Improvising with Seoul: An Interview with Kevin Parks

Kevin Parks doesn't have too many albums to his name but each one of them, including last year's Severe Liberties with Vanessa Rossetto, is great. If you listen to any of those releases, it's clear that he's a very astute musician, able to shape the way he plays his guitar or utilizes his electronics to compliment the musicians he's performing with. He currently resides in South Korea and has been involved with the experimental music scene in Seoul for over a decade now (you can watch some live performances at the Dotolim YouTube channel).

Despite his busy schedule, Parks took the time to thoughtfully answer the numerous questions I had for him via email. A big thank you to Parks for his generosity and patience throughout the entire process.

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Tone Glow: I just want to start off by saying thanks for doing this, I really appreciate it. One of the reasons I wanted to do an interview with you was because there isn't a lot of information about you online. You're currently a teacher at the Catholic University of Daegu and are involved with the experimental music scene in South Korea. What led you there and how did you end up becoming involved with those musicians (e.g. Hong Chulki, Ryu Hankil, Jin Sangtae, Choi Joonyong)?

Kevin Parks: I am indeed currently a teacher at Catholic University of Daegu. But my Korea story is a long one that has too many twists and turns to tell in detail. I first came to Korea in the mid-1990s as a student off winning a small scholarship. Sometime in the late 80s/early 90s, I took a strong interest in Korean traditional music and that led me to attending Yonsei University for a semester to study Korean. I had an option to stay the whole year, which I very much wanted, but I was working my way through school and had to be back for the fall term. So I stayed as long as I could but that experience was transformative and I knew I would find a way back. It was an amazing eye-opening experience for me, having barely ventured more than a few hundred miles from New York. I grew up working class. People in my family never travelled abroad unless they were in the armed services or whatever. Korea then was a bit harder than it is now but I just loved it instantly. I still do.

Not too long after that I returned to Korea, did a few more semesters studying Korean at SNU, and then walked into a job teaching computer music at the Seoul Institute of the Arts. I was not much aware of what noise or free jazz or improv was going on, other than Kim Dae Hwan (Percussion)—who I learned about through Korean traditional music circles—and Kang Tae Hwan. I heard Park Je Chun (he taught percussion at the same school I worked at) and Miyeon and maybe a few things here and there but I was not actually doing much improvisation at that time (late 90s). That flame was rekindled when Joe Foster arrived. He was looking to play and reached out to me to let me know he was coming to Seoul. I had previously done a lot of AMM-esque experimental free improv at Brooklyn College but I had sort of left that and fell down the computer music rabbit hole. In any case, things started to gel in Seoul around the time Joe showed up (coincidentally) and he was much involved right from the get-go. He was the one who got me interested again and introduced me around.

Kang Tae Hwan (Alto Sax), Choi Sun Bae (Trumpet), Kim Dae Hwan (Percussion) - "Seoul Free Music Trio" from Korean Free Music (1989)

Joe and I jammed a little, but more importantly (at that point), I went to many of his shows. That is where I met, over time, all of the rest of the gang, Chulki, Sangtae, Joonyong, Hankil and Seungjun as well as meeting others who were playing a lot, like Sato Yukie and Alfred Harth. Through Joe I also met Bill Ashline who has been such a vital part of the scene in a myriad of ways. Bonnie Jones was there for a year or so as well and Bonnie and Joe, of course, did so many interesting things together as English. Additionally, though never resident in Korea, Bryan Eubanks visited a few times and he is friends with everyone and a frequent collaborator with the Seoul crew as well. I then decided to pursue a PhD and went back home, though you would not hardly know it as I returned literally every year while I was doing courses at Virginia, some years twice. But one of the very first things I did when I returned to the US was start looking into playing live improvised music again. I became pretty active in 804.noise (Richmond VA) and other activities and most importantly, played very regularly in a trio with Wendy Hsu and Carey Sargent, which was a really great experience. We played at home most Thursdays and did lots of gigs. I like to play a lot. I also developed by playing in ad hocs and jamming with friends, and played as much as possible when in Seoul. I returned to Seoul in 2009. Joe and I had already done Ipsi sibi somnia fingunt in 2007 and we followed that up with Prince Rupert Drops and then Acts Have Consequences at the same time I did the Celadon Records recording with Sangtae and Chulki. While there were other things in the mix (disillusionment with computer music, a general overall interest in improvised music and a desire for a messier, more social musical situation), Joe Foster’s arrival in Seoul just after the 2002 World Cup was key; it was through him that I met and played with all the other Seoul folks.

There are numerous factors that led you to becoming a full-on improviser but I imagine part of it had to do with the positive experiences you've had collaborating with these various musicians. Are there any specific ways in which these collaborations have helped you to grow as an improviser?

Just generally I found that writing scores and doing computer music could be a solitary way to be in the world. I didn’t want those to be the only ways that I made music. I was keen to work collaboratively and to make a more social music. I don’t think there is any way that you come away from a significant collaboration without some new notions, new fascinations and a few new riffs even (let’s be honest) but I think it is often hard to say specifically what those things are, but you know you are a little different for having shared that effort.

The collaboration with Carey Sargent and Wendy Hsu was important because of the many hours we spent sitting in a room making music together. We had a kind of deep trust and friendship that allowed us to risk mistakes or explore something that might not be fruitful and it also allowed us to really get to know each other. We got really good at reading each other’s signals and interacting, and yet there were always new things and surprises. No question I have learned from playing with all the folks I have recorded or shared a stage with. Playing with different groups always presents a set of challenges unique to that configuration of instruments and personalities (for example playing with folks who tend to come from a more harsh noise background can be tough for me when I show up with just my guitar) but perhaps I am just too close to it to say specifically what those things are. Making and performing music well is not easy and one of the things that helps is to just put yourself in as many different situations as possible. I try to do that, to a point. A last thing about challenges: I have played several times with one improviser in various settings, on two continents and for whatever reason, despite all the people we have in common, I will confess that I have not yet felt like I have really played a great set with this person. This player is always wonderful enough that folks in the audience may enjoy the set anyway, but I always feel like I have somehow been confounded. Perhaps not entirely a bad thing! And it shows me I still have more to learn.

Can you speak a bit more on your time with Carey and Wendy in Pinko Communoids? I know you three came together while at the University of Virginia and played numerous shows together, even touring in Taiwan at one point. How was that whole experience, as well as trying to create a close community in Virginia through the HzCollective?

Wendy, Carey and I got together really just for fun. I think I might have sent around an email asking folks to jam and they responded so we began meeting regularly on Thursdays to jam and played some shows around Charlottesville just for fun. Subsequently we became involved in 804.noise in nearby Richmond. Richmond, Baltimore and DC all have pretty good size noise scenes so we were lucky on that score. What happened at 804.noise is a story for Kenneth Yates to tell but we later formed the HzCollective with him and Jonathan Zorn and others and played regularly and organized shows and even a festival or two at the BridgePAI in Charlottesville. That Virginia had such a bustling little improv noise scene at that time is at least partially due to the tireless efforts of Kenneth Yates. I met a lot of nice folks through the Richmond noise/improv scene and through Kenneth, players like Jimmy Ghaphery, Cory O’Brian, Clifford Schwing and others. Many folks who were playing Baltimore and, say, heading down to Asheville would pass through Charlottesville and also Richmond so we got to meet and play with folks that way as well as playing with a lot of folks who were resident Mid-Atlantic.

You've studied composition under numerous composers. Most of them have devoted a large part of their career to computer music but you've also studied under Christian Wolff. Is there anything in particular you've gained from your time spent with him?

