My favorite albums of 2017

Various Artists - Aho: Saxophone Concerto and Quintet

I've been working long hours, including weekends, so haven't had time to post. Fortunately, that's backed off some for now.

Any new Kalevi Aho album BIS puts out is an auto buy for me even without sampling. I've loved everything I've heard by him and this one is no exception. I'm slowly buying the back catalog, which is extensive. The blurb for this albums says that he's composed sixteen symphonies and twenty-eight concertos, several operas and a large number of chamber works. BIS hasn't put them all out yet.

This album is especially a no brainer for me because I love classical saxophone. This concerto lives up to my expectation. For the most part, the concerto is slow and quiet. Only a few segments are marked presto and they're fairly short. There's not a lot of dissonance either. The wind quintet is a little more upbeat, although the longest movement is named Nocturno. The album closes with a solo violin piece which is back to slow and quiet.


Spotify: Aho: Concerto for Soprano Saxophone & Chamber Orchestra and Quintet for Winds & Piano

 

Los Angeles Percussion Quartet - Beyond

Another band that is an auto buy for me. Unlike Kalevi Aho, their discography is small and I own it all. IMO, they are the best percussion ensemble out there now and they commission a lot of music, although only one for this album. They were formed to premote West Coast composers. This album is called Beyond because they expanded to composers from the Nevada, Brooklyn and Iceland, Daníel Bjarnason, Christopher Cerrone, Andrew McIntosh, Ellen Reid and Anna Þorvaldsdóttir.

I know some people think percussion music is just things being pounded on but this is nothing like that. There are a lot of mallets and stick hitting things, but there's also a lot of bowing and rubbing that produces a lot of interesting sounds.

Spotify: Beyond

 

Nicolas Horvath - Rääts: Complete Piano Sonatas, Vol. 1

Jaan Rääts is a new to me composer. These are modern piano sonatas composed between 1959 and 2000. The music is quite unlike any I've heard. It's less dissonant that other late 20th century piano music I've heard and yet sounds completely modern. I'm looking forward to volume 2.

Spotify: Rääts: Complete Piano Sonatas, Vol. 1

 

Jeremy Kerner/Isaura String Quartet - Daniel Corral: Refractions

This year is the first year I bought classical music on Bandcamp, maybe 15 albums. This is one. As far as I know, it's not available anywhere else. It is available as a CD from Bandcamp.

It's one composition for electric guitar, string quartet and electronically processed music box. It could have been placed in my ambient list instead of in classical.

 

Kuniko Kato - Bach: Solo works for marimba

The only album of non-20th century music on the list and it's a transcription of Bach solo instrument works. Kuniko is another auto buy artist for me. Every one of her albums are great. This could be a good entre into percussion music, especially for people who like Bach. Then again, some purists will hate it.



Not available for streaming, but here's a live performance of her playing Bach

 

Barbara Hannigan - Crazy Girl Crazy

This is a very popular album which is surprising to me since it isn't the most accessible music, except for the 13 minute suite of Gershwin. The highlight for me is the Berio. Hannigan's singing in it is amazing. Hannigan is an exception to my generally not liking vocal music, especially solo vocal music. I have three albums she sings on and love them all. The disappointment on this album is the Lulu Suite. It's 35 minutes of one of the great singers of contemporary music, conducting and instrumental piece. It's very good, but I'd rather hear her sing.

Spotify: Crazy Girl Crazy

 

2017 was a great year for blues. I could list 50-60 great releases.

Here's a sample of some

BLUES JUNCTION Productions - Top Forty Albums of 2017

 

The only blues release I bought this year is Otis Taylor - Fantasizing About Being Black. I like blues when I listen to it, but for some reason, I don't go out of my way looking for it. I'll check out some on that list. I love some of the retro cover art.

 

Tetraktis Ensemble - Ionisation - Percussion Music by Varèse, Reich, Chavez, Cowell, Harrison, Cage

I was so excited when I saw this album online that I ordered it after listening to a couple of samples. I didn't realize I was preordering it a couple of months before it's release. The Chavez, Cowell and Harrison got me the most excited. I have very little of their music and for Chavez and Cowell, nothing that I own is percussion music. Harrison's music tends to be full of percussion, especially gamelan. It's also nice to have pre-WWII percussion music. Except for the Reich piece, all of the music was composed between 1929 and 1942.

Spotify: Ionisation; Percussion Music

 

Third Coast Percussion - Philippe Manoury: The Book of Keyboards

If you haven't noticed yet, I love percussion music. This is the first of two albums on the list by Third Coast Percussion, another group that is an auto buy for me.

Spotify: Philippe Manoury: The Book of Keyboards

 

Emil Jonason - Emil Jonason plays Lindberg and Golijov

Along with percussion, I love wind music, especially double reeds but also clarinet. The Christian Lindberg work is a concerto written specifically for Jonason. The Golijov is for string quartet and clarinet and is heavily influenced by Klezmer music. It's an interesting contrast between the two pieces.

Spotify: Lindberg: The Erratic Dreams of Mr Grönstedt - Golijov: The Dreams & Prayers of Isaac the Blind

 

Various Artists - Tüür: Peregrinus ecstaticus - Le poids des vies non vécues - Noesis

Another modern clarinet concerto, along with a violin and clarinet concerto and an orchestral piece. Tüür is another modern composer whose works I really like. The violin and clarinet concerto is the highlight although everything is great. At points this music is very dissonant.

