Adios 2009!

It's that time again, to look back and reflect on the music and events from the past twelve months. Staggeringly, I acquired almost twice as much new music this year compared to 2008, largely through the discovery of web sites and blogs that make available bootleg radio broadcasts. This had the unfortunate side effect of reducing the number of netlabel releases that I was able to absorb, because there are only so many hours in the day. However, it also had the impact of increasing the amount of contemporary classical music I heard, since most of the boots were otherwise unrecorded new music. A somewhat depressing consequence is that I looked over the list, and several times asked myself, what's that? I don't remember anything about that one!

Another shift in my listening habits, especially in the last quarter of the year, is that I've started listening more to CDs than downloads. I've been a staunch advocate for downloads for years, and even got into a bit of a flamefest on the ambient mailing list on the subject. And yet, it bothers me that I listen so much to downloaded music in preference to recordings that cost considerably more than the downloads, and which sit largely forgotten on the shelf. This change in attitude is perhaps a response to emusic's two-pronged price increase, not only charging 40% more per download, but forcing the use of twelve credits for an album if the album has any tracks longer than ten minutes. Even though I've kept my subscription, and even though I recognize that paying a quarter for an album is unfair, the luster has fallen off the pumpkin with this service.

Albums that made an impression this year (album links to reviews I wrote) include:

• Sleepy Town Manufacture and Unit 21 — No Traces (Infraction)
• Library Tapes — Fragment (Kning)
• Colin Andrew Sheffield — Signatures (Invisible Birds)
• Steinbrüchel — Sustain (Koyuki)
• Saito Koji — Time/Line (Resting Bell), freely available
• Haptic — The Medium (FSS)
• Gregg Kowalsky — Tape Chants (Kranky)
• Mara's Torment — Tactile (Ping Things), freely available
• Richard Garet and Brendan Murray — Of Distance (Unframed)
• Jasper TX — Black Sleep
• Carbon Based Lifeforms — World of Sleepers (Ultimae)
• SunnO))) — Monoliths and Dimensions (Southern Lord)
• Andrea Neumann — Pappelallee 5 (Absinth)
• John Cage — Dream (Wergo)
• Gavin Bryars, Philip Jeck and Alter Ego — The Sinking of the Titanic (Touch)
• Berliner Bach Akademie — The Art of Fugue (Arte Nova), a very nice arrangement for four different quartets
• Celer — Brittle (Low Point)
• Jason Kahn — Timelines NY (CONV), a freely available version of a piece that Kahn has released on CD with other performers, and with the score on the website as well
• Chant, Davies, Drew & Edwards — Decentered (Another Timbre), improvisations plus two pieces by Michael Pisaro and a beautiful version of John Cage's Four 6, for four players using any way of producing sounds
• Thomas Köner — La Barca (Fario)
• Jozef van Wissem — A Priori (Incunabulum), but freely available at Ubu Web
• Ólafur Arnalds — Found Songs (Erased Tapes), freely available
• Balmorhea — All is Wild, All is Silent (Western Vinyl)
• Greg Haines — Komarovo (Slaapwel)
• Radu Malfatti & Klaus Filip — Imaoto (Erstwhile)
• Dropp Ensemble — Safety (and/OAR)
• Jon Balke — Book of Velocities (ECM)
• Parks — Hidden (Infraction)

I eagerly look forward to the new music of 2010, and wish everyone a happy and safe new year.