Boy, do I like change! The evolution of music is being greatly impacted by the Internet. Specially in the way it facilitates its distribution and access by people all over the world. On top of that, the computer allows anyone and everyone to create, record, and play music at a fairly sophisticated level-specially when you compare the primitive recording schemes many of us had in the 60's as we tried to capture music from our small AM radios. I know many musicians are frustrated over these developments since it prevents them from earning their deserved livelihood from traditional sources (recordings) but I look at the music that I come into contact today and wonder if under the old,large studio system if any of much of this music would have made it into my ears. Not likely. And this should be part of the opportunity music makers can leverage moving forward to get their music out and heard under their production and control.
And you can see this impact on the multitude of music, of all genres, available and being made accessible via the Internet and the growing difficulty of trying to classify this music into clean, separate buckets as the music industry has been inclined to do in the past. Again, this is a welcome development for those of us who thrive on listening to different and surprising things on each and every day of our lives. As for me, I can not live without new sounds every day. My children have inherited the same lucky fate. Why lucky? I don't think there was ever time when so much new music from so many different places and people have been instantly accessible to those who have an Internet connection. We know what that results in!
For me, this year's music was characterize by a rich mixture of diverse cultural musical sounds and the humanization of the electronically made and mixed sound. This may be a given for most of you, but for me this was the year these things all became "natural sounding" to me and lost its mechanical artifice. So the selection of what caught my attention and emotions is probably somewhat predictable with some popular sounds making my list: Dirty Projectors, Animal Collective, and the wonderful Maxwell. But the majority of what I enjoyed I actually came into contact in person at small concert venues where I was able to be mesmerized by the music I heard: Klaus Paier and Asja
Valcic, Wild Beasts, and the precocious Curtis Brothers Quartet. Today, all the music I've listed as "Best" continues to inspire and make me want to keep on living. I hope it will do the same for you. In no special order here is what kept me breathing:
Till Fellner-Bach's Inventionen und Sinfonien
Klaus Paier and Asja Valcic-A Deux
Concha Buika & Chucho Valdes-El Último Trago
Marcio Local-Says Don day don dree don don: Adventures in Samba Soul
Califone-All My Friends are Funeral Singers
Animal Collective-Merriweather Post Pavilion
Gui Borrato-Take my Breath Away
Samuel Blaser Quartet- Pieces of Old Sky
Hildur Guðnadóttir-Without Sinking
Curtis Brothers Quartet- Blood-Spirit-Land-Water-Freedom
