It's list-makin' time again, folks. I recently filed my Top Ten of 2004 for the Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll, and it looks like that's the only list I have to make this year. (I wasn't asked to contribute to year-end issues of Jazziz or The Wire, and that's fine with me.)
So here's what I heard and liked this year. File your own year-end thoughts below, if you like.
First of all, the Top Ten I actually chose (in alphabetical order, with no ranking as to merit):
1. Anata, Under A Stone With No Inscription (Earache)
2. Björk, Medulla (Atlantic)
3. Decapitated, The Negation (Earache)
4. Electric Wizard, We Live (Rise Above)
5. Ghostface, The Pretty Toney Album (Def Jam)
6. Lamb Of God, Ashes Of The Wake (Epic)
7. Mastodon, Leviathan (Relapse)
8. Necrophagist, Epitaph (Relapse)
9. Pig Destroyer, Terrifyer (Relapse)
10. Matthew Shipp, Harmony And Abyss (Thirsty Ear)
Now, here are fifteen more that didn't make the cut. Some were very close calls (Isis and Björk were in head-to-head contention for a slot, but I went with Björk because the Isis disc was a refinement of their existing style, while her album was a sharp left turn, and thus the greater achievement). Others I cut because I felt like nominating all new efforts, rather than worthy reissues, for the final year-end tally. Anyway, here are the also-rans.
Anaal Nathrakh, Domine Non Est Dignus (Season Of Mist)
Albert Ayler, Holy Ghost (Revenant)
Chaosbreed, Brutal (Olympic)
Alice Coltrane, World Galaxy [reissue] (Universal Japan)
Isis, Panopticon (Ipecac)
Kataklysm, Serenity In Fire (Nuclear Blast)
Megadeth, The System Has Failed (Sanctuary)
Motörhead, Inferno (Sanctuary)
Sunny Murray, Homage To Africa [reissue] (Sunspots)
Pharoah Sanders, Live At The East [reissue] (Universal Japan)
Pharoah Sanders, Izipho Zam [reissue](Sunspots)
Spring Heel Jack, The Sweetness Of The Water (Thirsty Ear)
Cecil Taylor, Live In The Black Forest [reissue] (Universal Japan)
Cecil Taylor, One Too Many Salty Swift And Not Goodbye [reissue] (Hatology)
Unleashed, Sworn Allegiance (Century Media)
What I think is that the top image could stand to be scaled down a little because on my webbrowser it upsets the delicate balance of the Bags homepage.
I haven't heard a single disc on your lists, though there's a few I'd like to here (the Bjork & Cecil Taylor, mostly). I agree with your instinct to add a supplementary list--I've in recent years been fuding things by submitting completely different top-ten lists to the mags I write for, so that I have a de facto longer list to work with.
Posted by: N.D. at December 19, 2004 9:25 AMYeah, it's screwing with my browser, too. Maybe someone with more skills than me will fix it up.
(BTW, before anyone asks, it's a picture of Scott "Top Ten" Kempner from the Dictators. Lame joke, I know, but better than just randomly picking one of the acts I listed, and running a shot of them.)
Posted by: phil at December 19, 2004 9:54 AMIs the Joanna Newsom disc on any of y'alls' lists? Would be curious if it was....
This my list for Stylus:
Mattin/Radu Malfatti - Whitenoise (WMO/r)
Keith Rowe/Franz Hautzinger/Axel Doerner - A View From the Window (Erstwhile)
Dave Phillips - IIIII (Groundfault)
Toshimaru Nakamura/Sean Meehan - from tour (Quakebasket)
Hive Mind - Sand Beasts (PacRec/Chondritic)
Keith Rowe/Burkhard Beins (Erstwhile)
Sawako - yours grey (And/Oar)
Birchville Cat Motel - Beautiful Speck Triumph (Last Visible Dog)
Toshimaru Nakamura/Sachiko M/Otomo Yoshihide - Good Morning Good Night
(Erstwhile)
Kevin Drumm - Impish Tyrant (Spite)
Daniel Menche - Skadha (Antifrost)
Filament - BOX (F.M.N. Sound Factory)
Prurient - Fossil (Truculent)
Toshiya Tsunoda - Scenery of Decalomania (Naturestrip)
V/A - Xing Wu (Xing Wu)
Tetuzi Akiyama/Martin Ng - Oimacta (IMJ)
Coelacanth - Mud Wall (Helen Scarsdale)
Yes, I am a poser, and don't know anything about
hiphop/regularpeoplemusic. I played these a lot anyways.
