The music on this list is the music that moved me this year. With very limited exceptions, it is all instrumental, and it falls mostly under the minimalist and meditative parameters I have set for this blog.
The list is made up mostly of albums, but also includes some EPs and one single. This is a reflection of how music production is evolving, with musicians incentivized to release shorter recordings more frequently.
Like all Top 10 lists, mine is subjective, reflects my own feelings on what makes music compelling, and is subject to the limitations of what I actually heard this year. My intention is not to detract from anyone else’s conception of the year’s most compelling recordings. Instead, my hope is that some of the music that moved me might also move you.
Ben McElroy, Soon This May All Be Sea
Ben McElroy seems just as home with Nick Drake and Simon & Garfunkel as with Brian Eno — and that’s definitely a good thing. From bird calls and ambient drones to subtle feedback, understated piano chords, Celtic strings, and windswept coastal landscapes, Soon This May All Be is a beautiful statement of McElroy’s singular and organic mix of drone, folk and ambient.
From my original review: “In genre and form alike, McElroy is ambiguous, operating at the margins of several genres and thereby creating a sound that’s truly his own. In a world with no shortage of ambient records, McElroy’s musical worldview encompasses ambient but isn’t constrained by it.”
Jessica Moss, Opened Ending
I’m usually a traditionalist about Top 10 lists: I am listening for my 10 favorite albums, not opening up the field to EPs and singles. But at a certain point, you just have to recognize that full-length albums don’t hold the sway that they once did. So, while my preference to highlight full-length releases remains, I’m not going to be an ideologue about it.
Enter Montreal violinist Jessica Moss.
“Opened Ending” is just one track consisting of layered violins, electronics and feedback. An homage to Jewish music, it is an 8-minute meditation on loss. That loss includes the ultimate loss — death — but Moss also notes that she is also concerned with the loss of the things that make us feel alive, like live musical performances.
What starts as a beautifully dark violin piece with multiple mournful legato lines morphs into a drone piece as deep, rumbling processed strings and electronic noises enter after the 3-minute mark. Perhaps not surprisingly for a musician who has played since the early 2000s with Thee Silver Mt Zion (among others), “Opened Ending” delivers an epic, elegantly paced and expertly developed build. Against a din of drone and sonic detritus, the melody re-emerges, unbowed by the chaos around it. A drone note becomes an oscillating rumble. Two drone notes diverge, then converge again, amplifying their power in the process.
“Opened Ending” is a fitting metaphor for 2020: It’s mournful but powerful — not overcome by loss, but powering through it.
Morimoto Naoki, Hibi (Seil Records)
This beautifully impressionistic record encompasses subtle electronics, found sounds, toy bells, plucked strings, and warmly humming static noise. In mood, it contrasts with many of the records on this list: Hibi is a fundamentally hopeful record, delicate in its approach and playful in its exploration of sound.
In its capacity for inducing a blissful trance, Hibi could be classified as meditation music — but it is too interesting to be just a meditation record. In its creation of an inward-looking sound world — it’s instrumental, sometimes has drone notes and drifts along in a hypnotic haze — it could be classified as an ambient record. And yet, it’s an outlier in that the works don’t rely heavily on synthesizers, and also in that most pieces are short, clocking in at between 2 and 4 minutes.
“Kino” combines a distant upper-register drone, gently plucked strings alternating from speaker to speaker in the mix in a non-linear rhythm, and intermittent creaking and squeaking sounds. “Ink” brings piano and soft bells. “Fl” gives us rain, piano and soft electronic pulses. “Hz” adds a warm hum of radio static.
To the expected genre descriptions of “electronic” and “ambient,” Morimoto Naoki adds the word “toytronica.” The term makes sense as you hear a succession of toy-like bells throughout the album. No matter what you call it, Hibi is intimate, exquisite and inviting.
