THE WIRE'S BEST OF 2013
the wire best records of 2013
Photographs
Graham Lambkin and Jason Lescalleet stand side by side in the vanguard of contemporary sound exploration. Since the initiation of their collaborative endeavors in 2006, the duo have crafted a nice combination of audio vérité and musique concrète, together building a highly personal body of work. 2008's critically acclaimed The Breadwinner illuminated the artistic potential found in mundane and commonplace circumstances. 2010's Air Supply showcased a darker side, nudging the civilian themes of it…
Virgins
Virgins was recorded during three periods in 2012, mostly in Reykjavik, Montreal and Seattle, using ensembles in live performance. The sound palette of this work is wider, almost 'percussive' and tighter sounding than previous works. While this album remains committed to a painterly form of musical abstraction, it is also a record of restrained composition recorded live primarily in intimate studio rooms. This record employs woodwinds, piano and synthesizers towards an effort at doing what digit…
Visions of the country
Recorded in the height of Robbie Basho's creative career, "Visions of the Country" was originally released in 1978, and has been out of print for nearly 35 years. The album is comprised of technically superb instrumentation (6 & 12 string guitars and piano); majestic compositions; transcendent singing and whistling; and astonishing lyrical, emotional, and spiritual depths. It is with a feeling of tremendous honor and joy that we offer this re-issue, which we hope will please existing Basho devo…
Classroom projects - Incredible music made by Children in school
LP version. Incredible music made by children in schools" says is it all really. Jonny Trunk has collected the best moments of that most niche of niche collectors' genres, the school album, spanning music by small primary school choirs singing folk songs to full-blown avant-garde experiments written and performed by children still at secondary or grammar school. As with practically all Trunk releases, it's a nostalgic gas for anyone over a certain age - we reckon anyone younger than 25 may be ba…
Coin coin chapter two: Mississippi Moonchile
2013 release. Mississippi Moonchile is the much-anticipated new installment of Matana Roberts' unique and forward-looking project and it finds Roberts conjuring some of the most nuanced, thoughtful and substantial American liberation music of the 21st century. Mississippi Moonchile was developed for an intimately woven New York jazz sextet and represents the next leap forward in Roberts' iconoclastic and complex project of memory and recuperation, where historical and contemporary musical tropes…
Inspiration Information + Wings Of Love
Ignored upon its release in 1974 and celebrated upon its reissue in 2001, Shuggie Otis' fourth and last album Inspiration Information exists out of time, a record that was of its time, but didn't belong of it; a record that was idiosyncratic but not necessarily visionary. It was psychedelic soul that was released far too late to be part of any zeitgeist and it was buried at the time. Yet no matter what David Byrne claims on the sticker - he says Shuggie's "trippy R&B jams are equal to Marvin's a…
Wood Flute Songs: Anthology/Live 2006-2012
Some of the most amazing work we've ever heard from this legendary bassist – a set that's not based around music from a wooden flute, but which instead refers to the instrument in its title – as an illustration of the very organic approach of the work within! A 8CD box set of all previously unissued recordings by world-renowned bassist-composer-bandleader William Parker, a 2013 recipient of the Doris Duke Foundation's Artist Award. Parker is a wonderfully prolific composer, and over half of t…
Images of the Dream and Death
Last copies, sold out at source: this recording is the fourth version of Images of the Dream and Death by ÃÂÂÂÂÂkos Rozmann; revised at EMS/Elektronmusikstudion, Stockholm in 2001 for a performance in Essen. The first version was realized with Buchla synthesizer at the State Academy of Music, EMS/Elektronmusikstudion, Stockholm 1974-1977 (released on Phono Suecia as PS 27, 1986); the third version in April 1990 (released on Phono Suecia as PSCD 27, 1991). Images of the Dream and Death. "…