Paul Wall - Flossin Season
Kanye West - The College Dropout
MIA/Diplo - Piracy Funds Terrorism
This list is not in order. In fact, it is *out* of order, just to
confuse you if you were thinking that it was in order. Except the
Mattin/Malfati cd, which is certainly my favorite disc that came out
this year.
Nirav -- the newsom would have made any such list, but I have to give the "best freak-folk disc of 2004" laurels to BORN HELLER (Locust).
I can't come up with 10, but new things I've really liked over the past 12 months:
Scott Fields / Jeff Parker SONG SONGS SONG (Delmark)
Rudresh Mahanthappa, MOTHER TONGUE (Pi)
Ellen Fullman, STAGGERED STASIS (Anomalous -- I believe this may already be OOP)
BROKENHEARTED DRAGONFLIES: INSECT ELECTRONICA FROM SOUTHEAST ASIA (Sublime Frequencies)
Sonny Simmons, JEWELS (Boxholder)
I liked that Fields/Parker thing and the Mahanthappa disc, too. (Also liked Parker's recent quartet disc, The Relatives, on Thrill Jockey.)
Posted by: phil at December 19, 2004 12:44 PMI need these last couple weeks to get ten...
Posted by: walto at December 19, 2004 1:08 PMUgh, I found that Parker disc ("The Relatives") almost unspeakably bad. For a guy with such talent, he is capable of putting out some bland martini-party shit.
Posted by: Jason at December 19, 2004 9:20 PMI listened and listened to the "document of their first duo show together," (Abbey), "so revealing" (Abbey)-of what? While we were waiting "for someone to review the new Erstwhiles (since nobody ever reviewed the last batch I WONDER WHY???)" (Warburton), we traded documents and firsts for music, "anyways"(sic)(Nirav).
Posted by: bush at December 19, 2004 11:34 PMOK, I don't expect to get any more discs this year, so...A caveat--More so than in the recent past, I was under severe, uxorially imposed financial constraints this year as far as music purchases, so the majority of my acquisitions were likley from discs sent for review (though, I hasten to add, I've always paid for my Ersts). This means my selection is more heavily weighted than normal to the eai end of the spectrum and suffered from a lack of new contemporary classical or world music additions. Be that as it may, my ten favorite recordings from this past year, in rough order of preference, were:
Keith Rowe/Burkhard Beins - s/t
Rowe/Dorner/Hautzinger - A View from the Window
Toshiya Tsunoda - Scenery of Decalcomania
Sachiko M - Bar Sachiko
I.S.O. - I.S.O.
Sachiko M/Nakamura/Yoshihide - Good Morning, Good Night
Toshimaru Nakamura - Side Guitar
Ferran Fages/Ruth Barberan/Alfredo Costa-Monteiro - Atolon
+Minus - First Meeting
Filament - Filament Box
Honorable mention:
Oren Ambarchi/Philip Samartzis - Strange Love
Oren Ambarchi - Grapes from the Estate
Axel Dorner/Tony Buck - Durch und Durch
Tomas Korber - Mass Production
Erik M/Gunter Muller/Toshi Nakamura - Why Not Bechamel?
