20. Wet Ink Ensemble, Glossolalia/Lines on Black (Carrier)

New York’s Wet Ink Ensemble achieves a riveting new career peak with two extended works by group members Alex Mincek and Sam Pluta. Both compositions explore collisions of acoustic and electronic sound sources in different ways, the results are never short of blistering. Mincek built his “Glossolalia” around the titular practice of speaking in tongues, extending his frame of reference to adapt concepts from the Samuel Beckett novel Murphy. He maps out intricate instrumental passages in shifting combinations, where it’s hard to tell what’s synthetic and what’s acoustic. The same effect is gleaned from Pluta’s “Lines on Black,” whether he’s processing the machinations of his ensemble mates in real time or running roughshod over them with fierce spasms of sound.

19. Ambrose Akinmusire, on the tender spot of every calloused moment (Blue Note)

The latest from trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire recently notched a Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Album, a category that almost never aligns with one of my favorite albums of the year. But Akinmusire’s almost sneaky subtlety afford him mainstream exposure while he consistently pushes the sonic envelope and seeks out new sounds. His tunes are unapologetically melodic and constructed with an elegant craftsmanship, but he regularly ups the stakes, first hijacking the coolly simmering “Tide Of Hyacinth” with a Yoruban chant and polyrhythms courtesy of guest Jesús Díaz, and then pulling the rug out of the jam with a fiery, exploratory solo that subversively transplants the language of free jazz with a rhythmically punchy marvel.(from the Quietus)

18. Jordan Dykstra, The Arrow of Time (New World)

Brooklyn violist and composer Jordan Dykstra, who studied with Michael Pisaro-Liu, Wolfgang von Schweinitz, and Ulrich Krieger at CalArts, has been pursuing a gratifying strain of deep harmonic exploration for much of the last decade. Most of the works in this fantastic, perception-altering record explore specific harmonic intervals in great detail, producing sumptuous overtones that come to life when activated; Dykstra embraces a flexibility in his writing so that each musician and ensemble can create dynamic new iterations. Inquiry is a key practice for him, but not at the expense of creating something exquisite and compelling. (From Bandcamp Daily)

17. Horse Lords, The Common Task (Northern Spy)

I’d previously admired the idea of the music made by Horse Lords, but it wasn’t until The Common Task that I actually enjoyed listening to it. While I initially blanched at a sort of psychoacoustic-lite pastiche I felt , with a few spins I was pulled in by the jagged polymetric grooves, the spindly, dissonant guitars, and the riot the whole harmonic blend incites in my ears. The album opens with a wink to “For Anne (Rising)” by James Tenney—also featured on Deerhoof’s fantastic Love-Lore this year—with its swooping synthetic tones, but then it all shoot into a morphing rhythmic grid that implies centrifugal splatter. It’s like you’re off balance for the duration, but there’s something in the propulsion that keeps you from toppling. The fleet navigation of North African and Arabic modes within a Just Intonation framework has the potential to introduce the tuning system’s infinite pleasures to an unsuspecting audience, whether they dig further or not, and while the servings feel comparably bite-sized, they all make perfect sense compositionally and they get the job done. It was probably the record I had the most fun listening to this year.

16. Aisha Orazbayeva, For Violin Alone (SN Variations)

The remarkable Kazakh violinist Aisha Orazbayeva used the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic to record this album, gently re-emerging from a two-year absence precipitated by the birth of a child, as well as countering the lack of performance opportunities. Recorded in a makeshift studio in a remote village near Beziers, France, the solo recording reaffirms the violinist’s stylistic agnosticism, allowing listeners to make connections between baroque and 20th century experimental music. The flow between eras, styles, and aesthetics is impeccably achieved on this subtle stunner. (from Bandcamp Daily)

15. Martin Arnold, Stain Ballads (Another Timbre)

British ensemble Apartment House had a banner year in 2020, releasing five composer-driven albums for Another Timbre, including a fantastic collection of pieces by Brazilian/Dutch composer Luiz Henrique Yudo. But my favorite is this gorgeous portrait of quirky Toronto composer Martin Arnold, who uses the titular concept to explain his writing: “with a stain, form and content are the same thing. My work continues to aspire to that condition.” The pieces all convey a tenderly askew sense of music for dance, where elusive, wandering melodies spill, stagger, and glide with a folk-like rusticity, as richly-textured sighs offer a world to get lost within. (from Bandcamp Daily)