Christian had a dual appointment in classics and music and liked to teach music courses with groups of students but was much less keen to give individual composition lessons, I think due to the very loose nature of the lessons received from Cage. He’s a genuinely humble person so perhaps that traditional authoritarian “master-student” type situation that prevails in music as a teaching model is something he is not keen on participating in but he sensed I really wanted to work with him so he agreed. I think I wrote a pair of string quartets and an electronic piece with him. He was really focused on very practical things and gave lots of good advice particularly as regards to orchestration and instrumentation. I was working a lot with microtonal stuff then and he didn’t do that himself and likely did not want to get too deep in the weeds of all those tuning ratios but he listened very carefully and gave really solid pragmatic advice. I wish I could impart some amazing profound zen-like nugget of wisdom but it really was nuts and bolts stuff. The result was my pieces were ready, rehearsal time was not wasted, and I got fantastic readings of my pieces by the quartet that came in to play them. As a student, that is the maximum experience. If you write a piece and stick it in a drawer a lot remains unknown. But to make a score, rehearse it and have it played in concert completes the feedback loop. You hear it and learn what really works and what doesn’t. Christian really helped with scoring and notation and gave smart and insightful feedback. It was critical feedback too, he is one of the nicest people you can meet, just a lovely human being but he will tell you if he thinks something you wrote doesn’t work but generally he is very enthusiastic and encouraging. It was also nice that so many amazing people came to visit him. He would bring them around and you could hang out with them. I spent a whole week brown bagging it with Gordon Mumma. Hugh Davies also dropped by as did several others. Christian would just bring these folks around to talk to us.

I'm not entirely sure how it's structured at the Catholic University of Daegu but has he affected the way you teach your own students? And in general, can you touch upon your experiences as a teacher?

I learned so much from all my teachers and I have an especially warm feeling for my time at Brooklyn College because I was so rough then and likely a pretty big problem for all my early teachers. I went to NYC public schools, so it was a lot of babysitting. I arrived completely unprepared for college and it was hard for me to find a path forward. Making things worse, I had a severe hand injury that required extensive surgery and physical therapy. I don’t want to use that as an excuse, but it held me back for sure. I really did not know what hit me when I first arrived at college. I was plenty used to hard physical labor, but I hadn’t the slightest idea what it meant to do an original research project or how to fulfill college level assignments. I was lost with little in my background to prepare me for what I was up against. Fortunately, some fantastic music teachers—Charles Dodge, Noah Creshevsky, Sherman Van Sulkema, Carol Oja, H. Wiley Hitchcock and Curtis Bahn and several others—helped me figure it out. By the time I left Brooklyn College I was in on a path. The experience with Curtis Bahn was key. I was, I believe, his first real composition student. He really helped me out and under his eye I was able to be truly productive with live electronics, computer music, and writing scores. I then followed Charles Dodge to Dartmouth and then later on went to the University of Virginia (after a long stint in Korea). At UVa I primarily worked with Matthew Burtner, Ted Coffey and Judith Shatin. I haven’t talked much about that which makes it seem unimportant. That isn’t true. It is just a bit too close to the present time to know how to talk about but I learned so much from them and also from my fellow students. I remember we would all go walk home from our seminars almost high talking about the music we were working on in class and that is a great feeling and those discussions were nourishing.

Still, I have found things have bogged down for me when I get deep, too exclusive, with academia and forget about my non-academic musical surroundings. How many times I have been seduced by writing code or some big project and lose my focus on producing music regularly with the tools and people already at hand. I think that has to do with the monumentalizing of everything that happens in an academic setting. That aspect of it is unhealthy and I work hard to keep my students loose and try to steer them away from the academic ramifications. I try to keep them focused on the task at hand, which is to make a piece of music (however long or short), that they are proud of, that broadens their experience and makes them feel a kind of satisfaction. Sadly I often fail to take my own advice. But the whole improv/noise world serves as a great foil for all the crap that big “C” composers laden themselves with. Think of someone like Jack Wright, still traveling around from town to town, flopping on people’s couches, still playing house shows, no gig too small, no improviser too unknown to gig with. Think of Kevin Drumm. He’s absolutely brilliant. He’s not getting some sweet tenure track gig or some high dollar “Genius" award, but he puts out a ton of just staggering music. I remember a long day tweaking some supercollider code ended with me seeing a show with Joe Foster in which he played a killer set using mostly just the objects in the room. I mean here is a dude with a fucking chopstick and a broken guitar pedal doing something vastly more interesting than my fancy pants algorithm was outputting. I try hard to keep all that in mind.

As for the guitar. That took a long time to figure out too, and in a way Christian Wolff’s example was key in that. Depressed, I hadn’t even owned a guitar after Dartmouth. But obstacles and limitations can lead us to interesting places. It is weird to me now that I actually even play the guitar but I have played guitar since I was 6. What else was I going to do?

Your live performances and albums are primarily improvised and collaborative. As you've previously mentioned, this is at least partially a natural response to your academic focuses and the time you spent making computer music. Are you generally uninterested in performing solo or composed music then in this non-academic area of your life? Most of these Seoul musicians are improvisers so I imagine it's also the way things work out when being involved in this scene.

I am interested in playing solo but I feel like that is a very different thing from playing in small groupings (as is large ensemble improvisation, which presents its own unique challenges). Playing solo involves lots of things that are unique to it and it is missing that interaction that comes about playing with another person and as a result is harder to sustain and harder to make interesting for the audience. I am sure more solo playing is on the horizon for me and I have done some but this last little stretch has really been about getting in a room or on a stage with two or three other players and seeing what happens and that still remains really interesting to me as there are seemingly as many ways to do that as there are people doing it. I do play at home by myself sometimes and have enough recorded for like 4 solo records but I am still really getting so much out of playing with others. This project with Vanessa is a great example. So many things that she did that really made me think. There are things that happened on the record that I would never have come up with left to myself and my own poor ideas. How will that experience change my ideas about sound? How will that filter into what I do next? How could you not want to do more of that? But I do also want to see what happens when it is just me up there. I think of someone like Keith Rowe playing these long solo sets and sustaining that interest, which is fascinating as well.

Over a decade ago, you spent some time with the Sadari Movement Lab working on a theater piece entitled Spectrum. I'm assuming that was one of your experiences creating music that was both composed and with a larger group. How did you end up getting involved in that and what did the music sound like? Many of its shows sold out and it seemed like it was a huge success—have you been involved with them in any way since?

That was a great collaboration with a really amazing group of folks. I don’t even know how to describe it, part mime, part dance, part experimental theater. There was sculpture and interesting lighting effects and projected video as well (which had to be carefully aimed at moving scrims). It was based on a sort of Koreanized Hamlet but the script itself was very short. We did that show several times including a 3 or 4 day run at the Seoul Arts Center. The music for that was all pretty much composed and worked up in rehearsals. The director of that group is a brilliant man named Im Dowan and he has the actors all work on designing their own costumes and concepts for the characters including these dynamic masks and props that all moved when the actors moved. I went to rehearsals, read the script and edited my music to fit and made some new bits as well. It was a lot of work but so exciting. It was all computer music and I triggered it from the computer while watching the action on the stage and one bit was generated in real time with supercollider. It was a ghost scene that seemed to be a little different each night so I would have to adjust the timing of that. I used filtered noise bands that I could control in real time, the sharpness and tuning of the filters. Much of the music was done with granular synthesis (opening and closing) and there was some sampled prepared piano as well. The music was highlighted in that production and was not just incidental. I loved that project and those people and would work with them again in a heartbeat. I was asked again to work with them on another project a couple years ago but for health reasons I was not able to. I was sad to have to turn that down. I have many nice memories of that project and am still kind of proud of how that turned out. We wanted to do it as multichannel audio but that was the one thing we couldn’t manage. If I were to do that again I would like to do something more immersive with 4 or 8 channels of sound.