Mattin/Dion Workman - Via Vespucci
Rowe/Nakamura/Lehn/Schmickler - s/t
Philip Samartzis - Soft and Loud
Tarab - Surfacedrift
Tsunoda/Stern/Tarab/English - Overland
We're Breaking Up - Here and Above
Also enjoyed:
Julien Ottavi - For Degradeable Music
MIMEO - Lifting Concrete Lightly
Rowe/Fennesz - Live at the LU
Baghdassarians/Baldschun/Bosetti/Doneda - Strom
Television Power Electric - 2
Monteiro/Barberan/Fages/Unami - Atami
Margarida Garcia/Mattin - For Permitted Consumption
Joel Stern/Anthony Guerra/Margarida Garcia - Hey Ya
Joe Colley - Desparate Attempts at Beauty
Samartzis/Lunding - Touch Parking
Dorner/Kelley/Neumann/Rainey - Thanks Cash
Thembi Soddell - Intimacy
Jeph Jerman - The Second Attention
Malfatti/Mattin - Whitenoise
For Flowers
Leandre/Maneri/Marguet/Ryan
leo
Good Morning Good Night
Sachiko M/Otomo/Nakamura
erstwhile
discrete moments
Tilbury/Prevost
matchless
En Passant
Rothenberg/Schmid
creative works
Radiolaria
Sharp/Orch. Carbon
sublingual
Willisau Suites
Kent Carter String Trio
emanem
Algonquin
Taylor/Maneri
bridge
The Space Between
Gelb/Oliveros/Reason/Leandre
482 music
Rowe/Beins
Erstlive 001
erstwhile
Hubbub
Hoib
matchless
I'd love to hear those Leandres...
I'll humbly give 5, given my now-limited access to radio promos:
Otomo/Toshimaru/Sachiko - GMGN (Erst)
Ali Akbar Khan - Swara Samrat (AMMP)
Tsunoda - Scenery (Naturestrip)
Radian - Juxtaposition (ThrillJ)
Pauline Oliveros - Tara's Room (Deep Listening)
live sets (happily bass-heavy):
1 (tie). Mark Dresser solo, alternately tuned and amplified, perforing works written for Robert Taplin's sculptures "The Outer Planets" in Wesleyan's Zilkha Gallery (Jan 23)
1 (tie). ErstQuake night 1 (Sept 17)
3. Sean Meehan solo at Gallery 107, Somerville, MA (March 13)
4. Stefano Scodanibbio solo recital, Columbia's Italian Inst. (Nov 17)
5. Meehan/Nakamura, ABC No Rio (Nov 6)
6. Tisziji Munoz w/John Lockwood and Bob Gullotti, Arlington Theater, Arlington, Ma (April 24)
7. GS Sachdev and Swapan Chaudhuri, Asia Society, NYC (Sept 14)
8. Rowe/Fennesz, MIT (May 25)
9. erstquake night 2 (Sept 18)
Isn't #6 above 2/3 of the great Fringe? Where is Garzone? Who is Munoz?
Just wondering,
Jesse
Yes! It was 2/3 of the Fringe on their home turf (or close to it; they were kicked out of the Lizard Lounge, with its carpets and good bar, last year), playing with this guitarist from outer space and a young bassist/student of his who was seriously overpowered. Tisziji is a phenomenon... I talked to him at WHRB the day before and disciples kept coming by to pay respects. He also kept insisting on how the compositions came from *out there*, when he clearly had lead sheets. Anyway, it ROCKED.
Posted by: Ryan at December 20, 2004 12:14 PMand for the record, I think Garzone is alive and well and the fringe play out in Inman Square now. And here's Tisziji: http://www.tisziji.com/. He's equal parts Pharoah Sanders, Sun Ra and Steve Vai.
Posted by: Ryan at December 20, 2004 12:17 PM"No self, no thought, no mind, equals no problemas" - Tisziji Muñoz
from his website:
http://www.tisziji.com/tisziji/Default.htm
Posted by: ND at December 20, 2004 12:19 PMHey, I was at that gig in Arlington, Ryan! Tisziji is a Mahvishnuesque guitarist and, apparently, holy-type personage. I enjoyed that concert.
Posted by: walto at December 20, 2004 12:22 PMRyan, you weren't digging the 2nd night of Amplify? Aaron Dilloway solo is tied with the Lescalleet/Barnes duo there (more spontaneous installation than "concert") for favorite shows of the year. Getting my glasses broken during Hair Police was one of the low points though.
