Plenty more

 

One final transmission from the last-chance saloon: in the spirit of maximising inclusion & recognition, here are 25 more 2020 releases that lightened & brightened a year in profound need of both...

This alternative list is a way of acknowledging the inevitable limitations of the original Festive Twenty (or any list...). While those 20 stood out to us as especially meaningful or evocative or thrilling, they are of course very far from constituting last year's only great releases.

It also completes our broader picture of the year's music. Besides the two Twenties, this also includes a baker's dozen of compilations & 10 'projects' beyond the bounds of a single release.

 As ever, this list is constrained to one pick per artist/label - in order to acknowledge as wide a listening range as possible. Moreover, this one had no prospect of picking up votes for multiple releases from the same artist or label since it's all on jl (whereas the original Twenty is the combined work of al & jl...).

Again as ever, this constraint also meant having to exclude outstanding releases such as Geneva Skeen's Double Bind, Past Walls & Windows by Todd Anderson-Kunert & Pinkcourtesyphone's Leaving Everything To Be Desired (all among a raft of brilliance in Room40's 20th anniversary year, as noted...) - never mind other losses to the hair shirt like Grand River's Blink A Few Times To Clear Your Eyes (Editions Mego) & Romeo Poirier's Hotel Nota (sferic). 

 

Anyway, the (alternative) list:

William Basinski & Richard Chartier :: Something From The Pink House (self-release)  

Black to Comm :: Oocyte Oil & Stolen Androgens (Thrill Jockey)

Celer :: Wasted In The Waiting (self-release)

John Chantler :: Doing Nothing / Nothing Doing (self-release)

CLEARED :: The Key (Touch) 

EMRA GRID :: five cycles through an empty chamber (LINE)

Lawrence English :: Lassitude (Room40)

FEAN :: II (Laaps) 

FRKTL :: Excision After Love Collapses (self-release)

David Fyans :: Crushing Depth (self-release)

Haarvol :: Ridge of Humming Spoils (Moving Furniture)

ISAN :: Nothing Picked & Placed Nowhere (wiaiwya) 

Kassel Jaeger :: Swamps/Things (Shelter Press) 

France Jobin :: Death is perfection, everything else is relative (Editions Mego) 

Kim's Spirit :: Blossom Everywhere (A Red Thread)

The Necks :: Three (Northern Spy)

Jake Muir :: the hum of your veiled voice (sferic)

Lynette Sandholm Evvers :: Fundamental Colours II (Other Forms of Consecrated Life)

Simon Scott :: Apart (12k)

Tom James Scott :: Mine Is The Heron (Students of Decay)

Sontag Shogun, Stijn Huwels :: The Floating World & The Sorrowful World (Thesis)

Richard Skelton :: LASTGLACIALMAXIMUM (Aeolian)

Three Point Circle :: Layered Contingencies (Palace of Lights)

Ida Toninato :: We Become Giants (Dragon's Eye)  

Jeremy Young :: Filaments (Eliane Tapes) 

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Prolonged weekness

Highlights of these ears' listening from the past seven days...

Not sure these ears need the full 20 'ambient' tributes to Phil, but applauding Steve Flato for "exists in the vague place between Music For Airports and Music From The Disney Motion Picture 'Tarzan'"... 

...& always ready for gossamer Nicholas Burrage (formerly Szczepanik) loveliness

_

Further on NB, finally spending time with the unhurried richness of marbles.' vol. 1

"appropriation of mariah carey's '#1 to infinity'"

_

Headphones on, as guided, & quietly blissing out to Music For Sleep's A Careful Endlessly...



"Listening at low volume is highly recommended"

_

Celer is still releasing & these ears are still listening... 

...captivated by the gorgeous new I Wish You Could (Constellation Tatsu) - as natural & restful as breath



[part of Fall Batch w/Stephan Haluska, Rhucle & Ecovillage

 https://ctatsu.bandcamp.com/merch/fall-batch-2018]

_

Touching dedication to Brian Young too...

Also, applauding the line Cassettes...no longer just for dads & hipsters

_

Revisiting Bethan Kellough's glorious, grand Vision on Touch's unexpected new sub-label Sundry Items!



From Aven (2016)

_

Sundry Items also features Rafael Toral's Violence of Discovery & Calm of Acceptance




"crafted with extreme precision & care"

_

Resubmerging into Loscil's classic Submers - these ears aren't vinyl fetishists, but kranky's rerelease prompts first descent in a while into its depths...