Spectrum sounds like it was phenomenal and it's always nice to hear about experimental art being done in Korea. It also seems like it was perfect for you considering the intersection it presented between your own musical interests and Korean culture at large. You've studied Korean traditional music and taken lessons before but have you ever thought about incorporating some of those instruments (or some of the "Korean sounds" that were part of your library project) into your main musical endeavors?

I have actually. I have a whole big opera (for lack of a better word) that makes use of a series of poems by the Korean modernist Yi Sang. One piece, Flowering Tree, features haegeum sounds prominently (as did Spectrum). I own a haegeum which I bought on my first trip to Korea and have done a bunch of pieces using samples of me squeaking on it but I can’t really play it. It is very difficult to control. A piece that features a written out gayageum part is called Remourseful Chapter and that was played live a couple years ago but I have not been able to get the gayageum part recorded. The whole long (2+ hours) cycle ends with a piece called The End, which features some samples of me playing janggu. It is a big project, some 22 poems and 16 pieces of music, most of which has been played in concert over the last few years but I am hoping to put it all together as a 2 CD fixed media project. I just need to get that one last gayageum melody recorded. I would have done more but it is the same problem as always. Money. Performers need to be paid. I hope to do more in the future including perhaps writing some acoustic music for mixed ensembles. I love the sound of Korean instruments. The timbres are so rich and complex.

How did you end up getting into Korean traditional music in the first place? Are there any specific pieces you particularly cherish? I would love to hear any and all recommendations.

When I was an undergraduate at Brooklyn College the student body was diverse. There were also many foreign students, particularly in the Conservatory. I made friends with many of the Korean students and through them I got to hear some first rate Korean music (I previously didn’t know much about it and had some vague misinformed notion about how it might sound). My first recording, probably like many people, was that famous Nonesuch Explorer Series record P'ansori (Korea's Epic Vocal Art & Instrumental Music). That knocked me out, especially the two P’ansori excerpts. I mean, Kim So-Hee that is going right to the top of the mountain right there. So there wasn’t much easily available beyond that, but I got the idea that I could get more by hunting in Korean book stores in Korea town, which I did and I also wrote to the National Gugak Center asking for information. Not long after that King Records re-issued two CDs of Korean music and the film Seopyeonje, came out. By then I was long since hooked. I was armed with recordings and information the National Gugak Center and the Korea Overseas Information Service sent me, and what I could find out at the Korea Society Library and buy at the Korean book store at 32nd street. I remember getting a lot of those “Deep Rooted Tree” series CDs and LPs, those ones with the brown covers. It got out of hand pretty quickly. I was working at Joseph Patelson Music house then, we would get paid Fridays in cash and I would go home through Korea town every Friday eat Korean food and buy some recordings to explore. I was interested in it all but my initial interests were folks genres, p’ansori, sanjo, sinawi, minyo and shaman ritual music. Like a lot of young working class radicals I was less keen to celebrate the aristocratic side and Lou Harrison’s approach (look they have a sophisticated elite too!) kind of bothered me, but I was not immune to that music’s charms either. I go around in circles. My current interest is in the “in between” stuff, if you will, the semi-aristocratic songs and regional julpungnyu. Please don’t ask me how many recorded versions of julpungnyu I have, but as you know julpungnyu music is variable. Unlike the grand style of the National Center, the regional variants are often played in smaller mixed ensembles of who ever showed up that day and these various smaller instrumentations are endlessly fascinating to me. Incidentally, around that time one of my favorite pieces was Hymnkus by John Cage. As you know that is that way too. There is a large number of parts and you can mix and match any number of them you want depending on who is available to play. I love that. The smaller, more localized folk style of julpungnyu is so full of charm and beauty and also, it is only there that you can hear that music’s connection to sanjo. When you first hear that sanjo might have some roots in that music you might be mystified if all you know are the large grand performances of it. But listen to regional hyangje chul p’ungnyu (Gurye Hyangje Julpungnyu, Iri Hyangje Julpungnyu) and you can hear more of a connection.

I wanted to spend some time talking about Severe Liberties, the album you and Vanessa Rossetto released earlier this year. Was this something that Jon Abbey set up or had you two known each other prior to recording the album? Your previous albums had all been mostly, if not completely, improvised while Vanessa has more of a compositional mindset—was there any preparation that was done before going in to record because of this?

Vanessa and I knew each other on-line but had not met in person. I am a big fan of her music and like her very much personally. We never worked together since she was in the US and I was in Korea but I followed her music closely and with great interest and enjoyment and we sometimes exchanged messages. I actually once asked her to listen to something for me and I believe she once did the same (it was a mix I was unsure of that was eventually released) but this pairing was Jon’s idea. That is one of the things I think that helps set Erstwhile apart as Jon puts thought into new groupings and genuinely functions as both curator and a producer. He pushes for new and interesting situations for people, especially groups of folks who have not worked together before and I think the success rate is remarkably high on that front.

Originally, being separated by thousands of miles, we were going to do the record as a long distance collaboration. I was ill for a while and when I finally had a moment where I was, after several years, able to travel home and visit my family I thought we should meet and actually try to do the record together. So I spent a couple days with Vanessa recording. I took the smallest rig I could carry (a handful of pedals, a D/I, some contact mics, etc), picked up a guitar I keep at my parent’s and we just sat down and recorded for a couple days. It was wonderful and a great deal of fun. But there was no plan really other than to sit and record for a hour at a time several times each day and then mine those recordings for subsequent mixes. We decided that we were not going to limit ourselves to what we could do live but allow ourselves to mix, cut, layer whatever or however we wanted. For this project that seemed like a good idea and i think it worked out well. So it wasn’t a pure improv record or really a long distance collaboration, it ended up somewhere between.

In what ways would you two have limited yourselves? And do you think being together in person impacted this decision, or affected the recording process in general?

It is hard to say how we would have limited it, but I’ll admit that I occasionally make little puzzles and games for myself when I play, but I usually keep them private and I don’t like imposing them on others or even divulging what they are, but they are usually dumb patterns and things I do to keep myself on edge. It is sometimes fun to lay down some parameters for a project. For example, the record we did finally do, while we took liberties at the mixing stage, there were some self-imposed limits. For example I think everything we put on the record came from our recording sessions or environmental sounds that were done in the immediate area. Everything was local to the recording site.

I am sure being together impacted the whole thing, but perhaps that is hard to measure or define. I am exceedingly glad it came about that we could do it that way. I am a really big believer in the whole eye to eye, person to person social music making aspect, it is one very big reason why I do this music and, of course, Vanessa was wonderful to spend time with and get to know. I feel like watching her work also allowed me to understand and appreciate her approach to sound more.

I know you recently got married—huge congratulations! How has married life been? I imagine the past few months have been very busy but is there anything you're working on right now?

Thank you. Yes. Busy. Very. There are good reasons why there are whole books about getting married in Korea. This wasn’t going to city hall and celebrating with a hot pretzel ha!

I have a project or two on the back burner but I don’t want to jinx them by blabbing about them out-loud. Also, when I work with someone I try not to step on their toes (one reason interviews make me nervous). I have enough material for a couple of solo records, if I can find a label that might be interested I really would like to get one out there. I have never done that, put out a record with just my name on it. That’s because with improvisation, I am more interested in collaborations and the kind of interactions I rarely get with composed music and, as mentioned, every new collaboration or show feels like a new situation for me to navigate as a player. But I do hit the record button at home and fool around and I have a pretty big pile of unreleased stuff that might be fun to get out there.

