Flotation Device: Best releases of 2015

Happy holidays, creative music fans! Here’s my Flotation Device, KBCS best-of list for 2015. This year I’ve organized the list into six categories, based on how the music seemed to enter the world. I hope you’ll find something here to enjoy. -JL

Music that invokes stillness

• Morton Feldman: Clarinet and String Quartet (Saltern)
• Steven M. Miller: Between Noise and Silence (Innova)
• Miguel Isaza: Tempiternidad (Dragon’s Eye)
• Anna Thorvaldsdóttir: In The Light Of Air (Sono Luminus)

Music that radiates power like light from a star

• Jessika Kenney: Atria (SIGE)
• William Parker: For Those Who Are, Still (Aum Fidelity)

Music that channels or transforms loss, grief or fear

• Merzbow, Mats Gustafsson, Balázs Pándi, Thurston Moore: Cuts of Guilt, Cuts Deeper (Rare Noise)
• Heather Leigh: I Abused Animal (Ideologic Organ)
• Rafael Anton Irisarri: A Fragile Geography (Edition Outer Worlds)

Music that grows outward from deep roots

• Matana Roberts: Coin Coin Chapter Three: River Run Thee (Constellation)
• Chuck Johnson: Blood Moon Boulder (Scissor Tail)
• Mary Halvorson: Meltframe (Firehouse 12)
• Daniel Menche and Mamiffer: Crater (SIGE)
• Eleh/Tara Jane O’Neil: Split (Important)

Music that dances in place

• Africa Express Presents Terry Riley’s In C Mali (Transgressive)
• William Parker/Raining on the Moon: Great Spirit (Aum Fidelity)
• Ingrid Laubrock: Ubatuba (Firehouse 12)
• Matana Roberts: Always (Relative Pitch)
• Colin Stetson, Sarah Neufeld: Never were the way she was (Constellation)

Music which is great in other ways

• Fred Frith, Barry Guy: Backscatter Bright Blue (Intakt)
• Robert Crouch Robert Crouch: Organs (Dragon’s Eye)
• William Basinski, Richard Chartier: Divertissement (Important)
• Black Spirituals: Black Interiors (Ratskin)