As a rebuttal to John Schaefer's Completely-Opinionated Top Ten of 2022, here are some picks from the New Sounds staff, who are Irene Trudel and me, Caryn Havlik. We kept our year-end picks from 2022 limited to ten each, yet there was so much more music that impressed and keeps on resonating, but here we are.
Year in Review 2022 Part 1 (Sr. Broadcast Engineer, Irene Trudel)
Year in Review 2022 Part 2 (NSAPA/Producer Caryn Havlik)
From Irene’s picks, hear the stylings of Paolo Angeli’s prepared Sardinian guitar, a hybrid electro-acoustic instrument that looks like a guitar crossed with a cello. Angeli is a guitarist, composer, ethnomusicologist, instrument builder and innovator, and a fascinating musician and communicator, who also performed in-studio for the Soundcheck Podcast. Listen to Turkish guitarist Deniz Cuylan, and his Mediterranean minimalism with fingerpicked nylon-string guitar and clouds of woodwinds and strings. There’s also the chamber-rock-folk-minimalism from London band caroline.
Not surprisingly, John and I agreed that both the record from London-based wordsmith, musician, and poet Kae Tempest, A Line is a Curve; and the Afrofuturist dystopian concept record, The New Faith, by banjoist, fiddler, and scholar of old time American music, Jake Blount - were brilliant. Listen to some more from those. Where Irene’s and my year-end picks overlapped was in new music from sax player and bandleader Shabaka Hutchings, and the impossibly communicative and lovely guitar playing of Portland, OR-based Marisa Anderson.
Well, and of course there’s kora. London-based kora virtuoso Sona Jobarteh is both an educational hero and a modern pioneer of the kora - the 21-stringed harp-lute of the Manding peoples of West Africa. Jobarteh released a 2022 record of kora-based music and her duet with Ballaké Sissoko is simply stunning. Plus, hear some other surprises. – Caryn Havlik
Again, our 2022 year-end picks are here:
Year in Review 2022 Part 1 (Sr. Broadcast Engineer, Irene Trudel)
Year in Review 2022 Part 2 (NSAPA/Producer Caryn Havlik)
Program #4700, Staff Picks of 2022 (First aired 1/6/23)
ARTIST: Paolo Angeli
WORK: Baklawa [1:23]
RECORDING: Rade
SOURCE: AnMa ReR Megacorp
INFO: angelimanucheproductions.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Marisa Anderson
WORK: Waking [3:07]
RECORDING: Still, Here
SOURCE: Thrill Jockey
INFO: marisaanderson.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Shabaka
WORK: Ital is Vital [4:43]
RECORDING: Afrikan Culture
SOURCE: Impulse!
INFO: https://shabaka.lnk.to/AfrikanCulture
ARTIST: Deniz Cuylan
WORK: Inner Chamber [3:57]
RECORDING: Rings Of Juniper
SOURCE: Hush Hush Records
INFO: hushhushrecords.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: François Robin & Mathias Delplanque
WORK: Perdu [3:38]
RECORDING: L'ombre de la bête
SOURCE: Parenthèses Records
INFO: parenthesesrecords.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Sharron Kraus
WORK: The World Within the World [3:17]
RECORDING: KIN
SOURCE/INFO: https://sharronkraus.bandcamp.com/album/k-i-n
ARTIST: Sona Jobarteh
WORK: Ballaké (Feat. Ballaké Sissoko) [4:48]
RECORDING: Badinyaa Kumoo
SOURCE: African Guild Records
INFO: sonajobarteh.band
ARTIST: Kae Tempest
WORK: Grace [4:33]
RECORDING: The Line is a Curve
SOURCE: Fiction
INFO: https://KaeTempest.lnk.to/TLIACID
ARTIST: Paolo Angeli
WORK: Baklawa [7:20]
RECORDING: Rade
SOURCE: AnMa ReR Megacorp
INFO: angelimanucheproductions.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Jake Blount
WORK: Didn't It Rain [3:06]
RECORDING: The New Faith
SOURCE: Smithsonian Folkways
INFO: jakeblount.com/the-new-faith
ARTIST: caroline
WORK: Dark Blue [2:48]
RECORDING: caroline
SOURCE: Rough Trade
INFO: caroline.bandcamp.com/album/caroline