What are your favorite releases of 2016?

[Irascibul]

Atlanter - Jewels of Crime
Angel Olsen - My Woman
Parquet Courts - Human Performance
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Nonagon Infinity
Jeff Rosenstock - Worry.
Kate Jackson - British Road Movies
Ty Segall - Emotional Mugger
Thao & The Get Down Stay Down - A Man Alive
Zeal and Ardor - Devil is Fine
Xiu Xiu - Plays The Music of Twin Peaks

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

My list is on my blog. Books first, music below that:

https://schicksalgemeinschaft.wordpress ... favorites/


If you don't want to click, my top 3, easily: The Room Extended / the earth and the sky / Community.
And for metal: The Synarchy Of Molten Bones.

[Seth]

Atrocity Exhibition - Danny Brown (Warp Records)

Be Nothing - Sergio Merce (Edition Wandelweiser)

Cashmere - Swet Shop Boys (Customs)

Climata - Robert Curgenven (Dragon Eye)

Distances Ouïes Dites - Jean-Luc Guionnet, Dedalus (Potlatch)

Emotion: Side B - Carly Rae Jepsen (Polydor)

Fellfield Draff - Daniel Bennett & Stephen Cornford (Hideous Replica)

Femenine - Julius Eastman (Frozen Reeds)

Freetown Sound - Blood Orange (Domino)

Gather & Release - Sarah Hennies (Category of Manifestation)

Good to Love - FKA Twigs (Young Turks)

Lemonade - Beyoncé (RCA)

Mykki - Mykki Blanco (!K7)

On Taking Things Apart - Stephen Cornford & Ben Gwilliam (winds measure recordings)

Performance - Dominic Lash, Patrick Farmer & Tim Feeney play James Saunders & Manfred Werder (Rhizome.s)

The Revenant - Ryuichi Sakamoto, Alva Noto & Bryce Dessner (Milan)

Run the Jewels 3 - Run the Jewels (self-released)

Somashikiba - Tsunoda Toshiya (edition.t)

Tape to Tape - Henry Collins & Robin Foster (Rummaging)

[jon abbey]

ok, here is my year-end list. as seems to be the case every year now, I didn't spend nearly enough time with other label's releases this year, but I need to move forward like everyone else, so here's my best shot for 2016:

=======================================

releases worth investigating:

Tim Albro/Tyler Keen-Summary Dismissal (ErstAEU)
Casey Anderson-Radios (A Wave Press)
Derek Baron-Crooked Dances (Penultimate Press)
Marc Baron- Un Salon Au Fond D'Un Lac (Potlatch)
Harry Bertoia-Sonambient (Important)
Olivia Block-Dissolution (Glistening Examples)
Dante Boon-For Clarinet (And Piano) (Another Timbre)
Lucio Capece-Awareness About (Another Timbre)
Joda Clement-Sea Songs (Caduc)
Joe Colley-No Way In (Glistening Examples)
Bryan Eubanks/Hong Chulki-Proper Motions (Celadon)
Joe Foster/Jean-Paul Jenkins-Money Desert (self-released)
Ian Fraser-Harlem Electronics (Pilgrim Talk)
Billy Gomberg/Anne Guthrie/Richard Kamerman/Takahiro Kawaguchi-4x4 (Winds Measure)
Arek Gulbenkoglu-End-Music (self-released)
Sarah Hennies-Gather & Release (Category of Manifestation)
Wakana Ikeda/Yoko Ikeda/Aya Naito/Masahiko Okura/Taku Sugimoto-Suidobashi Chamber Ensemble (Meenna/Improvised Music From Japan)
Jeph Jerman/Tim Barnes-Versatile Ambience (IDEA)
Takahiro Kawaguchi/Makoto Oshiro (DECOY/Basic Function)
Graham Lambkin-Community (Kye/ErstSolo)
Jason Lescalleet-Gratitude (Glistening Examples)
Gabi Losoncy-God Talked To Me (Alien Passengers)
Radu Malfatti/Kevin Drumm/Lucio Capece-The Volume Surrounding The Task (Potlatch)
Walter Marchetti-Concerto Per La Mano Sinistra In Un Solo Movimento (Alga Marghen) (performed by Reinier van Houdt)
Christian Mirande-Thracian Summer (Vitrine)
Michael Pisaro/Radu Malfatti-Invisible Landscapes (Austin New Music Co-op)
Michael Pisaro/Reinier van Houdt-the earth and the sky (ErstClass)
Matthew Revert-An Insect On the Other Side Of The World Climbing Up A Table Leg (Caduc)
Matthew Revert/Vanessa Rossetto-Earnest Rubbish (Erstwhile)
Reed Evan Rosenberg/Ethan Tripp-Medium Rude (ErstAEU)
Vanessa Rossetto-Adult Contemporary (No Rent)
Vanessa Rossetto-The Way You Make Me Feel (Unfathomless)
Keith Rowe-The Room Extended (ErstSolo)
Jin Sangtae-d ear (popmusic25)
Gil Sansón-Untitled (For Pierre Boulez) (Rhizome.s)
Toshiya Tsunoda-Somashikiba (edition.t)
Taku Unami/Devin DiSanto (ErstLive)
Mark Vernon-Lend An Ear, Leave A Word (Kye)
Christian Wolff/Michael Pisaro-Looking Around (Erstwhile)

