Unlike last year, when I really went overboard with a list of about 60 "top" releases, this year I'm going to limit myself to the 25 new discs that really meant the most to me. I'll fudge a bit by separating out the reissue/archival things and box sets... and as always, there are at least a dozen things I wish I'd heard before having to vote, like Kevin Drumm's 'Sheer Hellish Miasma,' Efzeg's 'Boogie,' Greg Kelley's 'If I never meet you in this life, let me feel the lack' and the Charlie Christian box set. Still, I feel pretty good about the fact that one of the listed new releases was purchased this very evening. (Everything below in alphabetical order, except the concerts, which are chronological.) 25 New Releases Arch Enemy - Wages of Sin Derek Bailey - Ballads Tim Berne - Science Friction David Bowie - Heretic Marty Ehrlich - The Long View Ellery Eskelin - 12 (+1) Imaginary Views Morton Feldman - String Quartet II (Flux Quartet) Dennis Gonzalez - Pictogram/Home Away from Home Immortal - Sons of Northern Darkness Isis - Oceanic Steve Lacy - The Holy La Jason Lescalleet - Mattresslessness Gyorgy Ligeti - The Ligeti Edition II Kaffe Matthews, Andrea Neumann & Sachiko M - In Case of Fire, Take the Stairs Melvins - Hostile Ambient Takeover MIMEO + John Tilbury - The Hands of Caravaggio Toshimaru Nakamura - Vehicle Napalm Death - Order of the Leech Nile - In Their Darkened Shrines Otomo Yoshihide - Ensemble Cathode Bobby Previte - The 23 Constellations of Joan Miro Wolfgang Rihm - Jagden und Formen Burkhard Stangl & dieb13 - eh Tan Dun - Water Passion After St. Matthew John Zorn - IAO 10 Reissues and Archival Releases Albert Ayler - Nuits de la Foundation Maeght (Water) Willem Breuker Kollektief - In Holland (BVHaast) Philip Cohran - And the Artistic Heritage Ensemble (Aestuarium) Ornette Coleman - At the "Gold Circle" Stockholm, Vol 1 & 2 (Blue Note) John Coltrane - A Love Supreme (Impulse Deluxe Edition) Glenn Gould - A Sense of Wonder: The Complete Goldberg Variations (Sony Classical) Naked City - Live at the Knitting Factory 1989 (Tzadik) Jimmy Scott - Falling in Love Is Wonderful (Rhino Handmade) Sonny & Linda Sharrock - Paradise (Water) Larry Young - Lawrence of Newark (Castle) 3 Box Sets Frederic Rzewski - Rzewski Plays Rzewski (Nonesuch) Dmitri Shostakovich - Symphonies Nos. 1-15 (Brilliant Classics) Various Artists - Improvised Music from Japan (Improvised Music from Japan) 10 Live Events 1/25: Cleveland Orchestra/Christoph von Dóhnanyi, Carnegie Hall, New York, NY 2/2: Keith Rowe, Gunter Muller & Taku Sugimoto, Tonic 4/16: Metropolitan Opera/James Levine, Metropolitan Opera House (Berg: Lulu; Schäfer, Schwarz, Kuebler, Courtney, Mazura, West) 4/19: Carla Bozulich and the Nels Cline Singers with Jenny Scheinman, Tonic 5/16: Company (Derek Bailey, John Zorn, Jim OÂRourke, Miguel Frasconi, Ikue Mori, Marcus Rojas, Chad Taylor, Casey Rice, Raz Mesinai, Voice Crack) and Voice Crack, Jim OÂRourke & I-Sound, Tonic 9/20: New York Philharmonic/Lorin Maazel with Marina Mescheriakova, Jill Grove, Michael Schade, René Pape, New York Choral Artists and Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Avery Fisher Hall (Adams 'On the Transmigration of Souls' world premiere) 11/1: Brooklyn Philharmonic/Robert Spano with Dawn Upshaw, Luciana Souza, Reynaldo González Fernández, Deraldo Ferreira, La Schola Cantorum de Caracas and Orquesta La Pasión, Brooklyn Academy of Music (Osvaldo Golijov's Pasion Segun de San Marcos) 11/8: Toshimaru Nakamura & Sean Meehan, ABC No Rio 11/19: Butch Morris, Bowery Poetry Club (Conduction #129, "Calligraphy" with Bailo Bah, Tarik Benbrahim, Lotfi Gamal, Balla Kouyate, Min Xiao-Fen, Seido Salifoski, Zhipeng Shen, Yacouba Sissoko and Shu-ni Tsou) 12/13: Tan Dun with Elizabeth Keusch, Hao Jiang Tian, Cho-Liang Lin, Maya Beiser, Yuanlin Chen, Talujon Percussion Group, Dessoff Choirs, Brooklyn Academy of Music (Tan's Water Passion After St. Matthew) 10 Books (not necessarily new) Michael Chabon - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Philip K. Dick - A Scanner Darkly Dave Eggers - You Shall Know Our Velocity Tristan Egolf - Lord of the Barnyard Morton Feldman - Give My Regards to Eighth Street Gao Xingjian - Soul Mountain Philip Roth - The Human Stain Carter Scholz - Radiance Zadie Smith - White Teeth Zadie Smith - The Autograph Man 10 Late Discoveries Ludwig van Beethoven's late quartets played by the Quartetto Italiano Boredoms - 'Vision Creation Newsun' Jeff Buckley - 'Grace' Karl Amadeus Hartmann's symphonies conducted by Ingo Metzmacher Skip Heller - 'St. Christopher's Arms' Immortal - 'Battles in the North' and 'Blizzard Beasts' Melvins - 'Prick', 'Stag' and 'Honky' Toshimaru Nakamura - 'No Input Mixing Board', 'No Input Mixing Board 2' Sleep - 'Jerusalem' Thorr's Hammer - 'Dommedagsnatt' I'm sure I'm forgetting *something*... Steve Smith ssmith36@sprynet.com NP - Andrea Neumann & Burkhard Beins, "Lidingo," 'Lidingo' (Erstwhile)