This is a listening thread for UK avant-music publication THE WIRE's best-of lists published at the end of every year. We pick a year, listen through all the albums ranked, discuss any and all impres

Looking through his discography, Komeda apparantly made several scores for Danish director Henning Carlsen as well, including his international breakthrough Hunger. Never knew that. One of the tracks on Astigmatic is from a Carlsen film as well.

i like stanko's '70s stuff. particularly "purple sun" (with zbigniew seifert on violin) and "twet". they've got a sound to them i find amenable.

although the notion of "polish jazz" has me listening to this record called "winobranie" by zbigniew namyslowski that rym rates highly - any of y'all heard this one? good shit!

never heard it, just put it on. thanks for the rec!

somebody made a list on discogs of the whole "polish jazz" series, which was done by the state-run label i guess. the first one is "new orleans stompers" by the warsaw stompers lol

https://www.discogs.com/lists/Polish-Jazz-Series/17341

also this is a really nice overview of stanko's career https://jazztimes.com/features/tomasz-stanko-the-soul-of-freedom/

I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced by the Giya Kancheli album. It's very intensely religious classical music, but both a little too kitchy and a little too proper. It doesn't have the austerity of an Arvo Pärt at his best, but on the other hand isn't as straightforwardly emotionally manipulative as something like Gorecki's third. I love the final vocal passage of the first track. But there are a couple of moments, as when there's a quote of Jewish music, or some of Jan Garbarek's saxophone passages, where it's a bit of a stylistic mishmash. Holy Polystylism? Holystylism?

hi Frederik. sorry i let this lapse. i listened to the kancheli album twice (last week) and didn't have much to say, except that i wasn't very into it. i was planning to listen a couple of more times, and perhaps be more specific in my criticism. but then i listened again and decided against trying to formulate my feelings into words.

so onto joe maneri, then. (tomorrow.)

Lol, that seems like a pretty legit response to Kancheli to me. Joe Maneri, and then, anyone who has a suggestion for another year?