As another year folds out, it is time once again to look back and take stock or the highs and lows, before a fresh year rolls in. 2011 has had its moments and has overall been a rather good year, and trying to extract a list of twenty albums from the hundreds, thousands possibly, that I have listened to, loved, hated, reviewed or not, tried to make sense of or misunderstood seems a pretty restrictive effort at best. Still, it is always good to look back and realise that some records have made more of a mark than others, some almost imperceptibly. So, here is, in twenty records, what 2011 was made of…

1.

JENNY HVAL
Viscera
Rune Grammofon

Review:
There is such urgency throughout this record that it is quite astonishing how Hval manages to retain any lightness in her music, but she does, and [Helge] Sten picks up on just enough to bring it all to life in sprightly bright colours and tones. Continue Reading »

FABIO ORSI
Wo Ist Behle?
BM029
Boring Machines 2011
05 Tracks. 45mins26secs

Hailing from the coastal city of Taranto in southern Italy, Fabio Orsi has, in the space of barely six years, collated a considerable body of work, scattered on various labels (A Silent Place, Ruralfaune, Low Point, Priviledged To Fail…). Beside a number of solo releases, he has collaborated with the likes of My Cat Is An Alien, Mamuthones, Seaworthy or Valerio Cosi to name but a few. Finding inspiration in the pre-war recordings of Alan Lomax, Orsi’s work, often based on field recordings which he processes into evocative soundscapes, attempts to document his surroundings.

Having recently moved to Berlin, where he found himself in the midst of the German capital’s harsh and cold winter, this is very much what he does here. Continue Reading »