Pop Your Funk

so pretty

2009-05-10T21:00:00.000-07:00

hugh masekela - mama (metro area birthday dub)

the pet shop boys - go west

2008-09-15T14:16:00.000-07:00

i have been a big fan of the pet shop boys for a while, through their brilliant singles comp, some of their fantastic albums, and their overwhelming catalogue of remixes.

"go west", the last song from very, is probably what hooked me on that album. it's great. a village people cover, it rivals their "always on my mind" elvis cover as best cover ever material. like tom ewing says "if 'go west' had been the last thing the pet shop boys ever recorded it would have been almost too perfect-- its desperate, wounded optimism feels like it should be the conclusion of something." so good.

which brings me to the video for this song, which i just saw. holy shit. mind blowing. maybe the best example i've seen of the pet shop boys' tenth level blackbelt zen mastery of irony. so worth watching:

hit this

2008-09-01T19:34:00.000-07:00

usually try really hard not to re-blog tracks that other, better, places post, but this is so good... go listen to:

bill withers - lovely day (k2 edit)

found at the awesome deep movements blog.

mark e

2008-08-18T16:10:00.000-07:00

been wanting to share this for a while... mr. e doing an ra podcast has reminded me how killer he's been for a while now. that re-edit of grace jones's la vie en rose in the middle of the 'cast is so wonderful...

mark e - ra podcast

more mixes:

cosmic disco mix
night moves
love the action
beats in space
warm mix
turnitout mix

recent listens

2008-05-25T21:21:00.000-07:00

have mostly been work listens. at home i listen to my records (new & good: mountain goats 4ad albums finally on vinyl (so glad to finally pay for dude's songs), magnetic fields charm of the highway strip (same), glimmers edits box, james brown live at the apollo, quiet village silent movie, studio (still...)), some podcasts, and movin' 92.5.

but most of the music i listen to is at work, where unless i play something in the kitchen to drown out the crappy xm that's pumped into the cafe, i have to endure it (40's big band station that cycles thought he same 25 songs is inhumane). so i usually have something playing on the little radio whose cd player is pretty shot, so it's either kexp/kbcs/movin', or tapes.

ahh, tapes. too lazy to track down blanks and make my own too often, i've been hitting the 2/$1 deal at everyday pretty hard. paul simon, pet shop boys, depeche mode, miami vice soundtrack, vangelis... anything white people listened too in the 80's is apparently really cheap if you're willing to listen to it on degraded cassettes.

favs though are two tapes that i picked up mostly on a whim:

bass patrol's planet bass, aside from having one of the best covers i've ever seen, is fucking badass pounding miami bass. my exposure to that sound has always been mediated through other genres, so i don't really know how it compares with other stuff from that period, but damn. so good.

played it for alex and i'd say it floored him but it did the exact opposite in that he started bouncing around and saying silly things like "this is the only thing i want to dance to ever."

bass patrol - eddy mix

sly and robbie's reggae greats is far more chill, but after about three weeks i'm pretty sure it's one of the best albums i own. amazing tunes by sly and robbie mixed up and dubbed to fuck my the mixing engineer. very deep dubba.

sly and robbie - demolition city

cop them shits, and remember to play them with the bass turned way up.

new listens

2008-02-19T00:33:00.000-08:00

vinyl and the like:

roy ayers - everybody loves the sunshine
various dfa 12"s (syclops, h&la, still going, gucci soundsystem, altz, ...)
p.i.l. - metal box
studio - west coast
the slits - cut
john cale and terry riley - church of anthrax

podcasts:

mix blogs

studio

2008-02-13T11:32:00.000-08:00

west coast has been ruling my life for the past few days, especially the opener "origin", a sixteen minute track that is over too soon. it turns to pure magic at about the 7:50 mark, but it is all wonderful.

studio - origin
(warning: visiting zshare without adblock plus installed is annoying)

more info here and here

mixtapes

2008-02-11T14:47:00.000-08:00

as many laserpeople may know, we got it for cheap vol 3 dropped recently, and is good. i have been feeling more oldschool lately though, and have been listening to the effing awesome mixtapes that dj sloppy white is now giving away for free at his site.

right now, the best thing

2008-01-16T00:35:00.000-08:00

the frankie knuckles remix of blind by hercules and love affair sounds like the most devastatingly beautiful thing i've heard in years. has arthur russell's vocal style become a thing while i've been not paying attention to music? i wish i could concentrate enough to write about it but i just want to listen to it over and over... not going to post it but you can find it at the hype machine.

new music

2008-01-10T01:09:00.000-08:00

shortly after getting a new laptop on which i can listen to loads of free music i... went and bought a bunch of records. went edit crazy and picked up half of the underdog edits and the first three wurst edits. also grabbed the hatchback white diamond 12" with the infamous prins thomas remix on the b side... listened to that many times already; very pretty.

internet music i have heard lately:

new mountain goats album (really great)
new magnetic fields album (really great)
peter visti's balaero-cosmic edit/remix/cover of dolly parton's jolene (fucking fantastic, listen at xxjfg)

i have a laptop again bitches

2008-01-08T14:32:00.000-08:00

now rocking a refurbed thinkpad running ubuntu. i know, i know, using ubuntu linux is like riding a pista and thinking you're cool, but it's better than windows and lets me use a laptop that, unlike all the mac 'books i've encountered, probably won't die every nine months.

maybe i will start listening to lots of music again, who knows?

so far, on my new 'pad, i have listened to and enjoyed two mixes:

this is not an exit vol. 9

peter visti's mix for 24 hours

so hiphop -> so rave

2007-11-23T23:24:00.001-08:00

for tim:

snoop's acid drop

s/fj on r-kelly

2007-07-02T00:42:00.000-07:00

fantastic article. excerpt:

Kelly seems to have no superego; he is willing to say anything that occurs to him, no matter how strange he sounds or how self-incriminating it might seem. Many people facing serious criminal charges related to sexual conduct would not include a song called “Sex Planet” on their CD, or, if they did, would probably omit the line about a “trip to planet Uranus.”

more shows, briefly

2007-06-14T10:06:00.000-07:00

michael mayer was expectedly great, played a lot of kompakt favorites. staff at the mezzanine announced that his set was over by turning on the lights. a handful of people were extremely reluctant to leave the dance floor and kept telling mayer how much they loved him.
lcd soundsystem was short and sweet. this was probably my least favorite of the shows that i've been to at the mezzanine during the last few months... it was sponsored by a local radio station and reaked of corporate evil (this was not helped by the gigantic e-surance projections on the wall). also the crowd was kind of lame... appearing to be composed mostly of people who had called the radio station to let everyone know how much they loved it.
bpitch's Smash TV played at a small venue in sf called the rx gallery. this was a fun show even though i was super tired and broke and too sober to really enjoy dancing. also, the gallery exhibition consisted of 300+ hand-made vintage mr. t dolls. check out the package on this one.
finally, i enjoyed the very short set that i saw by sac locals, two playa game. i will certainly make an effort to see a full length set by them in the near future.

