren of Rowe so the prejudice couldn't be more apparent but, that's the way it goes. I can't help it if the guy keeps churning out deeper ideas than anyone else around. The two discs are fine, disparate bookends.
Anyway, the 20 new releases that brought me the most pleasure this past year:
1. Keith Rowe - The Room (Erstwhile)
1. MIMEO - sight (Cathnor)
3. Sachiko M - Salon de Sachiko (ftarri)
4. Ferran Fages - Cançons pour un lent retard (Étude)
5. Looper/John Tilbury - Mass (Esquilo) (not the video! just the music)
6. Mouths/Haptic - IV2E/Danjon Scale (Entr'acte)
7. Mitsuhiro Yoshimura - and so on ((h)earrings)
8. The Sealed Knot - Live at the Red Hedgehog (Confront)
9. Mersault - Raymond & Marie (Formed)
10. Julien Ottavi - Le Poulpe (fibrr)
11. James Saunders - #[unassigned] Confront
12. Noid - "You're not here" (hibari)
13. Toshimaru Nakamura/Lucio Capece - Ij (Formed)
14. Axel Dorner/Lucio Capece - s/t (l'Innomable)
15. Hal Rammel - Like Water Tightly Wound (Crouton)
16. Chip Shop Music - s/t (homefront)
17. Matthie Saladin - Intervalles (l'Innomable)
18. Martin Kuchen - Homo Sacer (Sillon)
19. Flore de Cataclysmo - s/t (Sedimental)
20. Asher - The depths, the colors, the objects (Mystery Sea)
In fact, the music I most enjoyed during the year was contained in #1 below, originally issued in 1998, I believe. Things released in previous years that I greatly enjoyed included:
1. Dmitri Shostakovich - The Complete String Quartets (Emerson Quartet) (DG)
2. John Tilbury - Plays Samuel Beckett (Matchless)*
3. Ensemble Nipponia - Kabuki & other Traditional Music (Nonesuch)
4. Keith Rowe/Cor Fuhler - s/t (Conundrom)
5. David Tudor - Music for Piano (Editions RZ)
6. Chukp'a/Tong Jun Kim - Korean Kayagum Music: Sanjo (King World Music Library)
7. Alfredo Costa Monteiro - Z=78 (pt:195.09) (Audiobot)
8. Dropp Ensemble - The Empire Builders (Longbox)
9. Djemal Saparova/Rustan Bairamov - Songs of Turkmenistan (King WML)
10. Tsui-Yuen Lui - Chinese Classical Masterpieces (Lyrichord)
11. Ferran Fages - A cavall entre dos cavalls (Creative Sources)
12. Kim Suk Chul - Shamans of the Eastern Seaboard (Alula)
13. Phill Niblock - Touch Food (touch)
14. Bade Ghulum Ali Khan - Gunkali-Malkauns (HMV)
15. (Various) Rembetika (JSF)
*Had Tilbury's live recording of "For Bunita Marcus" been released, it may well
have taken top honors overall.
[edit: Arggh...left out the Tudor Editions RZ compilation. Should go near the top of the prior list.]
Other new releases from 2007 I greatly enjoyed:
(Various) - On Isolation (Room40)
Tim Albro -s/t (White Flag)
Asher - Untitled Composition (for b) (Leerraum)
Marc Behrens - Architectural Commentaries 4 & 5 (Entr'acte)
Benito Cereno - Benito Cereno (sg)
Tim Blechmann - Re-Reading (Free Software)
Lucio Capece - bb (a question of re_entry)
Lucio Capece/Axel Dorner/Robin Hayward - Kammerlarm (Azul Discografica)
Alfredo Costa Monteiro - Allotropie (Bourbaki)
Rhodri Davies - over shadows (Confront)
Axel Dorner/Toshimaru Nakamura - Vorhernach (ftarri)
Dropp Ensemble - Ingen Tid (Tonschact)
Kevin Drumm/Daniel Menche - Gauntlet (Mego)
Tim Feeney/Vic Rawlings - In Six Parts (Sedimental)
Feigner - Laughter only feigned response (Scrapple)
Fessenden - V 1.1 (Other Electricities)
Klaus Filip/Toshimaru Nakamura - Aluk (IMJ)
Flounder - Propped Fulgurations (self-released)
Cor Fuhler - Slee (Conundrom)
Cor Fuhler - Stengam (Potlatch)
Ellen Fullman/Sean Meehan s/t (Cut)
Helena Gough - With What Remains (Entr'acte)
Anthony Guerra/Matthew Nidek, Matthew - White Eagle (Foxglove)
Ryu Hankil/Jin Sangtae/Choi Joonyang - 5 Modules I (Manual)
Ryu Hankil/Jin Sangtae/Taku Unami/Mattin - 5 Modules III (Manual)
Robin Hayward/Annette Krebs - sgrafitto (CDR-3)
Ilios - Love Is My Motor (Antifrost)
Choi Joonyong, Choi - White Disc Ver. 2 (Balloon and Needle)
Grundik Kasyansky - Floating Point (Topheth Prophet)
Grundik Kasyansky/Slava Smelovsky - XAPMC (Rruido)
Tomas Korber/Bernd Schurer, Bernd - 250904 (Balloon and Needle)
Tomas Korber/Christian Weber/Katsura Yamauchi - Signal to Noise, vol. 2 (For4Ears)
Annette Krebs/David Lacey/Keith Rowe/Paul Vogel - s/t (Homefront)
Alvin Lucier - Ever Present (Mode)
Christopher McFall - Four Feels for Fire (Entr'acte)
Daniel Menche - Animality (emd.pl)
Matt Mitchell - vapor squint, antique chromatic (Scrapple)
Moljebka Pvlse/Seventeen Migs of Spring Ravha/Electricity Garden (Topheth Prophet)
Gunter Muller - Reframed (Cut)
Brendan Murray - Wonders Never Cease (Intransitive)
Brendan Murray/Seth Nihil - Sillage (Sedimental)
Seth Nehil - Amnemonic Site (Alluvial)
Neumatica - Alud (Creative Sources)
Inge Olmheim/Anthony Guerra s/t (Document)
phono_phono - phono_phono (Absinth)
Eliane Radigue - Geelriandre - Arthesis (fringes)
