[by Ken Hunt, London] 2013 in all its glory from the personal perspective of a herbert on the music critic’s treadmill. The selections are built up over the course of the year from the first day of January to the last day of December in order to avoid what all too frequently happens with end-of-year polls. Meaning, great stuff from the beginning of the year gets squeezed out of people’s memories.
31. 12. 2013 | read more...
[by Ken Hunt, London] Another fine year for music. The evidence of this list to the contrary, much of 2012 flashed by in a blur owing to illness in the family that wiped out most of the year’s listening hours. As to recorded music, the pile of unlistened to music grew, thanks to having to prioritise paid reviewing work. Yes, strange though it may seem, if one’s livelihood depends on paid writing, it is astonishing how a paying commission focuses the mind. And this is just the best logged over the course of 2012. No doubt it excludes recordings that still await their time to be heard.
31. 12. 2012 | read more...
[by Ken Hunt, London] What a year for music! The number of events of 2011 on this list is greedy by most annual polls’ standards. One of the continual difficulties for me is that, because I am writing in a variety of periodicals and newspapers across a variety of musical genres for a number of territories, wonderful stuff just gets continually squeezed out. I mean, in this brave new world of world music, nobody wants ten roots-based Czech or Hungarian albums or Indian classical or English or even European folk albums…
31. 12. 2011 | read more...
[by Ken Hunt, London] The year started brilliantly, thanks to the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Then nothing much seemed to happen for the longest while – well, a month or so – and then the sluice gates opened and a wonderful year’s musical experiences began pouring out. It did, however, prove a disappointing year for quality new recordings of Indian music.
13. 12. 2010 | read more...
[by Ken Hunt, London] The doom and gloom of recession and depression, inflation and deflation affected people’s lives enormously during 2009. Some say it put dampeners on life. Musically though, on balance it was a year of hope, despite losses.
2. 1. 2010 | read more...
2008 was one of the greatest music years of my life, full of fresh discoveries and confirmations of vision and talent still shining brightly. New releases. Historic releases, reissues and anthologies. Events.
30. 1. 2009 | read more...
[by Ken Hunt, London] Getting paid for something you’d be doing anyway is a rare privilege. Making
a decent living doing it is an altogether different mater, which is
why we present the fine things from 2007 that made our lives finer and
nourished our minds. These are the things that gave us the greatest
pleasure musically speaking.
14. 12. 2007 | read more...