• Beth Gibbons – Lives Outgrown
• Willie Nelson – Last Leaf On The Tree
• Fabiano do Nascimento & Sam Gendel – The Room
• The Cure – Songs Of A Lost World
• Santi Careta – A Milers De Somnis De Distànsa
• Gunnar Sønstevold/Mai Sønstevold – The Kitchen Counter Experiments And Other Electronic Works (1959-1984)
• Andrea Giordano – Pearlescent Dark
• Erik Honoré – Triage
• Tyla – Tyla
• Charlie XCX – Brat
• Ganavya – Daughter Of A Temple

A personal favorite of mine from 2024 is the duo album entitled The Room, from LA based, Brazilian guitarist Fabiano Nascimento and saxophone player Sam Gendel. The latter has also released an album together with Norwegian fidler Hans Kjorstad. Its sparse arrangements and strong musicianship leans  on Brazilian music of bossa, jazz and folk. 

Erik Honoré made his best album under his own name in 2024. Triage carries themes that can be found on his previous solo releases Heliographs (2014) and Unrest (2017). Beautifully produced, it ties old recordings with the new ones.  A perfectly balanced album, at least in my book. 

Perhaps the most surprising release of the year came from Willie Nelson. The Last Leaf On The Tree is a set of (mostly) cover songs by the senior C&W singer. A swan song that is full of beauty, protest songs and advice for young people. Produced and curated by Micah Nelson it features among others Daniel Lanois on pedal steel.

Two dance albums that intrigued me: South African singer Tyla´s self titled debut album, and the Charlie XCX´ Brat long player. Both sounds fresh and daring while still being accessible. 

Italian singer Andrea Silvia Giordano, currently based in Oslo released a large ensemble album dedicated to her late Italian mentor. The album carries a set of nine Stansia songs expressing fatigue or perhaps a life ending. Giordano studied with Sidsel Endresen at the Norwegian Academy in Oslo. She has collaborated with among others video artist Kjell Bjørgeengen and Eivind Lønning. The latter also a sometime collaborator with Erik Honoré. 

Together with Eivind Aarset I was invited to play at Laboratory of Arts in a small village of Tavertet outside Barcelona. A community of Tibetan Buddhist practitioners. We stayed for a week and listened to performances in between mediation lessons, masterclasses and mountain walks. Indian/US singer Ganavya came with her mom and dad, both appearing on her 2024 album. Celebrating midsummer night, Nik Bartsch, Shai Maestro and EST dummer, Magnus Öström joined us for our performance. A beautiful night. Listening to Ganavya´s masterclass, a lecture on classical Indian raga was both intentional demystifying and inspiring. I was also impressed by Catalonian guitarist Santi Careta and his performance with pianist Clara Peya. Santi Careta´s solo album A Milers de Somnis de Distànsa is a set of songs sung by Careta himself. Worth checking out.

Norwegian electronic pioneers Gunnar and Mai Sønstevold homemade «kitchen» recordings has been carefully collected and restored by the eminent Lasse Marhaug as The Kitchen Counter Experiments And Other Electronic Works (1959-1984). These recordings has been made public on O.Gudmundsen Minde. Available on Bandcamp.

A little nod to Flowworker´s Michael Engelbrecht is the new Cure album. I could pull out a few tracks from their extensive catalogue. I must admit I fell off their releases after a while, but Alone from Songs From A Lost World would be a good start to their extensive catalogue.

From her tenure with Portishead, a band that somehow left me cold, Beth Gibbons´Lives Outgrown is a work of a matured songwriter and performer. What once felt insecure and perhaps therefore had traces of Billy Holiday has gradually turned into something deeply personal.  

– Jan Bang

A few weeks ago, I laid back and listened to the wonderful bass solo album „Landloper“ by Arild Andersen. One of these albums that better work in darkness. I listen to Arild’s bass since I discovered ECM with Jan Garbarek‘s album SART. By the time John Lennon‘s „Imagine“ blocked my record player. He never stopped surprising me, being good company at least. („Landloper“ ends with an irresistible mélange of the two classics ‘song for che’ and ‘lonely woman’). I somehow never ever even heard about his 1981 album „Lifelines“. By chance, this summer, I stumbled on it. Via Discogs, I got a near mint vinyl copy. Awesome. Paul Motian on drums, Kenny Wheeler on trumpet, and a fabulous pianist with his only appearance ever on ECM. One of the titles: „Landloper“. 