also check out kelley b, a san fran dj who was a supporting act for two of these shows. she plays lots of fantastic microhouse records...

upcoming: dan deacon on thursday... and hopefully carl craig on friday.

feeling nordic

2007-06-04T13:50:00.000-07:00

lsb – original highway delight (mungolian jet set's miami camp remix)
lindstrøm – breakfast in heaven (diskjokke remix)

finally tracked down that mungolian jet set remix after months of additively clicking on it at mungolian jet set's myspace page. i don't think i've ever brought myself to listen to stuff on myspace before (interface = ugh/arg) but the mungolian jet set remixes are worth it, esp since they're so hard to find in any other form, and everything they touch is really really good.

lindstrøm track has been stuck in my head for three straight days. so weird and good.

amin peck

2007-05-16T16:29:00.000-07:00

anxiety

kano

2007-05-10T22:11:00.000-07:00

i'm ready

three shows last week

2007-04-30T17:08:00.000-07:00

wednesday, the junior boys - this show was everything i was hoping it would be. the encore, under the sun, was especially the bomb. definitely one of my favorite all around acts over the last few years.

friday, the evening episode - mostly new line-up for this local sacto band... the emphasis on vocal effects is a good direction because the new singers aren't as amazing as teresa (2nd from left)... not that they're bad, but...

saturday, digitalism - this show was unexpectedly amazing. having only heard a few digitalism songs ever, i didn't really know what to expect, but the set was killer. i had so much fun, i don't even know how long they played. i know we kept dancing when the house djs came on after the show, and they had to tell us when it was time to leave. seriously, i will be happy if the daft punk show is even close to this good. i would love it if someone could point me to a good recording of one of their live shows. also, i rather enjoyed the opener, joakim: loud, tall electro-rockings.

up next: mayer in may, daft punk in july.

the need for general knowledge

2007-04-30T15:49:00.000-07:00

lately i've been reading a bunch of samuel johnson's collected essays culled from the rambler and the idler. they are a joy to read, and it's been fun to page through the idler compendium from 1790 that i checked out from UW and compare it to other earlier london publications like the spectator and see johnson's genius shine through the bougie-handbook style of writing that was the seemingly requisite style of the times.

the rolling richness of his prose just kills me. nabokov, when he's on, is the only other writer who's ever lit up the page for me like this. last night, i was reading the rambler no. 137 [the need for general knowledge], wherein johnson chides academics for failing to get out of the ivory tower and interact competently/constructively with the rest of the world. he ends the essay with this beautiful paragraph:

By this descent from the pinnacles of art no honour will be lost; for the condescensions of learning are always overpaid by gratitude. An elevated genius employed in little things appears, to use the simile of Longinus, like the sun in his evening declination; he remits his splendor but retains his magnitude, and pleases more, though he dazzles less.

doesn't that last sentence make your heart sing? i haven't been able to get it out of my head all day.

pop conf

2007-04-24T14:08:00.000-07:00

i went to the emp's pop conference again this year. caught something like twenty hours of talks over the weekend, a good portion of which were really great. the theme was "waking up from history: music, time, and place," which is a way better topic than last yeear's kind of lame "guilty pleasures" cop out.

highlights included sasha frere-jones' post 911 r'n'b talk, joshua clover's 1989 vs "1989" fall of the wall + pop songs talk, mark sinker's b-b-but what about space ramble, mike mcgonigal's dark was the night cold was the ground sanctified blues talk, simon reynolds' place and race in the uk dance continuum talk, getta dayal's examination of eauropean fetishisation of black american dance culture re detroit techno, michaelangelo matos' ripping on trustifarians re bob marley posters, douglas wolk's "the most famous rock star no one knows about" history of clydie king, jesse fuchs' insanely oveloaded and awesome overview of music videogames, robert christgau's pazz and jop ruminations, maura johnston's history of freestyle (the late 80's dance genre, not freestyle rapping), mike powell's examination of north korean pop music, brian goedde and elena passerello's intervies with iowan hip hop fans, tom kipp's secret history of montana post-punk, oliver wang's boogaloo talk, jeff chang's history of the bronx beat, and scott seward's extreme metal/pastoralism paper, and lots of other stuff too...

favorite part though was definitely the incredibly touching ellen willis tribute lunchtime panel, wherin people like sasha frere-jones and bob christgua and others that knew her or were somehow touched by her work got up and read pieces by her and talked about her. i went into the panel not even knowing who she was, and left obsessed by the need to seek out as much of her writing as possible. turns out she was an insanely brilliant popular culture wrtier and femisist/anti-oppression thoerist. i've been buried in a book of her collected crit for the last couple of days, and it is some of the best critical writing i've ever read. turns out she was also the new yorker's first pop music critc, and a lot of her stuff is still buried in the mag, uncollected and only accesible through the newyorker dvd/hard drive thingy. roommate has a copy, i think i might transcribe some of the better essays and post them, they are so good.

also heard a bunch of new to me songs during people's talks... i'm still tracking some down, but here's two of my favs, one from a boogaloo talk, and one from a techno talk. see if you can figure out which is which!

adjective is an adjective

2007-04-17T12:14:00.000-07:00

or at least it was, back in the day. this idea has been making me very happy today. also making me happy is the very wonderful partial arts (ewan pearson and al usher) track trauermusik.

recent listening i have enjoyed

2007-04-12T15:34:00.000-07:00

jeff's basement 'cast, joakim and dixon resident advisor podcasts, ronan fitzgelarld's radio show, goldie's '96 essential mix, international pony mit dir sind wir vier, märz wir sind hier, the field from here we go sublime, the studio 1 12"s.

looking forward to checking out the panda bear album, the pantha du prince album, and probably lots of other stuff i've forgotten about.

amazing

2007-03-21T20:16:00.000-07:00

interview with james murphy. he reminds me more and more of dave frost the more i see/read about him. the uncanny resemblance, the insane verbosity, the obsession with physical violence... it's all there.

plums

2007-03-13T14:16:00.000-07:00

i have 150 lbs of plums that will go bad long before i can eat them all. does anyone have any good ideas/recipes for preserves or other things to make out of fresh plums?

cannot wait

2007-02-26T13:42:00.000-08:00

until april 19. pop conference this year looks so sweet.

recently

2007-02-21T15:45:00.000-08:00

i have: made 4 gallons of salsa, brewed ten gallons of beer, rescued 100 lbs of food from a dumpster, acquired one bike frame, eaten two bahn mi sandwiches, and listed to no new music.