S.hel, Disconnect (Whitelabrecs)
This debut recording made an impression on me upon its release, and that impression remains. Iceland’s Sævar Helgi Jóhannsson is a skilled composer and sound artist operating at the convergence of several related genres — compositional ambient, ambient electronica and so-called ‘modern classical’ — and melding them in a way that shows an ability to absorb the lessons from the icons of these genres without falling prey to imitation.
From my original review: “Human Geography,” the lead track on Disconnect, “gives us impressionistic piano that is minimal but not simplistic, with both melodies and harmonies that offer a sense of the unexpected. We also get synth pads, feedback, electronic pulses and shimmering metallic sounds, all progressing in a grand, cinematic build.”
S. hel is making inventive music that is also compelling.
Night Gestalt, Sudden Rituals Vol. 1 (Bigo & Twigetti)
This album gets into darker electronica territory than my taste usually takes me; it’s also a compilation album, which perhaps makes it an outlier for a year-end list. But it’s precisely the fact that Swedish composer and producer Night Gestalt (Olof Cornéer, of the DJ duo Dada Life) is working with so many artists that makes Sudden Rituals Vol. 1 such an interesting listen.
For all its creativity, the basic elements of ambient — keyboards, drones, found sounds, static, electronic pulses — can sometimes seem finite. “Night on Earth” — an entrancing mix of ambient with Arabic sounds made with Iranian composer and setar player Behdad Babaei — makes it feel fresh. Babaei’s setar (a member of the lute family with two and a half octave range) mixes with Cornéer’s low, thick synth chords that rumble along in the lower registers as Babaei dances above with mesmerizing setar lines.
Arpeggios are at the heart of many of these tracks. Cornéer’s fascination with them is clear: “The arpeggio is everything in one — melody, rhythm, harmony — ringing out like a bell in space forever,” he says. The philosophy is reflected in the opening track, “All Directions at Once,” a collaboration with Joseph Shabason in which electronically generated arpeggios bounce off in all directions and mix with various warped vocals and space-age sounds.
“Like a Particle of Dust,” with Klangriket, offers beautiful legato sax notes that evoke the ambient jazz of Trio Ramberget, which are then propelled along by an insistent beat. Eventually, all melts into ambient tones.
“After All Our Elements Are Gone,” with C. Diab, is a driving and insistent work of ambient drone. It begins with the sound of falling water, but soon introduces the pulsating, distorted low drones that define it. Just shy of the 4-minute mark, it veers into hazier, calmer realms and recedes.
“The Sunken Machine,” with Lisa Rydberg, blends ambient electronica with deep, emotive folk violin. It is the most organic, least electronic-sounding work on the album.
Like most compilation albums, Sudden Rituals Vol. 1 is both more varied and less coherent than an album by an individual artist. But its variations are what makes it special.
Clarice Jensen, The Experience of Repetition as Death
I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it again: The phrase “holy minimalism” might not be a compliment in some circles, but it’s definitely said with reverence here.
Brooklyn cellist Clarice Jensen demonstrates the powerful combination of musical simplicity and spiritual contemplation on the opening track “Daily” and throughout this 5-track EP. Layered cellos play long, beautiful notes, and as the notes and their overtones reverberate and decay, they create a headspace for reflection and contemplation. Is “Daily” a reference to a daily prayer? A daily meditation? A daily ritual? We don’t know, but we could all use more of this feeling in our daily lives.
Jensen lets it be known soon, however, that The Experience of Repetition as Death will not be an entirely calm one. “Day Tonight” is a 12-minute dark ambient drone piece, with low-end, electronically processed scrapes of a bow across strings combined with sounds both pastoral and eerie in the upper registers. Later, we get an upper register hum juxtaposed against low-end pulses.
“Metastable” is an enchanting blend of low cello drone, higher-register cello work, electronic pulses and simple, legato cello notes, the relative mix of each shifting throughout as the drone takes center stage and then recedes again.
“Holy Mother” opens with what sounds like repeated melodic fragments from a pipe organ, but the notes for this album assure us that every sound on the record comes from a cello (often assisted via pedals or other effects). The work is defined by this repetition, alternating between hypnotic spiritualism and foreboding tension as deep, ominous cellos interact with — and, at times, overtake — the repeated fragments.