01. Shabaka: Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace  
02. Fred Hersch: Silent. Listening  
03. Anna Butterss: Mighty Vertebrate  
04. Jeff Parker ETA IVtet: The Way Out Of Easy  
05. Jakob Bro: Taking Turns  (my radio review: HERE)
06. Nala Sinephro: Endlessness  
07. Kalma / Chiu / Honer: The Closest Thing To Silence  
08. Eric Chenaux: Delights Of My Life  
09. Sidsel Endresen: Punkt Live Remixes, Vol.2
10. Wayne Shorter: Celebration  

11. Charles Lloyd: The Sky Will Be There Tomorrow 
12. Arild Andersen: Landloper 
13. Aaron Parks: Little Big III
14. Vijay Iyer: Compassion
15. Cyrille / Frisell / Downes: Breaking The Shell 
16. Søren Skov Orbit: Adrift 
17. Nik Bärtsch‘s Ronin: Spin  
18. Arroj Aftab: Night Reign  
19. The Messthetics and James Brandon-Lewis  
20. Patricia Brennan: Breaking Stretch

„In year of bounty in jazz, identifying the best new jazz of 2024 meant finding the recordings that took my breath away and built atop or extended the tradition. Each of these recordings, to my ears, is bracing, beautiful, and new, suggesting the many ways the art form remains important and joyful.“ (These are the words of Will Layman in „Popmatters“, but I can easily make them my own. We even share some records on our lists, five exactly.)

Im Guardian gibt es keine halben Sterne. Also machen wir bei diesem Duell zumeist 2024 erlebter Filme (meine Bewertung von Point Break aus dem Jahre 1991 habe ich aus der fernen, fernen Erinnerung geholt) auch keine halben Sachen. Kevin Costners Western-Epos „Horizon“ wird oft verrissen, aber ich stehe zu meinen vier Sternen, weil es dreieinhalb nicht gibt. Den Film „Blitz“ von Steve McQueen (wir kennen ihn u.a. von dem magischen Movie einer Londoner Reggae-Nacht), angesiedelt im „Blitzkrieg“ (wiederum ist London zentraler Schauplatz), hätte sich Peter bei allem Respekt für den Regisseur gerne radikaler gewünscht, aber ich schätze den „touch of Charles Dickens“ sehr (Netflix übrigens). Und einer meiner absoluten Lieblingsfilme, „The Duke Of Burgundy“ musste auch reinrutschen. Klicke auf das Wort „masterpiece“, und du siehst Peters Besprechung des beeindruckenden Films „Die Fotografin“! Okay, ein gewisser Pfiff fehlt diesem Duell, weil wir etwas zu selten weit auseinanderliegen (wir liegen sogar parallel bei „Roter Himmel“ und „Perfect Days“), aber der eine und andere Filmtipp mag dennoch rausspringen! Oder eine sich lohnende Wiederholung. Wie etwa der einst gern gesehene Surfer-Thriller „Perfekte Brandung“…. wusste gar nicht mehr, dass der Film von Kathryn Bigelow ist.

Beatles 64 PB ***** ME ****
Horizon ** ME ****
Blitz PB *** ME ****
Poor Things PB ***** ME **
The Zone of Interest PB **** ME *****
Point Break PB **** ME ****
Twisters PB *** ME ****
The Duke Of Burgundy PB **** ME *****
The Dead Don‘t Hurt PB **** ME ****
Lee / Die Fotografin PB „masterpiece“ ME ****

„Spätvorstellung“:

„Lovers Rock“ – „Steve McQueen throws the best party ever. Filled with rows, romance and sexual adventure, this story of an uproarious celebration in 80s west London is an audacious, euphoric experience.“ Das schrieb Mr. Bradshaw vor über voer Jahren über „Lovers Rock“, meine Empfehlung für einen alternativen Weihnachtsfilm. Ich kenne keinen, der Reggae liebt und diesem „instant classic“ von diesem „anderen“ Steve McQueen keine fünf Sterne geben würde! Hinreissend!