Year In Review: 2015

Let's cut to the chase: there aren't enough people writing about music being created in this scene and that's probably not a good thing. I started Tone Glow as a way to force myself to engage more critically with music but as the year went on, it became increasingly clear that my presence is somewhat needed. I don't mean to sound like Tone Glow has actually done anything significant—I question the value of my writing (and online music criticism in general) pretty frequently—but I feel obligated to do something, anything, when the only mention a (great) album gets online is a Facebook cosign.

Which points to another glaring problem: I wouldn't have known about countless albums from this year if I hadn't added every musician as a friend on Facebook (that Facebook's algorithm is shoddy doesn't help things either). At the very least, I hope to provide a space where people can be caught up on new releases via the news section. Alas, writing can be extremely tedious and I've become a bit burnt out on music overall but I hope to be more consistent in 2016 than I was in 2015. Before I start writing reviews again, I wanted to take a look back on some of my favorite releases of the last year. I'm a bit embarrassed, however, that I was unable to review some of these; I apologize to all the artists I was hoping to write about but never got around to.

A big thank you to every single musician, producer, label owner, et al who took part in any of the albums I reviewed this year or that are listed below. If I wrote about it, chances are I liked it more than most anything else I was listening to at the time. I'm also, of course, incredibly grateful for anyone who sent me promotional material this year. And thanks to anyone who's ever taken the time to peruse my site, you make me feel like I'm not completely wasting my time doing any of this.

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Record Label of the Year
Erstwhile Records

Devin DiSanto/Nick Hoffman - Three Exercises

Eric La Casa/Taku Unami - Parazoan Mapping

Takahiro Kawaguchi/Utah Kawasaki - Amorphous Spores

Jeph Jerman/Tim Barnes - Matterings

Kevin Drumm/Jason Lescalleet - Busman's Holiday

Graham Lambkin/Michael Pisaro - Schwarze Riesenfalter

Kevin Parks/Vanessa Rossetto - Severe Liberties

More than fifteen years into its existence and Erstwhile Records still feels as vital as ever. There is no question that Erstwhile was my favorite record label of 2015—the fact I reviewed each one isn't just a coincidence—and its seven records towered over a lot of other music I listened to throughout the past year. Three of them in particular—Three Exercises, Parazoan Mapping, and Amorphous Spores—felt especially forward thinking. The former was my favorite experimental release of the year, an entirely engrossing and beautiful crystallization of DiSanto's task-oriented works. Hoffman's role shouldn't be underemphasized though as Three Exercises is both conceptually successful and sonically interesting due to his input. Comparisons to Motubachii and Teatro Assente are expected but the DiSanto and Hoffman work in a different mode here. We're not being made aware of the sounding world around us; this is a very specific setting with distinct and familiar sounds (duct tape, a boggle game, a bingo cage). The mysterious nature of Teatro Assente is very much present here but it exists despite numerous attempts at transparency, something that I found to be extremely fascinating. It's just an incredibly fun record that sounded like nothing else in recent memory.

Parazoan Mapping holds a special place in my heart for being the very reason Tone Glow even started. It was my favorite of the first batch Erstwhile released in 2015 and I was enamored by its magnification of various spaces and actions. Even more, the sequencing allowed the entire album to flow smoothly through connected sounds and provide a quasi-linear listening experience. Many field recordings have been able to draw out the beauty in the quotidian but Parazoan Mapping felt more astute in its editing than most records of its kind.

Takahiro Kawaguchi and Utah Kawasaki's Amorphous Spores sounded like nothing else this year but it also felt incredibly unique in the context of both artist's discographies. Its second track in particular felt like a creative leap forward, a track that had the smile-inducing precision of a mid-period Autechre track but still felt definitively them. There's a sense that every little detail on the album was carefully arranged and placed. The result, though, is not one of stiffness. Instead, it's just potent, concentrated impacts whether it be the beautifully clean tone of a horn or warbling noise.

The other four releases from Erstwhile didn't excite me as much (something that's a result of personal preference more than anything) but were excellent nonetheless. I wanted to draw specific attention to Busman's Holiday, however. It was an album I found to be severely underrated, especially in comparison to last year's The Abyss, an album that was interesting for its ambition but one I ultimately found inconsistent. I imagine fans were a bit worn out from how prolific both Drumm and Lescalleet were in the past couple years but as far as a complete album statement, Busman's Holiday moved me more than anything else. Though, admittedly, seeing the material performed live surely helped.

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Artist of the Year
Gabi Losoncy

"Dry By Morning" from Nice Weather For War (Kye)

Didn't Take Much (Alien Passengers)

Manhattan Story pt. 1 (YouTube)

Manhattan Story pt 2 (YouTube)

Complete Idiot (YouTube)

"Tillie Olsen (YouTube)

While the lo-fi outsider 'rock' of Good Area heavily appealed to the Shadow Ring lover in me, Gabi Losoncy's numerous solo releases in 2015 have had a much more lasting impression. When my friends and I first started talking about Losoncy's body of work, we were enamored by the sort of 'digital mundanity' of her solo recordings. Based on some sounds on these releases (tapping via texting on "Dry By Morning", the vibrations on Didn't Take Much, the general sound quality), it's likely that these were recorded with a cell phone. There's no magnifying of subtle sounds, no added instrumentation, and no heavy manipulation of anything we hear; it's all very vérité-esque. She of course condenses her recordings into a single piece but as far as I can tell, they're all in chronological order.

Considering the rawness in presentation, it only makes sense that the sort of stuff on these recordings can feel so affecting. On Didn't Take Much, we find Losoncy in the aftermath of an allergic reaction, waiting to get discharged from a hospital. What results is more or less what you'd expect but there's a beauty in the plainness of it all—the various beeping monitors, the conversations you overhear, even Losoncy going to the bathroom (something which manages to not feel gimmicky given the context). During her first conversation with a nurse, Losoncy goes on to explain how she's feeling fine and wishes to be discharged. In the middle of it, we hear her phone loudly vibrate and it's a small, surprising moment of unintentional humor.

Losoncy's "two-part YouTube Drama" Manhattan Story also features a number of quotidian happenstances. The most dazzling moment comes near the end of part one. Losoncy's just purchased nail clippers and The Jive Five's "My True Story" can be heard over some speakers, perhaps from someone's car. Shortly after we hear honking, a car engine, and a police siren and it all coalesces beautifully. There's also something charming about her conversation with someone about tin foil—the slight apprehension in her voice when trying to determine what this other person is talking about captures the feeling of being in such a situation well.

The second half of Manhattan Story finds Losoncy moving indoors and there's a stark contrast between what was heard before. We're once again in a bathroom but the various ambient noises here create feelings of uneasiness. We eventually hear her eating foods and it ends with what I assume is self-induced vomiting. It's dark, naturally, but it's presented as just another part of her daily life and that makes it all the more powerful. It's certainly not some sort of performance either (cf. Hijokaidan's "マントヒヒ（大阪）April 26, 1981"). She turns on The Pipkins' "Gimme Dat Ding" and the song's quirky, novelty nature sounds like an attempt at distracting herself from the reality of what's going on. When it ends, the bathroom is all we hear and the album ends on a solemn note.

