Best of 2007

There were some excellent releases in 2007, so I thought I'd feature some in a new mix.

My favorite ambient recording of the year was Stars of the Lid - And Their Refinement of the Decline. I know there are quite a few people who didn't care for the cd, but I love it. I like the more orchestral feel. I like that SOTL relies less & less on synths. A beautiful record.

My favorite vocal record was PG Six - Slightly Sorry. Snips from the Boomkat review..."a collection of quite unashamedly gorgeous 'proper' songs...'Slightly Sorry' is an album without tricks...'The Dance', the second track on the record - there's nothing necessarily modern about the song itself, it could have come out any time since 1969 and nobody would have batted an eyelid, but it's great music, pure and simple." I played this probably more than any other record this year.

As far as this mix is concerned, I pretty much stayed away from vocal tunes, with one exception in the middle of the mix. The mix opens with four drone tracks, including Paul Bradley, a new discovery thanks to the folks at the Hypnos forum. Some of his stuff gets a bit dark & dissonant for my taste, but his 2007 release "Chroma" features gorgeous, wide open drones. Th drones gradually giveway to piano based tunes which morph into electronics with a little beat then back to ambient to finish it off.

My full best of 2007 list follows the tracklisting for the mix. What were your favorite releases this year? Please leave some comments, I'd love to hear what you think.