#fuck you joseph your copy of news of the world is mine now bitch

[sofarsogoodsowhat]

my mom told me the johnny cash records i took were probably my grandpa’s :) the wham + george michael + all the new wave shit was hers and all the rock ones were my weird republican uncle’s and now im getting my freaky gay hands all over em

[dustedmagazine]

Joseph Burnett: 2016 in review

2016, you shan’t be missed. Thus far, most year-end round-ups outside of Breitbart and whatever equivalent we have for Der Stürmer these days (er, Breitbart?) have lamented the hideous direction the world has taken over the last 12 months. They’ve reeled off a list of lost artistic heroes that suggests whomever has taken up the job of ferrying the dead over the Styx once failed an audition to be harpist for Zeus and has a Manson-esque grudge against the talented as a result. So, whilst I can’t not mention the trauma of losing Bowie, Prince, Pauline Oliveros, two-thirds of ELP, Victoria Wood, Alan Rickman, Leonard Cohen, Andrzej Wajda, Dale Griffin of Mott the Hoople and my personal most harrowing Tony Conrad, like the shameful Brexit vote and baffling Trump triumph, I’d rather not dwell on these matters. The three letters “R.I.P.” convey more than I ever could. And I mean “R.I.P. humanity,” not just those individuals mentioned above. Actually, fuck you, 2016.  

So yeah, war, a refugee crisis, prejudice, nationalism and dead artists dominated 2016, but there was music too, and some of it was outstanding (as was a film that for me was the most important made in the UK for over a decade: I, Daniel Blake). Sadly, two stand-out albums from 2016 came from artists who departed this mortal coil not long afterwards: David Bowie’s Blackstar and Pauline Oliveros’ duo album with another casualty of 2016, Connie Crothers, First Meeting Still Sounding. The latter was only released as a tribute to pianist Crothers and tragically became one for Oliveros as well. It’s a wondrous meeting of two expansive and forward-thinking talents and a fitting farewell from both. As, in a rather different way, was Blackstar. I only heard the album after David Bowie had joined the ever-growing list of departed icons, so it seems impossible to divorce it from his passing, especially the wonderful “Lazarus.” But in addition being a farewell from an artist who had a profound impact on my life, it’s his most solid and musically coherent album in about two decades, benefitting notably from a gorgeous jazz-inflected production. An additional shout out must go to Leonard Cohen’s You Want it Darker, a bleak, introspective collection of songs that also sees an artist in the twilight of his existence reflecting on that stark reality.  

The legendary ECM Records had something of a bumper year to please admirers of their particular stylistic production and jazz fans as a whole. Wadada Leo Smith —whose colossal America’s National Parks was another highlight— teamed up with Vijay Iyer for the quietly spectacular A Cosmic Rhythm with Every Stroke, Golfam Khayam and Mona Matbou Riahi produced an undoubted masterpiece in Narrante, and Jack deJohnette bridged past and present on his delightful In Movement to deliver an achingly poignant reflection on the travails of African-Americans as they face racism and policemen’s guns. Special mention also to Theo Bleckmann, Carla Bley, Wolfert Brederode, Tigran Hamasyan and Ches Smith for their own masterful releases on ECM. Sarathy Korwar produced an intriguing post-jazz exercise in the form of Day to Day on NinjaTune, and beyond the specific realm of jazz the field of experimental music continues to throw up exciting and challenging works even in these straightened times, with composer Ben Johnston, Graham Lambkin, Cindytalk, Rhodri Davies and Richard Dawson’s Hen Ogledd and Oren Ambarchi all making it into my top 30 list. And I can’t not mention the wondrous drone works of Catherine Christer Hennix (both archival and new), Yves Tumor’s fractured pop or Gary Mundy’s expansively beautiful noise experiments in his solo incarnation as Kleistwahr.   

But, and this is purely on a personal level, electronic music delivered the most consistently exciting music of the year. In the UK, producers continue to probe where we go after dubstep and its quasi-punk levelling of form, something most notable in Kuedo’s Slow Knife, which may just have provided us with a clear run into the future. Meanwhile, many a British producer continued to delve into the hidden interstices of reality, as evidenced by Demdike Stare’s weird meshing of harsh techno and dub, the amalgamation of dark poetry and brittle electronica of eMMplekz, Pye Corner Audio’s horror-sci-fi dance and the sepulchral ambient techno of Andy Stott. And what to make of Dean Blunt’s sardonic take on Brexit Britain as Babyfather? His oblique but piercing political stance found an echo across the pond with Fatima Al Qadiri’s Brute, and even — away from electronica per se — Frank Ocean’s magnificent follow up to Color Orange, Blonde. But it’s impossible to look past Grumbling Fur and Furfour as the most perfect album of the year. Going beyond the promise of their past releases, Daniel O’Sullivan and Alexander Tucker elevated pop song into the most enthralling medium of expressing both joy and mystery, transcending dance, avant-garde, folk and hauntology in the process.  