While the long-form narratives of these two releases are impressive, nothing quite spoke to me as much as "Dry By Morning", her piece on Kye's Nice Weather for War compilation. It was, without question, my favorite track of 2015. If there's anything I really understood in 2015, it was the feeling of shameful loneliness. I was in a Master's program during the 2014-2015 school year and it was the first time I had my own bedroom—my twin brother and I had always shared bedrooms throughout our entire life, even in college as we happily roomed together in dormitories. It was also the first time in my life where I felt like I had absolutely no concrete plans for my future. It became clear that I needed to be out of school for a bit and that I didn't want to pursue previously considered careers so I was left stuck, wallowing in guilt and fear.

Much of "Dry By Morning" finds Losoncy in a restaurant. I've found that most of the time, I spend my time simply absorbing the track's various sounds—the clanking of dishware, the conversations from a nearby table, the music playing in the background. When Losoncy finally leaves and goes home, we hear a stark contrast between this relatively silent setting and the busyness of the aforementioned restaurant. That specific transition perfectly captured numerous feelings I've had throughout 2015 and it's affected me to the point of tears more times than I can count. Maintaining relationships requires far more effort than I often desire to put in, and I'm often just satisfied with them in their shallowest state. Hearing the conversations take place in the track's first half, and finding a sort of solace in it, felt like a confirmation of exactly that. Hearing the elevator doors open and close, Losoncy walk towards her room, and then the stillness of the track's final minute was the bitter reality check I needed. Thanks, Gabi.

○ ○ ○

Artist of the Year
Cristián Alvear

quatres pièces pour guitare & ondes sinusoïdales (Rhizome.s)

Radu Malfatti - shizuka ni furu ame (b-boim)

Manfred Werder - Stück 1998 (Irritable Hedgehog)

Michael Pisaro - Melody, Silence (Potlatch)

Ryoko Akama - Hermit (caduc.)

Diatribes & Cristián Alvear - Roshambo (trio) (1000füssler)

Cristián Alvear, Santiago Astaburuaga, Gudinni Cortina, Rolando Hernández, Jacob Wick ‎– c≠c

I spent more time listening to Cristián Alvear than any other experimental artist in 2015. There wasn’t much more I looked forward to this past year than coming home after a busy day and simply resting in the sounds of Alvear’s classical guitar. It’s surprising to think that Alvear was virtually unknown a few years ago. Yet with the constant and consistent stream of albums he released in 2015, he’s become one of my favorite artists working today. At the beginning of the year, I was particularly enamored with the disc Rhizome.s released. Each of its four tracks was written by a different composer and you could see how well Alvear could adjust his playing accordingly. The Bruno Duplant piece was perhaps my favorite. I was transfixed by the interplay of sine waves, guitar, and silence; each component carried a lot of emotional weight and their presence (or absence) at any moment in the track was strongly felt.

Of course, much is to be said of the composers involved. Ryoko Akama’s delightfully poetic score for Hermit features multiple parts which are cleverly interconnected. For example, certain notes are played at one point in the track but end up becoming motifs that are revisited throughout the piece. The piece has a variety of sounds, relatively speaking, yet it feels seamless because of how Akama has structured the composition. Michael Pisaro’s Melody, Silence is similar—there are twelve composed parts but Pisaro allows the performer to play any or all of these in an order of their choosing. Even more, one is allowed to insert various elements into the piece (e.g. silence, a sustained tone, improvised notes), leading to a personal and unique realization of the score. Most memorable for me, though, was Radu Malfatti’s shizuka ni furu ame. A deceptively straightforward composition featuring more of Malfatti’s ‘memory traps’. There’s a striking and nuanced sensitivity to which Alvear plays his guitar on the recording and it really felt like Malfatti and Alvear at their very best.

○ ○ ○

Top 50 Experimental Albums

Lists should always be highly personal and an honest reflection of one's own taste. I do honestly believe that my #1 choice is the 'best' album released in 2015 but I'm sure several people will disagree. I'm also sure that a lot of people dislike lists in general but I've always enjoyed them as a time capsule-of-sorts (to see how my tastes have changed throughout the years is always fascinating). Ordering this list would be a bit arbitrary aside from the first handful so I've listed my favorite 20 releases in order and then alphabetized the rest. As you'll see, I've grouped certain releases together as I saw fit. I'm not making a list for tracks but let it be known that Gabi Losoncy's "Dry By Morning" was my favorite song of the year.

1. Devin Disanto/Nick Hoffman - Three Exercises (ErstAEU)

2. Radu Malfatti - shizuka ni furu ame (perf. by Cristián Alvear) (b-boim) / One Man and a Fly (Cathnor)

3. Species Pluralis (Jarrod Fowler/Taku Unami) - (1):01-04 / (2):05-08 / (3):09-12 (Leaving Records)

4. Eric La Casa/Taku Unami - Parazoan Mapping (Erstwhile)

5. Jürg Frey - String Quartet No. 3 / Unhörbare Zeit (Edition Wandelweiser Records) / Grizzana and Other Pieces 2009-2014 (Another Timbre) / Circles and Landscapes (Another Timbre)

6. Gabi Losoncy/Various Artists - Nice Weather For War (Kye) / Didn't Take Much (Alien Passengers) / Manhattan Story (self-released)

7. Takahiro Kawaguchi/Utah Kawasaki - Amorphous Spores (Erstwhile)

8. Mel Bentley - Red Green Blue (Vitrine)

9. Rie Nakajima - Four Forms (Consumer Waste)

10. The Set Ensemble - stopcock (Consumer Waste)

11. Eva-Maria Houben – Air: Works for Flute and Organ (Edition Wandelweiser Records)

12. Sean Colum - Guitar (Speculations Editions) / April / September / October (self-released)

13. Michael Pisaro - A mist is a collection of points (New World Records)

14. Various Artists - Experimental Music Concert (Slub)

15. Frank Denyer - Whispers (Another Timbre)

16. Keith Rowe / John Tilbury - Enough Still Not To Know

17. Gil Sanson – Immanence, a Life (Makam)

18. Joshua Adam Acosta & Joe Wheeler - Differential (Speculations Editions)

19. Marc Baron - Carnets (Glistening Examples)

20. Joseph Clayton Mills - Sifr / The Letter (Suppedaneum)

And now, 'thirty' more albums that I couldn't really order and have listed alphabetically. All definitely worth engaging with.

• Cristián Alvear - Quatre pièces pour guitare & ondes sinusoïdales (Rhizome.s)

• Laurence Crane (perf. by Cikada Ensemble) - Drones, Scales and Objects (Lawo Classics)

• Lucio Capece - Epoché (Hideous Replica)

• Choi Joonyong, Kevin Drumm, Hong Chulki - Normal (Balloon & Needle)

• Kevin Drumm/Jason Lescalleet - Busman's Holiday (Erstwhile)

• Bryan Eubanks / Stéphane Rives - fq (Potlatch)

• Steve Flato - Exhaust System (Kendra Steiner Editions)

• Fraufraulein - Extinguishment (Another Timbre)

• Elynor Freyss - Firm Moonlight (Speculations Editions)

• Guido Gamboa - Saturday's Notes (Pentiments)

• Arek Gulbenkoglu - The Reoccurrence (self-released)

• Jeph Jerman/Tim Barnes - Matterings (Erstwhile)

• Jin Sangtae - Shadow Boxer (popmusic25)

• Eric La Casa - Soundtracks (Herbal)

• Graham Lambkin - Live at Cafe Oto (Otoroku) / c05 (Penultimate Press) / Chance Meeting (Lambkin/McPhee) (Kye)

• Graham Lambkin/Michael Pisaro - Schwarze Riesenfalter (Erstwhile)

• Alec Livaditis - Clear and Cloud (Kye)

• Meridian - Tuyeres (caduc.)