Posted by: Nirav at December 20, 2004 7:18 PMI dug it very much, and those concerts #5-9 could be in any order, Eq probably floating towards the top. I do think that the first night was perfectly composed as a whole, even if the middle two sets drove my lady out of the room. I also thought that the 'installation' was unusual--my own listening expectations were really messed with, that's for sure, and I love that. One performer that didn't quite grab me on first listen was Dion Workman, but I expect that to change if I see him a few more times or really study Ching. I was also one of those people disappointed with the Barnes/Rowe closer, that may have colored it all in memory. But again, it's just my head. Or maybe it was that lunatic disrupting everything by taking pictures during all the soft moments... just pokin. Happy Shortest Day!
Posted by: Ryan at December 21, 2004 9:27 AMWatch it, dude (-:
Tim's mic's were *way* too low for that set, if he was louder, it would have been a lot different. I didn't see you at the EI thing recently, but I think that show gave a much better indication of what his duo with Rowe could have been like if he was up higher in the mix.
But I loved Dion's set, it was the sort of thick and monolithic drone that I can't get enough of. His duo disc with Mattin was not so much to my liking, but the upcoming duo with Ottavi is killer.
And now, since as of a few hours ago, I've finished my undergraduate education, I'm going to go get a cheeseburger, drink some more Scotch, and read some Borges.
Posted by: Nirav at December 21, 2004 5:37 PMCongratulations, Nirav!
Posted by: walto at December 22, 2004 6:42 AMMy top 20 (for stylus):
1. Sachiko M/Nakamura/Yoshihide - Good Morning, Good Night (Erstwhile) 30
2. Devendra Banhart - Rejoicing in the Hands (Young God) 8
3. Animal Collective - Sung Tongs (FatCat) 7
4. Keith Rowe/Burkhard Beins - ErstLive 001 (Erstwhile) 13
5. Filament - BOX (FMN Sound Factory) 7
6. Margarida Garcia/Mattin - For Permitted Consumption (L'innomable) 7
7. Mouse On Mars - Radical Connector (Thrill Jockey) 7
8. Prurient - Shipwrecker's Diary (Ground Fault) 7
9. Birchville Cat Motel - Beautiful Speck Triumph (Last Visible Dog) 7
10. Wooden Wand & Vanishing Voice - XIAO (De Stijl) 7
11. Yumiko Tanaka - Tautauta (IMFJ)
12. CocoRosie - La Maison De Mon Reve (Touch & Go)
13. Devendra Banhart - Nino Rojo (Young God)
14. Rollerball - Behind the Barber (Silber)
15. Hair Police - Rattlers Echo (Chondritic Sound)
16. Philip Jeck - 7 (Touch)
17. Fe-Mail/Lasse Marhaug - All Men Are Pigs (Gameboy)
18. Rowe/Dorner/Hautzinger - A View From the Window (Erstwhile)
19. Hive Mind - Sand Beasts (Chondritic Sound)
20. Xiu Xiu - Fabulous Muscles (5 Rue Christine)
I later thought I should probably have included Autistic Daughters somewhere, but que sara and all that.
Top Ten sent to Wire, IN ORDER
1. Akira Rabelais SPELLWAUERYNSHERDE Samadhi Sound
2. Mattin / Radu Malfatti WHITENOISE w.m.o/r
3. Brotherhood of Breath BREMEN TO BRIDGEWATER Cuneiform
4. Arthur Russell THE WORLD OF ARTHUR RUSSELL Soul Jazz
5. Korber / erikm / Nakamura / Otomo BRACKWATER For4Ears
6. Alterations VOILA ENOUGH Atavistic Unheard Music Series
7. Birchville Cat Motel BEAUTIFUL SPECK TRIUMPH Last Visible Dog
8. The Homosexuals THE HOMOSEXUALS CD ReR
9. John Kannenberg GELIDUS Retinascan
10. Alvin Curran LOST MARBLES Tzadik
Happy Christmas, folks.
Dan, you preferred the Soul Jazz comp to the two Audika Russell releases? I think I agree with you, but we're in a serious minority.
I bought the Rabelais a little while ago, but haven't heard more than a couple minutes of it yet.
Posted by: jon abbey at December 23, 2004 12:12 AM"Dan, you preferred the Soul Jazz comp to the two Audika Russell releases?"
Yep, that's right - though if my desert island were big enough I'd take them all.
