2008 : 11 "Lament" by Jacaszek

---

Treny, the 2008 album by Jacaszek, can perhaps best be described by saying that it's what house music would sound like if house music emerged from a pre-industrial Eastern European castle instead of from the dance floors of post-industrial Detroit. (Or you can say it's like that band Enigma, only good.) Gloomy, crepuscular, capital-R Romantic, and pretentious: this is the kind of music that puts me in touch with my sexiest inner Goth. Envision blood and candlelight. —Jeremy Bushnell Listen: Jacaszek >> "Lament"

2007 : 26 "Lament of the Highborne" by Russell Brower

---

In the Burning Crusade, an expansion to the popular (12 million players) World of Warcraft, a quest in the Ghostlands, a new zone south of Silvermoon City (home of the Blood Elfs), has you find a ring for Lady Silvanas, Queen of the undead Forsaken. Lady Silvanas resides in Undercity. When you give her the ring, she says, in so many words, that it was her sister's, and is meaningless, something from another life. This is a dissappointment. But then, belying her indifference, out of nowhere Sylvanas sings the Lament of the Highborne. It's a moment of narrative genius in a game that continues to surprise. —Justin Timberdrake Listen: Russell Brower >> "Lament of the Highborne"

2005 : 35 "Berlin" by Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto

---

Insen is the second collaboration between the minimalist noise-sculptor Alva Noto and the airy pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto: a follow-up to Vrioon, from 2001. Taken together, these two albums stand far and away as the finest ambient electronic work to be released this decade: they are perhaps the only albums of the Aughts that serve as worthy successors to Brian Eno's canonical Music For Airports (1978). Like Eno's record, Insen is humanist and emotionally affecting without relying on music's traditional mechanisms for seizing attention: it is "as ignorable as it is interesting." But the album also distinguishes itself from the many Ambient clones that sprung up in Eno's wake, particularly through Noto's deployment of crisp, precise electronic micro-events. Noto superimposes mathematical grid-structures over the amorphous beauty of Sakamoto's piano lines, constraining them within structures of rationalist order, and preventing the album from drifting into the territory of toothless New Age music. Two collaborators operating at the top of their respective games, and yielding an absolutely perfect balance of elements. —Jeremy Bushnell Listen: Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto >> "Berlin"

2001 : 33 "frosti" and "aurora" by björk

---

listening to björk's vespertine, and particularly the conjunctive tracks "frosti" and "aurora," is like entering an immense and glittering landscape of brilliant crystals. vulnerable, delicate tendrils wind around music boxes, interior worlds are revealed through bells, clavichord, harp, and voice. suddenly ice translates into emotion reminiscent of a wintry fairy tale that reveals every little particle of the heart through beautiful and sparkling refractions of sound. these shimmering musical transparencies create dazzling effects that lead one into a world of fascination and reverie... —diane granahan Listen: björk >> "frosti" and "aurora"

2000 : 32 "Var" by Nils Økland

---

No discussion of the music of the Aughts is complete without reference to Norway's Rune Grammofon, perhaps the single most consistently intriguing label of the decade. One reason this label's releases appealed to me so strongly was because of their eclecticism. They adhered to no particular genre stricture, and consequently they were free to romp across an intimidatingly broad expanse: their discography includes albums of electronica, modern composition, cerebral jazz, stark drone... They seemed perhaps happiest releasing albums that violated genre boundaries in and of themselves, or otherwise proved hard to classify. As evidence, one need look no further than their very first album, Supersilent's 1-3 (1998): a three-hour, three-disc set consisting mainly of free improvisational pieces that unexpectedly melt down into passages of electronic abrasion. But today I want to talk about something prettier. Specifically, Rune Grammofon's 15th release, Nils Økland's Straum (2000), an album consisting primarily of fiddle music. It's very lovely, but no less of a damned thing in terms of classification. This track, "Var," for fiddle, piano, trumpet, and voice, is airy and drifty enough that it could fit on a New Age sampler without incident, and yet it's impossible to listen closely to the piece without noting its roots in jazz and improvisation. And Økland's playing the Hardangar fiddle, a traditional instrument of Norway, so maybe we should be talking about it in terms of "folk music?" Or should he be treated as a composer for the fiddle, creating something that fits that oxymoronic category, "modern classical?" Sigh. One really shouldn't agonize over something this beautiful. —Jeremy Bushnell Listen: Nils Økland >> "Var"