White

By Mark Strand

Now in the middle of my life
all things are white.
I walk under the trees,
the frayed leaves,
the wide net of noon,
and the day is white.
And my breath is white,
drifting over the patches
of grass and fields of ice
into the high circles of light.
As I walk, the darkness of
my steps is also white,
and my shadow blazes
under me. In all seasons
the silence where I find myself
and what I make of nothing are white,
the white of sorrow,
the white of death.
Even the night that calls
like a dark wish is white;
and in my sleep as I turn
in the weather of dreams
it is the white shades of the moon
drawn over my floor
that save me for morning.
And out of my waking
the circle of light widens,
it fills with trees, houses,
stretches of ice.
It reaches out. It rings
the eye with white.
All things are one.
All things are joined
even beyond the edge of sight.

My personal best of the year list is not yet fully fleshed out, so I am not ready to share one just yet. I don’t have a favourite album of the year yet … am oscillating between Cassandra Jenkins, Vera Sola, Nia Archives and a few others from day to day, but haven’t found „it“ yet. One thing seems quite sure: It’s not going to be one of the old guys. Unless I end up choosing Charles Lloyd or Bill Frisell or even Franck Vigroux, which might easily happen for very personal reasons. I just don’t know yet.

However, I would like to share my „(Re)Discovered“ section today. As I mentioned a while ago, I was quite intrigued by Alejandro Escovedo’s 2024 album, which is a collection of completely revised re-recordings of songs from across his extensive back-catalogue, going back as far as the distant 1980s. I am not familiar with his work as a member of various rock groups before he started making solo albums in 1992, so that will be one of my next undertakings. For now, I managed to get hold of copies of all his solo albums (a few special projects not included), from Gravity (1992) to The Crossing (2018). And I like all of them quite a lot. I noticed that the music reviews website Allmusic.com rated all those albums with at least 4 or 4.5 stars (and readers/listeners agree, as their ratings prove), so it’s difficult to choose where to start if you’re new to Alejandro Escovedo’s music. So arguably the best place to start might be Marc Maron’s knowledgeable and passionate hour-long podcast episode with Alejandro, traveling through the man’s life and work at some rousing speed.

Judging from a quick, superficial look at his albums, one might get the wrong impression that all of that was basically about just the same type of music, as it’s mainly some sort of Americana / roots rock with a few folksy or bluesy elements here and there, and even occasional Latin tinges. Nevertheless, his songs are always quite personal and are at times infused by his background as a native Texan with Mexican roots, as well as by his private experience as a single parent, when his first wife died early in the 1990s, not long after they had become parents. Ten years later he almost died from a serious illness, and with insufficient American healthcare he was not able to pay for the treatment, so friends and admirers of his work recorded a double album of their own Escovedo covers to raise money for him. Por Vida: A Tribute To The Songs Of Alejandro Escovedo was released in 2004, containing 32 songs performed by great musicians including Lucinda Williams, John Cale, Vic Chesnutt, Steve Earle, Calexico, Cowboy Junkies, Howe Gelb, Ian Hunter, Ian McLagan (of Small Faces and Faces), M. Ward and even a reunited Son Volt, among many others. So that might also be a nice place to start entering the Escovedo discography … though I guess the originals are always better.

The first two – and very personal – albums, Gravity (1992) and Thirteen Years (1994), were re-released, with a second disc of nice live recordings, when the original label went out of business; as was the third album, With These Hands (1996), which had been a step up to a more renowned record label, Rykodisc, though that work relationship didn’t end up being as financially successful as expected, leaving him without a label for a few years. While the first three are really intriguing, I guess it’s fair to say that A Man Under the Influence (2001), was another step up, as Mark Deming summarizes: „if love and loss still remain Escovedo’s favorite themes, like Hank Williams or Leonard Cohen he seems to have something new and telling to say about them each time out; each of this album’s 11 songs is worth hearing, and the cumulative effect is nothing less than stunning. No one who’s heard Escovedo’s work doubts his status as one of the finest singer/songwriters of his day, and he’s never been heard to better advantage on disc than on A Man Under the Influence.“

Continuing to maintain a high level of songwriting, the next album, his first after his near-death illness, was a truly great, versatile and complex collaboration with producer John Cale, The Boxing Mirror (2006), featuring some of Cale’s viola playing [I strongly recommend checking out Thom Yurek’s enthusiastic review („The Boxing Mirror reels and struts, waltzes, and falls down, but always gets back up again. Rock & roll music has been extended in the various articulations of these songs. In the 21st century, this is what singer/songwriter albums are supposed to sound like. The Boxing Mirror is brilliant, and it is his masterpiece.“)], followed by three albums with producer Tony Visconti, Real Animal, Street Songs of Love, and Big Station (2008-2012), all of which are somewhat more straightforward rock music, thought with a lot of diverse stylistic elements, considerate details and great guitar playing. Songs like Sally was a Cop, Too Many Tears, San Antonio Rain and Chelsea Hotel ’78 are even better live in concert and were among the many highlights of the concert I attended in a small bar in rural Texas, halfway between San Antonio and Austin, this past October.