"I think I agree with you, but we're in a serious minority."
Well as we started the year at loggerheads Jon it's cool to end it in agreement!
"I bought the Rabelais a little while ago, but haven't heard more than a couple minutes of it yet."
I dunno, I've heard from plenty of people who haven't been smitten, but I find it incredibly beautiful and moving - authentically folk in origin (as opposed to new weird America avant folk i.e. lads and lasses whose good intentions far outweigh their ability to actually play their instruments or pseud laptop Nordic trendy folk - is The Wire magazine secretly funded by covert donations from the Norwegian and Icelandic governments, I wonder?) AND state-of-the-art in terms of its software and structure. His 70 odd minute remix of Harold Budd is a bit cloying, but Spellwauerynsherde is wonderfully strange. One of my 2005 projects for PT is a good long interview with Akira.
yeah, I picked up both the Rabelais and the Budd because my gal is a big David Sylvian fan (they're both on his label, Samadhi Sound), and didn't like the Budd at all, that got passed on to her already.
Dan, I wouldn't say we're too much in agreement. besides the Russell, of the other five I've heard on your list, I intensely disliked one, thought a second was OK, two more were fine, and one was pretty good, albeit a bit overrated.
but one thing I did learn in 2004 was that nothing good comes from expressing negative opinions on Bags, as everyone in the world seems to lurk here, so I refuse to get more specific than that.
Posted by: jon abbey at December 23, 2004 7:34 AMThis is restricted to jazz/improv, as those are the only genres I've heard enough of this year to have a decent window on.
In no special order (this is a mix of two alphabetized lists sent to magazine & other stuff I didn't get the chance to include at the time)--
Keith Rowe/Burkhard Beins, Erstlive 001, Erstwhile
Simon Fell, SFQ, Red Toucan
Rudresh Mahanthappa, Mother Tongue, Pi
Bik Bent Braam, Growing Pains, Bik Bent Braam
Peter Brötzmann, Lisle Ellis, Marco Eneidi, Jackson Krall, Live at Spruce Street Forum, Botticelli
Joost Buis, Astronotes, Data
James Finn, Faith in a Seed, CIMP
John Hagen, Segments, Cadence
Frank Hewitt, We Loved You, Smalls Records
Tom Lawton, Retrospective/Debut, Dreambox Media
Less of Five, Acrobati Folli e Innamorati, Nine Winds
Larry Ochs, Joan Jeanrenaud, Miya Masaoka, Fly Fly Fly, Intakt
Evan Parker/Alex Von Schlippenbach/Paul Lytton, America 2003, Psi
Bite the Gnatze, Wilde dans in een afgelegen Berghut, Trytone
Dead Cat Bounce, Home Speaks to the Wandering, Innova
Harris Eisenstadt, Jalolu, CIMP
Geoff Goodman, Naked Eye, Tutu
Joe Hunt, The Joe Hunt Trio, Dreambox Media
Alexander Von Schlippenbach, Broomriding, Psi
Irène Schweitzer/Pierre Favre, Ulrichsberg, Intakt
Cecil Taylor/Mat Maneri, Algonquin, Bridge (even though I don't greatly like Maneri's work here, & the recording is lousy--Taylor's in terrific form)
Von Freeman, The Great Divide, Premonition
+minus, First Meeting, Trente Oiseaux
Scott Fields Ensemble, Christangelfox, 482 Music (probably an acquired taste--I know the percussion drives Dan nuts for one--but I quite like this one)
Ernesto Rodrigues, Gerhard Uebele, Guilherme Rodrigues, José Oliviera, Contre-Plongée: Six Cuts for String Quartet, Creative Sources
Carles Andreu/François Tusques, Arc Voltaic, In Situ
Based on just one listen (got it a few days ago) I suspect I'd probably add the Rivers/Rudolph/Eisenstadt disc on Meta too. Sam's in amazingly fine form on there.
