My year in Albums - 2020

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Fretless
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My year in Albums - 2020

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2020 :doh:

Well, with very little in the way of actual work for most of the last 12 months I had time to listen to music, read a book (been a long time since I read so much} and do odd jobs around the place.

The Record Collector within was awakened with a vengeance and I started on a trawl through the available online sources for those
CD's that had caught my attention in the past but I'd never got around to hearing, also filling out my collections of artists who I had not been paying much notice to.
Webshops like: Dodax, Variaworld (2nd hand LP's & CD's based in Holland), Medimops (in Germany, active on Ebay), Discogs Marketplace. They all did good business this year thanks to my single-handed buying spree.

And my tastes went from left to right, up and down, like this:

Image



January: The year opened with a Pink Floyd barrage as I caught up on the last remastered editions and a stack of Gilmour & Waters solo material. The one album I missed was the 2019 extended/remixed 'Delicate Sound of Thunder' which I now have on order - so that will be a great start to 2021.
February: It was a short jump from Floyd to Gentle Giant, a band I haven't really 'got' in the past. Their bizarrely complex and unpredictable albums truly demand your attention.
March: The lockdown struck and I retreated into old nostalgic safety with one-time favourites The Enid. A band I once worshipped and followed around like a puppy. The unique blend of Classical stylings and Rock instrumentation hasn't altered much through the years and it was a surprise to find out that they are still active in a new incarnation.
April: Nektar - one of my absolutely, truly, really, all-time, very favourite ever albums is 'Down to Earth' by Nektar - a mix of psychedelic rock and wacky humour that brings a smile to my face every time, especially Robert Calvert impersonating a German circus ringmaster on the intro to several tracks. Another band who are still going and have an intriguing catalog of quality Prog to their name (albums available via Bandcamp - check 'em out)
May: From the above British band based in Germany I didn't have to look far to arrive at Grobschnitt, the biggest Prog outfit ever to come out of that land. I had a few LP's of their once but this was effectively the discovery of a whole new band for me and their earlier (English language) LP's are really worth finding for some stunning musical ability. This month also saw me diving into some more obscure Krautrock outfits like Guru Guru and Anyone's Daughter.
June: Enough of Europe - it's off to the states for more proggy 70's fun from the likes of Journey, Chicago, Styx & Kansas. This was a hole-filling exercise catching up on stuff I had missed before but threw up several great records - especially from Styx, who I had rather underestimated.
July: Enough Prog - now for some real music! Sonic Youth was the sound of my summer, I dug out 'Sister'and 'Daydream Nation' and ended up getting almost all of their later works. Yes, there is beauty to be found in chaos and dissonance. Some other SST artists came to the fore like Slovenly and Firehose.
August: Put it down to heatstroke in a blisteringly hot summer but I needed some relaxation and found it in Shadowfax and a variety of other Windham Hill releases. Having been a huge fan of the 'New Age' acoustic movement in the late 80's there were a lot of artists who I had enjoyed and Shadowfax's intricately delicate Jazz-rock was a pleasant rediscovery.
September: Hell - we can work and earn some money again! Soundtrack for the month was the Nordic techno-jazz of Nils Petter Molvaer and his idol Miles Davis from the intense early 70's phase when he created a whole new form of psychedelic Rock music.
October: Back in lockdown and for some odd reason the works of Keith Jarrett completely obsess me. A master musician whose focus shifts from Rock to Jazz to Classical and inhabits a private universe bordered by those other styles. I bought more of his CD's than anyone else this year. And I had Corona - Jarrett pulled me through.
November: The nights are getting longer and the leaves are falling. Autumnal sounds of ECM become the background and much music from Jan Garbarek, Terje Rypdal and Eberhard Weber gets heard. Eberhard inspires me to pull out my electric Cello and start playing it like an upright bass - which is a lot of fun and a new hobby activity in the stillness.
December: The Lockdown goes into a heavier phase and my interests shift to synthesizers with the names that are so big only initials are necessary: TD, JMJ, KS & V. The one who has me most excited is Jarre and I am finding a new appreciation for his later work, helped by the remaster series from 2014-16 which are exquisitely detailed.

There were others along the way who have given much enjoyment: Samantha Fish is a blonde, raunchy blues goddess, Taylor Swift surprised me, The Dixie Chicks are back, FM - a little-known Canadian Prog act, Synth-master Ian Boddy, Peter Michael Hamel & Tim Story making lovely quiet noises, Jaga Jazzist, Thelonious, the angelic Silje Nergaard from Norway.
Too many to mention.

Looking back, 2020 has been a terrific musical year for me, despite everything.
Roll on 2021. :character-beavisbutthead:
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ArloFlynn (Thu Dec 31, 2020 1:38 am)

Upstairs:
Vinyl
Pro-Ject 1.2 + Grado Sig Jr + Cambridge Alva Duo
DigiVolumio PC + Kiss DP-500 + Sabaj A20d
NVA: P50sa - Cube2 - SSP - LS6+ Sabaj A10a (x2)
Downstairs:
Vinyl
Logic DM101 + Syrinx LE1 + Grado Sig MCX
DigiDenafrips Ares II + Volumio PC + Cambridge CXC
NVA: P50 - BMU+ Aiyima A07 MAX (x2) + Arcam One
HP: HifiBerry Digi+ PRO + Sabaj A10d
Office:
Allo DigiOne SIG + SMSL M300se + Douk G4 (x2)
Mission 760 + Monolith THX AAA 887
Headphones: German Maestro, Monolith & AQ

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