It’s perhaps not surprising that in this fractured world we find comfort in the folk expressions of specific locations. The aforementioned Golfam Khayam and Mona Matbou Riahi took the exotic folk of their native Iran and spliced it with European avant-garde, whilst Aşıq Nargilə delivered an intoxicating aperçu of Georgian and Azeri troubadour music with a live set from London’s Café Oto, superbly preserved on vinyl by the diligent peeps of the venue themselves. Closer to home (well mine), Laura Cannell continues to sketch and sublimate the landscapes of England’s East Anglia via her recorders and fiddle. Also plundering and resurrecting the traditions of the UK’s hidden reverse is the Folklore Tapes label, a wonderful combination of record company and research project whose founders Ian Humberstone and David Chatton Barker have dedicated the last five or so years to resurrecting forgotten traditions of the land of my birth, in musical form. In 2016, two reissues of their Devon series (for those unfamiliar with UK geography, Devon is one of our wildest and most historically deep counties) and a new set of music inspired by the Black Dog mythology of England, crystallized Folklore Tapes as a singularly important, even crucial, vehicle for the preservation of some of the most fragile collective memories in Britain.  

If 2016 severed us so painfully from so many greats, I want to end by saluting two veterans who refuse to give up the ghost. Neil Young has slipped down the ranks of the intelligentsia’s appraisals when it comes to singer-songwriters, I think because he has traded in abstraction for visceral, sometimes slap-dashed and clumsy, invective. But fuck it, I wish more of our younger artists had his passion and anger, because we need it more than ever. Peace Trail is not some grand return to seventies form, but it’s important, often beautiful, and contains one of his best songs in a while in the title track. I’m glad he’s still out there. More impressive and welcome perhaps, however, was the return of Shirley Collins after a studio silence of no less than 38 years. At 81, her voice is more frail and strained than in her Love, Death and the Lady heyday, but rather than being a weakness, it only adds to the spectral beauty and gravitas of Lodestar. In such turbulent times, knowing Shirley Collins is out there, producing such incredible music and shining through the night with her humanity, is a real comfort.

 So yeah, fuck 2016 and fingers crossed 2017 won’t be such a bummer. Now forgive me whilst I reach for my copies of Lodestar and Furfour and hope that when I open my eyes the world will be gone... 

Grumbling Fur — Furfour (Thrill Jockey)

Golfam Khayam & Mona Matbou Riahi — Narrante (ECM)

Catherine Christer Hennix — Live at Issue Project Room (Important)

Yves Tumor — Serpent Music (PAN)

Andy Stott — Too Many Voices (Modern Love)

Shirley Collins — Lodestar (Domino)

Kuedo — Slow Knife (Planet Mu)

Pye Corner Audio — Stasis (Ghost Box)

Vijay Iyer & Wadada Leo Smith — A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke (ECM)

Demdike Stare — Wonderland (Modern Love)

Aşıq Nargilə — Yurt Yeri (OtoRoku)

Kepler Quartet/Ben Johnston — String Quartets Nos 6, 7 & 8 (New World)

Laura Cannell — Simultaneous Flight Movement (Brawl)

Jenny Hval — Blood Bitch (Sacred Bones)

Frank Ocean — Blonde (Def Jam)

Babyfather — BBF Hosted by DJ Escrow (Hyperdub)

eMMplekz — Rook to TN34 (Mordant Music)

Kleistwahr — Over Your Heads Forever (Fourth Dimension)

Jack deJohnette — In Movement (ECM)

David Bowie — Blackstar (Sony/Columbia)

Fatima Al Qadiri — Brute (Hyperdub)

Graham Lambkin — Community (Kye)

Gate — Saturday Night Fever (MIE Music)

Cindytalk — The Labyrinth of the Straight Line (Editions Mego)

Pauline Oliveros & Connie Crothers — First Meeting Still Sounding (Important)

Tongues of Light — Channelled Messages at the End of History (Pre—Cert Home Entertainment)

Ian Humberstone — Folklore Tapes Occultural Creatures Vol.1: Black Dog Traditions of England (Folklore Tapes)

Oren Ambarchi — Hubris (Editions Mego)

Hen Ogledd — Bronze (alt.vinyl)

Neil Young — Peace Trail (Warner Reprise)

 Archive & reissue 

LaMonte Young & Marian Zazeela — The Theatre of Eternal Music: Dream House 78’17” (Les Série Shandar)

AMM — AMMMusic (Black Truffle)

Magpahi/Paper Dollhouse — Devon Folklore Tapes Vol.IV: Rituals & Practices (Folklore Tapes)

This Heat — This Heat / Deceit (Light in the Attic)

Catherine Christer Hennix — Central Palace Music from 100 Model Subjects For Hegikan Roku (Important)

Awalom Gebremariam — Desdes (Awesome Tapes from Africa)

Dean McPhee / Mary Arches — Devon Folklore Tapes Vol.V: Ornithology (Folklore Tapes)

Ragnar Johnson assisted by Jessica Mayer — Sacred Flute Music from New Guinea (Ideologic Organ)

Harry Bertoia — Sonambient  (Important)

Yoshi Wada — Off the Wall (Important)

 Best tracks 

Frank Ocean: “Nikes”

David Bowie: “Lazarus”

Grumbling Fur: “Acid Ali Khan”

Kuedo: “In Your Sleep”

Neil Young: “Peace Trail”

Leonard Cohen: “You Want it Darker”

Shirley Collins: “Awake Awake /The Split Ash Tree / May Carol / Southover”

eMMplekz: “Britain’s Go Talon”

Anohni: “Drone Bomb Me”

Yves Tumor: “The Feeling When You Walk Away”