here is my list broken into top 9 eai plus a bonus old school choice
1. I.S.O.- I.S.O ( sound techtonics )
2. Mota/Pauik/Rodrigues- Dorsal ( creative sources )
3. Lartner/ Nakamura- After school activity ( Impermanent )
4. Mattin/ Malfatti- Whitenoise ( w.m.o. )
5. Tilbury/ Prevost- Discrete moments ( matchless )
6. Yoshihide/ sachiko m/ Nakamura- Good Morning, Good Night ( erstwhile )
7. Dorner/ Kelley/ Neumann/ Rainey- Thanks Cash ( sedimental )
8. E. Rodrigues/ G. Rodrigues/ Garcia/ Monteiro- Cesura ( creative sources )
9. Mattin/ Unami- shiryo no computer ( w.m.o and Hibari )
10. Maneri/Phillips/Maneri- Angles of Repose ( ecm )
Posted by: saltwatersnow at December 24, 2004 12:32 AMin no particular order:
Gert-Jan Prins - Risk [Mego]
Stephan Mathieu - On Tape [Häpna]
Rosy Parlane - Iris [Touch]
Fages/Barberán/Costa Monteiro - Atolón [Rossbin]
Evan Parker Trio/Peter Brötzmann Trio - The Bishop's Move [Victo]
Oren Ambarchi - Grapes from the Estate [Touch]
Sachiko M/Nakamura/Otomo - Good Morning, Good Night [Erstwhile]
Fred Anderson/Hamid Drake - Back Together Again [Thrill Jockey]
Fabrice Eglin/Jérôme Noetinger - Psychotic Reactions & Lightnin' Rag [A Bruit Secret]
DJ/Rupture - Special Gunpowder [Very Friendly]
Wolf Eyes - Burned Mind [Sub Pop]
Feist - Let It Die [Polydor]
Doneda/Wright/Nakatani - In Between [Soseditions]
3/4HadBeenEliminated - s/t [Bowindo]
Tom Waits - Real Gone [Anti]
Brötzmann Chicago Tentet - Signs {OKKA]
album and album title of the year:
gutbucket-dry humping the american dream
Posted by: bill major at December 26, 2004 8:01 AMLovely Top 10 (s) And more and an
ongoing Merry Christmas
n
Posted by: Akchote Noel at December 26, 2004 11:45 AM
"but one thing I did learn in 2004 was that nothing good comes from expressing negative opinions on Bags, "
i can t say it has been a discovery but just a
"Verification", yes, for sure
"as everyone in the world seems to lurk here, so I refuse to get more specific than that."
Me neither
Just missing ENCORE Eminem from the list and the Tal Farlow Mosaic Box set
cheers
happy new year
and gone for good
n
Best shows I heard in 2004:
I.S.O. live in Seoul
Hong Chul-ki at Aura in Seoul
Pigeon at the Swamp in Oakland
Doug Theriault with a dancer (forgot the name?) at Performanceworks Northwest in Portland OR
Astronoise with Jojo Hiroshige at Bulgasari in Seoul
Jeep Quintet (harth, kae, choi, choi, varga) at the Watercock in Seoul
Ichiraku Yoshimitsu "Dora" jitter-video at Lovo in Seoul
Of what I heard this is what I liked.
