What were your favorite releases of 2017?

[Eric Kline]

I haven't posted here in years! But I find these lists useful, and wondered if anyone was going to post theirs this year...

I had a weird year financially, and bought very few new releases (1st year since the early 2000's that I didn't acquire a single new Erst release for example...although I spent a fair amount of time in 2017 digesting the massive Rowe and Pisaro sets I got late in 2016).

So FWIW, here's my small list:

William Hutson - Six Or Seven Steps To The Door: Solo Improvisations (a wave press)
Michael Pisaro - Resting in a Fold of the Fog (Potlatch)
John Wall & Mark Durgan - Contrapt (Harbinger)
Matthew Revert - Illness Seminars (No Rent)
Catriel Nievas / Joe Wheeler - balance (Marginal Frequency)
Clara De Asis / Bruno Duplant - L'Inertie (Marginal Frequency)

That William Hutson disc is superb...the best thing I've heard from him yet..I had a chance to catch his set with Ted Byrnes here in San Diego, and he's proving to be a top-notch improviser.

Other 2017 highlights for me:
Steve Flato's excellent interview podcast: Signifying Something
The tentative? return of Tone Glow
Filling in gaps in my collecton on the cheap from Discogs and Amoeba

Special Mention: The disc I spent the most time with this year was JP Jenkins and Joe Foster - Money Desert...a real stunner!

[faster]

Thanks for the kind words, Eric, and glad you like Money Desert!

[bedouin]

Thanks for the kind words, Eric, and glad you like Money Desert!

is there a link to this?
interested to hear it...


my list (or, rather the 2017 releases I kept on my playlist)

1. μ0 (Jonas Olesen, Morten Riis) - .appnd (Crónica)
2. Cem Güney - A Hint of Emotion (Edition Wandelweiser)
3. Henrik Olsson, Tisha Mukarji, Johan Arrias, Magnus VIkberg - After Hours (Ausculto Fonogram)
4. João Castro Pinto - Suntria: Imaginal Sonotopes (Unfathomless)
5. Jürg Frey - Collection Gustave Roud (Another Timbre)
6. Jürg Frey - Ephemeral Constructions (Edition Wandelweiser)
7. Lance Austin Olsen, Dan Godlovitch - Fastest Gun Alive (Infrequency)
8. Lionel Marchetti - Labyrinthe D'une Ligne (Bandcamp)
9. Miguel Isaza - Māyopama (Farmacia 901)
10. Mosam Howieson - Untitled (Silent Season)
11. Primal Code - Ēteru (Hypnus Records)
12. Ryoko Akama - Places and Pages (Another Timbre)

with ".appnd" and "Ephemeral Constructions" topping the play counts!
have a good year folks...

[surfer]

A few records I liked this year:

Caterina Barbieri - Patterns of Consciousness Warm old-school synth workout that almost tends towards the Baroque in their counterpoint and interplay of merging and diverging patterns.

Skyway Man - Seen Comin' From a Mighty Eye An apt comparison might be Soft Bulletin-era Flaming Lips? Better than Soft Bulletin I think and more humane than anything The Lips have put out in several decades. The arrangements are wonderful and unpredictable, songwriting is like watching clouds float by "I used to hear a lot of songs in my head / but I've forgotten how they go"

Steven Isserlis and Philharmonia Orchestra (Paavo Järvi) - Elgar and Walton Cello Concertos - I think this might have come out in 2016 but I listened to this a lot during and after a spring trip to London. The Elgar might not replace the du Pre / Barbirolli version for pride of place on my shelf, but this account and the Walton (which was a revelation) are full of profound resonances. Endlessly rewarding.

Outro Tempo: Electronic And Contemporary Music From Brazil 1978-1992

Omni – Multi-task - Rediscovered my love for early 80s post-punk, and this is a nice addition to the genre.

Jake Xerxes Fussell – What in the Natural World - Last year Peter Keane's Rural Electrification (also a fine album) captured my attention with interpretations from the early American songbook. Exuberant.

V/A - Mono No Aware - Always been a sucker for ambient compilations such as Small Melodies, Good Night, Sul, Variious, etc. This is one of those.

Linda Caitlin Smith - Drifter (Quatuor Bozzini & Apartment House)

Tyshawn Sorey - Verisimilitude

And finally another enthusiastic vote for Olsson, Mukarji, Arrias, VIkberg - After Hours which I loved, and JC's old friend Jan Nygard wrote the heartfelt notes for it over on Bandcamp.

