Here are 15 of the top 10 releases from 2009. As has been the case for nearly forever, their status doesn't rest on my visionary critical sensibilities - they are recordings to which I have returned during the course of the year for edification, comfort, or pleasure again and again - for me, that makes them objects of excellence. You'll notice that there aren't really 10 releases, and that they're in alphabetical order. Yeah - consider this a margin or error or honorable mention hidden among the 10, or something. These are among the list of recordings I played when no one else was around (RTQE listeners will be quite familiar with quite a number of them, so it wasn't always solitary listening), and the list from which I will choose prezzies for friends. You can never have too many things of grace, lightness, and beauty in your life.

regards,
Gregory

John Luther Adams The Place We Began Cold Blue
Monty Adkins
Pierre Alexandre Tremblay		 Five Panels Radio France
Darcy James Argue's Secret Society Infernal Machines New Amsterdam
Nels Cline Coward Cryptogrammophone
Cluster Qua Nepenthe
Greg Davis Midpoint Home Normal
Ambrose Field
John Potter		 Being Dufay ECM
Bill Frisell Disfarmer Nonesuch
Ben Frost By The Throat Bedroom Community
Imogen Heap Ellipse RCA
Arve Henriksen Cartography ECM
Phil Kline Around the World in a Daze Starkland
Christopher Roberts Last Cicada Singing Cold Blue
Saul Stokes Metacollage Binary/Stokesmusic
Sweet Billy Pilgrim Twice Born Men Samadhisound