2004 Favorites
Recorded Music:
Keith Rowe / Burkhard Beins ErstLive 001 (erstwhile records)
Jonathan Coleclough Makruna/Minya (ICR/Siren)
The Necks Drive By (ReR)
Keith Rowe / Axel Dörner / Franz Hautzinger A View From the Window (erstwhile records)
Sachiko M / Toshimaru Nakamura / Otomo Yoshihide Good Morning, Good Night (erstwhile records)
I.S.O. s/t (Sound Tectonics/YCAM)
John Tilbury / Edwin Prevost Discrete Moments (Matchless)
Mimeo Lifitng Concret Lightly (Serpentine Gallery)
Filament BOX (F.N.M Sound Factory)
Martin Ng / Tetuzi Akiyama OIMACTA (IMJ)
Others
Otomo Yoshihide/Park Je Chun/Mi Yeon (w/ Günter Müller/Tanaka/Sachiko M) Loose Community (IMJ)
Tim Hecker Mort Aux Vaches (Staalplaat)
Keith Rowe / Toshimaru Nakamura / Thomas Lehn / Marcus Schmickler ErstLive 002 (erstwhile records)
Broken Hearted Dragonflies: Insect Electronica From Southeast Asia (Sublime Frequencies)
Keith Fullerton Whitman schöner flußenge (Kranky)
Critters Buggin' Stampede (Ropeadope)
Radian Juxtaposition (Thrill Jockey)
Album I wished I'd discovered earlier:
Alan Lamb Night Passage & Demixed (Dorobo)
Reissues:
Brian Eno Reissues (Astralwerks) (Especially Another Green World and On Land)
Arthur Russell World of Echo (Audika)
Chariles Mingus The Great Concert of Charlie Mingus (Verve)
Live Music:
Cosmos
October 21, 2004
Vancouver New Music Festival
Vancouver, B.C. Canada
Kaffe Matthews
May 14, 2004
Polestar Music Gallery, Seattle WA
Wayne Horvitz's New Electric Quartet
January 23, 2004
Triple Door, Seattle WA
Anonymous 4
February 7, 2004
Town Hall, Seattle WA
Hesperion XXI
May 8th, 2004
Town Hall, Seattle WA
SIL2K MetaGame and The Great Learning
September 8, 2004
Cognitive Dissidents Bimonthly series
Coffee Messiah, Seattle WA
Wolfgang Fuchs, Anne LeBaron, Torsten Müller, Ronit Kirchman
May 15, 2004
Polestar Music Gallery, Seattle WA
Seattle Symphony Mahler 5, Haydn 100
June 27, 2004
Benaroya Hall, Seattle WA
Critters Buggin / Thruster
December 19, 2004
The Tractor Tavern, Seattle WA
Sweeter Than the Day
December 9th, 2004
The Jewel Box Theatre at The Rendezvous Theatre, Seattle WA
um, hi.
1) ORTHRELM live (www.millionraces.com)
2) DEERHOOF - Milk Man and live (twice)
3) ANDREW HILL 8tet - The Day the World Stood Still
4) BEHOLD... THE ARCTOPUS - Nano-Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning [advance, so not really fair!](www.beholdthearctopus.com)
5) PEOPLE (Mary Halvorson and Kevin Shea) [advance of as-yet-untitled CD] (maryhalvorson.blogspot.com)
6) Aa (Big A little a) (www.sleeep.com)
7) SNACK TRUCK - Harpoon (www.snacktruck.com)
8) news of HOOVER reunion
9) FACE! - Owl Playing a Saxophone (www.myspace.com/faceexclamationpoint)
10) Zs live (www.zzzsss.com)
11) JOHN FAHEY - The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick
12) SEAN MEEHAN/LE QUAN NINH/TATSUYA NAKATANI trio live
Whoa! Someone knows Snack Truck?! Matt's a super nice guy, maybe I should have seen one of the million shows they played when I was in class with him. If you see him, tell him Nirav from his Video Art class says hi.
Posted by: Nirav Soni at January 5, 2005 8:26 PMLate, I realize....
In no particular order:
-Keith Rowe/Franz Hautzinger/Axel Dorner - View from the Window
-Yaphet Kotto - We Bury Our Dead Alive
-Sachiko M/Otomo Yoshihide/Toshimaru Nakamura - Good morning....
-Toshimaru Nakamura/Brett Larner - After School Activities
-Animal Collective - Sung Tongs
-Hinyouki - Nyou
-Birchville Cat Motel "Beautiful Speck Triumph" (Probably my favorite of the year.... Very pissed at missing him play a few days ago).
-Burmese - Men
-Mark Wastell - Vibra 1
-Jack Wright/Tatsuya Nakatani/Michel Doneda
I wonder why nobody mentioned Looper - Squarehorse ?
Posted by: T*** at February 2, 2005 2:05 PMPresumably because:
1) because they hadn't heard it
or 2) they heard it but didn't like it all that much.
I'm in camp #1 myself.
Posted by: N.D. at February 4, 2005 8:24 PM"Presumably because:
1) because they hadn't heard it.
(....)
I'm in camp #1 myself."
I think you should listen to it,
it's even better than Nikos Veliotis' own "Radial"
mentioned on Bagatellen some time ago.
Great music.
