speaking of emily dickinson

Video for Broadcast et al.'s "I see, so i see so". Vindication.

sexy japanese favorite music of 2009

Well, Facebook has done it: not only has it totally eclipsed MySpace, but it has taken over nearly the entire internet (at least the interesting part). Blogging has become a remnant of Web 2.0, made passé by Twitter -- a key player in FB's success, the midwife of microbloggery. You can only give Twitter so much credit; all you have to do is load FB and you can see what are essentially tweets from all your friends, plus you can play games (erg!) and share your media-related preferences. Oh, but don't get me wrong, I think Facebook's great! I'm just noticing a trend I want to exploit. Which is where this post comes in. Now that the limelight is off of blogging, I want to make a new year's resolution to bring the blog back to life -- after all, being unselfconscious is a major boon to creativity. Here's to blogging, now an outmoded technology, the internet's newest equivalent to ham radio.

So here's my list of my favorite albums of the year. They're not in any order, at least not exoterically. There probably will be more added as other year-end lists pile up, as always seems to happen. Originally I intended to make a favorites of the decade, with far more detail. That may yet happen; but, uh, for now here's this! Enjoy!


Broadcast & The Focus Group: Broadcast & the Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age
Ok, I lied right off: this is my favorite album this year. Like walking through Emily Dickinson's brain while she's lying in a field high on mushrooms. Track 21, "Let It Begin/Oh Joy" is... well, that pretty much sums it up.


Yesterdays New Quintet: Angles Without Edges
Madlib plays all the instruments in the jazz quintet in his mind. As far as the flavor of his jazz, it's somewhere between post-funk and, uh, post-post-post-bop?


Medeski, Martin & Wood: Radiolarians 3
Track two, "Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down," starts like Cecil Taylor summoning Beelzebub, and transmogrifies into a raucous spiritual. Good times!


Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion
"My Girls," ecstatic soundtrack of summer. This might be the secret best album, just don't tell Broadcast.


Tyondai Braxton: Central Market
Anthony's kid makes a good bid for a name in modern ensemble composition. You can tell from the title of "Uffe's Woodshop" that this album sounds like a cuckoo clock, in the mind of Emily Dickinson, lying in a field, still out of her mind on mushrooms.


Vijay Iyer: Historicity
American/Indian (not Amerindian) jazz pianist works out his own versions of some great songs, including some by Stevie Wonder, Julius Hemphill (my favorite) and... M.I.A? Well, it works. Original compositions also included! See store for details!


Nisennenmondai: Destination Tokyo
Their name means, roughly, Y2K bug. Girl-group from Japan's excursions into post-no wave territories.

]
tUnE-YaRdS: Bird-brains
Who? So lo-fi, their allmusic entry says their album sales have already broken the thousand dollar mark! Congratulations, kids! Sweet arpeggiated guitar melodies, strange found sounds here & there. Beautiful.


Swan Lake: Enemy Mine
I love Dan Bejar. That is all. Ok, two more words: Warlock Psychologist.


A Hawk & a Hacksaw: Délivrance
Neutral Milk Hotel's drummer goes on a folksploration, comes back with eastern European jam band; sounds like the best Romanian wedding party you've ever been to.

riding the tryptophan train straight to napsville

The Burroughs one is, like, so 2 years ago. Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

UPDATE: Ha!

great moments in women's history

We can sum up her entire life in twenty words. Watch:

“Stephenie Meyer grew up in the Southwest, got married, had kids, wrote some books about vampires and got rich. Batman.”

We threw “Batman” in there to make it more exciting.

[pic is a link to source]

Remember, remember the 7th of November

Above: the winner of this year's Strangest Party Detritus Award. It just raises further questions...

Anyway, 30th surprise birthday party, greatest ever. The love was palpable. I beat myself in effigy with a cricket bat, played the bass part of a Hungarian Rhapsody with Mike, was toasted (er, given toast?), found lots of amazing drawings by people hung all over the house, drank Mack & Jack's in my own home, um, the list goes on & on. Plus, Braden got me a sweet knife! Indeed, the swag was unbelievable, to say the least. Pictures forthcoming! (...and also here.)

strange parallel

28:24 of Elliott Smith! Via.

cry havoc

my god, it's full of stars

first of all:

"Whan that Aprill with his shouressoote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertuengendred is the flour,
Whan Zephiruseek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(so priketh hem Nature in hir corages),
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages[.]"+

-Geoffrey "Def-Jeff" Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, General Prologue














... I'm not even sure how I found these. Or, indeed, why. And these are just a small sampling of the Chaucer fanvids on YouTube.

Befuddling.

j.s. bach: iq infinity

marmalade skies

I had a dream last night that I went fishing by myself in a boat on a river, but couldn't bring in any fish alone, and woke up feeling kind of unmoored. Extremely uncharacteristic of me.

8:32

The Cat Piano from PRA on Vimeo.

miraculous.

quickly

Leaving at midnight tonight for the Olympic Peninsula in search of birthday fish. Exciting!

Also, this is fascinating.

Also also, Sordid Sentinels EP is good (or close to good?) to go. More on that soon.