Happy New Year

[Wombatz]

2016 ended with the double erststrike of the extended room and community, and somehow nothing which came after those really meant as much to me in this general area of music. if anything they left me hungry for more sounds, and instead things took a more quiet and composerly/wandelweiserian direction i wasn't willing to follow ... so i was mostly into old music, most importantly connecting with curtis mayfield for the first time in my long listening life, and the african rabbit hole (see other thread).

i'd second or third joe posting samples of his stuff, but he's got this rabid fanbase (the self styled foster chillums) who gobble up everything he drops, so why would he.

[ANU]

lots of good stuff this year, here's my list (no special order):

Luís Antero - Sound Places-Serra do Açor Vol. 1 / 3 Mountains
John Cage - Klang Der Wandlungen
Kate Carr - From A Wind Turbine To Vultures (And Back)
Moniek Darge - Sacred Balinese Soundies, Mauro’s Song
Sarah Davachi - All My Circles Run
Benedict Drew - Estuary Magic
Bruno Duplant & David Vélez - Preservation
Morton Feldman - Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello
Jürg Frey - Ephemeral Constructions / Collection Gustave Roud / L’Âme Est Sans Retenue I
Klaus Filip & Noid - No No No No
Haptic - Ten Years Under The Earth
Eva-Maria Houben - Organ Sonatinas And Drones
Eva-Maria Houben & Ernesto Rodrigues ‎- Layering Time
Yan Jun & Ben Owen - Swimming Salt 游泳的盐
Alice Kemp - Fill my body with flowers and rice
Kostis Kilymis - A Void
Yannis Kyriakides - Subvoice
Giovanni Lami - Hysteresis II
The Necks - Unfold
NYZ - FLD RCDR
Éliane Radigue - Occam Ocean vol. 1
Jeffrey Roden - Threads of a Prayer Volume 2
Ernesto Rodrigues, Emídio Buchinho & Ricardo Guerreiro - Fall
Vanessa Rossetto - Rocinante
Mark So - And Suddenly From All This There Came Some Horrid Music
Tyler Wilcox - Works For Two Chapels


and btw i made a little mix with mostly music from this year:
https://soundcloud.com/basic_algebra/a- ... music-2017

[Seth]

'Listening to the Footsteps of Living Ones Who Are Still on the Ground' – Toshimaru Nakamura, Martin Taxt (Ftarri)

'Immediate Landscapes' – John Butcher & Akio Suzuki (Ftarri)

'Buy Muy Drugs' – Buy Muy Drugs (self released)

'CTRL' – SZA (Top Dawg, RCA)

'A Void' – Kostis Kilymis (Organized Music From Thessaloniki)

'Roil' – Daniel Bennett (Organized Music from Thessaloniki)

'Culture' – Migos (Quality Control, 300, Atlantic)

'Teenage Emotions' – Lil Yachty (Quality Control, Capitol, Motown)

'AI Deviation #1, #2' – Yasunao Tone (Editions Mego)

'About U' – MUNA (RCA)

'Mountain Moves' – Deerhoof (Joyful Noise)

'Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello' – Morton Feldman, Mark Knoop, Bridget Carey, Aisha Orazbayeva, Anton Lukoszevieze (Another Timbre)

'Fairfax' – Nate Scheible (ACR)

'Rosebudd's Revenge' – Roc Marciano (Marci Enterprises)

'Musique Hydromantique' – Tomoko Sauvage (Shelter Press)

'Black Origami' – Jlin (Planet Mu)

'Pell-Mell the Prolix' – Patrick Farmer & David Lacey (Caduc)

'Nobody’s Pushing You' – Gabi Losoncy (Caduc)

'Security Besides Love' – Gabi Losoncy (Recital)

'1992 Deluxe' – Princess Nokia (Rough Trade)

'Aqal' – Dale Cornish (Entr'acte)

'Ununiform' – Tricky (False Idols)

'4:44' – Jay-Z (Roc Nation)

'Inscriptions' – Ryoko Akama, Will Montgomery, Joseph Clayton Mills (Suppedaneum)

---

Reissues:

'Symphonic Suite Akira' – Geinoh Yamashirogumi (Milan)

'Bonobo' – Hans Reichel (Corbett vs Dempsey)

'Wichlinghauser Blues' – Hans Reichel (Corbett vs Dempsey)

'Singles 1978-2016' – The Fall (Cherry Red)

'Celestial Vibration' – Laraaji (Soul Jazz)

'Pinched Tapes' – Stephen Cornford (Geräuschmanfaktur)

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

Here's my 2017 favorite post on Weighing A Pig:

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

Occam Ocean vol. 1 firmly on top, music wise.

[negative potential]

instead things took a more quiet and composerly/wandelweiserian direction i wasn't willing to follow ...