record of the year:

I am tempted to just make it a three way tie between Community, the earth and the sky, and The Room Extended, all masterpieces and so wildly different they're not really comparable, but in the end, I think I have to choose The Room Extended, which I currently believe is the best record of Keith Rowe's 50 year career, a real honor for me to publish it.

live shows:

Jan 25: Hangjun Lee/Hong Chulki, Artists Space, NYC
Mar 20: Great Triangle Duos: Takahiro Kawaguchi/Graham Lambkin, Makoto Oshiro / Richard Kamerman, Satoshi Yashiro / Devin DiSanto, 50 North 3rd St, Brooklyn, NYC
Mar 22: Takahiro Kawaguchi/Makoto Oshiro, Issue Project Room, Brooklyn, NYC
June 17/18: AEU festival, Fridman Gallery, NYC

Graham Stephenson/Richard Kamerman
Devin DiSanto/Nick Hoffman
Tim Albro/Aaron Zarzutzki
Ian M Fraser/Anthony Saunders

Michael Bullock/Seth Cluett/Sarah Hennies

Tucker Dulin/Ben Owen
Reed Evan Rosenberg/Ethan Tripp
Matt Krefting/Gabi Losoncy
Jonathan Borges/William Hutson

Dec 14: Áine O'Dwyer/Graham Lambkin, First Unitarian Congregational Society, Brooklyn, NYC

thanks to Lawrence Kumpf, who organized three of these, first with Issue Project Room and later with Blank Forms.

best TV show:

Horace and Pete

also, the best year-end list I have ever seen by anyone ever:

https://bostonhassle.com/id-m-theft-abl ... -list-4-u/

[ANU]

here's mine :

Keith Rowe - The Room Extended
Oren Ambarchi, Kassel Jaeger & James Rushford - Pale Calling
Beatrice Dillon & Rupert Clervaux - Two Changes
Sean McCann - Music for public ensemble
Eli Keszler - Last Signs Of Speed
Graham Lambkin - Community
Michael Pisaro & Reinier van Houdt - The earth and the sky
Joëlle Léandre - Can you hear me ?
Jeph Jerman & Tim Barnes - Versatile Ambience / Goethe
Andrea Belfi - Cera Persa
Sarah Hennies - Gather and Release
Autechre - elseq 1-5
Marc Baron - Un salon au fond d'un lac
Hsia Yu & Yan Jun - 7 poems and some tinnitus
Rashad Becker - Traditional Music of Notional Species Vol II
Richard Kamerman ‎- Music For Glassblower’s Studio And Broken Toy Piano
Jana Winderen - The Wanderer
Stefan Thut ‎- Un/Even And One
Joachim Nordwall - The message is very simple
Machinefabriek - Crumble
Taku Unami and Devin DiSanto - ErstLive 13
Beat Keller, Tom Johnson, Joseph Kudirka - String trios
Valerio Tricoli - Vixit
Jeffrey Roden - Threads of a prayer
Vanessa Rossetto & Matthew Revert - Earnest Rubbish
V/A - Scelsi ep

[Hayao Yamaneko]

I've not listened to a lot of new music, and my memory is bad, so I'm sure I've missed some great records I really enjoyed. But here's the content of my head this morning, at a moment I'm inclined to scribble something.



