Music: A Year in Review

Last year, I got inspired to write a "top 5" list of the books I'd read; this year, even though I wrote and read a lot (I read 38 books this year! I'm pleased about that!), I think I'm going to reflect on music instead.

Here, in no particular order, is a completely inconclusive and off-the-cuff list of just a few of the musicians I loved discovering this year:

• Svavar Knútur! His music certainly wasn't new to me, but this was the year I also got to know him as a friend, while hanging out in Iceland. He's an awesome dude, with a sometimes truly wicked sense of humor and an incongruously sweet voice. I can never pick just one song of his, but here are two that have been in my head lately: Wanderlust (gets in my head whenever I think about leaving; also, before his Berlin concert this fall, I asked him if he was going to play it, and when he did, he dedicated it to me!) and Clementine (sweet and sad and yet somehow the tiniest bit hopeful, too).

• Halla Norðfjörð: Another Iceland discovery; she's a friend of Elín Ey (a musician I deeply admire and was deeply thrilled to get to know a bit while I was in Iceland). I met Halla in Elín's kitchen, and only later discovered how wonderful her music is and how captivating her voice. Check out her title track, The Bridge.

• Lucie Thorne: She played at one of my friend Sam's Sofa Salon concerts, and I fell in love. Try Till the Season.

• Laura Marling: I certainly can't claim to have first discovered this year, but her cover of Bruce Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark, oh my god.

• Markéta Irglová most certainly was not new to me this year, either, but she was a big theme to my year (we almost got to meet...so many times!) and this song is one I sang to myself as I walked around Reykjavík in the sunlight, thinking about the future: Only Love Is Real.

• Honorable mentions: I periodically rediscover Rufus Wainwright, and love him even more each time. Also, is this video of his not the sexiest thing ever? Ásgeir Trausti is yet another fantastic Icelandic find! I enjoy him so much, I bought his album in both English and Icelandic. A friend pointed me to this song by Vienna Teng – isn't it lovely? And of course I never get tired of Glen Hansard, and I love how he leads me to other musicians I might otherwise never have gotten around to – like when he covered Drive All Night. And then there's my friend/acquaintance/admiree Elín's new band with her two sisters, they of the family heritage in beautiful voices and gorgeous harmonies. Individually, all three of them do quiet, acoustic stuff, but together they're a super-hip techno outfit called Sísý Ey (named after their grandmother!), who wear wild outfits and dance around to the beat and just totally own the stage. Their big single is Ain't Got Nobody.

• And it's not music, but John Finnemore's stunningly talented writing continued to make his radio comedy Cabin Pressure one of the best things on the airwaves anywhere. The long, long awaited final episode just aired last week.