the lack of music is mostly because my computer is broken, and it kind of sucks, 'cause i haven't heard anything new and awesome for a while now, and i can't mp3 blog-r-done etc to get my fix. it's getting bad enough that i almost listened to a yanni promo cd yesterday.

is anyone interested in helping me out by sending me a mix cd/tape of stuff you think i should hear? any style of music, i'm not picky. i will return the favor as best i can in your format of choice.

i <3 mike powell

2007-02-13T15:13:00.000-08:00

squinting at gait and testicle size

favorite sandwich

2007-01-29T17:50:00.000-08:00

of recent memory: toasted essential columbia loaf with mayo, cheddar cheese, peanut butter (unsweetened) ands a ton of rather spicy kim chi. mmm... sandwich made mostly with things i found in the trash...

today

2007-01-24T21:36:00.000-08:00

was pretty fantastic. taking the quarter off has been the best decision i've made in years.

got up and had a lazy breakfast, then biked around the city for a few hours with my new housemate alex. hit a record shop and picked up a mantronix record (the one with scream on it (god i love that song), i forget the title. it's the second album i think) and a basic channel record, phylyps trak.

now that my laptop is dead and i can no longer access my mp3s (so umm, no mp3s for the foreseeable future), i'm feeling more attached to my records and vinyl in general. which kind of sucks, since i have no income and shouldn't be spending my savings on records. but whatever. sometimes you need beats. what can you do.

anyway, i also got to see the best sunset of the winter so far today, from the top of an old water tower at the top of capitol hill. ridiculously clear 360° view of the cascades, the olympics, rainier, and downtown, all lit up by a fiery red-orange sunset. so beautiful.

john darnielle

2007-01-22T13:22:00.000-08:00

wrapped up his brilliant thirty short poems about my favorite black metal band series today, a series almost as wonderful as his four part huehueteotl series, wherein eminem and axl rose have a conversation.

why not (2006)?

2007-01-04T13:55:00.000-08:00

(subject to revision at any moment)
albs:

the knife - silent shout
trentemøller - the last resort
T.I. - king
the streets - the hardest way to make an easy living
the rapture - pieces of the people we love
lily allen - alright, still
junior boys - so this is goodbye
burial - burial
booka shade - movements
belle & sebastian - the life pursuit
ghostface - fishscale

comments: the knife album is my easy choice for #1 this year, but the rest are unsorted and perhaps unsortable. the only one on here that probably won't make a lot of other lists is the streets album, but i think skinner's run of 3 albums is more consistently good than any other run i can think of in the last 10 years.

songs:

T.I. - what you know
beyonce - ring the alarm
señor coconut - behind the mask (al usher remix) (rmd slo-down version)
rex the dog - italian skyline (unreleased)
lindstrøm & prins thomas - mighty girl
lindstrøm - another station (todd terje remix)
lcd soundsystem - 45:33
the rapture - don gon do it
lupe fiasco (ft jill scott) - daydreamin'
fat joe (ft lil wayne) - make it rain
the knife - we share our mother's health (trentemøller remix)
junior boys - in the morning
jürgen paape - take that
delia gonzalez & gavin russom - relevee (carl craig remix)
the coup (ft black thought & talib kweli) - my favorite mutiny
clipse (ft slim thug) - wamp wamp
ghostface (ft trife) - be easy
trentemøller - take me into your skin

comments: 'what you know' is the easy #1 favorite for the year. i'm surprised slim thug only shows up on the list once... i would give him the award for most appealing list of credits in the period spanning 2005-2006.

UPDATE: added ghostface's be easy/fishscale to songs/albums since this has been on repeat in my car nearly nonstop for the last week. also added a trentemøller track that should have been in the list.

best of 2007

2007-01-04T13:28:00.000-08:00

got my hands on justin's lastest work... mostly new beats for old songs... favorite of the moment is the remix of mobb deep's got it twisted. compare to the original, which is also good - and weird with those totally 80s synths.

more on the way.

2006 mixtape, vol 1

2006-12-29T17:25:00.000-08:00

what good are lists if you can't listen to them?

this is not a top whatever list, it's just a cd's worth of songs that sort of go together and sort of represent 2006 to me.

Shantel – Bucovina
Bonde Do Role – Funk da Esfiha
T.I. – What You Know
Senor Coconut & His Orchestra – Behind The Mask (Al Usher Remix (slo-mo version))
Mirah – La Familia (Guy Sigsworth Remix)
The Mountain Goats – Woke Up New
Arthur Russell – Springfield (DFA remix)
Hot Chip – The Warning
Escort – Starlight
Lindstrøm and Prins Thomas – Mighty Girl
The Knife – Silent Shout
Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom – Relevee (Carl Craig Remix)
John Tejada – The End Of It All
Jonas Bering – Melanie

hopefully owen's vol. 2 will follow shortly.

anyway, turn them headphones up!

records that i bought in 2006

2006-12-27T19:24:00.000-08:00

or, how i spent way too much of my money on vinyl assuaging my mp3 guilt:

