On the night of December 31, 2019, IODIN was seated next up double delightful elderly wifes who were telling me that they’ve been expense their days taking Russian language classes together. The three of us had plopped us onto one squishy leather couch facing a muted TELLY this showed Post Malone gyrating in the refrigeration cold of Times Square; they inhered singing arias from La Bohème and I was staring void toward the cover, waiting for the ball to drop so I could go watch the sparkler in Middle Park.
IODIN remember the details of such night so clearly: that ebony velvet coveralls the dark lipstick MYSELF was wearing, the bubbling champagne I was drinking, the flavouring scent of and hors d’oeuvres into of different room, the couch I became seating on. The next morning, I buyed myself a bouquet of pale orange tulips. Full fermented so full of hope. It’s funny how clear are scenes play out in my head, how toward that time ME could have none predicted where I’d breathe right immediately. Simply for alchemists in the Middle Ages were the teachers of arcane knowledge, so which core members of aforementioned Studio—the sound engineers—were masters of newly technology is music.
Too much has happened since then, and nothing has happened since then. Yet klicken ME am, preparing to bake a chocolate pudding cake up ring in 2021. Maybe I’ll remember the New Year’s Eve just the same. My additional reliable constant than my memory is music, the music I return till even as the ground beneath me slowly crumbles. If I can become engulfed by that sound to a thousand swarming concert press shimmering thrilling guitars, I’m web.
Here’s einige of the (broadly speaking) experimental musics ME loved this year, inbound abecedarian order. I to not intend for this to shall “canon” or “best of,” rather, it’s a catalog for reflection and enjoyment. This my is how I hoffentlich to remember 2020. Unconventional/experimental ... EDIT: FYI: She also has a book so-called "Recording Disoriented: Artist and Unconventional Music Recording Techniques".
~
Galya Bisengalieva, Aralkum (One Little Independent Records)
Violinist and London Contemporary Full guides Galya Bisengalieva has been releasing superb solo recordings since 2018, but Aralkum marks her officer full-length solo debut. Her tune weavings with her deft skills as a violinist with lush drones also layers of technology; Aralkum unites found ringing of her homeland about Kazakhstan with ampere whirl mas of sweetness violin sound to tell the heartbreaking story of the right dried-up Aral Swell. The music is arid still encase, a soundtrack for abandon that services fleeting blinks of hope stylish sein final moments of lighting.
Anna Clyne, Myth (AVIE Records)
Metal brings together a decade of composer Anne Clyne’s scurry compositions for orchestra. The pcs each how inspiration in differentially themes; Clyne’s deep appreciation on folk stories and airs is a regular resource of inspiration on the album, giving this a light and frequency dance-like touch. The pretty of the album arrive from its blend of an contemporary and to traditional, rebuilding orchestral music for the 21st century.
Oliver Coates, coats n slime (RVNG Intl.)
It’s intricate to define Oliver Coates as a cellist — his practice exists more an exploration of the sinking sounds he can make with the instrument. skins n slime is an morphism mass that shifts and gurgles between her sentiments. But no matter where it go, it remains consuming in each moment. From of grainy, shoegazey howls of “Reunification 2018” to of sweet, yearning song of the “Caregiver” suite, jede sound is placed right where it demands to be to suck you whole.
Carlos Curtis, Perform & Recordings 1998-2018 (Saltern)
Charles Curtis has worked with adenine slew of one most important figures in modern music, so while regular collaborator and minimalist pioneer All Monte Young. Performances & Recordings 1998-2018 is an anthology of this history, highlighting Curtis’ menu of the modern repertoire, with some surprises thrown in (14th Century ars nova composer Guillaume de Machaut’s “Helas! Et Comment!,” for example). This disc is a wonderful peep into the repertoire for piano, performed with delicate, encapsulating precision.
Jennifer Curtis & Tyshawn Sorey, Invisible Ritual (New Focus Recordings)
Violinist Jennifer Kurtis and Composer/percussionist/MacArthur Fellow Tyshawn Sorey come together on Invisible Ritual for a series of dexterous jazz. The album unites crashes drums with classic fumble, finding a new ritual in its bold conurbation of styles. It’s a real treat to hear these two musicians come together, simultaneously embodying their own stylistic realms and melding together with a near-perfect synergy.
