2011 cae dormido

An intense year.

no particular order:

Sic Alps Napa Asylum
Anika Anika
Kurt Vile Smoke Ring For My Halo
Bhob Rainey / Bonnie Jones / Chris Cogburn Arena Ladridos
Beach Fossils Beach Fossils (ok 2010 but it didn’t reach me until this year)
Golden Retriever Emergent Layer and Light Cones (and in concert at Issue Project Room)
3/4 Had Been Eliminated Oblivion
Singer Mindreading
Tetuzi Akiyama & Takuji Kawai Transistion
The Drums Portamento
Gosia Winter & Barry Chabala Ananke
Kenneth Kirschner Twenty Ten
Steve Roden Proximities
Morton Feldman Orchestra
Eva Marie Houben von da nach da
Antoine Beuger (perf. Barry Chabala & Ben Owen) un lieu pour être deux

Special mention to three labels, two of which are repeat offenders on my lists:

SOFA (Norway) and affiliates. I was lucky to spend a chunk of my visit to Paris this spring w/ Kim Myhr and then later in NYC when Mural came by in August. Besides being a gang of gentlemen and great musicians, the label continued, by my ears, to issue essential recordings. In particular, Silencers Balances des Blancs and EMO ALBINO Lady Lord just make me happy, but that’s no slight to microtub (the tuba trio of Robin Hayward, Kristoffer Lo and Martin Taxt) or A Summer’s Night At The Crooked Forest by Sheriffs of Nothingness. Non-SOFA but related releases such as Mural’s Live At Rothko Chapel and Transition de Phase by the group of Jim Denley, Philippe Lauzier, Pierre-Yves Martel, Kim Myhr, and Eric Normand are also delightful. I was treated to concert performances by Streifenjunko, Vertex and Mural (two exceptional deliveries in NYC), as well as a handful of excellent meals in Paris and NYC.

Jon Abbey’s Erstwhile for yet another year brought serious authority to a heavy, ambitious release schedule and truly intense and memorable series of concerts in NYC. To single any particular recording or performance out would be to inevitably overlook another. I don’t even know where to begin. The bar is set very high. Φ, the 3CD master class by Keith Rowe and Radu Malfatti was coda’d by a lovely duo concert. Taku Unami and Takahiro Kawaguchi’s Teatro Assente continued pushing the envelope for recorded improvisation, and was also met by an intense series of highly inventive performances by Unami. These are just the obvious highlights for me, but Amplify:Stones was really just a three week summer camp of excellent and challenging concerts and fine company, followed up by just lovely albums by Greg Kelley/Olivia Block and Jérôme Noetinger/Will Guthrie, illustrating Jon’s impatience with whatever the perception of status quo is this year.

Students of Decay, besides releasing a cassette with my name on it, curated a truly exceptional run of vinyl by Danny Paul Grody, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Caboladies, Aquarelle and Bryter Layter.

Fellow musicians and artists who via their collaboration or presence made my year extra special: Charles Lindsay, Catherine Chalmers, Kim Myhr, Ingar Zach, Jim Denley, Petter Vågan, Tor Haugerud, Radu Malfatti, Takahiro Kawaguchi, David Rothenberg, Thenmorzhi Soundararajan, and Dan Snazelle.

Thanks to Ryan Potts, Alex Cobb, Brad Rose, Kate Carr, Travis Johnson and David Kirby for putting their commitment and resources behind my music this year.

Of course Richard Kamerman and of course of course as always Anne Guthrie.