I think I'll pass on the Best Ofs this time round. A frustrating, depressing and ultimately pretty pointless exercise. I did it reluctantly for The Wire but am not sure I agree with my choices anymore.

Understood, Dan. But I disagree about it being an unequivocally pointless exercise. Perhaps a better header is “An Ad Hoc List of Music I Enjoyed This Year”. The danger & depression comes, I think, in attempting to devise something definitive & permanent. I like reading about what other people like, gives me ideas about what to check out that’s so far escaped my listening radius.

Besides, we're only halfway thru December, still lots of interesting '07 stuff coming through the pipeline.

Each year I find the act of making these kinds of lists more and more frustrating. The local mag Offbeat asked for a list from me so I did one of memorable gigs this year, thinking that would be something I could get behind more than a list of CD releases (since I very often don't hear CD's til much later and then it's often another year or more before something reveals itself as having real staying power...).

But even then I ran into a problem because they needed the list for their December issue. A week or so after submitting it I saw two of the BEST gigs I saw all year, hands down - Melt Banana and the Kaufman/DeJoode/Gratkowski trio. arrrgg!

And so it goes. But I do like checking out lists from writers I like (Dan W., for ex.) cuz I figure they heard a helluva lot more than I did and I'll likely wanna check out a thing or 2 that they recommend. It's just a harder thing to concoct these days with the flood of releases.

I think most people have a love-hate relationship with this

Derek's post seems to sum it up

Maybe we should say: my favorite musical moments (whether on cd or live) from 2007 at this very moment in time.

And you can always come back to this thread and add/correct/whatever, to keep the discussion going and healthy. Nothing has to be written in stone.

but please wait till the year has passed!
Does December not count....?
(and the time after, so let's say, do this list in March 2008, so there is some time to...etc ....... etc....)

Cor

Rob, I think if you trawl through the things I've reviewed for The Wire (more so than PT, where I sometimes review things I like less) you'd get a good idea of some of this year's personal favourites. But there are plenty of things I've liked - Keith Rowe's "The Room" being an obvious example - that I haven't found time (or the right words) to write about which I've enjoyed enormously. FWIW, the album I chose as no 1 for Wire was Susan Alcorn's "And I Await The Resurrection Of The Pedal Steel Guitar" on Olde English Spelling Bee, probably because I had more time to spend listening to it than many others.
The REISSUES of the year for The Wire poll were as follows:
Noah Howard THE BLACK ARK Boweavil
SME QUINTESSENCE Emanem
Eliane Radigue JETSUN MILA Lovely Music
Borbetomagus LIVE IN ALLENTOWN Agaric
"Blue" Gene Tyranny OUT OF THE BLUE Unseen Worlds
So much for saying I wasn't going to play ;-)

There are also the cds I heard this year for the first time, whether they came out this year or not, like e.sonata, Urs Liemgruber, Müller and the Arte Quartet.
As well some incredible bootlegs like Kowald/Sommer/Smith with Bobby Naughton.
I'll think about it more and put a list together.

Again, this little invitation isn’t intended to cause any migraines or ulcers. Just meant as an opportunity to list/discuss things you’ve enjoyed this year. Even the loose ’07 parameter is open to interpretation.

Dan, no mention of the John Stevens/Evan Parker reissue on Ogun? I’d have thought for sure that would make your cut.

FWIW here's">http://www.ndorward.com/blog/?page_id=90">here's the list I've been putting together--it's still having things added & subtracted as I hear them.

Haven't got the Ogun reissue--I found Corner to Corner very tough going but I'm told that The Longest Night is the real classic there in any case.

I agree w/ Cor's post.

Also, Dan, let's not be ridiculous -- there is nothing pointless about devising such a list. That's just the ego talking.

Indeed it is. You got a problem with that?

No I haven't got the Stevens disc you mention.

Stockhausen died 2 days ago.

Just heard about 10 minutes ago via email & drafted a blog post, however paltry.

Wasn't able to vote for Live In Allentown in the Village Voice jazz critics' poll, since I wrote the liner notes, but I'm damn glad it's out there, and nice to see it recognized.

