Hello all, As the end of the year draws near, I think it's time we kick off this little tradition: our ten favorite and best releases of the last twelve months. Preferably with some comments... it's always fun to discover new artists through these, as I've done year after year reading other zornlisters' contributions. Once again in my case, I played catch-up most of the year trying to get up to date with releases from the last couple of years, so this list isn't limited to stuff that came out in 2003 (though I tried.) Here we go (in no particular order; comments to be found below the list) : 1. Black Dice: Beaches and Canyons (DFA) 2. Kevin Drumm: Sheer Hellish Miasma (Mego) 3. Merzbow: Puroland (ohm) 4. Phill Niblock: Touch Food (Touch) 5. CCMC + Christian Marclay: s/t (Non Musica Rex) 6. Deerhoof: Reveille (Kill Rock Stars) 7. Wolf Eyes: Slicer (Hanson) 8. Yasunao Tone: s/t (Asphodel) 9. Ohne: s/t (Ohne/Mego) 10. Speaking Canaries: Get Out Alive- The Last Type Story (Scat) 1. A fantastic group, reminds me of Fennesz' Endless Summer but done in a different manner. 2. Technically I should've put his Land of Lurches there as it is his most recent in that vein, but I've yet to buy that one. This Mego release is suitably facemelting however. 3. Masami finally gets a good handle on his laptop, and blows away the imitators. 4. Two disc set of pure minimalist bliss. Follow Phill's advice and turn this WAY up for maximum enjoyment. 5. A fantastic two hours of music by Snow/Oswald/Dutton/Marclay, showing that improv isn't just going towards onkyo. Criminally overlooked release. 6. I didn't think a band could produce sounds so lovely and screwed up at the same time. Wonderful. 7. Noisy but not actual "harsh noise", these are strange soundscapes. 8. A new type of sonic disruption; one of the very few pieces of music that actually comes close to making me feel physically ill. And that is definitely a good thing. 9. After the ultimate masterpiece that was the massive two-disc To Live and Shave in L.A.'s The Wigmaker in 18th Century Williamsburg (which I couldn't do justice to no matter how many words I'd write about it), Tom Smith disbands that outfit to team up with some Schimpfluch weirdos, producing a truly off-the-wall "what the hell is this/is this for?" release. 10. The man who was the drumming octopus for Don Caballero here plays guitar, shamelessly ripping off Van Halen riffs and retooling them into this indie rock masterpiece. Honorable mentions: -Hecker: Sun Pandämonium (Mego) (it pained me not to include this in the top ten... -Florian's really gone above and beyond the rest of the laptop crew) -Dengue Fever: s/t (Mimicry) -Danubius: s/t (Mimicry) -John Wall: Hylic (Utterpsalm) (my least favorite of his records, it's still good but I preferred when his sources weren't all acoustic improvisers) -Grand Ulena: Gateway to Dignity (Family Vineyard) -Devin Townsend: Accelerated Evolution (Sanctuary) (guilty rock pleasure) -John Oswald: Aparanthesi (empreintes digitales) -Bastard Noise: Mutant, Live in Japan, Skull Wave, etc.. (Helicopter, various) -King Crimson: Power to Believe (Sanctuary) (still going, still great) -Ruins: Tzomborgha (Ipecac) (their strongest in quite some time) -Fennesz/O'Rourke/Rehberg: The Return Of Fenn O'Berg (Mego) -Kid606: Kill Sound Before Sound Kills You (Ipecac) -Kitty Brazelton & Dafna Naphtali: What Is It Like To Be a Bat? (Tzadik) (way overlooked, stunning release) Great reissues: -Paul Dolden: L'ivresse de la vitesse (empreintes digitales) (quite possibly the wildest electroacoustic and tape compositions I've heard) -Young Gods: Second Nature (Ipecac) Best piece of wax heard all year: -Panicsville/Wolf Eyes: Stabbed in the Face split LP (amazing sounds on both sides, on nice marbled vinyl to boot; also this is a six way co-release between Muet, SNSE, Up Jumps the Devil, Vegalia, Ignivomous and Nihilist. Phew!) Most anticipated releases: -Fantômas: Delirium Cordia (Ipecac) (someday in 2004... ) -Evil Moisture/Hanatarashi: Fatanarchy on Airtube 2x10" (Harbinger/Tochnit Aleph) (I'm pretty much assuming this one is never coming out *sigh*) A great year all-around. May 2004 be even better! Thanks for reading, Bruno Bissonnette _________________________________________________________________ Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/bcomm&pgmarket=en-ca&RU=http%3a%2f%2fjoin.msn...