For the first time in recent memory, all ten of the top ten most read posts in a given month, this past February, were from the Downstream department of freely downloadable, highly recommended listening — that is out of 33 total posts for the month: (1) John Kannenberg‘s tribute to the Egyptian musician Ahmed Basiony, who was slain during the January uprising (it was also the top link of the last 60 and 90 days); (2) Alan Morse Davies‘ answer to the question “What happens if you slow down Grieg?” (the answer apparently being, “You get Ligeti”); (3) some London-based glitch from Precocious Mouse; (4) the shifting fractured effluence of Suspended Memory by Darren Harper; (5) Darren McClure‘s artfully edited cicada recording (a kind of subtractive synthesis); (6) an ambient collaboration between Devin Underwood and Marcus Fischer; (7) Paula Daunt‘s “dark ambient project,” Agnosie; (8) former Arditti Quartet violist Garth Knox‘s Oulipo-infused “Homage to Jack Vanarsky”; (9) “Pathways in the Inverted Forest” by Will Thomas Long (formerly of Celer); and (10) the prepared guitar of Arvind Ganga (who records as Every Bolt Rumbling).
The top nine searches for February were: “egypt,” “ambient,” “autechre,” “bird,” “cairo,” “christoph schmidt,” “drone,” “hassan khan,” and “zimoun” (with a whole lot tied for 10th place).