by Levi Dayan
[originally published November 2021]
In the past few years, and especially the past couple, opening any year-end retrospective with “[insert thing here] kept us going through yet another tumultuous year” has become as universal of a cliche as opening an essay with “since the beginning of time.” It doesn’t make sense that I seemingly read the obligatory “things are, in fact, not all fine” disclaimer attached to every year end list only one time of the year, as it feels like it’s become yet another thing sucked into the all-consuming blob that is the minutiae of post-pandemic life. But in the process of making this list I kept thinking of people who seem to genuinely believe that music “isn’t as good as it used to be”—a line of thinking that one would expect to be exclusive to boomers but is shockingly prevalent amongst younger, more connected people—must lead the most miserable lives imaginable. There’s certainly a degree to which even broad generalizations about “the state of music” are fair, as I definitely believe that Spotify has granted some of the most boring, middle of the road musicians an unwarranted degree of attention. But amazing music still comes out every day, because of course it fucking does. You may have to know where to find it—the algorithm certainly isn’t it—but it’s there, because as long as people continue to improvise and adapt with the constantly shifting specter of change, brilliant, creative art will come out of it. In short, I’m reminded of something I mentioned in a previous article about seeing a group lead by percussionist Michael TA Thompson in New York just prior to the start of this semester. Thompson said at the end of his set (which I’m paraphrasing here): “People say everything in the world is crazy, but it can’t all be crazy because we’re all here sharing this music.”
Keith Rowe - Absence
Vijay Iyer / Linda May Han Oh / Tyshawn Sorey - Uneasy
Kuzu - The Glass Delusion
Lea Bertucci - A Visible Length of Light
Floating Points / The London Symphony Orchestra / Pharoah Sanders - Promises
Eiko Ishibashi - For McCoy
James Brandon Lewis Red Lily Quartet - Jesup Wagon
Roscoe Mitchell / Mike Reed - The Ritual and the Dance
Fred Frith / Ikue Mori - A Mountain Doesn’t Know It’s Tall
Ustad Saami - east Pakistan sky
Bill Orcutt / Chris Corsano - Made Out of Sound
Natural Information Society - descension (out of our constrictions)
Lisa Cameron / Sandy Ewen - See Creatures Too
Judith Hamann - Hinterhof
Will Guthrie / James Rushford - Real Real World
L’Rain - Fatigue
Fire! - Defeat
Jim O’Rourke / Eiko Ishibashi - Live in Hokutoshi
Toshimaru Nakamura - Culvert (No-Input Mixing Board 10)
Anne Guthrie - Gyropedie
Rodrigo Amado This is Our Language Quartet - Let the Free Be Men
Ahmed - nights on saturn (communication)
Beatriz Ferreyra / Natasha Barrett - Souvenirs Cachés / Innermost
Julius Eastman - Femenine (performed by Wind Up)
Cristián Alvear / Cyril Bondi - Sigh (carried away) [comp. d’incise] / grado de potencia #2 [comp. Santiago Astaburuaga]
George Lewis - The Recombinant Trilogy (performed by Claire Chase, Seth Parker Woods & Dana Jessen)
Artifacts - ….and then there’s this
Aaron Dilloway / Lucrecia Dalt - Lucy & Aaron
Makaya McCraven - Deciphering the Message
Toshimaru Nakamura / Tetuzi Akiyama - Idiomatic Expressionism
William Parker - Mayan Space Station
Ken Ikeda / Rie Nakajima - Signal and Signaless
Strictly Missionary - Heisse Scheisse
Wadada Leo Smith, Douglas Ewart & Mike Reed - Sun Beans of Shimmering Light
Damon Locks Black Monument Ensemble - Now
Susan Alcorn / Leila Bourdreuil / Ingrid Laubrock - Bird Meets Wire
Ben Lamar Gay - Open Arms to Open Us
Senyawa - Alkisah