My Top Ten, as submitted to the Voice:
Fred Anderson/Hamid Drake, From The River To The Ocean (Thrill Jockey)
David Torn, Prezens (ECM)
Arve Henriksen, Strjon (Rune Grammofon)
Supersilent, 8 (Rune Grammofon)
Satoko Fujii Quartet, When We Were There (Polystar)
David S. Ware, Renunciation (AUM Fidelity)
Matthew Shipp, Piano Vortex (Thirsty Ear)
Jacques Coursil, Clameurs (Sunnyside)
Other Dimensions In Music, Live At The Sunset (Marge)
Burnt Sugar, Live From Minnegiggle Falls (Trugroid)

Reissues:
Miles Davis, The Complete On The Corner Sessions (Sony)
Andrew Hill, Compulsion (Blue Note)
Noah Howard, The Black Ark (Bo' Weavil)

Things released in 2007 that i was interested enough in to listen to more than once:

The Flying Luttenbachers - Incarceration By Abstraction
Weasel Walter - Firestorm
The Peter Evans Quartet
Marnie Stern - In Advance of the Broken Arm
Mayhem - Ordo Ad Chao
Miles Davis - The Complete On the Corner Sessions
StSanders "Shred videos" on Youtube
Dirty Projectors - Rise Above
Masayuki Takayanagi - La Grima
Malignancy - Inhuman Grotesqueries
Zs - Arms

things not released in 2007 that made things better:

Hawkwind - homemade best of (3.5 hours, emphasis on "in search of space" through "hall of the mountain grill")
The Sweet - All
Yosuke Yamashita Trio - any 1970-1978 recordings
Alfonia Tims - Future-Funk/Uncut!
James Blood Ulmer - Freelancing
Defunkt - Thermonuclear Sweat
The Polyphonic Spree "Soldier Girl" (uk single version)
Jet - s/t 1975

>>Malignancy - Inhuman Grotesqueries

This album is indeed killer. Have you heard Defeated Sanity or Internal Suffering, Weasel? They both have new things out and are on a similar level of extremity, I'd say.

Judging by the mayhem happening on the torrent trackers, Led Zep's gig in London on Monday night surely tops any 2007 year's best list?!

fuck me! LedZep reunited? That's bloody ridiculous!
Next thing you're gonna tell me is the Beatles got back together ;)

Or Circle!

"Next thing you're gonna tell me is the Beatles got back together ;)"
Wouldn't take much to organise that.. two bullets is all you need..

No, man - all you need is LOVE (Tah-ta-Rah-ra-RAH!)

Yours
The Walrus

"fuck me! LedZep reunited? That's bloody ridiculous!"

Tom - I thought the same (and I still think) but I got a clip of their version of "Black Dog" on the news two days ago and, believe me, they kicked ass! The old fuckers can still play, and Jason Bonham sounds exactly like dad. Pathetic and exciting at one and the same time.

An idea for the Best Of 2007:

Reinhold Friedl's "Xenakis [a]live!" on Asphodel. Just awesome.

Just in:

Ike Turner's dead. Does anyone care?

hey massimo -
i posted word about Ike's death on the Stockhausen thread yesterday, and to answer yr question I definitely do - unironically - care. Ike was a major talent whose contributions were unfortunately (though definitely his own fault) overshadowed by his brutish and tawdry personal life. But check out "Rocket 88," "Matchbox" or any of his slicing solos and trem-bar madness on the 'Ike's Instrumentals' comp CD to hear him at his best...

I read Ben Ratliff’s Zep write up in the NYT, but had a hard time getting past the “how cosmically cool would it be to fly to London just to cover that gig” aspect of the piece. Sounds like they rocked it though.

I’m w/ Rob on that Ike’s Instrumentals comp, killer stuff and evidence of an early ascendancy amongst whammy bar royalty. His other Ace collections aren’t too shabby either.

Uh-Oh!
Rob,
I saw your post about Ike Turner's death only after reading the news for the first time myself and writing my post here; consider that "Just In" as a personal "Just In", not a try to break the news. Being Italy an underdeveloped area, the news was obviously late (a few lines, no one gives a damn, everything talking about domestic violence on Tina of course).
I stress that I was NOT ironic, mine was a kind of question like "is there anyone around who still cares about Ike Turner these days?", but I didn't mean to offend his legacy. I do know what the cat's value was, I was probably too synthetic . And, very sincerely, I don't care about family matters when the music is good, otherwise we should erase three quarters of our record collections I believe...
Given your guitar-related comments about IT, you should be a Johnny Guitar Watson fan, are you?