• No Intention - Armchair Elecronics (Vitrine)

• Kevin Parks/Vanessa Rossetto - Severe Liberties (ErstAEU)

• Michael Pisaro - Melody, Silence (perf. by Cristián Alvear) (Potlatch) / Mind Is Moving IX (perf. by Denis Sorokin) (Intonema) / Add Red ‎(perf. by Julien Héraud) (Crisis)

• Prants - Hot Shaker Meet Lead Donut (Notice Recordings)

• Slötakvartetten - Ålleberg (Bombax Bombax)

• stilllife - archipelago (Ftarri)

• Graham Stephenson & Aaron Zarzutzki - No Dice (Hideous Replica)

• Greg Stuart & Ryoko Akama - Kotoba Koukan (Lengua de Lava)

• Taku Sugimoto - Septet (Ftarri) / Taku Sugimoto/Manfred Werder (Slub)

• Akio Suzuki - あいしゃ = a i sha (Edition Omega Point)

• VA AA LR - Polis (Intonema) / Ping Cone (Mantile)

• Rutger Zuydervelt - Sneeuwstorm (Glistening Examples)

○ ○ ○

Other Favorites

I imagine the overwhelming majority of my readers won't care for the rest of this feature but I've decided to put this here for the sake of writing it down somewhere. In 2015, experimental music constituted probably a third of my entire music listening. The rest of it was primarily filled with (k-)pop, hip hop, and dance music. Interestingly, there were very few albums I cared about this year and if anything, I could just sum up my entire year with three artists: Carly Rae Jepsen, Young Thug, and Future. I made considerably less effort to keep up with new music than I ever have before but nevertheless, here are some lists.

Top 20 Albums

Carly Rae Jepsen - Emotion

(604/School  Boy/Interscope)

After the unexpected success of “Call Me Maybe”, Carly Rae Jepsen and her team set out to release Kiss as soon as possible. Given these conditions, it was a miracle that Kiss ended up being as strong as it was, let alone one of the best pop albums of 2012. With Emotion, Jepsen fought for her own songs to make the cut, and she won. Having written over two hundred songs for the album, and personally seeking out some of the best pop songwriters and producers around to make her vision complete, it isn’t surprising that Emotion is so strong and cohesive (bonus tracks included). There was no doubt in my mind that it would remain my favorite album of the year by the time December came; I listened to it obsessively all year and it continually revealed itself to have depth in and underneath its infectious hooks.

Perhaps the best way to emphasize the phenomenal toplines on Emotion is to compare the album to Taylor Swift’s 1989. Throughout her entire career, Swift has been a refreshing presence in the pop world for her understanding of vocal melody as a propulsive element. It’s an incredibly rare talent, especially today, but 1989 found her struggling to maintain it while navigating a new mode of songwriting—namely one which involved placing a stronger emphasis on production and instrumentation to drive a song. Emotion doesn’t suffer from awkward pacing or confused vocal melodies; everything comes together perfectly. At times, she knows just the perfect lyric to capture the entirety of a mood. The giddy and flirty “I Really Like You” reaches its peak with the tongue-in-cheek “Who gave you eyes like that? / Said you could keep them?” while “Favourite Color” paints the romantic and comforting dimension of sex with “When I’m close to you / we blend into / my favorite color”. Jepsen accomplishes the rare feat of making music that’s marketed towards teens and simultaneously mature. There’s no Good Girl Gone Bad transition that happened between Kiss and Emotion yet she seems far more Adult here than those who have had one (cf. Olivia Newton-John, Britney Spears, Ariana Grande)

The most refreshing thing about Emotion, though, is how openly vulnerable Jepsen presents herself. It’s an album filled with insecurities and self-doubt expressed with careful precision. Relatable because they’re presented as part of a larger emotional spectrum and not just hammered into a song outright. On the title track, she starts with sass—”Be tormented by me babe / Wonder, wonder how I do / How's the weather? Am I better? Better now that there's no you?” But as her cadence smoothens and the instrumentation turns from playful to somber, it’s clear she’s grieving—”In your fantasy / Dream about me / And all that we could do with this emotion.” Sometimes, her vocal delivery tells you all you need to know. The titular line of “I Didn’t Just Come Here to Dance” initially sounds like a come-on but when the chorus comes in, her impassioned tone strips away any perceived confidence and you understand the line as the desperate plea that it is.

While there are some deeply sad songs on the album (“All That”, “Your Type”), it helps to make the more joyful ones all the more life-affirming (“Run Away With Me”, “Let’s Get Lost”, “When I Needed You”). On “Gimmie Love”, a wobbling bassline echoes the anxiety-inducing, butterflies-in-stomach experience of communicating how much you want someone. The chorus finds Jepsen doing exactly that, but in the middle of it she sings “I want what I want / Do you think that I want too much?” It’s too anthemic a song to linger on such a thought though. As the chanting “oooh’s” enter, Jepsen adds “I wanna feel like this forever [...] and I never thought I’d say forever” and it’s like the whole world is encouraging her to break free from fear. It feels victorious, and it exemplifies how transferable the emotions on Emotion are due to its astute songwriting.

I’ve always been a proponent of largely valuing albums that are more ‘ephemeral’—ones that may not be All Time Classics but greatly define a certain time period in your life, for better or worse. When Emotion came out in late June, I felt confident it would soundtrack my summer. But then came Autumn, and Winter, and now I’m not so sure it was ever one of those albums in the first place. There’s far more nuance, personality, and vulnerability on here than any other pop album in recent memory. It’s not just the best pop album of the year, it’s the best one of the entire decade.

1. Carly Rae Jepsen - Emotion (604/School Boy/Interscope)

2. Young Thug - Barter 6 (300/Atlantic) / Slime Season 2 / Slime Season 3 / Leaks

3. Red Velvet - The Red (S.M. Entertainment)

4. Future - DS2 (Epic/Freebandz) / 56 Nights / Beast Mode

5. easyFun - Deep Trouble / easyMix (PC Music)

6. Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell (Asthamtic Kitty)

7. Grimes - Art Angels (4AD)

8. Lifted - 1 (PAN)

9. Dawn Richard - Blackheart (Our Dawn Entertainment)

10. Jam City - Dream A Garden (Night Slugs)

11. Rahel - Alkali (self-released)

12. Andrew Chalk - A Light at the Edge of the World (Faraway Press)

13. Purl - Stillpoint (Silent Season)

14. f(x) - 4 Walls (S.M. Entertainment)

15. Drake - If You're Reading This It's Too Late (Cash Money)

16. Hunee - Hunch Music (Rush Hour)

17. Viet Cong - Viet Cong (Jagjaguwar)

18. Project Pablo - I Want To Believe (1080p)

19. Kehlani - You Should Be Here (self-released)

20. Anthony Naples - Body Pill (Text)

○ ○ ○

Top 100 Tracks

Red Velvet - Ice Cream Cake
 

(S.M. Entertainment)

Before dropping the best K-pop album of the year, Red Velvet had already become one of my favorite K-pop groups with the release of “Ice Cream Cake”. Now ten months later, it’s still the most exciting pop song in recent memory, much of it owing to the song’s meticulous and thoughtful production. The song’s teaser revealed its music box loop and “la la” melody but it’s recontextualized into something less creepy in the real thing. This distinct contrast makes clear why “Ice Cream Cake” works so well—it’s able to extract certain elements of its various musical cues and position them accordingly to maintain constant momentum.

