I meant to reply to this thread quite a while ago, but while I was in the middle of composing my post my browser decided to crash. I'd felt so slighted at the time that I didn't bother trying to post again until now. I'm backing this up in a notepad file this time, just in case.
One of my favorite albums of all time is
Passages by Ravi Shankar and Phillip Glass. I've heard some albums described as a tapestry of sound, so I'll go one further and describe this as more of a Van Gogh painting of sound because of the very colorful and picturesque nature of the music. The best part about the album is that the compositions oftentimes sound both freewheeling enough to make you want to fly away in your mind, yet precise enough to inspire you to stay in the moment and dance.
My newest favorite musician is Andreas Ecker who is better known by his alias, The Headroom Project. I'm actually surprised that he isn't more widely played, because his album
Ciri a Doro is now my favorite dance album ever. From what I've read about the vocal samples on his albums, they're often either recorded in made-up languages, or he edits Asian or African language recordings until they sound like made-up languages. This does give his albums a somewhat alien or far-futuristic feel, which adds to their already appealing groove tremendously.
I've also been very impressed with
Ron Davis and his jazz trios and quartets. The improvisational work they do is just a heck of a lot of fun to listen to. I recommend checking out their free tracks on Amazon, and the album
Subarashii Live is where you can find some of their best improv.
The Incident, the forthcoming album from Porcupine Tree, sounds like it has the potential to be one of the best albums ever released, ever (ever). The preview on their
myspace page is just beautiful. Hope it lives up to its potential...