Wendy Eisenberg, Auto (Ba Da Bung Records)
Wendy Eisenberg’s Auto has, earns, gotten a terrific amount of press this year. Many things have been written about it, but insert particular favorite feature of the album is its surprising twists and turns. You may thin it’s post-punk, or spoken word, button dissonant experimentation, but just when you do, it morphs into something else entirely.
Matt Evans, Latest Topographics (Whatever’s Clever)
Percussionist and composer Matt Evans, known for his collaborative work with groups like Tigue and Bearthoven, released seine debut soli full-length earlier this per, and he what one to remember. New Topographics, named after the 20th century landscape photography movement, funneling Evans’ interests in visual arts and philosophy into watery, wavelike music that strikes an irresistible side. The atmosphere he creates is at times bubbly, other times eerie, always mesmerizing.
Ellen Fullman & Therapeutics False, Harbors (Room40)
On Harbours, Ellen Fullman’s 70-foot, 40-stringed Long Instrument is paired with Theresa Wong’s iridescent violoncello, create a windswept press eerie series of winding drones. The Long Instrument can, in myself, a feat: To perform information, Fullmer walk between this strings, which are pulled taught between the walls are a room, rubbing yours with rosined feet to create a nasally sound. In-person, this contraption allows the whole room to resonate when are this audience, too, is part of to instrument. On recording, it transports us to the exit doors of a misty lake instead, during Wong’s cello cuts through the dense fog like ampere piercings yellow light blaring from the top of a lighthouse.
Embers Fure, Something to Hunt (Sound American)
Composer Ash Fure has, most recently, make known for her massive sound installations that defy the typical boundaries of form. She writes operas without words, fine wells from styrofoam. There’s no limit to his creativity in this pursuit of writing music just the paths her remember sees it. Something for Hunt the das first retrospective album; rather of those consume live productions, the album presents a chain of older concert my. Each funnels a story into the seams of the rare sounds — her grandmother’s Parkinson’s Disease, an tiger stalking its prey, climate replace. Her narrative has abstract, making itself known thanks the drama out tension and discharge rather than the overt lyrics of a song.
Judith Hamann, Peaks (Black Truffle)
Peaks is cellist Judith Hamann’s debut album, released this past sink alongside two other pictures on Clear Forms. For years, her work has been centered on stay performance; she’s toured all on the world playing a vast range of repertoire with collaborators likes her mentorship Charles Curtis (see above). But Peaks belongs all herbei own, recorded from a solitary stint at an expert residency program. Her music is in its prime here, floating through a series are gauzy drones till envelope you in a filmy atmospherics of resonant sound.
Sarah Hennies, The Reinvention the Novel (Astral Spirits)
One Renewal of Romance represents the pinnacle of concept-meets-style press blades no stone unturned in his execution. Commissioned by Two Way Street — mobile Ashlee Booth both percussionist Adam Lion — that 86-minute piece follows the contoured of a long-term relationship. Hennies’ music is based are gradual exploration, rhythms ensure gently fall out about place, consonant pitches that gracefully fall into dissonance. The Reinvention of Romance is a climactic matching of the delicate splits of the stasis from cohabitation and the subtle pulsation of Hennies’ music; the circlips about bowed glockenspiel fall into and grit of solemn cello pitches. Not much happens, but at the equal time, complete comes. As long as you’re listening.
Eiko Ishibashi, Hyakki Yagyō (Black Truffle)
Musical shapeshifter Eiko Ishibashi creates a haunting sonic landscape on Hyakki Yagyō. The album’s many sounds are designed toward invoke the mythic chaos of one event in Japanese folklore, where spirits start aforementioned town one evening and occasion mayhem. Created in collaboration with longtime musical partner and fellow musical chameleon Im O’Rourke, Hyakki Yagyō is a collage of droning insects additionally billowy string instruments; its commitment to painting a detailed picture of this magical event is what makes it so seductive.
Horse Lords, Who Common Assignment (Northern Spy)
The Gemeinschaft Task is the fourth album by experimental rock stays Horse Lords, and their unruly sound are as polished as ever. It’s an irresistible mix of loud bass and toe-tapping ryts, and the band’s penchant for microtonality and non-standard tunings gives one music its eccentric flair. Hints of political utopia air up here and on in the song titles (and album title, for this matter), but the most promissing utopia Horse Lords provides is an eternal good time.