David Byrne & Brian Eno, My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts [Sire]
VA, Pop Ambient 2006 [Kompakt]
The Meters, Look-Ka Py Py [Josie]
Yellow Magic Orchestra, Yellow Magic Orchestra [Horizon]
Arthur Russell, Calling Out of Context [Audika]
Pere Ubu, The Modern Dance [Get Back]
Giorgio Moroder, From Here To Eternity [Casablanca]
VA, Acid: Can You Jack? (Vol. 1) [Soul Jazz]
Ada, Blondix 1 [Areal]
Ada, Blondix 2 [Areal]
Missy Elliot, Lose Control [Atlantic]
Röyksopp, What Else Is There? (Remixes) [Astralwerks (US)]
Trentemøller, Physical Fraction [Audiomatique]
Vitalic, Fanfares [Different]
International Pony, Our House [Columbia Records (Germany)]
DJ Koze, Kosi Comes Around [Kompakt]
Lindstrøm, I Feel Space [Playhouse]
Mantronix, That's My Beat [Soul Jazz]
Wighnomy Bros/Justus Köhncke, Speicher 31 [Kompakt Extra]
Tomas Andersson, Washing Up [BPitch Control]
VA, Tropicália [Soul Jazz]
Brian Eno, Before And After Science [E.G.]
Dinosaur L, Go Bang [Sleeping Bag (bootleg reissue)]
Loose Joints, Is It All Over My Face? [West End]
Quadrant, Dub [Basic Channel]
Ricardo Villalobos, Achso [Cadenza]
Ricardo Villalobos, Alcachofa [Playhouse]
Nathan Fake, The Sky Was Pink [Border Community]
Roxy Music, For Your Pleasure [Atlantic]
VA, Larry Levan's Paradise Garage [West End]
Metro Area, Metro Area 5 [Environ]
Dinosaur, Kiss Me Again [Underground Disco Classics]
Dinosaur L, 24 → 24 Music [Sleeping Bag (bootleg reissue)]
Underground Resistance, Sonic EP [Underground Resistance]
DJ T., Ambush [Get Physical]
Liquid Liquid, Optimo [99 Records]
Ada, I Love Asphalt [Areal]
Luomo, Tessio (Remixes) [Force Tracks]
Luciano and Quenum, Orange Mistake [Cadenza]
Salif Keita / Pepe Bombilla, Yamoré / Harmonics Crashes [Cadenza]
Luciano and Matthew Jonson, Alpine Rocket [Perlon]
Metro Area, Metro Area 4 [Environ]
Voigt & Voigt, Speicher 10 [Kompakt Extra]
Brian Eno, Here Come The Warm Jets [Island Records]
Arthur Russell, First Though Best Thought [Audika]
Just-Ice, Back To The Old School [Fresh Records]
Brian Eno, Another Green World [Island Records]
David Bowie, Low [RCA]
Terry Riley, A Rainbow In Curved Air [Columbia]
Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom, The Days of Mars [DFA]
Basement Jaxx, Crazy Itch Radio [XL]
The Mountain Goats, Get Lonely [4AD]
Junior Boys, So This Is Goodbye [Domino]
Yaz, You and Me Both [Sire]
Various, The Perfect Beats Volume 2 [Timber!]
Various, Optimo Present Psyche Out [Eskimo]
Aphex Twin, Selected Ambient Works 85-92 [RS]
Black Dice, Smiling Off [DFA/EMI]
Wire, Pink Flag [EMI]
Arthur Russell, Springfield [Audika]
Pixeltan, Get Up Say What [DFA]
Rhythm & Sound, See Mi Yah (Remixes #1) [Burial Mix]
Rhythm & Sound, See Mi Yah (Remixes #4) [Burial Mix]
Thomas Melchior & Luciano, Soloman's Prayer/Father [Cadenza]
Luciano, For Disco Only [For Disco Only]
Ricardo Villalobos, For Disco Only 2 [For Disco Only]
Ricardo Villalobos, Fizheuer Zieheuer [Playhouse]
Justus Köhncke, Advance [Kompakt]
Lindstrøm, Another Station [Feedelity]
Black Dice, Cone toaster/Endless Happiness [DFA]
Burial, Distant Lights EP [Hyperdub]
Lee "Scratch" Perry, Return Of The Super Ape [VP Records]

these are in chronological order.

santa claus went straight to the ghetto

2006-12-25T22:43:00.000-08:00

i got a random christmas present

2006-12-25T18:36:00.000-08:00

today: the name of a song i've been hunting for for ages. for three years now i've been completely mesmerized by the version of the diwali riddim that bobby konders drops 24:30 into his amazingly great mad sick head nah good mix. i couldn't figure out the name from the bewildering track list for that mix (it turns out it's unlisted), and had given up hope for hearing a full version, assuming that it was a custom edit or something.

then today, after finally getting a chance to hear wayne marshall's fantastic another crunk genealogy mix/bloggariddims podcast episode (check it out, and don't skip the master's thesis-worthy accompanying text/inline mp3s), i finally learned it was actually one of lenky's own reworks of the diwali riddim, and was in fact commercially released and all (and that i would have heard it years ago if i had just bought that damned greensleeves riddim comp).

anyway, i finally got to hear the whole thing today! i plan on listening to it on repeat for a while now.

lenky – XM24

mixes

2006-12-20T01:33:00.000-08:00

that i have enjoyed a lot in 2006 that came out in 2006:

burial – breezeblock mix

jeffery mac – meditations (in dub)

cassy – panoramabar 01

optimo – essential mix

dj kaos and sal p – collector's series pt 2

m. mayer – immer 2

m.a.n.d.y. – get physical vol. II

luciano – sci.fi.hi.fi volume 2

dj bowlpack b – lasercave podcast episode 4

album cover art

2006-12-15T11:15:00.000-08:00

once again, pfm's 'worst album covers of the year' list contains some excellent album cover art... i'm especially into the sleepy jackson album cover.

good luck checking out the new lcd soundsystem album

2006-12-12T14:45:00.000-08:00

sound of silver has leaked, but you won't be hearing any of it on pyf since it appears that everyone who has tried to share a little sample on their blog has been scolded (by dfa, james murphy?)... unexpected because, well, no one would give two shits about a new (or old) lcd soundsystem album if not for blogs and such hitting us over the head with lcd ss a few years ago. i like what i've heard, but i think i liked the direciton they were going with the 45 min nike track a bit more... hopefully they will still find time to make music in that vein. will definitely give it a lot of listens in the next few weeks....

allowing james to explain his feelings:
"i'm not angry or bummed at people... who downloaded it and listened to it, as i'm sure i would have done the same myself if it was possible--i just don't like the uploaders, really. some fucker got a copy in advance and had so little respect, and that sucks. i mean, some people in the BAND haven't gotten their copy of the record yet, for fuck's sake....i'd just like a little time to live with something before it gets blown all over the internet--free or not--and that's gone... don't feel bad about having it--just please don't give it to other people."

will do... what is the appropriate grace period before we can share this album without being selfish?

the people don't need electronic music. electricity is for killing traitors in the electric chair.

2006-12-12T11:53:00.000-08:00

is anything more russian than russians?

fun movie

xmas music on morning edition

2006-12-11T11:29:00.000-08:00

npr manages to do a christmas music piece without exposing too much of their latent contempt for pop music... enjoyed listening to almost all of the songs on here... highlight for me was probably bootsy collins...

how to make a merry christmas?

2006-12-09T22:48:00.000-08:00

i've never experienced the stereotypical holiday blues before, but the last few months have been rough, leaving me in a not particularly festive mood. my academic pursuits were temporarily sidetracked, but this is actually pretty manageable. the much more severe spirit-dampening experience is the ongoing separation (break-up??) with my long-term partner, with whom i've spent (at least part of) each of the last 5 holiday seasons.

this brings us to your task: recommend some holiday music that might help me get over my personal tragedies and get in the holiday spirit. obscurity is good, but sincerity is essential.

it was more than a month ago...

