“2010” (Used 11 times)

Take a listen back to the tracks that FMA users have found to be Most Interesting in 2010. The Most Interesting algorithm factors in favorites, downloads, listens and comments.

For more personalized Best Of 2010 mixes, spend some time scrolling and listening and downloading zip's offa this page of awesome music: http://freemusicarchive.org/tag/bestof2010

After repeatedly playing FMA favorites in an attempt to list the top 10 tracks among those added to the archive this year, it was clear that there is just too much music worth celebrating at the FMA. The task soon morphed into praising the best five to ten selections for many genres in 12 mixes.

These are genre specific mixes showcasing recordings added to the Free Music Archive in 2010 that have been favorites at the Oddio Overplay headquarters this year.

Choice Cuts Added to the FMA in 2010: Oddio Overplay's picks across genres

2010 was pretty great actually, not at all long nor hard. First of all, check out all the formats we got to work with:

Artists performing directly for radio listeners like Bill Orcutt and Justice Yeldham live in the WFMU studio or Vieux Farka Touré at KEXP on the West Coast.

Loud rock small-run presses of cassettes and 7 inches from the likes of White Suns and Nuit Noire.

Some of it was recorded exclusively for the purposes of internet distribution like Finnish freefrom friend Keijo on the We Have No Zen! imprint or UK hypercolor basshead Slugabed (who has a formidable, if oft overlooked remix history under his belt) on the Oscillations comp

Nas in even in the lineup with his contribution to the Open Remix compilation, a collection of remixes of Senegalese superstar Youssou N'Dour to benefit Intrahealth International.

There's even the hot off the presses new Big Blood cdr released less than a week ago, what service!

My favorite recording though has to be the T-Model Ford hallway jam sesssion in the Catskills during All Tomorrow's Parties this past summer. He just set up in the hallway unannounced and played because he figured people would enjoy it. Direct as hell.

While Year Two of the New FMA Calendar (which for some reason the whole world has yet to adopt) or "2010," as it's also sometimes called, was so huge for brilliance on the Free Music Archive that it seems patently ridiculous to boil it down to a quick playlist and call it a day, there were, nevertheless, alongside all the semiprecious gems spread throughout this whole glittering data mine, a few really precious ones, ones which gave me that special bit of brain-soul-revitalization in thrilling and unexpected ways. Or, to put it another way, I jammed some tracks harder than others, and these are them.

First of all, WFMU continued to astound in the new decade with a series of synapse-rupturing, reality-bending in-studio performances. Brian Turner's show gave us the Legendary Pink Dots' journey beyond the infinite, Bill Orcutt's obliteration of staid guitar, and Wolf Eyes with Richard Pinhas on a deep id creep; "Talk's Cheap" with Jason Sigal had the sludge throb of Thrones on, and thanks to Wm. Berger's "My Castle of Quiet" we grooved on Hex Breaker Quintet's magick monolithick shuffle and SSPS' party synth mindgrip. And folks, understand this is just a smattering.

The FMA also saw a bevy of fine new work from old favorites--U Can Unlearn Guitar's second album of instant classical readytunes, selections from Fat Worm of Error's panic paen Ambivalence and the Beaker--and lots, lots of stuff from artists new to the archive who joined up with a bang (or a bleep or a clang or a crrsshh or what have you). Female upped the new record Jackoff, your go-to soundtrack for a blurred-out night on the garish and grimy town; Weyes Bluhd and Supernaturelle brought some creeping malevolence via shadowy guitar and murky electronic invocations, respectively; Sam Gas Can gave us a 21-drone salute from his Dog Dance tape as well as lots more home-recording brilliance (give a click folks, for real); and Sun Araw upped tantalizing selections from his justifiably-lauded On Patrol and Off Duty  releases, tracks that wash in and out of the conscious mind like a sunrise and a couple or three drinks. Things also got kinda, uh, heavy on the FMA in 2010, with new sludge gods White Suns' extraordinary Cavity tape and seriously damaged beat, well, beatings from the impossibly cathartic Sewn Leather and DJ Dog Dick (who provides our year-end anthem with "Lap Dog"),

And then there's AMANDA, whose genius I won't bother trying to sum up. All in all, it's been some kind of journey, this 2010 thing, and the only thing that tops the heights attained by the FMA this year is the safe knowledge that it's all just the beginning.

#1-4  It was good to see Angels in America return this year with some new tracks from Welcome to Miami and E.M.S. and side project Laura Warholic.  I missed them on their 2009 tour, but they seem to have gained a higher profile this year performing at Pop Montreal.  To preserve their mystery, I prefer not to see them live…well maybe I would, but only if they performed here.  I can listen to both bands repeatedly; the songs travel effortlessly like a soothing lubricant for some worn in cerebral groove of obsessive thoughts and creepy, ambivalent desires.  They’re weird and desperate and beyond the pale, but still come off as sensitive and tender to me.  Please Angels in America, upload more before I start heating up your tapes and mainlining you.

 #5-7  Wm. Berger’s My Castle of Quiet reintroduced me to the mind-bending powers of Excepter via several Excepter members who performed on his show this year, including Telecult Powers featuring Lala Ryan, Hex Breaker Quintet, and SSPS. I’m very excited to get started on the Ten Films to Watch Telecult Powers By and check out the hundreds of hours of Excepter’s live streams available here and here.  I'm not sure why I need this much Excepter, maybe it's just this lingering suspicion I have that if I listen to them long enough I just might levitate.

 #8-9  I discovered a plentiful amount of haunting, experimental music from around the world on the Clinical Archives page here on the FMA as well as much more to be found on their website.  Kerim Safa's otherwordly wails particularly stood out.  Girilal Baars is somewhat similar but moans in a lower register.  I don't know what this guy is saying but he sounds something like an institutionalized Fester Addams or a dying moose...painful!

 #10  Found this great theremin album by Turkish electronic musician Meczûp while looking for Halloween tracks for my mix.  I can't find out much about this artist, but his Myspace page includes several tracks not found on his album. Hope to hear more soon.