Peter Rehberg/Marcus Schmickler - One (Snow Mud Rain) (Erstwhile)
Jin Sangtae/Park Seungjun - 5 Modules IV (Manual)
Seht/Howard Stelzer - Exactly What You Lost (Intransitive)
Tamio Shiraishi/Sean Meehan - Annual Summer Concerts (GD/Old Gold)
Signal Quintet - Yamaguchi (Cut)
Graham Stephenson/Dave Barnes - s/t (self-released)
Taku Sugimoto - Doremilogy (Skiti)
Toshiya Tsunoda - Low Frequencies Observed at Miguchi (Hibari)
Vodka Sparrows - Death a Thousand Times Over (Black Petal)
Mitsuhiro Yoshimura/Taku Sugimoto - Not BGM and so on ((h)earrings)
Thanks, everyone!
(statistical note: Recordings acquired during 2007 - 223. Yikes. This will presumably tail off in the coming year.)
"Had Tilbury's live recording of "For Bunita Marcus" been released, it may well have taken top honors overall."
ReplyDeleteyes, agreed. for me there were probably only three fully successful, satisfying recordings this year, this, The Room and Salon de Sachiko (the first Yoshimura disc is close), and if I thought it was even a slim possibility, I'd try to get Tilbury to let me release this, I hope someone who lives in a different country does.
anyway, 2007, lots of competent to solid releases, plenty of promise going forward, but in and of itself, not a great year IMO, especially for collaborative recordings. I'm revved up for 2008, though.
Well I'm just proud that the For Bunita Marcus recording you are both hearing is a matrix mix that I put together of two simultaneous recordings made by the genius that is David Reid, from a concert put together as part of the best festival I've attended in a long while.
ReplyDeleteand yeah if I didn't think it would have been an expensive hassle I'd have released it.
Personally I think '08 is going to have to go some to follow 2007, but lets hope it does.
Happy New Year.
yeah, honestly, so deeply appreciated, Richard, easily the most beautiful newly recorded music I heard this year, it got me through a few depressing nights.
ReplyDelete"Personally I think '08 is going to have to go some to follow 2007, but lets hope it does."
well, you guys know that my main love and interest in this area is towards the direction of fully improvised collaborations (as opposed to solo and composed, obviously there are a million gradations in between and I'm clearly no purist), and I think we as a collective area did a poor job documenting this part of our music on the discs that came out this past year. I have Toshi/English, Keith/Will Guthrie, Stangl/Fagaschinski, Rainey/Lescalleet, Keith/Sachiko and Malfatti/Filip all hopefully out in the next eighteen months and I think those all have the potential to be very strong statements, so I'm going to do what I can going forward from here, we'll see.
curious, have any of you guys heard the Haswell/Hecker duo? it was Nick Cain's record of the year, I have it here but haven't gotten to it yet. that and the R/S are probably a bit outside our main area of focus here, though, on the outskirts of taomudland.
"well, you guys know that my main love and interest in this area is towards the direction of fully improvised collaborations (as opposed to solo and composed, obviously there are a million gradations in between and I'm clearly no purist), and I think we as a collective area did a poor job documenting this part of our music on the discs that came out this past year."
ReplyDeleteYeah when I ran through my favourites of the year the top three were solos and composed music featured throughout. Maybe we had a year of natural reflection after the hubbub of the past few years and a few personal statements were made before we move on again. I think its inevitable that the music will begin to fragment and head off in assorted directions from here. Its going to be interesting.
" I have Toshi/English, Keith/Will Guthrie, Stangl/Fagaschinski, Rainey/Lescalleet, Keith/Sachiko and Malfatti/Filip all hopefully out in the next eighteen months"
Thats the most promising looking Upcoming Ersts list I've seen for a few years now. Really pleased to see you added the Malfatti/Filip, you know my feelings on that one.
"curious, have any of you guys heard the Haswell/Hecker duo? it was Nick Cain's record of the year, I have it here but haven't gotten to it yet. that and the R/S are probably a bit outside our main area of focus here, though, on the outskirts of taomudland."
No but I made a mental note to pick it up the other day after Richard Kamerman included it in a Best Of list of which the other nine releases were all pretty great. I liked R/S too.
There are many songs I like, but if you want to cut music for the phone, online ringtone cutter is the tool you need
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ReplyDelete