2006-12-09T22:31:00.000-08:00

... but i saw the knife at mezzanine in sf. this is a very cool venue, but the performance itself was independently amazing. i'd never been to a show like it before... i have a feeling very little (read:none) of the music was being played live by the performers on stage, but that didn't really matter. the audio and visual aspects were incredible (recommend that you ignore/mute the audio on that last link).

i read that they might not be playing any more shows ever, so i'm especially happy that i was able to go - props to christin for getting tickets before they sold out (i hope this isn't the last concert we ever attend together).

optimo mixes

2006-12-08T16:13:00.000-08:00

are always cause for excitement. the eclectic not eclectic duo's how to kill the dj pt 2 and psyche out were some of my favorite mixes of the past two years, and just last month when i was getting set to be bummed that they'd not put one out this year, they go and do a two hour essential mix for the bbc, and craziness of all craziness, pitchfork goes and does something completely non-douchey, and in fact way awesome: they got their hands on a non-station-id'd version of the mix and are letting people download it for free. sweet!

who can name the biggest number?

2006-12-06T14:12:00.000-08:00

fantastic article about how fucking huge numbers can get.

for physicists, exponentials (eg 2^77) are usually considered very large, basically as big as things get/as fast as things grow. even in thermodynamic calculations i think i've only ever used a doubley nested exponential (eg 2^77^34) a few times. for instance, the number of atoms in our universe is approximately 10^80. that is a very, VERY large number. imagine how incomprehensibly hard it would be to count the grains of sand on a beach, or the number of leaves in a forest. then compare the size of that task to the semi-absurdity of counting the number of atoms in the univers, and you may start to appreciate the insanely vast size of that number.

now, consider the number of PAIRS of atoms in the universe that you could make, which is (10^80)! which is approximately 10^80^(10^80) up to minor corrections. this number is almost as easy to write down, but is so much bigger that i'm not really sure i can think about it correctly. so nesting exponentials lets you write down numbers so big that they have no conceivable physical analogue, in that you could never ever point to something and say "there are about 10^80^(10^80) of those" the way you could with the number of grains of sand on the beach or even the number of atoms in the universe.

the numbers in this article dwarf exponentials (even nested ones) the ways exponentials dwarf the number 83. it pretty much blew my mind how big they were.

so, anyone want to take up the biggest number challenge? before you read the article, write down your biggest number in the comments box, according to the rules:

You have fifteen seconds. Using standard math notation, English words, or both, name a single whole number—not an infinity—[in the comments box]. Be precise enough for any reasonable modern mathematician to determine exactly what number you’ve named, by consulting only your card and, if necessary, the published literature.

go! (and no looking at other people's answers before you write your's down)

exciting

2006-12-03T23:41:00.000-08:00

my house has decided to house the seattle community pantry in our basement. this means, amongst other things, cheap, delicious, largely non-corporately procured food for me, my house, and the other pantry members.

but most importantly it means it's time to go jump in dumpsters and get free food again, 'cause now we have a place to keep it and clean it!

more reactionary commentary from the new yorker

2006-11-30T19:38:00.000-08:00

i hate having to defend mediocre movies from off-base criticisms, but here i am again. several months ago i expressed some of the reasons why i think new yorker film critic david denby is a really miserable cultural critic.

now i will make a similar argument regarding george saunders based on his recent contribution to the new yorker (let me know when this link changes). after reading this article, two things are immediatle apparent: (1) it's not at all funny and (2) saunders appears to be extremely offended by the new borat movie.

aside:
i thought the movie was ok... nothing new or surprising if you've seen a few episodes of da ali g show. actually, what makes the tv show work better (from my perspective) is that it is split between cohen's three uniquely funny characters.

it's hard for me to understand how this movie could be at all offensive to someone with saunders' credentials and faux-humanitarian sympathies. what i get from the new yorker article: saunders doesn't like it that cohen made fun of eastern european chauvanism, insanity in the name of god, and middle-class white americans; instead he thinks that blacks and gays would have been better targets. (although he appears to share borat's pam anderson fetish.) wtf? this is really new yorker quality writing?

i could write about why i think it's much funnier to harass politically and socially dominant groups rather than using 'racial slurs' to offend ethnic groups that have been oppressed for centuries (as suggested by saunders), but i will try to get my point across by proposing that saunders would truly enjoy the comedic stylings of michael richards (account needed)...?

i think it's funny

2006-11-29T21:42:00.000-08:00

that i find villalobos's epic ~40min track "fizheuer zieheuer" the least proggy and "out there" thing he's done in some time. it may be the first thing he's released since serpentin that didn't make me wish there was more 808 the bassqueen ooomph in it.

it's snowing outside right now (three straight days in seattle, who'd'a thunk?) and set to that background it actually sounds rather cheerful and happy and almost (almost) wholesome, which is never an adjective i thought i'd see near a villalobos track. i mean it still sounds a bit fucked-up, but relatively speaking it's not too far off.

ricardo villalobos – fizheuer zieheuer

ricardo villalobos – fizheuer zieheuer pt2

oh and ps, it's really fucking good. those horns sound like the most epicly charged thing ever, like staight out of the king of elfland's daughter.

back at it

2006-11-29T16:10:00.000-08:00

a post... some of it is music related.

movies:
watched the fountain. not the sci-fi epic you might expect after watching the trailer.... but a decent movie about someone coming to terms with death. impressive sound track.

watched strozsek... now it's one of my favorite movies ever.

also highly recommending hard candy and kung fu hustle at the moment.

photography:
where i'm from. (audio)

music:
just got back from a trip to texas (see above). if i can ever get justin to send me mp3s of his latest remixes, i will post them here, and we will see if you like them as much as me.

like a boss (chopped, screwed)... andy got it stuck in my head. also really enjoyed listening to his ennio morricone album... if you're reading: was that a comp? if so, which one?

i find it incredibly amusing

2006-11-28T13:18:00.000-08:00

that my favorite track of the year is only my favorite track because i'm too dumb to read the labels on the 12" correctly: the al usher remix of señor coconut and his orchestra's cover of "behind the mask" is supposed to be played at 45rpm, unlike the a-side, which is clearly labeled 33rpm, and which lead me to think that the b-side was to be listened to similarly.

the villalobos remixed a-side is really really good, almost lives up to the constant hype, etc, but the al usher mix, wow. well, not so much when it's played too fast for it's own good (ie the speed at which it's nominally supposed to be played), but slowed down, pitched down, and able to breath? easily the prettiest, most confidently spacious and unfolding track i've heard in a long time.

señor coconut and his orchestra – behind the mask (al usher remix) (slo-mo version)

why (music) blogs suck

2006-11-17T15:08:00.000-08:00

in 1987, in the fist issue of why music sucks, frank kogan wrote

why does music suck?

an "answer"—one that raises more questions than it answers: music is reduced to symbols—the symbol almost replaces the music—the symbol gets in the way of the music—certain effects of the music are reduced to symbols: e.g., a type of music symbolizes rebellion rather than provoking rebellion, symbolizes outrageousness rather than being an outrage, symbolizes fun, symbolizes intelligence, symbolizes protest... the result is music that is meaningless—the term "meaningless" being used in the sense of "does not matter" and "has no effect". the music sounds empty. (and music of the past gets emptied in its present contexts.)

i refuse to palm off all the blame for the present suckiness on capitalism, commercialism, the exchange of commodities, corporate oligopolies, society, mainstream culture, etc. (analysis of these things and their relation to music—rather than scapegoating them—would be useful: talking about our place within culture, rather than referring to culture as "them".)