14. Ash Fure, Something to Hunt (Sound American)

Something to Hunt is the long overdue first full album of music composed by Ash Fure, a situation that’s partly explained by the fact that much of her work is immersive—she’s an installation artist as much as a composer. But Fure has succeeded magnificently here, with no visual cues required. The astonishing “Shiver Lung,” performed by International Contemporary Ensemble, assembles sonic material used in her acclaimed “installation opera” The Force of Things: an Opera for Objects. It’s a theater piece using only sound, with discrete and overlapping, radically abstracted elements—spooky whisper-chant voices amplified through electric megaphones, bitingly strident cello, foreboding bassoon, saxophone harmonics, frictive percussion, elusive electronics—unfolding with a drama so riveting, episodic, and alien it’s hard to know whether the listener should be petrified or electrified. (from Bandcamp Daily)

13. Deerhoof, Future Teenage Cave Artists (Joyful Noise)

I’m still surprised by the fact that the latest in a long string of excellent Deerhoof albums was recorded remotely, well before the Corona pandemic descended upon us, before such procedures almost became mandatory. I haven’t kept any sort of log of lockdown recordings, but I certainly haven’t heard anything all year that could top Teenage Cave Artists, which enhances the usual stylistic collisions with a jarring multi-fidelity. Lots of the instruments were recorded on a computer microphones, including the drumming of Greg Saunier. Rather than try to smooth out those differences, Deerhoof smartly highlights them, imbuing each tune with dueling sonic profiles dancing with the askew yin-yang of guitarists Ed Rodriguez and John Dieterich. Naturally, Satomi Matsuzaki presides over everything with the usual winning charm. Few rock bands have been as consistently great and creatively restless over the last two decades, and each time I think they might be running out of gas, they turn around and knock me out. This year they also dropped the ingenious modern music rewrite of Love-Lore and their live collaboration with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, To Be Surrounded By Beautiful, Curious, Breathing, Laughing Flesh Is Enough. There’s nothing to worry about.

12. Sarah Hennies, Spectral Malconicities (New World)

As much as I enjoyed Sarah Hennies’ The Reinvention of Romance, an extended work recorded by the Knoxville duo Two-Way Street, the two commissions on Spectral Malconicities are some of my favorite music all year. The title piece was written for the elastic New York trio Bearthoven—pianist Karl Larson, bassist Pat Swoboda, and percussionist Matt Evans—who nail six frictive, deliberately difficult sections in which the musicians are all decidedly out-of-sync, creating hypnotic wobbliness. “Unsettle,” a piece she wrote for Bent Duo—pianist David Friend and percussionist Bill Solomon—builds from the most minimal of gestures into peripatetic agitation awash in overtones. (from Bandcamp Daily)

11. Rob Mazurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra, Dimensional Stardust (Nonesuch/International Anthem)

The prolific career of trumpeter Rob Mazurek has been distinguished by an unceasing curiosity and an ability to steadily build upon his many accomplishments, but, still, I wasn’t quite prepared for the density of ideas, the razor’s edge execution, and the ingenious production flourishes on Dimensional Stardust, the latest and best effort from his long-running Exploding Star Orchestra. Astonishingly the large band — which includes cellist Tomeka Reid, flutist Nicole Mitchell, guitarist Jeff Parker, trumpeter Jaimie Branch, pianist Angelica Sanchez, vibist Joel Ross, violinist Macie Stewart, bassist Ingebrit Håker Flaten, vocalist Damon Locks, and percussionists Chad Taylor, Mikel Patrick Avery, and John Herndon — recorded much of the music remotely, but the results hit like a bomb and flutter like a leave falling from a tree, melding free jazz, contemporary music, post-hip hop grooves and much more into an agile, ever-surprising amalgam. (from the Quietus)

Today’s playlist:

Enemy, Enemy (Edition)

Justin Brown, NYEUSI (Biophilia)

Kevin Drumm, Frozen Pipes (Bandcamp)

Stefan Thut, About (Elsewhere)

Kreutzer Quartet, Michael Finnissy: Second and Third String Quartets (NMC)

My Favorite albums of 2020—part 3