Thanks to Liron Unreich + Catherine Chalmers for the diligent and excellent camerawork.

no particular order:

Sic Alps Napa Asylum
Anika Anika
Kurt Vile Smoke Ring For My Halo
Bhob Rainey / Bonnie Jones / Chris Cogburn Arena Ladridos
Beach Fossils Beach Fossils (ok 2010 but it didn’t reach me until this year)
Golden Retriever Emergent Layer and Light Cones (and in concert at Issue Project Room)
3/4 Had Been Eliminated Oblivion
Singer Mindreading
Tetuzi Akiyama & Takuji Kawai Transistion
The Drums Portamento
Gosia Winter & Barry Chabala Ananke
Kenneth Kirschner Twenty Ten
Steve Roden Proximities
Morton Feldman Orchestra
Eva Marie Houben von da nach da
Antoine Beuger (perf. Barry Chabala & Ben Owen) un lieu pour être deux

Special mention to three labels, two of which are repeat offenders on my lists:

SOFA (Norway) and affiliates. I was lucky to spend a chunk of my visit to Paris this spring w/ Kim Myhr and then later in NYC when Mural came by in August. Besides being a gang of gentlemen and great musicians, the label continued, by my ears, to issue essential recordings. In particular, Silencers Balances des Blancs and EMO ALBINO Lady Lord just make me happy, but that’s no slight to microtub (the tuba trio of Robin Hayward, Kristoffer Lo and Martin Taxt) or A Summer’s Night At The Crooked Forest by Sheriffs of Nothingness. Non-SOFA but related releases such as Mural’s Live At Rothko Chapel and Transition de Phase by the group of Jim Denley, Philippe Lauzier, Pierre-Yves Martel, Kim Myhr, and Eric Normand are also delightful. I was treated to concert performances by Streifenjunko, Vertex and Mural (two exceptional deliveries in NYC), as well as a handful of excellent meals in Paris and NYC.

Jon Abbey’s Erstwhile for yet another year brought serious authority to a heavy, ambitious release schedule and truly intense and memorable series of concerts in NYC. To single any particular recording or performance out would be to inevitably overlook another. I don’t even know where to begin. The bar is set very high. Φ, the 3CD master class by Keith Rowe and Radu Malfatti was coda’d by a lovely duo concert. Taku Unami and Takahiro Kawaguchi’s Teatro Assente continued pushing the envelope for recorded improvisation, and was also met by an intense series of highly inventive performances by Unami. These are just the obvious highlights for me, but Amplify:Stones was really just a three week summer camp of excellent and challenging concerts and fine company, followed up by just lovely albums by Greg Kelley/Olivia Block and Jérôme Noetinger/Will Guthrie, illustrating Jon’s impatience with whatever the perception of status quo is this year.

Students of Decay, besides releasing a cassette with my name on it, curated a truly exceptional run of vinyl by Danny Paul Grody, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Caboladies, Aquarelle and Bryter Layter.

Fellow musicians and artists who via their collaboration or presence made my year extra special: Charles Lindsay, Catherine Chalmers, Kim Myhr, Ingar Zach, Jim Denley, Petter Vågan, Tor Haugerud, Radu Malfatti, Takahiro Kawaguchi, David Rothenberg, Thenmorzhi Soundararajan, and Dan Snazelle.

Thanks to Ryan Potts, Alex Cobb, Brad Rose, Kate Carr, Travis Johnson and David Kirby for putting their commitment and resources behind my music this year.

Of course Richard Kamerman and of course of course as always Anne Guthrie.

A little belated on this, another cassette for the year, this time on the essential Students of Decay. Only The Sun For Our features eight pieces knitted together with synthesizers, piano, field recordings, and sundry digitalia. Or, how the Students phrase it:

glacial excursions culled from synthesizer, piano and field recordings by brooklyn based multi-instrumentalist billy gomberg. wisps of melancholic melody adrift on murky waters. a beguiling collection that truly rewards repeat listens.

billy gomberg – only the sun for our (album preview) by experimedia

Billy Gomberg: “Only the Sun for Our” by Students of Decay

Only The Sun For Our is available from lovely shops such as Experimedia and Mimaroglu Music Sales.

Please enjoy.

from Rest + Noise:
The formation of a different language takes place on Quiet Barrier: flickering rhythms, receding walls of electronic sound, and warped melodic figures occupy the space where words and terminology once stood. It’s a process that Brooklyn-based Billy Gomberg has inhabited before with releases on such labels as Experimedia, and/OAR, and The Land Of. Here, with synthesizers and custom digital processing, Gomberg arrives at a complex album of shifting tones, kaleidoscopic hues, and crackling debris that flows with a clear, exacting vision.

Though wholly electronic in execution, Quiet Barrier is not designed, sequenced, or digitally overwrought. It is music that is played and constructed in real-time, relying on a moment to moment interaction between musician and instrument. Such an approach explains in part why Quiet Barrier unfolds with an unmitigated motion, propelling itself forward in a linear manner. The outcome, like any good narrative, is a sound that can’t be rushed or interrupted, only followed and absorbed. Quiet Barrier follows the 2009 collaboration with Offthesky, Flyover Sound, which was nominated for the Paris-based Qwartz electronic music award in experimentation and research.

here’s a little preview edit from Experimedia:
billy gomberg – quiet barrier (album preview) by experimedia
where you can of course buy the album or purchase directly from the label.

Billy Gomberg – Partial to Appearance by Rest + Noise

hearts in red by billygomberg

I have copies as well, so feel free to contact me if that is yr style.

Katie English for Fluid Radio:

With several solo releases and collaborations under his belt, sound artist Billy Gomberg follows on from 2009′s Flyover Sound collaboration with Offthesky with Quiet Barrier, a solo work that provides a meditative exploration of purely electronic soundscapes and textures

Opening track ‘Instants’ offers an array of flickering sonics, with various timbres weaving amongst each other. From disjointed square waves to shimmering drones and intermittent clicks it sets the ground for this surprisingly organic sounding album. Although all the sounds heard on this release are created electronically there is no stylised perfection at work here, Gomberg very much taking the part of musician over programmer.

As suggested by the title, ‘Partial to Appearance’ is a drifting study of harmonics, moving from dense, low tones to high frequency textures so gradually that attention is never drawn to the change of sound, simply allowing the listener to be immersed in the rich textures. Throughout the album, various processed waveforms float serenely through a background chatter of static and glitches, the disjointed and improvised nature always maintaining the human qualities of the music.

The somnambulant quality of tracks such as ‘Night With Cheap Stars’ allow the listener room to hear the minutiae of sounds at work here. It is hard to make something that is both sparse and immersive and yet Gomberg manages it, creating a cocoon like feeling with a minimum of sound. In many of these works Gomberg conveys a sense of space; for instance, the oddly watery textures of the aptly titled ‘Snow’ bring to mind a gentle thaw, the melting ice slowly dripping from rooftops. Closing track ‘The Ends of Breaths’ gently brings the album to a static close with occasional pulses appearing throughout a minimal texture of grainy tones and low frequency rumbles.

All in all a superb study in electronic warmth. Often attempted and yet rarely achieved, Gomberg manages to maintain a very human element throughout the work, creating a beautiful sound source that conveys a strong atmosphere within minimalistic aesthetics.

thanks for Ryan for doing this one nicely, and Gil Arno for the lovely slides.

CORRECTED: it’s on the 18th folks.