WE are doing something to kill music.

by "we" i don't automatically mean myself or the person reading this. i don't exclude us either.

...

what i mean is BLANDNESS. what i mean is TEPIDNESS. what i mean is boredom. what i mean is the dead kennedys and lydia lunch. we take people like jerry lee lewis and schooly d and through the process of our appreciating them turn them into nothing... [emph. mine]

i read that yesterday in real punks don't wear black and it knocked me on my ass. it completely crystalized how i've been feeling about music blogs lately, and music writing in general for them most part. it made me think about who out there can write about music without killing it. a short list indeed. it drove me to pose the question to myself: how can i write about music without killing it? can i? do i even want to try?

anyway, sorry to start off the new life of this blog on such a pessimistic note. lasercave has such great potential, but as with all things blog, i am afraid of the analogous phenomena happening: blog as signifier for experience, rather than experience itself.

i want this place to be vibrant, full of ideas and thought, rather than a placeholder for the same. i want this place to BE culture, rather than a place to pbs-ify and kill culture, like so many other blogs (boingboing, kottke, etc).

so, other lasercavers: make this place as wonderful as i know you can.

thick mix

2006-11-13T12:43:00.000-08:00

check out the inaugural edition of the lasercave podcast series: thick mix, by the unfortunately named but incredibly talented dj bowlpack b. the hotness.

had a great day

2006-11-06T23:04:00.000-08:00

listening to music this saturday. ten hours of mass transit bussing to and from olympia left me with little to do other than hit the ipod really hard.

rainy urban landscapes + me being really tired = basic channel sounding really awesome.

phylyps – phylyps trak

same + me being really pissed at missing a bus and having to wait around a freeway park-and-ride for three hours for the next one = underground resistance sounding really really good.

underground resistance – assault

listened to the dinosaur l lp and the tommy boy perfect beats comps on the way home. so good.

exodus – together forever

shannon – give me tonight

a classic

2006-10-30T13:13:00.000-08:00

but maybe you haven't heard it beore? who knows. helped me out of a foul mood yesterday.

underground resistance – death star

voiding

2006-09-24T21:43:00.000-07:00

i finally just pinned it down: the bass stabs in carl craig's remix of delia and gavin's "revelee" sounds like the brown note (not brown note).

dfa'd

2006-09-22T16:17:00.000-07:00

went to the dfa dj tour last night when it came through seattle, and caught james murphy and john maclean aka the juan maclean spinning for three hours or so. it was pretty damn awesome, i danced my ass of for the better part of the night. they played a more straight-up disco/house/techno set than i was expecting, which was great 'cause i wanted to dance and i love that stuff, but i think some of the people where kind of dissapointed that there was no ke-razy punkfunk action.

but the shit they played was fantasic and had me grinning like a fool, it was basically all the "warm" (ie non-clicky/microedited) dance music that i like, from moroder to loose joints to the paradise garage to roller-skate electro to acid house to the get physical and more recent stuff (btw mandarine girl KILLS on a big system, i finally apreciate why this was so massively popular). i actualy was able to recognize maybe 2/3 of the tracks, which i though was pretty good, but it was all the more frustrating because my favorite things of what i heard were completely new to me and i was not in a state to be remembering lyrics for future research.

the highlight of the night definitely came after their set was done, when my roommate asked them if they had a setlist or something that he could look at, and though the answer was no (they seemed to be playing records off the top of their head), james murphy invited us to look though their record crates and ask about stuff we didn't recognize ("and he was actually really, really nice"). so i got to pester him for ten minutes with inane desciptions of the stuff i liked: "um, you know, it had a chorus, and it was good..." and he very good-naturedly suggested records and just seemed interested in nerding out about that records to a receptive audience. managed to remember a few of the records he recommended, and even had my roommate write down some. so i'll probably post those when i get a chance to listen to them. in the meantime, here's the track that he was finally able to id from my incohenrent desricptions, definitely a new favorite:

roy ayers - running away

so yeah, lot's of fun. go catch them when they're in town (owen, i'm looking in your direction).

downright awesome

2006-09-15T15:50:00.000-07:00

digitized archives of weird spaced out disco mixtapes: smylonylon. i've listened to number 16 and it's great. check out the cover art at least, it's pretty fantastic.

crap

2006-09-11T15:24:00.000-07:00

it's no kompakt kittens, but the dfa crap remixer is way fun to play with.

mnml pumice bones

2006-09-08T16:23:00.000-07:00

from wikipedia:

Not Breathing combines trash, harsh griddles of steel and industrial confines with the moldy air of natures darkest machinations and pumice bones.

for your sensory pleasure, like an inverted and industrialized brutalga square: aether taveler (sic)

things

2006-09-06T18:48:00.000-07:00

the dfa mix of arthur russell's "springfield" is featured in the current beats in space. pretty dec. but i'm more into the other russell track on there, loose joints' "tell you today", which i, in my manic acquisition of all things ar last year, somehow managed to miss. which is kind of awesome, because yesterday i had the pleasure of discovering a new russell gem. oh, that voice. when it hits at four minutes in... wow. so good.

also, i found two sweet-ass whole (rare) album mp3 blogs, orgy in rhythm and bust the facts. what i wouldn't give for a bigger hard drive...

some days

2006-09-01T12:15:00.000-07:00

i just want to snort pixie sticks and listen to kid kameleon mixes.

the shuffle

2006-08-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

gods were good to me this morning, dredging up a gem of a cover from the depths of my hard drive, one that i had completely forgotten about, and may never have, in fact, listened to in the first place: scissor sisters – take me out. thought process upon encountering it this moring went something like:

is this going to be what i think it is?
yes, apparently
this is actually really good
this sounds like an iconic fluxblog song, i bet he posted about it like two years ago
yes, apparently
i need to listen to this again

tracks

2006-08-24T17:01:00.000-07:00

the past few weeks i've been listeing almost exclusively to albums, which is weird for me, usually i am slogging through the pile of random tracks i have on my hard drive. but that hasn't been doing it for me lately, and i've been obsessively listening to washington phillips, the new mountain goats album, the new junior boys ep, the hot chip album, the future bible heroes albums, and the barbara morgenstern album from 2003.

that said, i have been pretty into a few tracky things:

oh man, that justus track is so good and weird. i hope he puts out another album soon.