Marvin Tate, Joseph Clayton Mills - The Process
This is a dense and strange record and I've not spent enough time with it. I'm not sure how much time would be required though. I'm pretty sure it's not going to resolve itself in my mind, no matter how long I listen. Like most of my favourite records this year, it is awkward. I'm not entirely sure I enjoy it. Mills' reduced, somewhat impersonal aesthetic is a jarring fit for the *very* personal material handed to him by Marvin Tate, and nearly everything that's interesting about the record comes out of the jagged edges between these two equally present aesthetics. Which is not to say Mills is not attentive to the material - he very much is. But he's attentive without any degree of transference. That inevitably ends up being related to the social histories of the two aesthetics being combined, and that in itself is a bit uncomfortable, and happily not polished out here.


Stephen Cornford & Ben Gwilliam - on taking things apart
Nice fusion of process & production on this one. A tape machine dismantled, the parts manipulated, put through processes and themselves broken down. The whole process is recorded and I think edited & layered up. There's a nice tension between longform process/location recording, object-manipulation-noise and what sounds to my ear like some judicious compositional decisions (though given the people involved I might be importing that). Whether or not there's much composition involved, the whole thing holds together, and holds the ear, very nicely.
Apparently they bury the remains of the tape machine. Not sure if that's present on the recording. A nice touch - I know Ben likes his metal so along with the process/location aspect I guess they're making case for themselves as the Sunn o)) of lowercase - a funeral rite for the tape machine. Portentous. That detail made me laugh anyway. A good record from any angle. The artist's edition looks like a lovely thing.

Linda Catlin Smith - Dirt Road
This is surprising. I'd never heard of the composer, and I picked it up on a whim as part of a bundle when Another Timbre had their big sale. I didn't expect it to be my favourite of the bunch. I might be off base here, but it feels like an interesting meeting of, on the one hand, that post-New-York aesthetic that so much modern composed music is still inevitably working its way through; and on the other hand some pretty strong resonances from baroque and folk music. The result has a really interesting fragility as the control and enclosure of a now-well-established, ascetic, sometimes too-refined aesthetic, is scuffed up by the physicality and familiarity of less refined musics. It's not a dramatic collision, and if it were it probably wouldn't work, but I think it's there and it's interesting.
Reading now, it turns out this was written for dance, and actually that makes sense. For me the most interesting thing in this rough area since the first Skogen disc.

Shirley Collins - Lodestar
This was always going to be on the list. A crap Shirley Collins record would be on this list because even a crap record would mean she'd recorded again. And this is not a crap record. For my money Collins has one of the greatest voices in recorded music history, some of her early recordings just destroy me - the way Dark Was The Night Cold Was The Ground destroys me. There's nothing quite of that caliber on here, but it's still incredibly strong stuff. It's impossible for me to divorce this from her life, and impossible to hear her new voice without hearing her old voice. But even absent of any of that I think it would still be an excellent record - great songs, delivered with profound feeling for the material and arranged in a tough, spare but considered way. It's by some margin my record of the year, and it would be in almost any year.


Marc Baron - Un salon au fond d'un lac
For the second year running, a "disappointing" Marc Baron record beats out most of the pack. How bloody irritating to have dicks like me listen to this thing you've laboured over and say "it's not Hidden Tapes". That's what you get for making a landmark record I guess... This is very interesting anyway, and it takes the material from Hidden Tapes (often literally) in a subtly new direction. He's doing a weird and interesting thing here - taking material which was already heavily laden with theme and association when he used it the first time around, and reusing it again. In a sense that's not so different from (say) John Butcher reusing one of his now-very-familiar techniques in a different context. Only of course it is different, because these are recordings and they imply events captured, and because recordings are so much less manipulable and adaptive. So when Baron does it with recordings it means something different than when a free improviser does the same, though precisely what it means I'm not sure. And he's seemingly using this material without trying to create specific narratives, or to particularly develop their thematic associations.
The effect to my ears is that 1) the fragments get emptied of original meaning through familiarity and alienation and 2) at the same time their repetition and kinda-leitmotif-suggestive deployment fills them with a new resonance which has nothing to attach to.
So I don't know what I think he's trying here, maybe he doesn't entirely either? If not that's fine and probably very healthy. What's "happening" in the music is as opaque as the Gwilliford record is transparent. But these things aren't criticisms, they're reasons to like the record. It's very much his own thing. Again, awkward.