Massimo -
no offense taken, bro. but glad to get clarification on yr Ike thoughts. I tend to take up for him a bit, musically-speaking, cuz I think his work is under-heard and such due to the attention directed at his personal problems. But as you said, if we're gonna throw out someone's music due to their personal conduct then get ready to lose a lot of yr record collection! Let's start with the Miles section (a hefty chunk of my shelf) then those Velvets (both Reed + Cale were less than swell in their day) and James Brown... Nah, not gonna do it.

Johnny Guitar Watson - yes! For both his playing and wicked/surreal humour. Another dude who doesn't get mentioned nearly often enough is Robert Nighthawk - he was one of Ike's mentors in fact. There's a killer disc on Delmark.

But i suppose this could be directed over to the Ike thread now... A good place for citing some of these under-sung blues/r'n'b guit'slingers.

Agreed. Thanks for your understanding, Rob.

I doubt that we'd know about Ike's domestic methods hadn't Tina become so famous.

To wrap it all with a Johnny Guitar Watson pseudo-connection, one of the best (and largely unknown) performances by Tina is to be found as backing vocalist in Frank Zappa's "Apostrophe".

"Look here BRA-THA, who you jivin' with that Cosmik Debris?"

now that i didnt know. tina sings on apostrophe... got to get out the magnifying glass to read those wonderful liner notes, at least on cd.

Harris,

she is not officially credited. Tina and The Ikettes are in there, both in Apostrophe and Overnite Sensation ("Debbie and Lynn" in the credits). Theirs are the female vocals in "I'm the Slime" too.

I seem to recall you can spot her quite clearly on "Dinah Moe Hum" ("I gotta spot that gets me hot / but you ain't been to it" etc). But I'm not all that interested in getting the album out to check. Have been enjoying some of the Zappa Youtube links over at IHM, though.

That's right chief. Tina & The Ikettes are featured whenever you hear female vocals in the two above mentioned albums.
I won't get them out either...I know them almost verbatim, haha.

Kiss my aura, Dora..

http://www.theonion.com/content/amvo/ike_turner_dead

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/32818

Getting back to the original topic, here's my list, such as it is. But first, a word:

Being an ill-paid civil servant with family responsibilities, I'm forced to depend on the used bins at Amoeba Records to feed my CD-a-day habit. I'm usually two to five years behind the rest of the world--haven't come close to catching up with the new releases of 2006. So, the following isn't really my 'Top N CDs of 2007' list...if I could afford first-run CDs, the list would be four or five times as long. Instead, this is my 'Ten 2007 CDs That Showed Up In The Used Bins At Haight Street Amoeba In 2007 And That I'm Reasonably Certain Will, Based on Purely Subjective Criteria, Appear On My 5-Star Records List When I Finally Have A Chance To Really Listen To Them' list.

Sten Sandell Trio OVAL [Piano is probably my least favorite instrument--though you'd never guess that from looking at my CD collection--and p/b/dr is definitely my least favorite instrumental combination, but I loved this from first note to last. Hit replay a couple of times the first time I listened. Can't wait to hear the trio w/ John Butcher.]

Cold Bleak Heat SIMITU [I've liked everything I've heard from Flaherty, except the solo stuff. This is as exciting as anything he's ever done.]

FREE ZONE APPLEBY 2006 [FZA is usually a pretty safe bet for a 'best of'. Not sure about the piano duet that ends the CD, but all the rest is fine.]

Bruce Eisenbeil Sextet INNER CONSTELLATION VOLUME 1 [Maybe not quite as spectacular as last year's CARNIVAL SKIN, but...when a fifty-minute track has you on the edge of your seat throughout, that can only be a good sign.]

Herb Robertson PARALLELISMS [No surprise how good this is, given the personnel. I'm not sure how I feel about Fernandez' prepared piano work, though--it seems a little clunky to me. Would've preferred that he stick to, um, unprepared piano.]

Scott Fields Ensemble WE WERE THE PHLIKS [Fields just seems to get better & better. I found some of his earlier stuff no more than mildly interesting, but lately...]