"sourceless echoes, steely surfaces & ominous melodic & rhythmic undertows"

_

Gladly revisiting The Swifter (Andrea Belfi / BJ Nilsen / Simon James Phillips)'s magnificent Wall Sailor (Sonic Pieces)...




"like watching birds being set free from a cage to relish a newly won space for spreading their wings"

_

Not everyone approves of it, evidently - but still finding rewards in Max Loderbauer & Ricardo Villalobos's Re: ECM more than seven years in... 

"to harmonize these two worlds, without them aspiring to mutually deactivate each other"

_

Not sure I can get away with the word 'splendid', but this new Purlieu podcast for New New World Radio's 'Beauty Sleep' is...great

Featuring Jobanshi, Mt Accord, Knivtid & more... 

"Celebrating one year of sonic healing"

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

with God Herself

Still clunky, still well intentioned: the formula for our annual Festive 33-1/3 is, once again, no more than one pick per artist/label by each of us. 

We then augment the resulting list (two sets of 15 releases selected independently, meshed & supplemented when doubles necessitate a bit of horse-trading...). The addition comes from four further projects that fall outside the normal 'release' boundaries - bigger &/or more ambitious (in multiple media, for example), or unexpected collaborations.

The rationale remains to spread recognition as far as possible. Over & above LMYE's desire to embrace - rather than limit  - the multiplicity of sounds & artists we love, this is an attempt to acknowledge & respond to year-end lists' inevitable partiality. How different ours & others' might look on another day or in another mood, given the vast amount of great music every year brings...

As previously, the striking quality of some labels' output forces unpalatable choices. Outstanding releases like Lawrence English's Cruel Optimism, Kassel Jaeger & Jim O'Rourke's Wakes On Cerulean, Robert Crouch's Sublunar or Marc Kate's As If We Were Never Here didn't make the cut here only because something else on their particularly strong imprints (Room40, Editions Mego, Touch & Dragon's Eye, respectively) meant even more to one of us. But in any broader sense they are clearly core parts of the year's best...

As always, for a more inclusive picture of our listening pleasures please check out the monthly Lend Me Your Radio series on SoundCloud, al's Mixcloud & jl's Bandcamp (collection & wish list).

Olli Aarni :: Nielu (Florabelle)
Olivier Alary :: Pieces for Sine Wave Oscillators (Line)
Anjou :: Epithymía (Kranky)
Aquarelle :: Leave Corners (Debacle)
ASC :: Trans-Neptunian Objects (Auxiliary)
 



Andrea Belfi / Taylor Deupree & Marcus Fischer / Masaya Ozaki & Kaito Nakahori - Alveare / Lowlands / Mythologies (Iikki)
Benoît Pioulard :: Lignin Poise (Beacon Sound)
Celer :: Plays Liberace (Celer)
Dominic Coppola :: Golden Blonde Air (Boudoir)
Dramavinile :: 7 (Unknown Tone)
 




drøne :: A Perfect Blind (Pomperipossa)
Endurance :: Echoic Architecture (Polar Seas) / Molecular Shrine (ACR)
Forest Management :: The Elevated Quiet (Constellation Tatsu)
David Fyans :: Subscriber Series (Erstlaub)
 




IJO :: Melancholika Vol. 2 (ACR)
The Inward Circles :: And Right Lines Limit and Close All Bodies (Corbel Stone Press)
Hannu Karjalainen :: A Handful Of Dust Is A Desert (Karaoke Kalk)
Steven Kemner :: Gradation Movements (Fluid Audio)
Moon Zero :: Relationships Between Inner and Outer Space (Denovali)
 




Jake Muir :: Acclimation (Dragon’s Eye)
The Necks :: Unfold (Ideologic Organ)
Ogive :: Folds (Room40)
Orphax :: Somniātōrēs (Orphax)
Pausal :: Avifaunal (Dronarivm)
 



poemme :: Soft Ice (Polar Seas)
the prairie lines :: eyes down slowdown (Whitelabrecs)
Steve Roach :: Nostalgia for the Future (Timeroom)
Claire M. Singer :: Fairge (Touch) 
Sontag Shogun & Moskitoo :: The Things We Let Fall Apart / The Thunderswan (Home Normal)



 
Thet Liturgiske Owäsendet :: Hafvet (Low Point)
The Transcendence Orchestra :: Modern Methods for Ancient Rituals (Editions Mego)
Various Artists/Jon Wozencroft :: Movements (Touch)
Velleitie :: Scheming the Afterimage with God Herself (Sounds Against Humanity)




Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

'a liar all my life'

While Will Long's staggering fecundity as Celer has finally slowed lately (mid-June already & only two new albums this year?!), the beauty & emotional weight of his work is unflagging. Indeed, the three most recent Celer releases - Sky Limits, Jima & the snappily-titled How could you believe me when I said I loved you when you know I've been a liar all my life - feature some of his most ravishing, affecting sounds. 