The mysterious T*** has a point, Nate. But, as you probably know, it's on Absurd, which means it's a bugger to get hold of (I speak from experience!)
Posted by: Dan Warburton at February 6, 2005 6:25 AM"Mysterious T" also recommends (from 2004) Kesto by Pan Sonic and cd from trio of Blondy/Mariage/Warburton on Creative Sources
(in 2005 CSR has already released 2 very good albums - Kreis & Etwa)
I discovered Bagatellen recently and I've been looking forward to the
day when I would have a little time to pipe up a bit and join the
fun/indulgence. Skimming about the site I'm delighted by the quality
of content. I hope I'll dig into various items that caught my eye
sooner than later.
I couldn't resist offering a "best of 2004" list for this thread, and
I hope nobody is annoyed it's so late, because I'm a big fan of, uh
(euphemism alert), delayed discourse...
Of course this ritual is minimally meaningful, blah blah blah, but it
does occur to me that a vastly more satisfying type of list would be
"top albums heard for the first time" for a given year. (If that was
the case, I wouldn't have to think twice to put VU + Nico in the top
slot for 2004.) After all, there's so much arbitariness to the timing
of releases, usually delayed for several years from the recording
session itself for trivial socio-economic reasons, and the
distribution to different geo-social listener niches. Further, a list
of this sort would even more richly fulfill the two primary
justifications for annual "best of" lists as I understand them. These
two functions would be:
1) A useful, fun, disciplined, meaningfully contextualized "tip sheet"
to draw attention to works that may have somehow slipped under
someone's radar.
2) A set of data with which to conceptualize a given person's
individual aesthetic grammar(s), a theoretical exercise potentially
offering insight into one's own experience or the general
possibilities for parameterizing aesthetic experience.
With that reservation duly expressed, I hereby admit that I find
list-making (very) fun and I'm more than happy to play by the rules
and offer a "best of 2004"! (Only albums publicly released in 2004--no
bootlegs, demos, advance copies of 2005 releases, etc.) Being a
country-hick/farmer type of person (not a joke), I tend to be a little
out of touch with "the music world", so I apologize for all the dozens
of albums I simply haven't heard... Also, for what it's worth, more than half of my 2004 listening was spent getting up to speed on late 60s rock music.
Instead of using arbitrary size
constraints like "5" or "10", I'm simply listing **in ranked order**
the albums that went that ineffable step beyond "great album", because
of course there are dozens of other albums I found truly great (both
Nels Cline biggies from 2004 surprisingly didn't make the cut and were
resigned to merely "great"!)
2004 Better than Great Albums, Ranked
1. Tim Berne _Acoustic and Electric Hard Cell Live_
2. Ricardo Arias _Musica Global_
3. Jack Wright/Michel Doneda/Tatsuya Nakatani _from between_
4. David Gross/Liz Tonne _Performing Sunday 7:30_
5. Joe Maneri/Mat Maneri/Barre Philips _Angles of Repose_
6. Howard Stelzer _Cassette Recordings 98-04_ (volumes 1 & 2)
7. Tim Berne's Big Satan _Souls Saved Hear_
8. Trevor Dunn's Trio-Convulsant _Sister Phantom Owl Fish_
9. Jaap Blonk and Maja Ratkje _Improvisors_
10. Ahleuchatistas _The Same and the Other_
11. Ahleuchatistas _On the Culture Industry_
12. Doneda/Sawai/Imai/Le Quan/Saitoh _Une Chance pour l'Ombre_
13. Hella _The Devil Isn't Red_
14. Buckethead _Cuckoo Clocks of Hell_
15. Magda Mayas/Sabine Vogel/Michael Renkel
16. Blonk/Dutton/Makigami/Minton/Moss _Five Men Singing_
17. Claudia Quintet _I, Claudia_
18. Doerner/Kelley/Neumann/Rainey _Thanks, Cash_
19. Scorch Trio _Luggumt_
20. _Brokenhearted Dragonflies: Insect Electronica from Southeast Asia_
21. Schwimmer _7x4x7_
22. Fuchs/Lindsay/Smith/Baghdassarians/Baltschun _The Happymakers_
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