In 2016 Escovedo released his first solo album on good old vinyl and several earlier albums were released on vinyl for the first time: Co-produced by former R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck, Burn Something Beautiful gives more room for captivating guitar textures and sounds. Apparently the songs reflect on a number of personal and health issues and a move away from Austin to somewhere either around Houston or Dallas (depending on which information is correct here), together with his second wife, Nancy Rankin.

Born in San Antonio, Texas, to Mexican parents as one of 13 siblings, and having spent his teenage years in California, where, as he says, he experienced more racism than he had in Texas, before he left the sunny westcoast for a few years in New York City when he started out becoming a punk musician and then lived in Chelsea Hotel during the late seventies, when Sid and Nancy lived and died there, Escovedo has a lot to say about the United States. And he tells a lot of it in his 2018 album, The Crossing, a semi-autobiographical song cycle about two young immigrant boys, one Mexican, one Italian. The music on this album is again quite different from what Escovedo had done before, as it was developed and recorded in Italy in collaboration with Italian Antonio Gramentiere and his band Don Antonio. As often, interesting guests can be discovered on these 17 songs, such as Wayne Kramer(MC5), James Williamson (The Stooges) and Peter Perrett. Two or three years later, Escovedo and Don Antonio recorded a Spanish version of the whole album, La Cruzada.

For now, I am looking forward very much to the release of the live album Alejandro Escovedo recorded in Austin over three nights in October, with Charlie Sexton and Britt Daniel (singer of the Austin band Spoon) guesting during encores of covers of Neil Young, Velvet Underground, Mickey Newbury and Bowie songs, roughly two weeks after the concert I attended. The newly recorded 14 songs on Echo Dancing provide quite different takes on the originals from across Alejandro’s body of work, but most of the other songs that I heard live in concert also differed in interesting ways from the original studio versions. I remember Sally was a Cop and Dear Head on the Wall and a number of great guitar solos very vividly and have become quite a fan of this man’s work during my trip across the American Midwest this fall.

It’s Nikolaus Day, which means: Same procedure as every year, time for my favorite 2024 albums.

This year (don’t take the order too serious):

• Laurie Anderson: Amelia
• Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus (online version)
• Elephant9 & Terje Rypdal: Catching Fire
• Can: Live in Paris 1973
• Can: Live in Aston 1977
• Nick Cave & Bad Seeds: Wild God (Dolby Atmos)
• Einstürzende Neubauten: Rampen
• Peter Thomas: The Tape Masters, Vol. 1
• Hans Zimmer: Dune, Part 2
• Dubbelorganisterna: Volym 1

Furthermore:

• Hans-Joachim Roedelius: 90
• Pet Shop Boys: Nonetheless/Furthermore
• Hermanos Gutiérrez: Sonido Cósmico 

Rediscovered:

• Cowboy Junkies: The Trinity Sessions (1988) (Dolby Atmos)
• Godley & Creme: The History Mix, Vol. 1 (1985)
• Grateful Dead: Europe ’72 (Dolby Atmos)
• Jan Hammer: Escape from Television (1987)
• David (Dave) Holland: Life Cycle (1983)
• Peter Thomas Sound Orchester: Filmmusik (the 2-CD version, 1992)

All in all not the strongest year ever, and as always I’m sure I forgot something. I have to admit I fell in love with Dolby Atmos, a great new headphone experience that gives new life even to a record like the Dead’s (although I’m not their biggest fan, but this record is essential anyways). Nice to hear from Terje Rypdal again, this is a melange somewhat between EL&P and King Crimson, hard work, but worth it. Dubbelorganisterna, in case you never heard that name, consists of leftovers from the drawers of late Bo Hansson & friends, recorded 2007 and 2014, limited to 600 copies. Film composer Peter Thomas would be 100 next year, there will be more about him then. Ryuichi Sakamoto needs no comment, this is the final goodbye. Dave Holland’s solo cello recording is the right music for large, bright, white-painted rooms with few furniture. I love it.

May the next year come (in peace, if possible).

