Avant Music News Best of 2016: Part II – Albums of the Year

To the extent that these lists mean much of anything, here are our favorite recordings of 2016. Many of these albums have been reviewed here at AMN, and such reviews have been linked in the list below.

This year, our list is so lengthy that we broke it into two separate postings. The “best of” is today, and the honorable mentions were yesterday. As usual, let me add the usual disclaimer that this list is incomplete, I have not heard all 2016 releases, and probably missed a few really good ones. Enjoy.

Like this list? Feel free to peruse previous years’ lists.

Albums of the Year
Dan Weiss – Sixteen: Drummers Suite
Bent Knee – Say So
Anthony Braxton – 3 Compositions (EEMHM)) 2011
Bobby Previte – Mass

Best of 2016

John Butcher / Thomas Lehn / Matthew Shipp – Tangle
Happy Place – Northfield
Rodrigo Amado Motion Trio – Desire and Freedom
Christopher Hoffman – Silver Cord Quintet
Perhaps Contraption – Mud Belief
Dave Ball / Jon Savage – Photosynthesis
René Aquarius – Blight
Aram Bajakian – Dolphy Formations
Anthony Braxton –  10+1tet (Knoxville) 2016
Anthony Braxton – Trio (Knoxville) 2016
Brownout – Brownout Presents Black Sabbath, Vol. II
Burning Ghosts – Burning Ghosts
DC Improvisers Collective – Ministry of Spontaneous Composition
Massimo Discepoli / Daniel Barbiero – An Eclipse of Images
dMu – Synaptic Self
Mark Dresser / N.Mitchell / M.Melford / M.Dessen – Virtual Tour: A Reduced Carbon Footprint Concert Series
Cassio Figueiredo – Presença
Fond of Tigers – Uninhabit
Free Nelson Mandoomjazz – The Organ Grinder
Devin Gray – Devin Gray’s Fashionable Pop Music
Mats Gustafsson – This is from the Mouth (EP)
Ross Hammond / Vinny Golia – Ross Hammond and Vinny Golia
Horselover Fats – Liberty Ashes
Nathan Hubbard / Skeleton Key Orchestra – Furiously Dreaming
In Slaughter Natives – Ventre
Jack O’ The Clock – Repetitions of the Old City – I
Reid Karris – Oscines et Ensifera
Jockel Leiss – Fluid Variations
Merzbow / Keiji Haino / Balazs Pandi – An Untroublesome Defencelessness
Mondo Flockard – Spirals (EP)
Naima – Bye
Luca Nasciuti – Morpheus
Alexander Noice – Music Made With Voices
The Out Louds (Halvorson, Goldberg, Fujiwara) – The Out Louds
Richard Pinhas / B.Cleveland, M.Manring, Alberti – Mu
Richard Pinhas / Tatsuya Yoshida / Merzbow – Process and Reality
Xavi Reija – Live at RZZ Barcelona
Daniel Rosenboom – Book of Storms
São Paulo Underground – Cantos Invisíveis
Shrine – Ordeal 26.04.86
Sirius Quartet – Paths Become Lines
Space Sweeper – Alien Oceans
Henry Threadgill Ensemble Double Up – Old Locks and Irregular Verbs
Thumbscrew (Halvorson / Formanek / Fujiwara) – Convallaria
Tri-Centric Orchestra – Music of Blake, Bynum & Laubrock: Agora, Questions of Transfiguration, Vogelfrei
Luong Hue Trinh – Illusions
Troum – Acouasme
Harvey Valdes Trio – Point Counterpoint
Vaults of Zin – Kadath
Vortex – Moloch
Anna Webber Simple Trio – Binary
Nate Wooley – Argonautica