Echoes Listeners pick their Top 25 Favorites from 2009
If you followed listeners choices for 200 CDs for 20 Years of Echoes top choice, then you shouldn’t be surprised at their number one selection for the Best of Echoes 2009: Loreena McKennitt’s A Midwinter Night’s Dream. The Canadian songstress of global exotica topped the poll with the kind of album that usually doesn’t even make the list, a Christmas CD, released at the end of 2008
I’m only slightly less surprised at Moby coming in a strong #2 with his album, Wait for Me an CD of the Month in July. It was at the top of 25 Essential Echoes CDs for 2009, but this mostly vocal recording isn’t the kind that usually tops Echoes polls. Being a CD of the Month and being interviewed on the show probably didn’t hurt. A great CD that will only sound better down the years.
There are a lot of other surprises on the list, most of them pleasant. It was nice to see Phil Keaggy & Jeff Johnson‘s Frio Suite, Anna Schaad‘s Dream Within a Dream and Robin Guthrie‘s Carousel get some attention. Steve Roach continues to have a strong following, placing 2 CDs in the poll.
This is the first year that download only releases made the Top 25. Two recordings accomplished that, Under the Rose, by Ottmar Liebert & Rahim Alhaj, and 3 Cities in Dub by Bombay Dub Orchestra. With all due respect to BDO, who we love, I wonder if people confused this remix album with their 2008 CD, 3 Cities, which came in at #10 in the 2008 poll.
Over all, the listeners picked an engaging list that spanned the Echoes spectrum from acoustic to electronic, hipsters to old-veterans, avant-garde excursions to melodic singers.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the poll.
Echoes Listener Poll 2009 Results:
- Loreena McKennitt A Midwinter Night’s Dream
- Moby Wait for Me
- Bela Fleck, Zakir Hussain, Edgar Meyer The Melody of Rhythm
- Andreas Vollenweider AIR
- Steve Roach Destination Beyond
- Bill Frisell Disfarmer
- David Darling Prayer for Compassion
- Bombay Dub Orchestra 3 Cities in Dub
- Ottmar Liebert & Rahim Alhaj Under the Rose
- Mark Holland & N. Scott Robinson Wind and Fire
- Steve Roach & Erik Wollo Stream of Thought
- Air Love 2
- Urban Nature Coming Home
- Electric Harp Guitar Group Electric Harp Guitar Group
- Kitaro Impressions of the West Lake
- Phil Keaggy & Jeff Johnson Frio Suite
- Marconi Union Tokyo
- Acoustic Eidolon River of Fire
- Banco de Gaia Memories Dreams Reflections
- Zero 7 Yeah Ghost
- Anna Schaad Dream Within a Dream
- Robin Guthrie Carousel
- Erik Scott Other Planets
- Matthew Schoening The Art of Live Looping
- Bodhi Harbin Temple