“Final” again juxtaposes long, simple lines against drone notes, building in a steady progression that gradually envelops the listener in the warm embrace of low but pristine tones. As the work fades, the drone recedes and the organic warmth of non-processed cellos remains, carrying the listener to a peaceful end.
Juilliard-trained Jensen — who has worked with Jóhann Jóhannsson, Max Richter, Björk, Arcade Fire, Nick Cave, Jónsi, Nico Muhly and Beirut, among others — is a powerful force for new music, taking her conservatory skills into the realm of drone, minimalism and compositional ambient for a sound that is of her own making, but also carries echoes of minimalist tradition throughout. On The Experience of Repetition as Death, Jensen sounds like a true student of minimalism, now giving a master class.
Rotor Plus, Fugue States
If you have somehow stumbled upon my blog and are not already familiar with the site a closer listen, I encourage you to check it out: It’s a comprehensive and well-written chronicler of all things intstrumental, and it’s where I found Rotor Plus.
New Zealand’s Rotor Plus writes postmodern chamber music, for lack of a better term. Using trumpet, piano, violin, modular synth, clarinet, viola, cello, oboe and English horn, the ensemble moves easily from moody woodwinds to static noise to languid postrock to indie film score territory. One minute it’s minimalist piano and violin; the next minute it’s electronic drone.
Fugue States consists of two pieces, each just under a half-hour: “Before – I awoke in a dark wood,” and “After: The beautiful background.” Each piece is subdivided into several named movements.
“Before” opens with the subtle rustling of leaves, which are joined by soft piano chords. For awhile, it sounds like we might hear a work of cool jazz, but that expectation is snuffed out by a low electronic tone and the hum of static — only to return later when woodwinds enter and a cello plucks a line that sounds more like an upright bass. All bets are off, though, when a dense, dark synth sound enters just before the 13-minute mark.
“After” opens with silence. Single, long lines come in eventually, still sounding distant. Just past the three-minute mark, a far-off tone sounds in one ear as a slightly higher, oscillating tone sounds in the other. Instead of building to a climax, both tones recede into nothingness, to be replaced by low static and new sustained tones.
A new section brings simple woodwinds and pizzicato cello, subtle piano chords and, in a deep corner of the mix, a drum set. For a moment, we’re in Talk Talk land, until it’s all overtaken by harsh, building static. In the aftermath, there are soft pizzicato cello, woodwinds and a subtle hum of noise, followed by warm strings, insects at night, indecipherable rustling sounds, and the return of soft piano chords. At the 15-minute mark, it takes an unexpected (and temporary) turn into ambient space music. And then at the 20-minute mark, silence — though the piece continues for seven more minutes. Occasionally the silence is broken by a far-off birdcall, a subtly pulsating drone, and later guitar and soft droplets of piano.
In mood as well as in genre, the strength of Fugue States lies in its exploration. It is both foreboding and beautiful, and it is captivating as it moves between the two. This is composition without boundaries, touching on contemporary classical, ambient jazz, ambient electronica, drone, postrock and more.
Do these works hold together as coherent compositions? After repeated listens, I still don’t know. But that’s beside the point here: Fugue States offers fascinating and enriching musical adventures, and the journey is a strong statement all on its own.
Library Tapes, The Quiet City
Even within the relatively narrow universe of contemporary minimalist piano music, different artists create widely varying music. Some artists get muddled on the minimalist part of the equation, delivering instead an incongruently ornate second incarnation of new age. Others keep it simple, but underdeliver on inspiration.
On The Quiet City, composer and pianist David Wenngren — along with guests such as cellist Julia Kent and pianist Olivia Belli — delivers 10 short, intimate works for piano, strings and ambient sounds that speak softly and with appropriate reverence for what this minimalist genre of contemporary, piano-based works can be.
