Best Music of the Decade

I love lists. Every year I make a Best Ambient/Instrumental Album list. And a best album list for “normal”/indie music and a list of the best song’s of the year. It’s a good thing I’ve been making those lists because there’s a BIG list out in the horizon - Best of the Decade. 

Over that last week I’ve started to compile my list of the best ambient/instrumental albums of the 2010s. With sooooo much music coming out every week I’d have been lost trying to figure out my favorite recordings from 2012 if I didn’t have a list from that year. So I’m going to those lists and looking through my Spotify playlists and searching online to come up with a list of my 50 favorite ambient/instrumental albums from the past decade. I’m sure I will miss a ton so if you have suggestions I’d love to hear about them in the comments. 

Because I listen to as much or more indie music I’ll be making a decade albums list for that along with a best songs list as well. I already know that my top album of the decade on the indie side will be Carrie & Lowell by Sufjan Stevens. 

On the ambient side I’m pretty sure that Sleep by Max Richter will be my top album. I’m sure artists such as 36, Loscil and Johann Johansson will make the final cut. 

I haven’t decided if I’ll make mixes to go along with these lists(probably will). Let me know about your favorite music of the 2010s. It’s a fun exercise combing through a decade’s worth of great music. 

Cheers!

In Sequencer Euphoria by Paul Asbury Seaman

Cover art by Sven Geier, http://www.sgeier.net/fractals/

I have talked many times here about how a single track or artist can inspire a mix. Well, that seems to have happened with this latest mix from Paul.

He emailed me about a month ago about Kubusschnitt, a group creating berlin school style electronic music. That discovery set him on the course of creating a mix of sequencer tunes.  And we did our usual thing - Paul sends me the tracklist, I twiddle the knobs and a mix is born. All the music used here is fairly new, ranging from 2010 to 2019.

Here's what Paul has to say about this mix:

“Not for the faint of heart, this one’s full-on sequencers front and center, all the way through. Highway driving motorcycle music. Or vacuuming the house, aerobics music. Yet, part of the magic of this type of electronic music is the amazing way it has a soothing effect, even as it’s so propulsive. In any case, here’s a Perfect Seven from five of the current giants in the genre and two of its historic pillars.”

Thanks, Paul!

Cheers!

[ s t r e a m ]    [ d o w n l o a d ]    [ i t u n e s ]

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Kubusschnitt - Enter Through The Nave(Ex Cathedra 2019)
• 16:00    Broekhuis, Keller & Schönwälder - Tea With An Unknown Girl(Eglise de Betzdorf 2013)
• 28:15    ARC - Rise(Rise 2010)
• 41:42    Tangerine Dream - Hamlet(Lost In Strings 2013)
• 49:27    Jeffery Koepper - Belief(Konnektions 2015)
• 57:30    Chuck Van Zyl - All Souls' Day(Memoryspace 2010)
• 63:00    Klaus Schulze - Chateaux Faits de Vent(Silhouettes 2018)
• 76:03    end