'nuff blah blah: mumblings, code and junk

2011 has been a remark­able year. It has seen vol­canic erup­tions dis­rupt global travel, polit­i­cal upris­ings in the Mid­dle East and North Africa, an offi­cial end to the US occu­pa­tion of Iraq, the emer­gence of a gen­uine polit­i­cal protest move­ment in Occupy Wall Street, incred­i­ble flood­ing in South Asia and South­east Asia, the end of the sec­ond Steve Jobs era at Apple, the return of The Mup­pets and a con­tin­u­ing effort in the US to dis­man­tle due process and replace the "will of the peo­ple" with the profit motives of cor­po­ra­tions.

It has also been full of inter­est­ing musi­cal activ­ity — intrigu­ing new releases prac­ti­cally every week of the year. So much music that it would be impos­si­ble to spend the time to give each a fair shake. So here I have gath­ered my favorite releases of 2011 which had attracted my con­tin­ued or repeated atten­tion. There are many omis­sions, to be sure, but that is why I read oth­ers' lists.

Selec­tions in alpha­bet­i­cal order (mostly)

Bur­ial — Street Halo

Bur­ial returned this year with a stel­lar 12-inch and sev­eral choice col­lab­o­ra­tions. Expand­ing on his strengths as a pro­ducer of atmos­pheric and emo­tional sound design, Bur­ial also played with some dif­fer­ent tem­pos on Street Halo.

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