New Year's Resolutions and More

A number of major life events--buying a house, getting married and starting a new company--conspired to limit my listening time last year. Here are my New Year's resolutions for 2013:

• Buy and listen to more CDs. After my CD player died a few years ago, I temporarily forswore the medium and focused on vinyl and cassettes. I found that whittling down the universe of physical objects made it much easier to limit my intake. However, this approach has its downsides: Not only have I missed out on a ton of great music, but CDs (especially used) often offer better value than the LP market.
• Listen to more Free Jazz. For whatever reason, I find myself listening to less and less free jazz, especially newer releases. Some of this stems from my informal moratorium on CD purchases, though I suspect there's also a lot of material coming out that simply retreads old ground. I have a handful of names that I'd like to hear more of in 2013, including Ingrid Laubrock, Francois Guionnet and some other 3A favorites. Bill and Tony, I'm all ears if you guys have any suggestions.
• Attend more live music. Relocating to Wilmington, NC, meant giving up the steady stream of performances that took place in DC and Baltimore. Squidco's concert series has come up clutch, and I hope to become more involved with building a local audience for these musics. 

Here's what I've been jamming in the new year.

Graveyards, Formless Music from a Coming Age (American Tapes LP): My dog's favorite band. Slow-motion scraping and screeching.

Quiet Evenings/Former Selves, Split (Constellation Tatsu Cassette): Dig the Quiet Evenings side. Not sure if it's old age, but these mellow soundscapes really do it for me these days.

Bruce Langhorne, The Hired Hand (Scissor Tail LP reissue): Solid slab of Western sounds.

Luc Ferrari, Presque Rien (Recollection GRM LP): I'd heard shitty sounding mp3s of Ferrari's Presque Rien pieces--the LP was a real ear opener. I've jammed this several times and hear something new on each occasion.

Tatsuya Nakatani, Nakatani Gong Orchestra (Taiga LP): No way around it, this shit is cool. Looking forward to seeing him again in February.

Axel Dorner & Jassem Hindi, waterkil (Corvo LP): A surprise Christmas gift. This LP has grown on me after two listens. Titillating crescendos.

Cecil Taylor, Solo Garden (Hat Hut LP): The master.