Top 20 CDs of 2006

The problem with a personal Top 20 list is that not being a professional critic, I've only gotten to listen to those CDs that I bought or downloaded during the year and not the industry's entire output, so it's entirely possible that other, better music is still out there waiting for my discovery. But in any event, to commemorate the start of a New Year, here's my Top 20 list of the best recordings of 2006:

1. The Reformed Faction (of Zoviet France) – Vota - More than a decade after Zoviet France members Robin Storey (Rapoon), Mark Spybey (Dead Voices on Air) and Andrew Eardley (Delayer) left the band, the three have teamed up for a new group. The Reformed Faction of Zoviet France played one concert in Vienna on November 10, 2005, and released a self-titled album under that name. In 2006, they announced that they were to continue the project under the name The Reformed Faction in order to avoid possible future legal disputes with other former members of Zoviet France. Vota features the old Zoviet France style of droning textures set against tribal rhythms and fleeting dissonant melodies, often made from neglected sound sources: obscure radio broadcasts, toy instruments, and other odds and ends, often heavily processed or looped.
2. Claude Challe – Buddha Bar VIII – The eighth compilation in French d.j. Claude Challe’s signature series is split into two discs, titled “Paris” and “New York.” Both discs feature mixes of the series’ chill sound, with the “Paris” CD a little more mellow and the “New York” more dance oriented.
3. Bill Frissell, Ron Carter & Paul Motian - Bill Frissell, Ron Carter & Paul Motian – Three masters at the top of their form take on classic like “Eighty One” and “Mysterioso” and a few oddities including “You Are My Sunshine” and “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” without ever once sounding clichéd or derivative. The laid-back classical jazz is superbly recorded allowing the listener to hear the spaces between the instruments, which strangely only increases the feeling of the intimacy between the players.
4. Bob Dylan – Modern Times – The surprising thing about Dylan’s 31st studio album and first in five years is that while no one was expecting much, he unexpectedly delivered a masterpiece. At 8:45, “Ain’t Talking,” brings previous glories like “Desolation Row” to mind, but Dylan’s sound has been updated for these modern times, with his lyrics have the hard-boiled moralism of a Raymond Chandler novel: "In the human heart, an evil spirit can dwell/I'm trying to love my neighbor and do good unto others/But, oh, mother, things ain't going well."
5. Brian Eno – 77 Million Paintings – The “77 Million Paintings” software disc creates a constantly evolving painting generated from hand-made slides randomly combined by the listener’s computer. The software processes the music that accompanies the paintings in a similar way so the selection of elements and their duration in the piece are arbitrarily chosen, forming a virtually infinite number of variations. What’s often overlooked is that, “Music for 77 Million Paintings,” features two hours and 5½ minutes of some of the best ambiance Eno has recorded since “On Land.”
6. David Grisman & Andy Statman – New Shabbos Waltz – Proving that John Zorn’s not the only musician to play innovative and interesting traditional Jewish music, Grisman and Statman combine their talents on mandolin and clarinet respectively on klezmer, folk songs and other ethnic musics for a joyous and highly listenable album.
7. Aphex Twin – Chosen Lords – A compilation of highlights from the Analord 12-inch singles of 2005, the music is throwback acid techno that moves at a fast pace and has a malevolent streak behind it. Stylistically, it's the logical follow-up to his material of the early '90s, which attempted to (and usually succeeded in) creating the freakiest techno ever produced, without either deserting a steady beat or straying into self-conscious experimentation.
8. Beck – Guerolito – Guerolito is a compilation of remixes by various artists of 2005’s Guero. In an interview with Wired magazine in September 2006, Beck challenged other artists to follow his lead in abandoning the traditional concept of an album release, stating “There are so many dimensions to what a record can be these days. Artists can and should approach making an album as an opportunity to do a series of releases – one that's visual, one that has alternate versions, and one that's something the listener can participate in or arrange and change. It's time for the album to embrace the technology. For me it's more about giving the music legs, giving people new ways to experience it ... Even though the mash-up sensibility has become something of a cliché, I'd love to put out an album that you could edit and mix and layer directly in iTunes.”
9. Elvis Costello – My Flame Burns Blue – A live retrospective, with orchestra, of Elvis’ career recordings.
10. John McLaughlin – Industrial Zen - Neither industrial nor zen, but nice tasty jazz guitar from a master of his craft.
    

Rounding out the rest of my my list are:

11. John Medeski, Matthew Shipp – Scotty Hard’s Radical Reconstructive Surgery
12. Tom Waits – Orphans: Beggars, Bawlers and Bastards
13. Keith Jarrett – The Carnegie Hall Concert
14. Lisa Gerrard – The Silver Tree
15. John Zorn – Moonchild
16. Los Straitjackets – Twist Party
17. Michael Brook – Rock Paper Scissors
18. Pete Namlook – Air V
19. Pete Namlook & Move D – Namlook XI: Sons of Kraut
20. Rabih Abou-Khalil – Journey to the Center of an Egg

And finally, the oh-what-the-heck, here's-the-rest-of-the-albums-I-got-in-2006 list. They're not bad (after all, I felt compelled to go out and get them), but they didn't make the Top 20 list for one reason or another:

21. Steeleye Span – Bloody Men
22. The Beatles – Love
23. The Decemberists – The Crane Wife
24. The Mountain Goats – Get Lonely
25. The Residents – Rivers of Crime