I'm also kind of baffled by the "Wandelweiserisation" trend. Not because any of it is bad or unpleasant music; it's agreeable music, generally quite nice to listen to, but I guess I don't understand the general impetus behind that dynamic. It strikes me as not very "remarkable" or "revolutionary"; in terms of sensibility _and_ sound it's basically, I guess, a retreat to Cageian ideas? Maybe it represents a defiant capitulation in the face of exhortation to constantly "innovate."

Anyway, I think the only CD I purchased in 2017 that was actually issued in 2017 was Rowe / Pisaro Thirteen, which I liked (I generally only purchase CDs at shows at this point, which means the stuff I pick up tends to be a mix from different times).

[faster]

Okay, here's the first song from Money Desert. I hope you listen to it and like it! (I think this should work. If it doesn't, that means I'm an idiot, but break it to me gently plz as I've been laboring under the misapprehension that I'm not.)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/s093f21n4vvr3 ... t.wav?dl=1

[Wombatz]

instead things took a more quiet and composerly/wandelweiserian direction i wasn't willing to follow ...

I'm also kind of baffled by the "Wandelweiserisation" trend ... It strikes me as not very "remarkable" or "revolutionary"; in terms of sensibility _and_ sound it's basically, I guess, a retreat to Cageian ideas? Maybe it represents a defiant capitulation in the face of exhortation to constantly "innovate."

there's definitely a lot of new developments in this i think. maybe less in the sounds themselves, but in their organization, ideas later than cage of site-specificity, different systems used, etc., which make different demands on the listener (i don't think that's just rhetoric ... it's possibly both a more active role to make something happen and a more accepting role within the set-up). partly i don't want to go there because of a perceived gentrification process in embracing *composition* and the power relations that come with that, where what once were gloriously meaningless fluxus actions or fun tape butcherings now claim capital ARTWORK status, partly simply because if i never hear an endlessly drawn out barely there violin scratch or clarinet breath again that's soon enough. i also can't listen to e.g. feldman anymore, just a badly timed taste rhythm cycle ...

thanks joe, it dropped flawlessly!

[Stephen]

seeing this thread motivated me to make a list, which was good as I'd thought that the defining thing about music I liked in 2017 was that it was mostly vinyl reissues of last century's avant garde, but actually there's quite a bit of new music I liked a lot this year.

Henning Christiansen - OP.67 STRATEGYGETARTS (Hommage a Richard Demarco) [penultimate press]
William Hutson - Six or Seven Steps To The Door [a wave press]
Nicolas Montgermont Radioscapes [artkillart]
Bill Orcutt - Bill Orcutt [palilalia]
Ellen Arkbro - For Organ and Brass [subtext]
Giuseppe Ielasi - Even when they speak of space [senufo editions]
Eliane Radigue - Occam Ocean 1 [shiin]
Henning Christiansen - Umwälzung [penultimate press]
Yann Leguay - Headcrash [vlek]
Benedict Drew - Crawling Through Tory Slime [mana]
Jim O'Rourke's bandcamp
Terry Fox - 552 steps through 11 pairs of strings [edition telemark]
Tony Conrad - Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain [superior viaduct]

[bedouin]

Félicia Atkinson - Hand In Hand [Shelter Press, 2017]


this is just incredible from beginning to end.
Last year's "Comme un seul narcisse" was great too, but hand in hand is in a league of its own.

[This is PRE]

01) Paul Dolden: Histoires D'Histoire
02) Cleric: Retrocausal
03) Mario Diaz de Leon & Tak Ensemble: Sanctuary
04) Igorrr: Savage Sinusoid
05) Orchestra of the Upper Atmosphere: θ3
06) Deluge Grander: Oceanarium
07) Thinking Plague: Hoping Against Hope
08) Alvarius B.: With A Beaker On The Burner And An Otter In The Oven
09) Jim O'Rourke & Kassel Jaeger: Wakes On Cerulean
10) Reverorum ib Malacht: Ter Agios Numini
11) Yowie: Synchromysticism
12) Weasel Walter: A Pound of Flesh
13) Keiji Haino/Jim O'Rourke/Oren Ambarchi: This Dazzling, Genuine "Difference" Now Where Shall It Go?
14) UUUU: UUUU
15) Gravetemple: Impassable Fears
16) Cheer-Accident: Putting Off Death
17) Godflesh: Post Self
18) Aaron Dilloway: Switches

[Mo Noyz]

Big Bold Back Bone - In Search Of The Emerging Species (kind of a gateway drug into Erstland)

The Selva - Ricardo Jacinto/Nuno Morao/Goncalo Almeida (cello/bass/drums, yet one of the most percussive albums I heard all year)

[p_ano]

belated.

rowe/pisaro shattered every expectation. gorgeous, inventive, and surprising:



and my very favorite, for very complex reasons:



edited: i can't believe i forgot this one.