25 Essential Echoes CDs for 2008

Digitonal Tops the 25 Essential Echoes CDs of 2008

Save Your Light for Darker DaysHere are the CDs we thought were essential for the year as judged by me (John Diliberto) and the Echoes staff. It’s not based on the most played CD, CDs of the month or any other “objective” criteria. These are the CDs, out of the 2000+ we received, that consistently inspired us over the year. Some years, it’s difficult to find 25 CDs that warrant being on the list, but this year, even more than a great year like 2007, the dividing line between the first and 25th choice has never been thinner. 2008 was just a great year for music.

I write more extensively about the 25 Essential Echoes CDs in an article on the Echoes website. It’ll have lots of links to soundfiles, pics and features on these artists.

Sumner McKane's What A Great Place To Be

Sumner McKane’s What A Great Place To Be

For now, let me say that Digitonal’s Save Your Light for Darker Days floored me from the start and became deeper with each listening. It was the most sophisticated, intoxicating, inventive and emotive album of the year and defined that meeting of classical chamber and ambient music. It was nearly a toss-up between that and Sumner McKane‘s What a Great Place to Be. Like Digitonal, it was a CD of the Month and an album of deeply moving, but strangely nostalgic psychedelic Americana.

This was the soundscape of Echoes, 2008. The full list is below.

 

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

25 ESSENTIAL ECHOES CDs FOR 2008

1. Digitonal Save Your Light for Darker Days Just Music
2 Sumner McKane What A Great Place to Be Don’t Hit Your Sister Records
3 Balmorhea Rivers Arms Western Vinyl
4 Fernwood Almeria Self Released
5 Saul Stokes Villa Galaxia Binary/Stokesmusic
6 Jamshied Sharifi One Ceres Records
7 Ahn Trio Lullaby for My Favorite Insominac Sony BMG
8 Lights Out Asia Eyes Like Brontide N5md
9 Jami Sieber Unspoken Out Front Music  
10 Bombay Dub Orchestra 3 Cities Six Degrees Records
11 Nik Bartsch’s Ronin Holon ECM Records
12 General Fuzz Soulful Filling Self Released
13 Qntal Qntal VI: Translucida Noir (Big Daddy)
14 Marconi Union A Lost Connection MU Transmissions
15 Hammock Maybe They Will Sing For Us Tomorrow Darla Records
16 John Gregorius Heaven and Earth Spotted Peccary
17 Gerry O’Beirne The Bog Bodies and Other Stories Self Released
18 Johann Johannsson Fordlandia 4AD/Touch
19 Ronn McFarlane Indigo Road Dorian Recordings
20 Biomusique The 10,000 Steps Kosmic Music
21 Anja Lechner and Vasillis Tsabropoulos Melos ECM Records
22 California Guitar Trio Echoes Inner Knot
23 Darshan Ambient From Pale Hands to Weary Eyes Lotuspike
24 Kevin Bartlett Glow in the Dark Aural Gratification
25 Alu Lobotomy Sessions Alu Music

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