Spotify: Tüür: Peregrinus ecstaticus - Le poids des vies non vécues - Noēsis

 

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Various Artists - Harrison: Violin Concerto, Grand Duo & Double Music

The violin concerto is essentially a concerto for violin and traditional and junk percussion, right up my alley. The junk percussion includes brake drums, galvanized washtubs, clock coils set in a base made from an old guitar body, coffee cans, wind chimes, flower pots, and plumber's pipes. I'm not sure what they use for coffee cans now days since it's been years since I've seen a coffee can.

The Grand Duo is for violin and piano. Double Music is co-composed with John Cage and comes out of series of duo percussion concerts by Harrison and Cage in San Francisco.

Spotify: Harrison: Violin Concerto, Grand Duo & Double Music

 

Daniel Bjarnason - Recurrence (ISO Project, Vol. 1)

A collection of orchestral music by Icelandic composers, played by the Iceland Symphony conducted Daníel Bjarnason, who also composed one of the pieces. Over the past few years, I've been discovering Icelandic composers and have yet to hear anything I don't like. Anna Þorvaldsdóttir and Daníel Bjarnason have works on this album as well as Beyond posted previously. The other composers are Thurídur Jónsdóttir, Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir and Hlynur Aðils Vilmarsson. Before this year, I was only familiar with Anna Þorvaldsdóttir who has been getting some press for the past few years.

Overall the music is pretty atmospheric, although not to the point that I'd consider it ambient.

Spotify: Recurrence

 

Ensemble Aleph - Kagel: The 8 Pieces of the Wind Rose

I discovered Kagel through the Avant Garde Project downloads. I haven't gone out of my way to buy his music, but I enjoyed the download enough to buy his music when it pops up.

This music is not that far out there. It's a really mish-mash of musical styles and ideas, loosely themed on compass directions. Since Kagel is an Argentine, the directions don't necessarily invoke what Americans or Europeans would think of with those directions. For instance, NW is the Andes and NE is the Amazon. Overall very accessible.

Spotify: Kagel: The 8 Pieces of the Wind Rose

 

Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble - Hushers

Another Bandcamp purchase. Very interesting and very modern choral music. Two of the works are settings of poems by Thomas Merton set by Kate Soper and Sylvia Plath set by Kaija Saariaho. The other two pieces by Warren Enström and Giacinto Scelsi are mostly just sounds. Warren Enström's Hushers does supposedly end in real lyrics but I don't understand them. They're either not in English or just unintelligible. The beginning of Hushers is a lot of fricative sounds and when the lyrics do start, it's very dissonant. The Kate Soper work is pretty much unintelligible too.

Hushers is the highlight for me.

Bandcamp: Hushers, by Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble

 

Roomful of Teeth - How A Rose

If this wasn't a single, it would be my favorite release of the year. This is gorgeous music. It was recorded during a residency at The Tank Center for Sonic Arts in Rangely, CO. It was recorded in an old railroad water tower in a the desert in Western Colorado. The reverb in the tank is wonderful. It's a setting of Praetorius's 1609 setting of "Es ist ein Ros entsprungen." Evidently, they recorded a lot more. I'm really looking forward to a full album of this.

Bandcamp: How A Rose, by Roomful of Teeth



Here's a video of them singing another piece in the tank, Michael Harrison's Just Constellations.

 

Tamsin Waley-Cohen - Waley-Cohen: Permutations & Unveil

This would have made my list if it wasn't an EP. Very interesting violin music composed by Freya Waley-Cohen and played by her sister Tamsin Waley-Cohen. Permutations is for six pre-recorded violins and was part of an installation piece commissioned by the 2017 Aldeburgh Festival. Each violin part was played in one of six chambers. At various points in the setting, you can hear from one to all of the violin parts. The audience wanders through the chambers so the experience of the music depends on how they wander between the chambers.

Unveil is for solo violin and based on some of the ideas and improvisations when writing Permutations.

Spotify: Freya Waley-Cohen: Permutations

 

Various Artists - Molly Joyce: Lean Back and Release

Another good EP of violin music. This time music for a live violin accompanied by two pre-recorded violins.

Bandcamp: Lean Back and Release, by Molly Joyce

 

Jeroen Van Veen - Minimal Piano Collection: Volume XXI-XXVIII

My last classical entry is a boxed set that is my favorite box set released last year. It's a small box, not a mega box. I've been a big fan of Jeroen Van Veen's minimalist piano boxed sets he's been releasing on Brilliant Classics. This box continues the trend of excellent releases. This includes what is supposed to be the first minimalist piece, Dennis Johnson's November composed in 1959.

Spotify: Minimal Piano Collection: Volume XXI-XXVIII

 

Just wanted to thank you for this fantastic post. Tons of interesting stuff I haven't heard of, but am now making "must listen to" list.

 

Ditto, must've been incredibly time consuming to put this all together @scompton, but extremely interesting to follow you through all these lists and descriptions. Thanks for all the effort!

 

Yes--it will take me some time to sample everything, but I very much appreciate the opportunity. Thanks for doing this!

 

Ambient

I didn't buy as much ambient this year as in the past few years and not all I bought actually stuck with me so I only have a top 8

1. Kristoffer Lo - Anhedonia
2. Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement - Ambient Black Magic
3. Chihei Hatakeyama - Mirage
4. ekin fil - ghosts inside
5. Slomo - Transits
6. GAS - Narkopop
7. Kassel Jaeger/Jim O'Rourke - Wakes on Cerulean
8. Visible Cloaks - Reassemblage