Even more, despite the song’s straightforward lyrics about youthful love—the chorus finds a girl comparing oneself to ice cream and telling someone to chase after them— there’s a surprising emotional range explored with the instrumentation and vocal delivery.  You get innocent infatuation with the verses’ Brill Building-isms, towering confidence on the stomping cheerleader chants (fans screaming and all), and jittery excitement from the rocket countdown and frenetic brostep-y electronics. In the bridge, Irene’s rapping comes off intimidating thanks to the lone music box melody that accompanies it. Soon after, the song peaks with the delightfully incessant cry of “gimme that ice cream”. There’s a lot going on in Red Velvet’s “Ice Cream Cake”, but its tightly controlled maximalism allows every detail to feel exhilarating.

1. Red Velvet - Ice Cream Cake (S.M. Entertainment)

2. Sufjan Stevens - The Only Thing (Asthmatic Kitty)

3. Carly Rae Jepsen - Let's Get Lost (604/School Boy/Interscope)

4. Young Thug - Pacifier (300)

5. Kendrick Lamar - u (Interscope/Aftermath/Top Dawg)

6. Big Bang - Bae Bae (YG Entertainment)

7. f(x) - 4 Walls (S.M. Entertainment)

8. Kacey Musgraves - Late to the Party (Mercury Nashville)

9. Oh My Girl - Cupid (WM Entertainment)

10. Future - March Madness (Freebandz)

11. Grimes - Kill V. Maim (4AD)

12. Julia Holter - Feel You (Domino)

13. Miguel - Coffee (RCA/Bystorm)

14. DJ Koze - XTC (Pampa)

15. 一十三十一 (hitomitoi) - The Memory Hotel (Billboard)

And now, the rest of the list in no particular order:

• ゲスの極み乙女。 - 私以外私じゃないの (Space Shower Music)

• シケイダ (Cicada) - Naughty Boy (Para De Casa)

• 六ノ岳ミドリ太 - ふうらい (Hakanairo)

• 真美鳥 Ulithi Empress Yonaguni San - Tengoku (Live) (Bruit Direct Disques)

• カラスは真っ白 - 正義とアクチュエータ (Space Shower Music)

• 4Minute - Crazy (Cube Entertainment)

• Andrea - Outlines (Ilian Tape)

• Ari Solus - Marissa (Somewhere to Hide)

• A$AP Rocky - M'$ (feat. Lil Wayne)

• Boozie Badazz - Retaliation (Atlanta/Trill Entertainment)

• Braids - Taste (Arbutus)

• Braque - Maraude (D.KO Records)

• Crush - Oasis (feat. Zico & Zion.T) (Amoeba Culture)

• daoko - かけてあげる (Toy's Factory)

• Dawn Richard - Calypso/Warriors (Our Dawn Entertainment)

• Demi Lovato - Cool for the Summer (Hollywood/Island)

• Denzel Curry - Envy Me (L&E x C9)

• Dej Loaf - Back Up (feat. Big Sean) (Columbia)

• DJ Rashad - Cause I Know U Feel (feat. Gant-Man) (Hyperdub)

• DJ Sprinkles & Mark Fell - Insights (Sprinkles Alt. Mix) (Comatonse Recordings)

• Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment - Wanna Be Cool (feat. Big Sean, KYLE & Jeremih) (self-released)

• Drake/Future - Diamonds Dancing (Epic/Cash Money)

• Drake - Legend/Madonna (Cash Money)

• dvsn - Too Deep (self-released)

• Earl Sweatshirt - Solace (self-released)

• Entro Senestre - Rosegold (W.T. Records)

• Father - Back in the "A" Freestyle/On Me (Awful Records)

• Fetty Wap - 679 (feat. Remy Boys)/RGF Island (300)

• Fiestar - You're Pitiful (LOEN)

• Fit Siegel - Carmine (Fit)

• Flava D - Tell Me (self-released)

• Haco - Never Get Over (Nuovo Immigrato)

• Hannah Diamond - Hi (PC Music)

• Hop Along - Waitress (Saddle Creek)

• iLoveMakonnen - Forever (feat. Santigold & 1st) (Warner Bros./OVO Sound)

• iO & Silat Beksi - V.Noch (Mulen)

• IU - Twenty-Three (LOEN)

• Jack J - Thirstin' (Future Times)

• Jack Ü - Where Are Ü Now (feat. Justin Bieber) (Atlantic)/Justin Bieber - Sorry (Def Jam)

• James Blackshaw - Summoning Suns (Important Records)

• Jazmine Sullivan - Brand New (RCA)

• Jeremih - Oui (Def Jam)

• Jessy Lanza - You Never Show Your Love (feat. DJ Spinn & Taso) (Hyperdub)

• Joanna Newsom - Anecdotes (Drag City)

• Joanne Robertson - Out (Feeding Tube Records)

• Johnny May Cash - Try Me (self-released)

• Jonghyun - NEON (S.M. Entertainment)

• Kat.D - Lovin' (self-released)

• Kelela - Rewind (Warp/Cherry Coffee)

• Kevin Gates - 2 Phones (Atlantic/Bread Winners' Association)

• Lil B & Chance The Rapper - First Mixtape (self-released)

• Lil Herb - I'm Rollin (self-released)

• Lim Kim - Awoo (Mystic89)

• Liz - When I Rule The World (Mad Decent/Columbia)

• Main Attrakionz - Spoken Jewelz (Vapor Records)

• Major Lazer & DJ Snake - Lean On (feat. MØ) (Mad Decent)

• Mamamoo - Um Oh Ah Yeh (Rainbow Bridge World)

• Maxo - Reach You (self-released)

• Mick Jenkins - Slumber (feat. Saba, Sean Deaux, and Donnie Trumpet) (Cinematic Music Group)

• Morkebla - Inhale/Exhale (S Olbricht Remix) (Farbwechsel)

• Mrs.GREEN APPLE - ナニヲナニヲ (Probably Records)

• Natalie La Rose - Somebody (Universal Republic)

• Oneohtrix Point Never - Sticky Drama (Warp)

• Perfume Advert - Sissy Drip (Opal Tapes)

• Primary - Don't Be Shy (featuring Choa and Iron) (Amoeba Culture)

• Rae Sremmurd - Somebody Come Get Her/This Could Be Us (Interscope/Ear Drummer)

• Rainbow - Pierrot (DSP Media)

• Rich Homie Quan - Flex (Ooh, Ooh, Ooh) (T.I.G. Entertainment)/Don't Know Where I'd Be (feat. Lucci)

• Sabre - Cascavel Breeze (Royal Oak)

• Samo Sound Boy - Baby Don't Stop (Body High)

• Selena Gomez - Hands to Myself (Interscope/Polydor)

• SHINee - Your Number (EMI)

• Sicko Mobb - Kool Aid (self-released)

• Sleater-Kinney - Fangless (Sub Pop)

• Sound Stream - Starstrike (Sound Stream)

• Teen Top - Ah-Ah (Top Media)

• Tory Lanez - Say It (Mad Love/Interscope)

• Tove Styrke - Ego (Sony)

• Traumprinz - 2Bad (DJ Metatron 'What If Madness Is The Only Relief' Rework) (Giegling)

• Vince Staples - Norf Norf (Def Jam)

• Waxahatchee - Air (Merge)

• The Weeknd - The Hills (Republic/XO)

• Wonder Girls - I Feel You/One Black Night (JYP Entertainment)

• The World is a Beautiful Place & I am No Longer Afraid to Die - January 10th, 2014 (Epitaph)

• Zum Goldenen Schwarm - Schwelle (Forum)

Year In Review: 2015 Readers' Poll

The votes have been counted and the results are in. Almost fifty of you participated in this readers' poll and it was frankly a lot more than I expected. So first off, a big thank you to every single person who did contribute to these results—I've always been interested in knowing what albums people generally like from this scene. At the same time, it's good to know which albums flew under peoples' radars; I'll be posting a list of 2015 albums that I think were overlooked later this week that were based on these results, among other things.