Fairhorns - COMMITTEE XIV
Though worthy in its own right, this one stands in for all the music by Matt Loveridge I've missed over the past few years. I used to see a lot of Matt about 8-10 years ago, when he was one of my favourite live performers. He changed direction quite a bit and for a while I didn't get it, and possibly it took him a while to settle - in any case I didn't keep up. Earlier this year I checked out his bandcamp and found a big pile of really nice stuff he'd made in the mean time. A fine pop ear put in the service of motoric propulsion, grinding release and awkward feels.

[mono tony]

Kassel Jaeger / Stephan Mathieu / Akira Rabelais ‘Zauberberg’ - pleasant, sort of lullaby-ish/dream-like series of events with snatches of operatic/film music, field recordings, melancholy piano passages etc. nice, slow progression, full of space, and generally quaint/pretty.

μ-Ziq - Aberystwyth Marine - this was made in the early-mid 90s but not released until early last year.. kind of hyper-charged, Warp-ish, Aphex Twin-like techno.. really vibrant and aggressive at parts, squelchy filtering and twisted melodies abound, bursting at the seams. Has a good, raw, energised vibe.

Autechre - Elseq 1-5 - a broad variety of tracks, tonal/timbral explorations.. it seemed excessive at first (four hours worth), the more belligerent/obnoxious tracks are slow growers, a couple (maybe 2) dud-ish minimal/repetitive tracks. surprising level of quality given their massive quantity of output as of late. sounds marvelous on the stereo

Aphex Twin - Cheetah ep - solid, cohesive series of tracks. relaxing, meditative, and groovy all at once. like an ultra-stripped down, slowed down, minimal Tuss/Analord style of music. also an excellent-sounding album

Marc Baron - Un salon au fond d'un lac - played this thing to death, it's a great extension of Hidden Tapes, with the recurring melancholy motif. was anticipating a 'leftovers'-sort of album and wound up playing it a lot more often, because of its immediacy and sensational quality. I get a distinct emotional vibe from the album--sounds are bold, abrupt, unsettling, sad, resigned, longing, etc.. really dig the easy flow of events/editing, and the lulls, or down time, in contrast with the more lively parts.

Angharad Davies & Tisha Mukarji - ffansïon | fancies - maybe my favorite AT release from last year - engaging, dynamic, sensitively played, improvised music.. really impressive playing and weaving of sounds together, parts of it sound composed, there always seems to be a tonal reference point and a possibly determined progression to all of the action.

David Grubbs - prismrose - a nice slice of primarily vocal-less (vocals on one of 5 or 6 tracks), idiosyncratic electric guitar music by Grubbs. with loose and nimble drumming by Eli Keszler. sort of cyclic, repeating melodic figures in a propulsive/driving mode. subtle bits of electric/electronic augmentation enhance the music.

Machinedrum - Human Energy - refreshing, playful change up from the one-note progression/refinition of Room(s) to Vapor City. TS just kept reinforcing the notion that he's a one trick pony.. Human Energy is full-on playful cheese and electro funk, some tracks feature actual vocal performances instead of the typical vocal snippets/samples that characterised his earlier albums. Album is nonstop, uptempo, it gets a bit monotonous.

Sepalcure - Folding Time - similar to Machinedrum music but with more variety. Just easy listening electro/funk-ish pop, don't know what genre name to assign it.

Graham Lambkin - Community (Erstwhile) - wasn't sure how I felt about this album at first but it's become possibly my favorite Lambkin, or Lambkin-involved album (disc 1). kind of internalised it after repeated listens, there's a meditative quality to it, something loaded and alien, hard to define, but increasingly compelling as it becomes more familiar. "singular", psychedelic brew of sounds, strange magic load of information.


Moonlight ost - just feel-good, sad, lonely, grounding stuff. really dug the film too


still haven't heard many albums from 2016

[mono tony]

9. Max Würden - Transit (Binemusic)

this is really pleasant

[mono tony]

forgot to mention the new Radian album - On Dark Silent Off (Thrill Jockey) - my interest waned with each subsequent album (following TG11) on Thrill Jockey.. but this one had my ear twitchin' - meticulously assembled, driving post rock (?) music, a lot of it comprised of discrete sounds woven together with sensible riffage and good drumming. a fair amount of overblown, distorted sounds, but it's so chock full of nuanced punctuation/percussion/tonal klangfarbenmelodie that it held my interest. bit of cheesy rock, but so thoroughly crafted it's worth a listen. The production quality sort of recalls Ether's Music for Air Raids album on the Extreme label.

http://dustedmagazine.tumblr.com/post/1 ... ill-jockey

[james]

just want to say i appreciate everyone's time compiling these lists. it usually gives me stuff to dig through for the rest of the year.