back from copenhagen/berlin

2006-08-24T11:14:00.001-07:00

it was a mostly unmusical trip... i missed a djs in the park show in copenhagen while i was in berlin, and i missed a big music fesival in oslo while i was at a wedding in bornhølm... it's ok though because this was my first time in both copenhagen and berlin and i was more interested in seeing the cities: architecture, museums, restaurants, etc.

also went easy on the record buying cause flying to europe is fucking expensive. visited several good music stores in copenhagen (sound station and ameoba records - notice how the spelling differentiates this store from you know who). picked up: paris 1919, the present lover, eno/byrne, and low.

and i finally have a little insight into the origins of the relationship between krautrock and japanoise: berlin-tokyo.

stressed out

2006-08-24T00:50:00.000-07:00

about many things lately... job, school, friends and moving amongst others, so seeing john darnielle live on monday was a wonderful treat, condensing some feelings and evaporating others. i still maintain that he's the best live act out there, at least that i've heard or heard tell of. if anyone anywhere knows where to get ahold of a copy of his (live only, i believe) cover of the the chiffons' "one fine day", i would love you forever. if anyone could actually induce him to cover "wiggle it", i would love you even more.

been listening to lots of music lately, but haven't felt like writing about it at all. bah.

ascetic bohemianism?

2006-08-02T16:35:00.000-07:00

word. i wonder if it's a bad or a good sign that i'm only 24 and i already feel this way... (link via blissblog)

back

2006-08-01T00:23:00.000-07:00

from california, and currently enjoying

jeffery mac's latest mix

washington phillips, as per mike powell's recomendation

washington phillips – i am born to preach the gospel

barbara morgenstern's new album, as per john darnielle's recomendation

barbara mogenstern – the operator

twitch's bettty botox re-edits

betty botox – can-can

the fuckpony album

fuckpony – it's only music

the future bible heroes albums

future bible heroes – i'm a vampire

the illiad, again

what am i doing instead of blogging?

2006-07-11T16:39:00.000-07:00

puttering around while taking time off from grad school, which, to be more particular, entails: riding my bike a lot, seeing my brother, eating good produce and baking lots of bread, brewing beer, reading comics and attacking the fat stack of books i've been accumulating, listening to old records, trying to let the fact that i have no income convince me to not buy any new records, failing, listening to lots of mountain goats albums, thinking maybe i am a bit tired of the music i listen to (except the mountain goats), trying to figure out what i want to do next year, failing, listening to some good podcasts, wishing there were more, etc, etc, etc.

leaving in a few days for a two week trip to northern california, wherin i will endure a hellish 20 hour bus ride down, see family, go on a week-long backpacking trip with bro and dad, see owen and christin, and hopefully finally go to the sf amoeba. not taking the laptop though, so chances of updates are slim. welcome to the summer blog lull!

what am i doing instead of blogging?

2006-07-09T18:32:00.000-07:00

thursday: saw belle & sebastian play with the LA philharmonic in the hollywood bowl. drank beer. thai food at 1:30 am. saw paris hilton posing for paparazzi in front of some club on the sunset strip.

friday: christin fractured a rib with the raw power of a single, forceful cough (following thousands of coughs during a weeklong bout with bronchitis). rode in an ambulence. got addicted to arrested development.

more music posts coming? yes.

dear tommy boy,

2006-06-27T13:38:00.000-07:00

thank you thank you thank you for making the perfect beats compilations exist. they are EXACTLY what i need this summer.

how sweet is this beat?

2006-06-21T13:49:00.000-07:00

i've been really into the mantronix-curated that's my beat comp that came out on soul jazz a couple of years ago, but i never really got atound to checking out much of kurtis mantronik's original productions. i think that's going to change soon...

this is not an update

2006-06-18T21:22:00.000-07:00

heard this track track on a sweet-ass mix from this is not an exit. that mix is really good. kind of reminded me of optimo a little, in that current hip dance meets old hip semi-atonal pre/post-punky whathaveyou vibe. maybe listing some of the tracks is a better description: can and emperor machine, delia & gavin and the velvets, etc. i thought it would be kind of boring... 'oh, another one of those kind of mixes', but i've played it a bunch of times and have yet to get tired of it. and this was one of the highlights:

raconteurs – steady as she goes (radio slave vs tommie sunshine remix)

why do i fight it?

2006-06-14T10:18:00.000-07:00

been avoiding gnarles barkley, certain that i would not like it, based on dangermouse's involvement in the most unfortunate grey album. this morning, one of the local hip-hop stations exposed me to the single crazy. oh, what a fool i've been. guess i should read stereogum more often.

i feel so reconnected to the youth (i.e. the myspace generation)! is disco returning to the mainstream for real?

49% is the loneliest percent

2006-06-12T21:52:00.000-07:00

in case you've heard 'what else is there?' and 'beautiful day without your' and were wondering if there are any other gems on röyksopp's the understanding, i recommend 49 percent.

(though i have the feeling this has already made the rounds, and i just missed out... oh well... glad rob finally turned me on to it.)

purged

2006-06-12T21:02:00.000-07:00

recently lost all the music on my ipod as a result of the database file becoming corrupt when i unplugged without ejecting. this turned out to be a good thing. i had to waste hours of time (when i should have been studying for a condensed matter final) reloading the ipod, but i got to leave out a lot of crap to which i don't listen anymore.

it also gave me lots of time to listen to stuff i had not yet heard/did not expect to really like. some of the most enjoyable bits were

the new thom yorke (it was cloudy outside)

the new junior boys (thought i had outgrown these guys - i was wrong)

the old cocteau twins (track)

(search for samples of first two with elbo.ws.)

also, i'm still really in to jean-michel jarre's zoolook. it's the only thing i've heard by him. where do i go next?

so. much. bombast.