Houle/Parker/Delbecq LA LUMIERE DE PIERRES [I've been looking forward to this one for years, ever since Houle mentioned it on his site. For me, it definitely lived up to expectations. If I had to choose just one Delbecq, though, his duets with Houle on DICE THROWN might just edge this one out.]

Trio of Uncertainty UNLOCKED [Has Veryan Weston ever made a bad record?]

Wilkerson/Edwards/Noble OBLIQUITY [Good to see this disc get some love in the latest issue of SIGNAL TO NOISE--haven't seen any other reviews. Aside from an interlude of vocal silliness in the last track, which may not wear well, the rest is just as good as you'd expect from this encounter.]

Stefano Battaglia RE: PASOLINI [Disc Two only; Disc One is kinda schmaltzy. I've only given it a couple of spins, but the second disc might turn out to be as fine as Disc Two of RACCOLTO.]

And, as Nate Dorward points out in his best-of, let's not forget Reuben Radding's "12 in 2007" project--12 CDs' worth of free Free Jazz. I just finished downloading the last few months' postings, and haven't gotten around to giving any of them the attention they deserve, but I'm expecting that almost all of them will make the cut.

If anyone hasn't downloaded these files yet, a word of warning: according to the Speakeasy thread on "12 in 2007", Radding will be removing the files from his site at the end of January.

Getting back to the original topic, here's my list, such as it is. But first, a word:

Being an ill-paid civil servant with family responsibilities, I'm forced to depend on the used bins at Amoeba Records to feed my CD-a-day habit. I'm usually two to five years behind the rest of the world--haven't come close to catching up with the new releases of 2006. So, the following isn't really my 'Top N CDs of 2007' list...if I could afford first-run CDs, the list would be four or five times as long. Instead, this is my 'Ten 2007 CDs That Showed Up In The Used Bins At Haight Street Amoeba In 2007 And That I'm Reasonably Certain Will, Based on Purely Subjective Criteria, Appear On My 5-Star Records List When I Finally Have A Chance To Really Listen To Them' list.

Sten Sandell Trio OVAL [Piano is probably my least favorite instrument--though you'd never guess that from looking at my CD collection--and p/b/dr is definitely my least favorite instrumental combination, but I loved this from first note to last. Hit replay a couple of times the first time I listened. Can't wait to hear the trio w/ John Butcher.]

Cold Bleak Heat SIMITU [I've liked everything I've heard from Flaherty, except the solo stuff. This is as exciting as anything he's ever done.]

FREE ZONE APPLEBY 2006 [FZA is usually a pretty safe bet for a 'best of'. Not sure about the piano duet that ends the CD, but all the rest is fine.]

Bruce Eisenbeil Sextet INNER CONSTELLATION VOLUME 1 [Maybe not quite as spectacular as last year's CARNIVAL SKIN, but...when a fifty-minute track has you on the edge of your seat throughout, that can only be a good sign.]

Herb Robertson PARALLELISMS [No surprise how good this is, given the personnel. I'm not sure how I feel about Fernandez' prepared piano work, though--it seems a little clunky to me. Would've preferred that he stick to, um, unprepared piano.]

Scott Fields Ensemble WE WERE THE PHLIKS [Fields just seems to get better & better. I found some of his earlier stuff no more than mildly interesting, but lately...]

Houle/Parker/Delbecq LA LUMIERE DE PIERRES [I've been looking forward to this one for years, ever since Houle mentioned it on his site. For me, it definitely lived up to expectations. If I had to choose just one Delbecq, though, his duets with Houle on DICE THROWN might just edge this one out.]

Trio of Uncertainty UNLOCKED [Has Veryan Weston ever made a bad record?]

Wilkerson/Edwards/Noble OBLIQUITY [Good to see this disc get some love in the latest issue of SIGNAL TO NOISE--haven't seen any other reviews. Aside from an interlude of vocal silliness in the last track, which may not wear well, the rest is just as good as you'd expect from this encounter.]

Stefano Battaglia RE: PASOLINI [Disc Two only; Disc One is kinda schmaltzy. I've only given it a couple of spins, but the second disc might turn out to be as fine as Disc Two of RACCOLTO.]