Albums 2024 (no particular order)

Adrianne Lenker – Bright Future 
Beth Gibbons – Lives Outgrown
Cindy Lee – Diamond Jubilee
Laura Marling – Patterns In Repeat
Nala Sinephro – Endlessness
Charles Lloyd – The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow
Oren Ambarchi, Johann Berthling, Andreas Werliin – Ghosted II
Shabaka – Perceive Its Beauty Acknowledge Its Grace
Gillian Welsh & David Rowlands – Woodland
Jeff Parker ETA IVtet – The Easy Way Out
Moor Mother – The Great Bailout

Reissues & Archival Releases

Byard Lancaster – Palm Recordings
Broadcast – Spell Blanket Collected Demos 2000-2009
Broadcast – Distant Call Collected Demos 2000-2006
Mark Lanegan – Bubblegum
Joe Henderson – Power To the People
Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2
Alice Coltrane – The Carnegie Hall Concert

01. Alles von Jackson Browne
02. Eva Klesse Quartett, Stimmen
03. Reba Mc Intyre, Consider me gone
04. Lainey Wilson, Country ist cool again
05. Carrie Underwood, Before the Cheats
06. Miranda Lambert, I ain’t in Kansas City anymore
07. Willie Nelson, Last leaf in the tree.
08. Einstuerzende Neubauten, Rampen
09. Jeff Parker, The way out of easy
10. Und immer Anton Bruckner, Te Deum

Als Freund der Zahl 12 kommen meine Alben des Jahres im Dutzend; vielleicht kommen zwischen den Jahren noch Listen mit Reissues, Flohmarktfunde und Ähnlichem.

We‘ve had too much sorrow, now is the time for joy.

01. Beth Gibbons – Lives Outgrown
02. Jeff Parker ETA IVtet – The Way Out Of Easy
03. Shabaka – Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace
04. Shane Parish – Repertoire
05. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Wild God
06. Kalma, Chiu, Honer – The Closest Thing To Silence
07. Rafael Toral – Spectral Evolution
08. The Necks – Bleed
09. Julia Holter – Something In The Room She Moves
10. Søren Skov Orbit – Adrift
11. Michael Kiwanuka – Small Changes
12. Father John Misty – Mahashmashana

piece for late hours

there was a time we stretched the afternoon  
til all those lights from windows, cars, first fireplaces  
made us look for hints, traces of black skies  
to finally open its gates for the rain  
for songs about even harder rain hitting, bathing  
us, invincible children with a mission.

Putting together
a year’s end list is like
playing solitaire by the window.

Any of the stuff not-ranked:
on a special evening
the gateway number one
(soul food horizon)

(in anderen worten:
lass den samtvogel fliegen!)

My 20 Albums of the Year 

01. Beth Gibbons: Lives Outgrown ***
02. Shabaka: Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowlege Its Grace
03. Erik Honoré: Triage*
04. Fred Hersch: Silent. Listening 
05. Jessica Pratt: Here In The Pitch 
06. Anna Butterss: Mighty Vertebratae
07. Jeff Parker ETA IVtet: The Way Out Of Easy
08. Jakob Bro: Taking Turns (my radio review: HERE)
09. Ganavya: like the sky i‘ve been too quiet
10. Einstürzende Neubauten: Rampen
11. Nala Sinephro: Endlessness
12. Kalma / Chiu / Honer: The Closest Thing To Silence
13. Eric Chenaux: Delights Of My Life  
14. Laurie Anderson: Amelia
15. Danish String Quartet: Keel Road**
17. Laurence Pike: The Undreamt-of Centre
18 Andrew Wasylyk & Tommy Perman: Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On
19. Pan American & Kramer: Reverberations of Non-Stop Traffic on Redding Road
20. Tindersticks: Soft Tissue

* Erik Honoré’s ‘Triage’ can easily be categorised as abstract sound art, with itsdiscreet electronics, noisy passages, dark lyrics and the refusal of clear song structures. However, this shows the error of a reception that only skims the surface and subsumes everything under ‘avant-garde’ that doesn’t deliver a three-minute song and doesn’t immediately groove and thrill in mainstream‘s predictable ways. Just switch off the lights and give this album your undivided attention! Prepare yourself for music that will barely keep you in your seat, encouraging you to – often simultaneuosly – float, dance and sink into it. Erik Honoré’s ‘Triage’ is a journey in nine stages, grooving and swirling from power spot to power spot. 

