Alphabetical list of the music I enjoyed the most this year… Most bought on cd or blu-ray, though increasingly stuff on bandcamp too. Mostly rock, but also jazz, string quartets, ambient, solo piano, and probably the most peculiar/interesting thing I’ve heard this year – solo bass clarinet and saxophone recorded inside a box girder.
- Anchor and Burden, Weigh Anchor, Clenched Brow and Folded Temple
- The Anchoress, The Art of Losing
- Sel Balamir, Swell
- Nik Bartsch, Entendre
- Big Big Train, The Underfall Yard (reissue) and Common Ground
- Dream Theater, The View from the Top of the World
- The Grid/Fripp, Leviathan
- Robert Fripp, Music for Quiet Moments (box)
- Frost*, Day and Age
- Gavin Harrison and Antoine Fafard, Chemical Reactions
- Peter Hammill, In Translation
- Helmet of Gnats, Travelogue
- Isildurs Bane and Peter Hammill, In Disequilibrium
- Kali Trio, Loom
- King Crimson, Music is our Friend (live)
- The Kite Experiment (EP)
- Kronos Quartet/Al Pari Quartet, World Dialogue (music by Stephan Thelan)
- Liquid Tension Experiment, LTE3
- Lunatic Soul, Through Shaded Woods
- The Neal Morse Band, Innocence and Danger
- Markus Reuter, Anchor and Burden
- The Steve Rothery Band, Live in London
- Sha, Monbijou.
- J. Peter Schwalm and Markus Reuter, Aufbruch
- Stephan Thelan, Fractal Guitar 2
- Stephan Thelan and Jon Durant, Crossings
- The Pineapple Thief, Nothing But the Truth (live)
- Transatlantic, The Absolute Universe
- Van de Graaf Generator, The Charisma Years 1970-1978 (box)
- Steven Wilson, The Future Bites
I missed live music, seeing only a few shows, and lots of things cancelled or postponed. Streaming live concerts, especially from Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin and Mobile, helped.
For previous years, see the lists from 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012.