And, as Nate Dorward points out in his best-of, let's not forget Reuben Radding's "12 in 2007" project--12 CDs' worth of free Free Jazz. I just finished downloading the last few months' postings, and haven't gotten around to giving any of them the attention they deserve, but I'm expecting that almost all of them will make the cut.

If anyone hasn't downloaded these files yet, a word of warning: according to the Speakeasy thread on "12 in 2007", Radding will be removing the files from his site at the end of January.

A little help against double posts, which I already gave elsewhere in Bags:

1)One click on "POST" only
2)Wait a couple of seconds
3)Refresh the page - the post is there already

Thanks, Massimo, I'll use that trick the next time I post.

In this case, I don't think it would've helped, so here's a caution:

If your browser hangs for ten or fifteen minutes & you eventually get an error message saying that your transaction failed, DON'T ASSUME THE ERROR MESSAGE IS CORRECT. If you wait half an hour or so & return to the Bags site, you may well find that the post actually went thru OK.

Here are some of my favorites from 2007:

Celebrations - Gratkowski, Robertson, Nabatov, Manderscheid

The Advocate - Oxley, Bailey

The Geometry of Sentiment - Butcher

One - R/S (Rehberg, Schmickler)

Vorhernach - Dorner, Nakamura

Composition/Improvisation Nos 1,2&3 - Roscoe Mitchell (et al)

Palae - Kaufmnann, Gratkowski, De Joode

Missed one, sorry:

Slur - Phil Minton Quartet

"Houle/Parker/Delbecq LA LUMIERE DE PIERRES [I've been looking forward to this one for years, ever since Houle mentioned it on his site. For me, it definitely lived up to expectations. If I had to choose just one Delbecq, though, his duets with Houle on DICE THROWN might just edge this one out.]"

I was actually disappointed with this one. I felt like Houle and Delbecq had something going on with the delicate pretty stuff and Parker's playing just didn't fit in, and Houle seemed to be trying to bridge the gap but it didn't quite work.

Talking of disappointing, I didn't like that Minton disc much, actually (just very bitty--gimme the James Joyce album any day), nor the Gratkowski/Robertson/Nabatov/Manderscheid (nice stuff in there but spread very thin over long tracks).

For Minton the clear winner is the duo with Sophie Agnel, which is amazing stuff.

"Talking of disappointing, I didn't like that Minton disc much, actually (just very bitty--gimme the James Joyce album any day), nor the Gratkowski/Robertson/Nabatov/Manderscheid (nice stuff in there but spread very thin over long tracks)."

For me, that bitty-ness on the Minton recording is a plus. I like the fact that there is a lot of space, but that the music nevertheless retains a lot of vigorous interaction.

On Celeberations, I have to admit that I have loved everything I've heard from Gratkowski for the last 2 years, and that is in no small part due to Gratkowski's playing on it's own, so I may be biased in that regard.

Seconds on Slur. I’m not down with most Minton I’ve heard, but that one clicks, mainly because he reels in the glossolalia and makes it more of an ensemble record.

Please keep these coming, some good discussion here.

My favourite releases of 2007. The list includes reissues and late 2006 releases, which I first listened to in 2007.

1. Mersault - Raymond & Marie (Formed)
2. Klaus Lang - Missa Beati Pauperes Spiritus (Col Legno)
3. Eliane Radigue - Jetsun Mila (Lovely Music)
4. Christian Weber - 3 Suites & A Violin (Hatology)
5. Franz Hautzinger - Gomberg II: Profile (Loewenhertz)
6. Keith Rowe - The Room (Erstwhile)
7. David Tudor - Music For Piano (Edition RZ)
8. Klaus Lang - Einflat.stille (Edition RZ)
9. Earle Brown - Tracer (Mode)
10. Sabine Vogel - Aus Des Fotoalbum Eines Pinguins (Creative Sources)
11. Tomas Korber/Christian Weber/Katsura Yamauchi - Signal To Noise Vol. 2 (For 4 Ears)
12. Rhodri Davies - Over Shadows (Confront)
13. Sabine Vogel/Magda Mayas/Michael Renkel - Phono_Phono (Absinth)
14. Radu Malfatti - Rain Speak Soft Tree Listens (b-boim)
15. Susan Alcorn - And I Await ... The Resurection Of The Pedal Steel Guitar (Olde English Spelling Bee)
16. James Saunders - #(Unassigned) (Confront)
17. Cor Fuhler - Stengam (Potlatch)
18. Muta - Yesterday Night You Were Sleeping At My Place (Sofa)
19. Alessandro Bosetti - Her Name (Crouton)
20. Steve Harris Zaum - I Hope You Never Love Anything As Much As I Love You (Amazon)

and my list... obviously excluding Cathnor releases, but also excluding reissues so that the list fully reflects 2007:

1. Keith Rowe – The Room (Erstwhile)
2. Taku Unami – Malignitat (Hibari)
3. Sachiko M – Salon de Sachiko (Ftarri)
4. Toshimaru Nakamura, Lucio Capece – iJ (Formed)
5. Klaus Lang – einfalt.stille (Editions RZ)
6. Toshimaru Nakamura, Axel Dorner – Vorhernach (Ftarri)
7. Radu Malfatti – Rain speak soft tree listens (B-boim)
8. Klaus Lang – Missa beati paperes spiritu (Col Legno)
9. Angharad Davies, Tisha Mukarji – endspace (Another Timbre)
10. Eric Carlsson, David Lacey, Martin Kuchen, Paul Vogel – Chipshop Music (Homefront)
11. Mark Wastell – Come Crimson Rays (Kning Disk)
12. Bhob Rainey, RLW – I don’t think I can see you tonight (Sedimental)
13. Ryu Hankil, Jin Sangtae, Taku Unami, Mattin – 5 Modules III (Manual)
14. The Sealed Knot – Live at The Red Hedgehog 29th October 2006 (Confont)
15. Annette Krebs, Robin Hayward – Sgraffito (Self released)
16. Radu Malfatti, Jurg Frey, Michael Pisaro – Three Backgrounds (B-boim)
17. Taku Sugimoto, MitsuhiroYoshimura – Not BGM and so on (h)earrings)
18. Takefumi Naoshima, Hirozumi Takeda, Utah Kawasaki, Toshihro Koike, Takehiro Kawauchi, Yasuo Totsuka - Septet (Meena)
19. Axel Dorner, Lucio Capece – s/t (L’innomable)
20. Tomas Korber, Katsura Yamauchi, Christian Weber – Signal to Noise Vol.2 (For4 Ears)

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. Keith Rowe/Cor Fuhler - s/t (Conundrom)
4. Chukp'a/Tong Jun Kim - Korean Kayagum Music: Sanjo (King World Music Library)
5. Alfredo Costa Monteiro - Z=78 (pt:195.09) (Audiobot)
6. Dropp Ensemble - The Empire Builders (Longbox)
7. Djemal Saparova/Rustan Bairamov - Songs of Turkmenistan (King WML)
8. Tsui-Yuen Lui - Chinese Classical Masterpieces (Lyrichord)
9. Ferran Fages - A cavall entre dos cavalls (Creative Sources)
10. Kim Suk Chul - Shamans of the Eastern Seaboard (Alula)
11. Phill Niblock - Touch Food (touch)
12. Bade Ghulum Ali Khan - Gunkali-Malkauns (HMV)
13. (Various) Rembetika (JSF)

*Had Tilbury's live recording of "For Bunita Marcus" been released, it may well

have taken top honors overall.

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)

You'll have to convince me about the Noid and the Ottavi, Brian. Shostakovich quartets, eh? (Thanks Keith!) You're a cheery soul. Impressive, but dismal. Give me Bartok any day :) Happy New Year - and good luck with the book, amigo!

Top Five, and that's all:

Genesis "Selling England By The Pound"
Yes "Tales From Topographic Oceans"
Frank Zappa "Overnite Sensation"
Henry Cow "Legend"
Microbo "Still Alive!"

Ooops, sorry haha - I erroneously inserted four from my bigger sister's favourites list in 1973, and the last one is a homage of mine to a cat pronounced dead/missing three times recently, and who instead came back healthy every time!

Happy 2008, you all!