Like most “neoclassical” music, the melodies and harmonies here are warm and comforting, not experimental or even mildly dissonant. But there is true emotion at the core, not the artifice of emotion that I sometimes feel from some “modern classical” compositions. This is slow, thoughtful music — with pristine piano chords, subtle synth pads and legato strings — that would pair well with an indie film.
Many songs are under 2 minutes, and only one is over 3; the entire recording clocks in at just 22 minutes. These are more than fragments or sketches, but they seem intentionally skeletal in their development and variation. It’s the concept of minimalism applied not only to the contents of composition, but also to its form. On The Quiet City, Wenngren gives you just enough to draw you in, mesmerize you and leave you wondering what might have been. And maybe that’s exactly where he wants you.
Alessandro Cortini, Memorie I
Much like Night Gestalt, Alessandro Cortini’s Memorie I takes me into musical territory that is both darker and more electronic than what I typically listen to.
Like C. Diab, Cortini — once a touring keyboardist for Nine Inch Nails — specializes in long, slow builds, adding and subtly manipulating sonic elements to create a sense of propulsion and rising tension. Made on a vintage analog EMS Synthi AKS synthesizer, this is dark ambient music that drones, rumbles and crackles, as Cortini tweaks sounds throughout to produce wobbles, distortions and clashing sound waves.
In my favorite track on this release, “Paragioa,” a drone bed of low synths sets the foundation, with a simple melody pressing forward amid low-end oscillations and subtle shifts in pitch and speed. Slowly, the melody is joined and overshadowed — but not entirely drowned out — by static noise, and a massive river of sound flows forward inexorably.
Memorie I is both unsettling and darkly resplendent. With its dark, electronic drones, it’s a world away sound-wise from the simple piano chords of, say, Library Tapes or Goldmund. And yet, like the work of those artists, Memorie I also exemplifies the idea that simple elements can go a long way.
Shida Shahabi, Lake on Fire (Fat Cat)
I try not to overuse adjectives like “timeless,” but it’s one that comes immediately to mind when listening to Shida Shahabi’s 14-minute EP Lake on Fire.
Composed as a soundtrack to a short film of the same name by Jennifer Rainsford, Lake on Fire consists of three short, organ-based tracks and one solo piano piece. In the spellbinding opening piece, “Prolog,” long organ notes are interwoven with analog synth textures and given plenty space in which the notes hang and dissipate. The piece feels like the act of breathing, with subtle waves rising and falling, gradually pushing the music forward. The mood — though not the sound, exactly — is reminiscent of the hazy ambient jazz of Trio Ramberget, but on downers and with spiritual overtones. Textures vary, but all are of a dark, warm hue.
“Interlude + Main Theme” is arresting from the start, with legato organ chords set against a single, upward-sliding note that rises both in pitch and intensity, causing a sense of tension and impending climax. Rather than a bombastic climax, however, the background pitch recedes and a church-like organ part enters.
It’s Shahabi’s organ work that gives “Interlude + Main Theme” — and the whole EP — its timeless feel. Though not dissimilar in general outlook to the work of Sarah Davachi, Shahabi generally takes a less experimental approach. The result is that while Shahabi’s work sounds like it could be contemporary, not all of it sounds like it has to be. Some sections of her music sound like they could have been written anytime in the past 350 years, others are clearly of a more recent vintage.
“Epilog” brings together a classic pipe organ sound with echo, delay and dissonant hums, laying claim to a more contemporary sound. Then the short EP comes to a close with a beautiful, close-miked, felt-dampened piano piece, “Main Theme – Piano Version,” with an early classical elegance.
Shahabi is gifted both as a pianist and as a composer. She masterfully pulls a lot of meaning out of deliberately minimal source material, playing with space, texture, pacing and harmonic progression to create a sound world that is adjacent to that of her contemporaries in the genres of compositional ambient and ‘neoclassical,’ but stands alone. Lake on Fire is brief, but — like last year’s piano-based EP Shifts — it makes a strong statement for Shahabi’s vision.