Best albums of 2010
Consortium5
Tangled Pipes (Nonclassical)
Rescuing the recorder from Ren fairs and prim early-music ensembles.
Jan Garbarek & Hilliard Ensemble
Officium Novum (ECM)
Organic sax improv meets lucid liturgical chants.
Harley Gaber
I Saw My Mother Ascending Mount Fuji (Innova)
Unfathomable solitude and irrepressible need in symbiosis.
Ted Hearne
Katrina Ballads (New Amsterdam)
Brass, cabaret and news clips tell a haunting hurricane tale.
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra & Frank Peter Zimmermann
Sibelius Violin Concerto (Ondine)
Why another take on the Sibelius? The first 20 measures should provide the undeniable answer.
Janus
I Am Not (New Amsterdam)
Past the spoken-word bit lies one of the prettiest albums of 2010.
Ursula Oppens & Jerome Lowenthal
Two-Piano Music of Messiaen and Debussy (Cedille)
Extroverted despair and internal strife find an arresting voice.
Psychoangelo
Panauromni (Innova)
In 1977, NASA loaded spacecraft with records as a cosmic hello to E.T.s. This could be the response.
Steve Reich
Double Sextet / 2x5 (Nonesuch)
Chicago’s eighth blackbird soars.
So Percussion & Matmos
Treasure State (Cantaloupe)
Musique concrète soundscapes against percussion prowess. A macro voyage into micro detail.