[Hayao Yamaneko]

Phil Julian and John Macedo - Bind

I got to this one too late (last night), but it definitely should have been on my list. It's one of my favourite things either has done. I may be wrong, but it feels like not enough people outside London hear John's stuff. He's great.

Relatedly, excerpt from Phil's new thing on Soundcloud sounds great.
https://soundcloud.com/entracte/e213?in ... s-previews
(More than most things, maybe, it loses 90% of its value on laptop speakers. )

[mono tony]

Marvin Tate & Joseph Clayton Mills - The Process (Every Contact Leaves A Trace)

one of the more affecting "electroacoustic collages" i've ever heard.. just hearing it tonight in a fatigued state, am pretty floored by it.

https://weneednoswords.wordpress.com/20 ... e-process/
http://ryokoakama.com/archives/curatorial/journal-two

[Seth]

Very happy that people are responding so well to Joseph and Marvin's album. I only have eight physical copies left so please move quickly if you want it. It's the first Every Contact Leaves a Trace release that will have sold out in its first year. Although I guess it pays to put out things by people that people have actually heard of I don't intend to make much of a habit of it.

[MRS]

Chaos In The CBD -- either Digital Harmony (Mule Musiq) or Invisible Spectrum (Rhythm Section International)
Bill Evans -- Some Other Time: The Lost Session From The Black Forest (Resonance)
Mol Kamach and Baksey Cham Krong -- Ne penser qu'à toi (Akuphone)
Stephan Mathieu -- RADIANCE (Schwebung)
Jake Meginsky -- Seven Psychotropic Sinewave Palindromes (NNA Tapes)
Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement -- Green Graves (Hospital Productions)
Michel Redolfi -- Desert Tracks (Sub Rosa)
Derek Rogers -- Silence Is Being Substituted (Glistening Examples)
Toshiya Tsunoda -- Somashikiba (edition.t)
Jamire Williams -- ///// EFFECTUAL (Leaving Records)

[Piano Mouth]

Mathieu's Zauberberg is pretty good too

[Yii]

Senri Miyazato - Songs and Prayers from the Izaiho Ritual Kudaka Island (Basic Function, 2016)
Mastered By Makoto Oshiro

field recordings about the divine consciousness of female shamans.

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

After spending more time with them, I have to add Sarah Hennies' Gather & Release, and all the other 2016 Ersts to my list: Summary Dismissal, Medium Rude and EL013 - all 3 took some time to click, but they did. I feel a bit of doofus for listing mainly Ersts, but what can I say? My time & budget for listening to music is becoming more & more limited, so I play safe.

[fractious]

good-ass year tbh

Reed Evan Rosenberg / Ethan Tripp - Medium Rude (erstwhile)
Toshida Tsunoda - Somashikiba (edition.t)
Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool (XL)
Graham Lambkin - Community (erstwhile)
RIAS-Kammerchor / Hans-Christoph Rademann - Penitential Psalms (Harmonia Mundi)
David Thomas Broughton - Crippling Lack (Le Noize Maker)
American Football - American Football (Polyvinyl)
Babyfather - BBF (Hyperdub)
Mo*Te / Xtematic / Spore Spawn - Motion Sequence Overload (Craneal Fracture)
Grouper - Paradise Valley (Yellowelectric)
Julius Eastman - Femenine (Frozen Reeds)
10tet - 10tet (Confront)
Santiago Astaburuaga - Grado de Potencia (caduc)
Vanessa Rossetto - The Way You Make Me Feel (Unfathomless)
Marvin Tate and Joseph Clay Mills - The Process (Every Contact Leaves a Trace)
Wretched Excess - Anxiety Suite for Broken Speakers (Illuminated Paths)
Lucinda Williams - The Ghost of Highway 20 (Highway 20)

at a pinch. crepuscular hour is creeping up