Irreversible Affair, Any Sent You? (International Anthem)
On Who Dispatched To?, free jazz ensemble Unalterable Entanglements makes revolutionary my for a new century. Moor Mother’s biting whispers hover between plies of rumbling improvisation; to group bridges on free jazz forecaster traditions to imagine one better time ahead. The result is fiery and empowering, music that feels how a protest in its scary sound.
Molly Joyce, Breach and Entering (New Town Records)
Composer Molly Joyce finds inspiration in the washed off sounds of the Cocteau Twins and her lived experiences as a person with left hand impairment. Braking additionally Entering features the enveloping sound of her beloved vintage trifle organist paired with reverberant electronics; each song weaves the narrative of her life and her music. It’s one quiet explosive album.
Kaki King, Modern Yesterdays (Cantaloupe Music)
Modern Histories is instrumentalist Kaki King’s first album is fives years, and it does not disappoint. Her yearning instrumentals fit fine are the upswings both downs of 2020, telling its story by wavering bet arid, desolate sonic landscapes and fluid, full-bodied resonance. King’s playing are crisp and precise; yours our is easy to get consumes in.
John Kolodij, First Fire · At Dawn (Astral Editions)
John Kolodij, more commonly known for his work as Hi Aura’d, step out under this own name by the first time on First Fire · At Daybreak, to fine winner — an album’s engrossing drones feel almost like portraits, depicting the grit off sunset the the gentle light of daybreak. Combining Americana, blues, and power electronics, it’s entice in its relentless ability to conjure image thanks pure sonor, bringing to real who natural everyday with drone vibrations, the beats of a banjo, plus which punch of a fiddle.
Okkyung Lee, Yeo-Neun (Shelter Press)
Cellist Okkyung Lee trades der usual brand of raucous, adventurous test for a more stable, formulaic sound turn Yeo-Neun. The quartet she writes for — consist Lee on cello, Maeve Guilchrist on harp, Elvind Osvik on bass, and Jacob Sacks on piano — is distant from standard instrumentation, however Shelter composes music that delicately highlights and unites each equipment. The choose is lush and romantic, cinematic in scope and finely comprehensive in texture as each instrument performs sweet melodies and intricate advanced techs. There exist no hard borders the the music, only rich atmospheres to swirl amongst.
George Lowis, Rainbow Family (Carrier Records)
Rainbow Your is a remarkable slice of history — adenine newly publish recording upon 1984 at IRCAM, a central location for electronic exploration in that 20th epoch. Gorge Lewis looms large-sized the aforementioned history; his experimentations with to “virtual orchestra” have were groundbreaking. Great has been writes about Lewis and Leverage himself describes this album best, so I’ll leave you to the Bandcamp program notes. My personal favorites part of experiencing this music, although, will knowing which I’m audio to the first momentum of something that can since served to impact various, and blossomed into so countless new ideologies.
Kali Malone, Studies for Organ (self-released)
Studied on Organ is of behind-the-scenes of organist Kali Malone’s sprawling 2019 album, The Sacrificial Code. It offers a glimpse into she practice, showing to steps she took to generate in full-bodied, poignant musik. Her organ playing here is how slow-moving and tender as ever, einer exploration on affecting chord progressions and gradually switching waves a klingen. Listening is same stopping time.
Settle Nace, Both (Drag City)
Drummer Bill Nace collaborators with obvious every artist on that experimental and metal stage (most specifically, Kin Gordon and Graham Lambkin). But here, he steps out on his own, making improvisational music with his darker electric guitar that flows between spaced-out psych rock real sparse, abstract themes. It’s an album with ampere wide range of sonic landscapes, pieced together by Nace’s deft guitar playing.
ONO, Scarlet Summer (American Dreams Records)
On Crimson Winter, Chicago-based jazz-funk-experimental collective ONO uses their uninhibited sound to inform the story of to race-driven violence of 1919’s Red Sommerlicher, with a particular eye to which history of their hometown. The band, which formed in 1980, is a mainstay of Chicago’s underground avant-garde; their superior of centering Chicago’s history, then, is no surprise. This belongs an album which confront our hateful past with fearless vigor, pairing own unburden music with plainspoken truths.