Happy New Year all. Anyway heres mine, as posted elsewhere. For details see this blog post

20 recordings I found most interesting in 2007:

David Tudor - Music for Piano (Edition RZ)
Keith Rowe projects - The Room / sight ( with MIMEO) (Erstwhile/Cathnor)
Allan MacDonald - Dastirum (Siubhal)
Mitsuhiro Yoshimura projects - and so on and with Taku Sugimoto - not BGM and so on ( (h)ear rings)
Sachiko M - Salon de Sachiko (Hitorri)
Annette Krebs/Robin Hayward - sgraffito (no label)
Eliane Radigue Archival Releases - Jetsun Mila (lovely) / CHRY-PTUS (Schoolmap)
Nate Wooley - The Boxer (EMR)
Morton Feldman - String Quartet Performed by the Ives Ensemble (hatART)
Christopher DeLaurenti - Favorite Intermissions (GD Stereo)
Ryu Hankil/Choi Joonyong/Hong Chulki/Park Seungjun/Taku Unami/Mattin - 5 Modules I-IV (Manual)
Angharad Davies/Tisha Mukarji - Endspace (Another Timbre)
Dave Barnes/Graham Stephenson - untitled, self-released, hand-packaged cdr $8
Taku Unami - Malignitat (skiti)

D'oh! Left out the Tudor from my subsidiary list, an obvious selection.

"Both the brainchildren of Rowe so the prejudice couldn't be more apparent but, that's the way it goes."

I think "Sight", is much more a collaborative effort then people realize. As was the case with "Hands of Carravagio".

but,
History repeats itself, history repeats itself, history repeats itself, but his-story is not my-story, what's your-story? Sun Ra

Cor

I'm sure "sight" was highly collaborative (of course) but I recall Keith telling me about the idea for the piece a good year or two before its actualization, so (assuming that idea itself wasn't the result of some collaborative effort--maybe it was?) I feel safe in assigning him credit for the kernel that got things going.

I'm sure "sight" was highly collaborative (of course) but I recall Keith telling me about the idea for the piece a good year or two before its actualization, so (assuming that idea itself wasn't the result of some collaborative effort--maybe it was?) I feel safe in assigning him credit for the kernel that got things going.

"I'm sure "sight" was highly collaborative (of course) but I recall Keith telling me about the idea for the piece a good year or two before its actualization, so (assuming that idea itself wasn't the result of some collaborative effort--maybe it was?) I feel safe in assigning him credit for the kernel that got things going."

Sure, I was just trying to keep things in ballance here, just adding a side-note, which I should have made clear in the first place. Sorry.

We all felt that we should do something not concertwise but more conceptual via internet etc. So it was maybe not soo difficult to come up with an idea.
And also, if I would have come up with something, it would have had a lot less enthousiasm/credit/chance than when it would have come from Keith.
Which is basicaly what I meant....
But so it goes.
Great cd it is, and that's what matters, and I'll support any comming idea from Keith for sure!
I just hope when I'm 60+, people will do the same........

Cor

Hi Cor,

Curious--do the other members of MIMEO routinely come up with ideas for the group? I had the impression that MIMEO projects, limited though the opportunities may be, tended to be based on one person's concept for a given date (was it Kaffe Matthews' for the Serpentine?). I would've thought that, maybe, this function would be rotated through the members, at least among those who were interested, allowing each musician an opportunity, at least if everyone voted to go for it.

Although maybe that's the sticking point? That you can't rustle up a majority for every given idea? If so, it might be too bad, if it's the case that some ideas never get a chance to see if they'd flower into something. Majorities are often wrong...

"The roar of the masses could be farts."

~ The Minutemen

Lovely quote Warne, or whatever yr name is this year, but am I right in interpreting your post as a veiled criticism of the MIMEO disc and those who like it?

want to break slightly off topic here while cor is looking in and rowe is in the air to say the s/t duo on conundrom by rowe and cor which i just got from erst dist a few days ago is a killer. it is one of those disks where you kind of know what ir will sound like going in and it sounds like that so your expectations lower maybe for a sceond but then 15 minutes have gone by and you are totally swept away in it. if i had a top list it would have a place so well done.

No need to get testy, Dan. Just riffing on Brian’s “Majorities are often wrong…”. I actually haven’t heard the MIMEO so for all I know it’s the greatest thing since sliced SPAM.