** a trip through the folk worlds of the Northern Sea.. a disc of quiet revelations and arrangements that are as exquisitely crafted as they are captivating, performed with abundant spirit and conviction, and captured in warm, close sound.

*** this cover lives up to the masterpiece of my album of the year. But, bet you this will be my last list til December 6 of 2025 (except radio playlists). So much memory work, listening back, and fidding in the details: even the line-up of these covers is sequenced:)

Favourite surround albums (quad / 5:1 / atmos)

• The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
• Joni Mitchell: Court and Spark & For The Roses
• King Crimson: Red (50th anniversary edition)
• Frank Zappa: Waka / Jawaka*
• Randy Newman: Good Old Boys

*often seen as a preparation for The Big Wazoo, I love this fusion album even more. I am a bit worried, that the older I get, the more i like to listen to Zappa. The family enterprise Zappa Records delivers first class vinyl, cd and surrounds from the archives – for the first time in my life I‘ve listened to „Roxy and Elsewhere“, and I love the live vibes in there, the overflowing energy of the band in full action (Ian Underwood, George Duke…), Zappa’s storytelling, and his electric guitar work😉

Favourite live albums 

• Alice Coltrane: The Carnegie Hall Concert 1970
• Arild Andersen: Landloper (bass solo excellence)
• Sidsel Endresen: Punkt Live Remixes, Vol. 2 
• Wayne Shorter: Celebration
• Keith Jarrett: The Old Country
• Bill Callahan: Resuscitate!
• King Crimson: Sheltering Skies – Live in Fréjus, August, 27, 1982
• Oregon: Ludwigsburg 1990

Deeply moving anglo-american song cycles dealing with failure, fools, decay, love, awareness and all

• Julia Holter: Something In The Room She Moves
• Father John Misty: Mahashmashana
• Kim Deal: Nobody Loves You More (späte Entdeckung)
• Hayden Thorpe: Ness (a fantastic melange of song & spoken word)
• Gillian Welch & David Rawlings: Woodland
• Iron and Wine: Light Verse

Albums I wish to materialize in 2025

Brian Eno: An album of songs following the magic „All I Remember“ from the doc „Eno“ / Scritti Politti: a man who only made fantastic cover versions of two Anne Briggs songs from her classic album in years and years should finally finish new songs to remember / Steve Tibbetts: a new (wild?) album by the guitarrero from Minneapolis (after the quiet brilliance of „Life Of“ on ECM)

Albums I wish to reappear remastered on vinyl after a very long time

• Mal Waldron, Eberhard Weber et al.: The Call *
• The Human Arts Ensemble: Under The Tree
• Anthony Braxton Quartet: New York, Fall 1974**
• Jan Garbarek: Sart

*one of the most underrated european fusion masterpieces of the 70‘s

**Braxton‘s albums on Arista Records between 74 and 76 were all brilliant. A shame they missed the 50th anniversary of one of his crownung achievements, that quartet with Kenny Wheeler, Dave Holland, and Barry Altshul.

My fave albums for deep dancing with or without moving

• Nik Bärtsch‘s Ronin: Spin
• Underworld: Strawberry Hotel

Ancient song cycles, missed in their wild days, finally found

• Paul McCartney & Wings: Band On The Run
• Joni Mitchell: For The Roses

Easily trance inducing, „far out“-albums from the department of „Where am i-Music“ (a question you can ask yourself even while strolling through Clevelode‘s Epping Forest) – every album a grower, some „easy on the ear“, some challenging.

• The Necks: Bleed
• Rafael Toral: Spectral Evolution
• Arushi Jain: Delight
• Sören Skov Orbit: Adrift
• Feliciá Atkinson: Space As An Instrument (spoken word thrills)*
• Rachel Musson: Ashes and Dust, Earth and Sky
• Alva Noto: HYBR:ID III
• Kit Downes, Bill Frisell, Andrew Cyrille: Breaking The Shell
• Clevelode: Muntjac (HERE, my conversation with Paul Newland)
• Fennesz: Mosaic
  
  * „Since the late 2000s, this French musician and visual artist has been releasing collages of field recordings, midi instrumentation and her own hushed vocals, performing abstract poems and stories – in her native French and in English – over ambient clouds of sound. Her most recent album Space As An Instrument comes equipped with everything a great Félicia Atkinson record needs, while not deviating wildly from her proven recipe. This was my comforting go-to headphone soundtrack during fall and early winter.“ (Stephan Kuntze)