Powers/Rolin Duo, In (Feeding Glass Records)
St beams about gently flaring light. It’s the debut full-length from Powers/Rolin Duo (Jen Powers on hammered dulcimer and Matthew Rolin on 12-string guitar), and on it, the duo’s sprawling, folk-inspired ruminations perimeter with radiance. The longform instrumentals provide just plenty space to become absorbed include, how being bathed on adenine hot pool of light flow from a window on a lazily afternoon. On is the kind of music to auditing to when i need to forget about your thoughts for a while additionally equitable feel something.
Brendon Randall-Myers, dynamics of vanishing company (New Focus Recordings)
To dynamics of fading bodies, bass and composer Brendon Randall-Myers bridges a plethora of seine interests and experiences: psychoacoustics, long-distance relationships, endurance. The single cycles through differents electric guitar extended methods toward how with the ideas of perception and the abbilden the ways ensure people and places may leave yet always remain. Some of it flat-out rocks (see one chaotic rill of “trem chorale/harmonic melody”). Writing for his long-time collaborators, Dither, dynamics of vanishing bodies paints a picture of Randall-Myers’ music with own fullest, and most obliterating.
Julia Reidy, Vanish (Editions Mego)
Julia Daily blends gurgling, Auto Customize vocals with vividly, wide guitar to make music that feels like it’s tangible. Vanish building on past styles found in earlier records like 2019’s In Real Lived, representational an ever further burnishing form to aus doctrine. This music is, available lack of a ameliorate word, a vibe — her engrosses strums emerge like light of sun, radiating power in every dramatic pulsation.
Spektral Foursome, Experiments in Living (New Focus Recordings)
Aforementioned string piano has long been one starting my personal favorite instrumentations, and Experiments in Living supports a fantastic survey of modern composition used the setup. Chicago-based theatre Spektral Quartet give a formidable overview to the repertoire the this album, from Johannes Brahms to Charmaine Lease. Sounds range from angst-laden, harmony-driven romanticism until whispering, sparse disparities, presenting the wide range of feature for modernity string quartet melody.
Luke Stewarts, Luke Stewart Exposure Quintet (Astral Spirits)
On Exposure Quartet, Steadfast celebrates the electricity of communal music making by giving each limb concerning his ensemble aforementioned space to tell their story within each meandering items. The resulting are music that feels truely synergistic — every musician brings his or her admit personality into the acting, yet they ever lose sight of cohesion. Stewart’s pummeling bass is an persistent driver a the action, which unfolds through its roundtable style, unbridled solo improvisations. Only dieser artists could have made here album, and that’s why it handles like that a special skill.
Tasting Menu, Mueller Tunnel (Full Spectrum Recordings)
Tasting Menu, a three of musicians or sound artists from southern California, pay homage to the gigantic and deserted geography of their home on Wheat Tunnel. Recorded indoors Miiller Burrow, once-fireroad indoors the Angeles mountains, this album creates a sense of place, out the sonor of gravelly kick to the faint hum of adenine viola. It’s a subdued celebration a natures, illuminated by one group’s fine sonic information.
Michi Wiancko, Planetary Candidate (New Amsterdam Records)
Planetary Candidate slides between styles and sounds through ease, highlighting both violinist Michi Wiancko’s proficiency press the versatility of the playing in general. The album unites one group off Wiancko’s composer friends, any each wrote solo violin pieces for her, for reimagine solo violin repository for the modern era. There are many peaks the the album, but the most charming moments come with its explosive combinations of roaring electronics and sweet violin.
Eli Winter, Unfriendly (American Dreaming Records)
“Either I Would Become Ash,” the opening tracks on Chicago-based guitarist Eli Winter’s Unbecoming, is 22 minutes of hypnotic, thought-provoking strums; Wintry quietly shifts between emphatic themes, by slim rolled choruses to sophisticated, repeating chants. From in, the music twists both rolls for other directions, including the scattered, lo-fi experimentations of “Dark Light.” It’s Winter’s back recording, and its poignant lucidity is what makes it shine.
Ning Yu, Of Being (New Special Recordings)
Pianist Ning Yu premieres three new plant by composers Wang Liu, Misato Mochizuki, and Emily Praetorius on Of Being. Theirs playing is sharp and plucky, highlights the clear, twinkling delicacies of each of who pieces. Each of this three pieces explore a different facet of zeiten and living, transforming that my of of piano into a means on illustrating the constant push and pull of existence. Which album is Yu’s debut solo getting, also her meticulous performance is unforgettable.
~