A big congratulations to the three winners of the raffle—Alec L, Michael C, and Melissa R. I'll be shipping your rewards this weekend. With all that said, scroll down for the top 30 albums of 2015 as voted by you. Artist images are present for albums without high quality album covers available online.

○ ○ ○

1. Graham Lambkin/Michael Pisaro - Schwarze Riesenfalter

(Erstwhile)

2. Devin DiSanto/Nick Hoffman - Three Exercises

(ErstAEU)

3. Eric La Casa/Taku Unami - Parazoan Mapping

(Erstwhile)

4. Jeph Jerman/Tim Barnes - Matterings

(Erstwhile)

5. Jürg Frey - String Quartet No. 3 / Unhörbare Zeit

(Edition Wandelweiser Records)

6. Takahiro Kawaguchi/Utah Kawasaki - Amorphous Spores

(Erstwhile)

7. Michael Pisaro - A mist is a collection of points

(New World Records)

8. Kevin Parks/Vanessa Rossetto - Severe Liberties

(ErstAEU) 

9. Keith Rowe / John Tilbury ‎– Enough Still Not To Know

(Sofa)

10. Jürg Frey - Grizzana and Other Pieces 2009-2014

(Another Timbre)

11. Radu Malfatti - One Man and a Fly

(Cathnor)

12. Kevin Drumm/Jason Lescalleet - Busman's Holiday

(Erstwhile)

13. Jürg Frey - Circles and Landscapes

(Another Timbre)

14. The Set Ensemble - stopcock

(Consumer Waste)

15. Radu Malfatti - shizuka ni furu ame

(b-boim)

16. Greg Stuart & Ryoko Akama - Kotoba Koukan

(Lengua de Lava)

17. Jim O'Rourke - Simple Songs

(Drag City)

18. André O. Möller with Hans Eberhard Maldfeld ‎– In Memory Of James Tenney

(Edition Wandelweiser Records)

19. Michael Pisaro - Melody, Silence

(Potlatch)

20. Prurient - Frozen Niagara Falls

(Profound Lore)

21. Eva-Maria Houben - Air – works for flutes and organ

(Edition Wandelweiser Records)

22. Graham Lambkin - Live at Cafe Oto

(Otoroku)

23. Manfred Werder / Taku Sugimoto - Manfred Werder / Taku Sugimoto

(Slub)

24. Rutger Zuydervelt - Sneeuwstorm

(Glistening Examples)

25. Taku Sugimoto - Septet

(Meenna)

26. John Wiese - Deviate From Balance

(Gilgongo)

27. Species Pluralis - (1):01-04 / (2):05-08 / (3):09-12

(Leaving Records)

28. Helm - Olympic Mess

(PAN)

29. Matana Roberts - Coin Coin Chapter Three: River Run Thee

(Constellation)

30. Rie Nakajima - Four Forms

(Consumer Waste)

Kevin Drumm/Jason Lescalleet, Brent Gutzeit - Live at Constellation (11/12/2015)

Read a review for Drumm/Lescalleet's Busman's Holiday here

At 9 PM, approximately 70 people inside Constellation were sitting as the lights began to dim. Exit signs on either side of the room and faint overhead lights above each seating area were the only things preventing complete darkness to overtake the space. Conversations ceased and everyone looked towards the center of the room to see opener Brent Gutzeit perform. A low drone started to play and it soon became clear that no one was actually coming out. Nothing was projected onto the huge screen either. In fact, Gutzeit was apparently behind it the entire time and the show became an opportunity for everyone to engage with his performance on a completely aural level.

About five minutes into Gutzeit's set, a distorted pop song was incorporated and its vocal melody felt haunting and carnivalesque. It grew louder and began to take shape until he abruptly stopped it, let a fast-paced tone ring for ten seconds, and erupted into huge screeching electronics. When the noise died down, a soft airy drone eventually appeared alongside faint but reverberant banging. This formed into a steady beat and, at its loudest, made the ceiling fans ring out with a small metallic buzz. The second half of the set was primarily built around that moody drone. It wasn't overly melodic but it was in a constant state of flux and as a result, felt rather meditative. In the song's final stretch, more thumping appeared but it sounded as if the audio for each thud was played in reverse. It paired nicely with recordings of wind and it evoked the feeling of being alone in the woods at night. The set lasted around thirty minutes and, overall, was an interesting experience.

Kevin Drumm and Jason Lescalleet's set had a false start—the person running the projector began the clip while people were still returning to the room after intermission. Lescalleet promptly told the man to stop and until everyone was seated, had the clip start again. It was, if anything, an indication that the set was going to demanded complete attention. The set opened with "The Hunt", the first track from the recently released Busman's Holiday. The screen displayed the Point Blank scene from which the track takes its audio from and right when the two came in with their screeching noise, the screen turned completely white. A spinning ceiling fan faded in and was framed such that its base was facing towards the audience. This was an image that returned throughout the night, and its repetitive spinning coincided perfectly with the sort of hypnotizing drones that Drumm and Lescalleet played.

In general, the two used the material on Busman's Holiday as a foundation for their set but still allowed a lot of room for improvisation. Key features from certain tracks played out well in a live setting—the circling vortex of "The Hunt", the brief moment of silence in "The Push", the sudden shift into a noisy drone in "Belligerence"—and it all felt incredibly massive as the sounds filled the entire room. Because the set transformed the album into a single, continuous piece, the two had to incorporate certain transitions between each track. One particularly memorable moment came at the end of "The Wait", where a looping melody emerged from the song's murky atmosphere. The loop grew louder and louder until it was the only thing playing. Its rhythm was mesmerizing but just as one was able to get fixated on it, the two broke out into the blaring wall of sound that starts "The Push". The inverse effect was achieved near the end of "Belligerence". A high-frequency chirping sound blared for an extended period of time—surely the most ear-piercing passage of the night. But as the familiar sounds of "Honest Toil" came in, it sounded all the more warm and alluring.

While Lescalleet and Drumm's music was incredible, it's important to acknowledge how essential the visual component was to the entire experience. Directed by Chicago-native Julia Dratel, images of the mundane became mysterious and provocative. A standard floor fan was presented on-screen but with an extreme close-up on its metal wiring, a lot of which was covered by strings of collected dust. Its cage-like depiction suited the music appropriately. Soon, various images of objects with holes in them appeared. At first, it was unclear as to what these images were but it was slowly revealed to be bottles of lotion. It was, frankly, incredibly humorous considering how horrific it initially seemed and one of the most memorable parts of the performance. The most beautiful image was of a large garbage pile (which my friend informed me was actually not too far from the venue itself). As soon as it appeared, Lescalleet started slamming his hand onto the record on his turntable and created dissonant noise. There were numerous moments when both the music and film seemed to be in complete synchronization—and as the last stop on their tour, they presumably had this down pat—but this was, by far, the most affecting moment of the night.

The entire show was captivating from beginning to end. And I can't stress enough how large a difference there is between hearing Busman's Holiday at home versus hearing it live. There was an unavoidable physicality to the music in this live setting and with the added visuals, made this tour one that any fan shouldn't have missed. Near the beginning of the set, Lescalleet walked towards the audience multiple times to hear if the music was loud enough. He was making sure that this live experience was the best it could possibly be and when the show ended, I had a good feeling that it was.