Finally, my eighteen favourite reissues & archival discoveries

01. Ank Anum: Song Of The Motherland  
02.The American Analog Set: New Drifters 
03. Taylor / Winstone / Wheeler: Azimuth 
04. Jan Garbarek: Afric Pepperbird 
05. Can: Live in Paris 1973 
06. Günter Schickert: Samtvogel (späte Entdeckung)
07. Annette Peacock: An Acrobat‘s Heart**
08. Julie Tippetts: Shadow Puppeteer 
09. Byard Lancaster: The Complete Palm Recordings 1973-74  
10. Anne Briggs: Anne Briggs *
11. Sussan Deyhim & Richard Horowitz: The Invisible Road
12. Linval Thompson: Ride On Dreadlocks 1975-77
13. Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru: Souvenirs
14. Steve Beresford & Anne Marie Beretta: Dancing The Line
15. Peter Thomas: The Master Tapes, Vol. 1)
17. Dennis Bovell: Sufferer Sounds
18. Toumani Diabate & Ballake Sissoko: New Ancient Strings

*(„A stone-cold British folk classic, rendered all the more precious by Briggs’ reluctance to add to her slender catalogue down the years. As a result, the four unreleased recordings included as a bonus 7” with this remastered vinyl reissue – including typically spare, devastating takes on “The Cruel Mother” and “Bruton Town” – were something of a holy grail.“)

** I met Amnette back then in Munich (in the summer of 2000), and she told me, at one point, about sensitive moments in the production. Once, in the morning, she felt her energy waning, couldn’t make the appointment, everything was up in the air. Manfred Eicher carefully knocked at her door. Helpful words, encouragement. It ended well. Fortunately. By the way, she never got together with Brian Eno (they would have made an interesting pair in the studio), but once, early in the seventies, he lent her a wonderful pair of old horn loudspeakers, she fell in love with their sound and never gave them back.

Five smart and deeply touching music documentaries from the last two years

• „Beatles 64“ (Disney plus)
• „Eno“ (by Gary Hustvit)
• „Music for Black Pigeons“ (on Jakob Bro and friends)
• „Zutaten für ein Desaster“ (on Nik Bärtschs, Prime, Apple+)
• „Zero Gravity“ (about the life and times of Wayne Shorter)
• “In The Court of the Crimson King“ (By Toby Amies)*

* I remember that Bill Bruford moment: „Change is part of what King Crimson is about. Change is essential. Otherwise you turn into the Moody Blues, for heaven’s sake.“ Change – and discipline, I should add, with all its good and not so good implications. Humour is an antidot of the doc that has its clear amount of bitter an bitter sad moments. Thinking back, my memory loves to return to a scene that seems like a moment of letting go: people in a park, it‘s raining, they are dancing, floating, kind of. Not easy to link that one with the film‘s dynamic structure, but Toby Amies has been looking, in between, for places of tranquility and surrender, a counterpoint to tough thinking and a means to overrule the intellect. Well done.

Postscriptum 1: Your first song from a great 2025 album, dear reader, comes from „Cold Blows The Rain“, the forthcoming album by Taylor Hayden and The Apparitions: „Lovely On The Water”, listen to it HERE, and immerse yourself into the moving pictures from an old time. In the words of Rob Young, „it’s a song originally collected by composer Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1908, and it sets the tone for the rest of the album. It’s a lament for a pair of young lovers ripped apart. A last, tearful embrace before he must set sail for a distant war. The incomplete song’s last lines describe the collective mourning on Tower Hill of bereaved mothers, wives and lovers. The Apparitions take the song at a steady, funereal pace, adding dignity to devastation.“

Postscriptum 2: I want this „list“ to be a field to stroll around. Making discoveries, and meeting the thin line between memories and imagination, something that so often happens when listening to music you love. It is only a few days ago I heard from the death of my best childhood friend Matthias. We lost one another when being around 12 years young, there never was a wrong note between us. I was looking for him over the last months, and I had nearly found him. A few minutes, a few houses away. But, bad detective work. If I would be a singer, I would write a folk song about our adventures in Dortmund-Hombruch. In fact, my search for him began in springtime, and found its way into the poem „piece for late hours“ that was written while losing myself into the latest album of Pan American and Kramer, my ambient album of the year, and my number 16 in this field to stroll around – making discoveries, and meeting the thin line between memory and imagination that so often happens while living our life.