KM kicks things off

It seems like just last week we were putting the finishing touches on our "Best of 06" columns, yet here we are again trying to make sense of another four seasons of musical output. In retrospect, it seems like I didn't really come across a lot of new music that was breathtakingly new this year, but I did hear plenty of stuff that pleased my ears just fine. Like my friend Tony Dale (below), I'll call it a year of consolidation and expansion rather than revolutionary advance, but I don't think that's a bad thing at all; refining and extending are worthwhile steps that easily can be forgotten in the midst of today's constant mania for novelty.

Round 2, Lee Jackson takes the lead

2008? Still haven't caught up; in fact I probably fell even further behind. 2007 was definitely a good year, with vets like San Francisco's Holy Mountain and North Carolinas's Three Lobed Recordings unleashing some of their most varied and unique slabs to date. And there were dozens of fine records on Not Not Fun, Important, Kranky, Digitalis, Soft Abuse, Locust, Drag City, Sublime Frequencies and on down the line that helped make '07 a little brighter. Speaking of Sublime Frequencies, must acknowledge the untimely passing of Charles Gocher due to complications from cancer in late February. Gocher played drums and sung some pretty messed up lounge songs for Sun City Girls, whose bassist Al Bishop co-owns and operates Sublime Frequencies. Needless to say, Sun City

I have to admit that it's pretty much impossible to keep up with everything great that is popping out of the CD-R underground these days. Given the amount of discs that come this way I am sure there's a whole bunch of great stuff passing by without me paying attention. Luckily, I didn't miss Elektronavn's Songs of Impermanence on the consistently great Ikuisuus label out of the land of lakes (Finland), as it's easily one of last year's most impressive discoveries. Elektronavn, AKA Magnus Olsen Majmon, is a Danish sound sculptor that shapes a claustrophobic, almost physical experience with haunting drones constructed from an arsenal of instruments such as clarinet, voice, guitar, organ, flute, gong, harp, field recordings and percussion. The music is pretty much impossible to lump into any particular genre but there is a strong folk vibe that runs through a lot of the music,

There are probably only a handful of bands and artists that I've been truly obsessed with, and one of them is unquestionably Lyttleton, New Zealand folk/noise/drone guitarist Roy Montgomery. I've ranked him as cult guitar hero number one ever since I first got acquainted with his music through the masterpiece Scenes From the South Island (Drunken Fish, 1995). As a matter of fact, I think bored everyone silly with rambling descriptions of how great that album is for a very long time. I occasionally forget why I like it so much, maybe because its textures are so deeply ingrained into my mind. Montgomery runs his meditative guitar explorations through a squadron of effect boxes, and on the other side we find a ghostly precise sonic equivalent to the striking landscape of this musically fertile country. Scenes From the South Island is the pastoral elegance of a hidden valley, the abandoned settlements of the harsh

I make no secret of my analog nostalgia. I'm a Mexican kid from East of LA, and my childhood was not as awash in digital enhancement as it is today. I remember days watching hand-drawn cartoons on a mirror-projector big screen, renting fuzzy video tapes from the local hole in the wall every weekend, and listening to tape-saturated dirty raps after my parents went to sleep every night. Much of my "musical upbringing" happened on a record player. My dad is a recovering vinyl addict; every week he would walk down to Poobah Records to buy a couple of LPs. Well, over the weeks and the years, his collection began to fill out: prog-rock (lots of Yes!), sixties hippie-shite, ZAPPA!, a few bits of jazz, disco, heavy metal, power pop, punk, movie soundtracks, drippy singer-songwriters, and tons of R&B. It seems to tail off with a handful of terrible ‘80s pop records and virtually comes to a dead halt mid-80s, just about when the second kid was born (me) and vinyl reached the end of its reign as the industry standard.

I've always been a pretty firm believer in Sturgeon' s Law, the postulate credited to science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon that "90% of everything is crud" - a number that, in today's user-generated media world, might seem even higher. But I think the percentages are holding pretty steady, it's just that the sheer volume of stuff out there has jumped exponentially in recent years. Which is a great (if sometimes exasperating) thing for dedicated music fans (though perhaps not for their bank accounts), since it means that the overall amount of genuinely creative sound production has also exploded. Certainly the ability to self-release and virtual-distribute one's own music has made it possible for folks who wouldn't have gotten a second glance from most conventional "record labels" to spread their sounds to similarly-minded others

Michio Kurihara is one of the most revered electric guitarists in the world today, though outside of his native Japan only the closest followers of psychedelic rock might even know his name. For over 20 years Kurihara has honed an approach that's equal parts scorched earth and cool breeze. His tone exists with and apart from nature, its effects felt clearly whether serving as a melodic compliment or a central focal point. The dense fuzz-tone blasts he's known for have rightfully earned comparisons to Cream era Clapton, Jimmy Page, and perhaps most of all the late great John Cipollina of Quicksilver Messenger Service. Virtually every one of Kurihara's performances over the years has reflected an innate understanding of the nature and energy of the chosen material. His abilities have graced classic albums by White Heaven, Marble Sheep, Ghost, The Stars (not to be confused with the Canadian band of the same name), Damon and Naomi, Yura