Pieces like the quavering, gossamer Tangent Lines (from SL) are as delicate, as precious as the noting, investing & storing moments of significance that Long describes ("Someday, I won't be in these same places again, and for now, this is what they sound like. Even these minor moments are important when you look back on the memory, and then look out from this overlook, seeing the city lights blinking in the distance..."). 

Memory is a notable theme across these releases. The literally sun-baked How is especially rich with reminiscence ("Revisiting these pieces after living in Japan for several years, they instantly reminded me of the trip, and what I left behind in the United States. The tapes fluttered and stuck, drenched in hiss and grime. The record skipped, wavered, and dropped in and out. Yet with these imperfections, it completely reflected my memory of the places, and what they represented. There are sides to everything, whether it causes you to change or not...").  

Out of "the most basic format-inherent effects", Long conjures something profound, embodied in the exquisitely simple, lulling Bleeds & swell bends. 

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Idle tractors

It's disconcerting to discover from Poland's Monotype that Lydia Lunch is still with us (though it's surely impossible that she's not made at least one record called Medusa's Bed already?). But it's more confounding still to have missed Gau, the beguiling debut from CMKK - a 'supergroup' from the LMYE pantheon, comprising serially promiscuous Dutch collaborators Jan & Romke Kleefstra, & Machinefabriek, plus Celer. 

"Without any plans we just went for it and ended up with hours of material that was later edited to the 48 minutes that is 'Gau'" - Machinefabriek. 

Blurb: "In March of 2012, nearing the end of a tour together through the Netherlands and Belgium, Celer, Machinefabriek, and Jan and Romke Kleefstra gathered in a country studio, spending an afternoon improvising to record Gau. Recorded by the old hardcore rocker Jan Switters at the Landscape studios in Gauw, situated in the countryside in the midst of Friesland, the place was surrounded by green fields with idle tractors, few trees, buzzards and only massive farmhouses dotting the horizon. From the almost four hours of original studio recordings, later mixed down in Rotterdam by Machinefabriek, this 48 minutes, titled 'Gau', represents the highlights of an afternoon with coffee and orangecake in the isolated Frisian countryside. 'Gau' is a Frisian word that means in a hurry or fast, but is also the Frisian notation of the village name where the studio is located."

CMKK - Gau (excerpt) [MP3 here]

The quartet hinges on Machinefabriek, of course. Besides his rewarding but unobvious recent pairing - each's epic fecundity notwithstanding - with Celer, Rutger already participated in the great Piiptsjilling with the Kleefstras (& Mariska Baars). 

Jan & Romke in turn continue to mine rich seams of salty Friesian impro with a host of other partners & contexts...

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Austere rerace

As promised, a trainspotter's delight to complete the unveiling of & revelling in our Improbably Late 80 - the broader counterpoint to our earlier Furtive 30 & some kind of a conclusion to our end of year-listing for 2012 (though, as noted, there's still a label profile/interview to come as we explore the outer limits of improbable lateness...).  

This final batch of pieces from (& previews of) IL80 releases features Celer / Leonardo Rosado / Motion Sickness of Time Travel / Mike Shiflet & Joe Panzner / Mind Over Mirrors / Nicholas Szczepanik / Portraits / Shackleton / Steinbruechel / The Swifter / Tim Hecker & Daniel Lopatin / TVO / Two People in a Room / Windy & Carl / Yann Novak & Robert Crouch. 

celer - truth abandons (album preview)

Variation in White #1 by Leonardo Rosado

nicholas szczepanik - we make life sad (album preview)

La Luna del Este by Nicholas Szczepanik

Portraits - D

Motion Sickness Of Time Travel - Traces (edit)

tim hecker & daniel lopatin - instrumental tourist (album preview)

mind over mirrors - small portion (album preview)

Tgamaghis (clip) by TVO

Mike Shiflet/Joe Panzner - Split (preview)

Sinus 5 by steinbruchel [re-up]

Fata Morgana (excerpt) by Yann Novak & Robert Crouch [re-up]

the swifter - the swifter (album preview)

shackleton - music for the quiet hour/the drawbar organ eps (album preview)

Two People In A Room - Horses In My Head

windy & carl - remember [re-up]

Oh, & in case you missed it yesterday, here's the 7-hour Improbably Late 80 playlist:



Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.