|
|
 |
 |
|||
|
FEATURE TOP RECORDINGS OF 2007 2007...well, numerically the year doesn't matter. The music continues, the amount of good music being released continues, unabated. What keeps metamorphosing is the mode of delivery. Downloading and the MP3 medium are becoming the norm; CDs are going the way of the dodo, I'm afraid, contrary to what anyone says. The audiovisual artform is in danger of extinction—the writing's on the wall, the future looks dim. I, for one, will always champion music as a synergistic collaboration between aural rendering and tactile physicality. This year I made it a personal mandate to acquire recordings that were designed to intentionally supersede the limitations of the jewel box, created by designers/label proprietors/artists who recognize that such attendant tactility enhances the aural component and helps to slow the momentum of an art form inevitably sliding into the solipsistic realm of faceless, unsensate data. Regarding the genres of electronic(a) and experimental music: they both might have went more underground this year, but so what? Mainstreaming such musics, or pigeonholing their respective artists, was a fool's gesture anyway. More tellingly, this was the year I 'rediscovered' synth/sequencer music, strolling amidst the borogroves of memory (moog) lane, and loving every minute of it. The list below is, of course, subjective (as are all lists of this type), and can well exceed 15 (or 25, as the case might be), simply representative of another 365 days that never failed to surprise, titillate, confound, and challenge. DARREN BERGSTEIN - AS LONELY AS DAVE BOWMAN Pod (Projekt) - CHRIS HERBERT Mezzotint (Kranky) - DONNACHA COSTELLO Colorseries (Minimise) - ELVE Infinite Garden (Virtualworld) - GIUSEPPE IELASI August (12k) - GÜNTER MÜLLER Live & Replayed (Esquilo) - IAN BODDY Elemental (DiN) - NELSON FOLTZ / TOM LYNN Still Life Vols. 1-3 (Still Life) - O YUKI CONJUGATE The Euphoria of Disobedience (OYC Limited) - RADIO MASSACRE INTERNATIONAL Blacker (Northern Echo) - ROBERT FRIPP Churchscapes (DGM) - STARVING WEIRDOS Father Guru (Azul Discografica) - STEINBRUCHEL Basis (Line) - STEVE ROACH Arc of Passion (Projekt) - YANN NOVAK Meadowsweet (Dragon’s Eye) - YUI ONODERA Suisei (and/OAR) |
|||