2006-05-31T21:42:00.000-07:00

oh europop... i'm sorry, girl.

i know i've been neglecting you lately. it's just that ever since nyplm shut down, i haven't been able to muster the energy to pay you much attention, even though there are some quality blogs that could probably save me most of the effort.

not that you're not worth it, don't get me wrong. it's those damn chileans, they've been taking up all my time lately. i know, i know.

but tonight is all about you. i'm glad you finally went out of your way to find me, and made something this awesome and ridiculous and slightly weird to win back my heart. i'm gonna blast it

marco borsato – rood

on repeat for a few hours; it'll be just like old times.

and then maybe i'll finally go track down the new bodies without organs record. and then probably play some whigfield.

let's never fight again.

flamboyant

2006-05-29T10:56:00.000-07:00

the third track i've heard from the pet shop boy's fundamentalism ep is perhaps my favorite.

michael mayer's remix of flamboyant is much more subdued than the other remixes i've heard (as my be expected). this is a good thing. i especially like the last 2 to 3 minutes.

richard x does not disappoint

2006-05-28T12:30:00.000-07:00

the pet shop boys are getting old, but the people remixing their music aren't. trentemøller, richard x, michael mayer, alter ego - all on one 12". think i'll order it right now.

fugitive (richard x extended mix)

four to the floor

2006-05-27T10:25:00.000-07:00

a friend turned me on to a few great tracks thursday night. so far my favorite is a thin white duke remix of four to the floor by starsailor (who the fuck is that?). don't know how it's possible i hadn't heard this before, given rmd's penchant for playing/posting jlc tracks.

great foundation despite the mildly irritating voice of the singer (i suppose most singers' voices become irritating after listening to the same track about 20 times in a row, otis redding excluded). not as complex as jlc's more recent work (see lose control, what else is there?), but more immediately accessible and danceable as a result. i think a recent dissensus thread was titled 'four to the floor ... my obsession' or something along those lines. the poster wasn't referring to this track, but i wouldn't blame him if he was.

the above link contains the remix on the cd single. there appears to be a longer 12" version that i would love to hear if anyone wants to ysi it.

lp2mp3

2006-05-26T11:17:00.000-07:00

i wanted to post the fantastic girls want to be with the girls from the talking heads' more songs about building and food, but i didn't have a digital version. i ended up ripping it from my lp, but my copy is old and worn out, so the quality isn't great. fortunately this suggests a potentially fantastic side project. one day i will become completely obsessive about remastering vinyl-to-mp3 rips using Igor. i use Igor in the lab to do lots of different things: modeling, discrete computations, simple programming, etc; but it has great potential as a sound manipulator/enhancer.

maybe this summer i'll be able to get back to this track after it's been remastered for comparison.

about the track: very catchy. typical light/filler lyrics from byrne. the magic's in the refrain. does the guitar remind you of anything? i swear it's reproduced on (at least) one of the early tracks from discovery.

links

2006-05-24T22:43:00.000-07:00

have been updated again. obviously they've been moved of the front page. maybe that was dumb, since they're probably the best thing about this blog for anyone other than owen and i. i felt like paring things down though, so you'll have to (gasp!) click one extra link to see them. maybe i'll make it a policy to have some "featured link" or something, to highlight some place/person that's been particularly great lately. we'll see.

anyway, some stuff i've added:

radio free narnia, mark sinker's seldom updated but nonetheless fantastically awesome blog/homepage. he also has an archive page with some great old peices up.
the wire's archive page, which i mainly use to read old sinker/penman/toop essays without having to buy back-issues.
it happens for a reason, simon (née silverdoller)'s new blog, wherin he takes on the monumental task of cataloguing and writing about everything he listens to (which is a lot).
lacunae, douglas wolk's fantastic blog. dunno why this wasn't linked before.
'buked & scorned, mike mcgonigal's blog.
mudd up!, jace clayton (aka dj /rupture)'s blog.
20 jazz funk greats, the only mp3-blog other than fluxblog and tape that i check regularly.
tape, the verbose electrohouse– and "minimal"–obsessive mp3-blog powerhouse.

there's probably more that i've added, and more still that should be up there... as always to the non blog-obsessives out there, please please please go check out the links. i guarantee you'll be blown away at the amount of smart, informed (& informing), critical dialogue going on out there.

on the subject of links, and i guess as today's (or rather the last few month's) favorite link, i have to mention how fucking on fire mike powell has been lately. he is a window.

solid

2006-05-22T12:02:00.000-07:00

trentemøller remix of "sodom", off the new pet shop boys album. i'm really looking forward to hearing the whole disc. the rest of the remixes look pretty great too.

i know one of these guys

2006-05-20T17:30:00.000-07:00

at the risk of setting off the guitar alarm, here's a link to free downloads of music by the portland pop/rock group at dusk. the drummer/singer lived in the same dorm as me when i was a sophomore in college. the band recently toured california playing songs from the new album you can know danger, and i had a chance to see them for the first time in several years.

the music doesn't really match my most recent tastes, but i've been enjoying the cd they gave me. particularly check out (in this order) tracks 3, 1, and 2 from the above mentioned album.

don't watch don't look back

2006-05-20T17:22:00.000-07:00

well, go ahead. it was an ok movie. i couldn't believe what a stupid jerk bob dylan was while i watched it, though. i haven't really heard or read a portrayal of bob dylan as an ass, so i thought that maybe my interpretation of his behavior was somehow screwed. looking for an alternative perspective, i read roger ebert's review and he had pretty much the same opinion.

i also read his review for the more recent dylan documentary no direction home and will probably give that a go in the next few weeks.

no respect

2006-05-20T17:13:00.000-07:00

the list. where's pyf? wtf is up with that crazy list anyway? at entertainment weekly?

anyway fluxblog >> ilxor >> pitchfork. at least they got that right... soul-sides is up good and high, too.... never would have expected to see lemon-red or music for robots (i think rmd has commented before about how the site never lives up to its name).

already regretting

2006-05-13T21:42:00.000-07:00

not picking up the new(ish) matt john double 12" while i was at the record store. hot damn, how great is this track?

holy crap!

2006-05-11T17:06:00.000-07:00

google translate in being really useful shocker! i just realized i can (sort of) read groove now. what i wouldn't give for a mag like this in english...

this in particular looks like the best resource ever.

some songs

2006-05-11T16:41:00.000-07:00

i've been listening to a lot lately:

...and this.

sorry

2006-04-30T18:24:00.000-07:00

for being negligent. lots of work + being sick + shitty internet connection = no blog and roll fun.

i pulled my shit together to get down to the emp pop music conference on saturday though, after having had to miss friday 'cause of two out of the aforementioned three things that have beeen plaguing me lately. i am bummed i had to miss friday's talks, since there were lots of awesome people presenting that i wanted to see... geeta dayal, drew daniel, robert christgau, among others. and i still had (have) too much shit to do this weekend to get down there this morning to see douglas wolk give his "complete and utter history of the numa numa dance" talk, which sucks too, because that sounds completely and utterly awesome.

BUT, sataurday's talks were pretty awesome. the twin highlights by far, of the panels that i went to, were david thomas' "morphic resonances, siberian rock bands, and the brotherhood of the unknown" and mike mcgonigal's "the space cowboy vocoder disco string glories of elo's out of the blue".

david thomas was one of the most intense people i've ever seen, and his talk was ridiculously good (and exactly twenty minutes), and seeing him after falling in love with the modern dance this year was extra cool. mike mcgonigal was probably the funniest person i've ever seen present a paper... i think half the audince was convulsively laughing during his entire talk. the other half was bobbing their heads along to "jungle" or pretending they were space whales. i need to get a copy of out of the blue asap.

also had fun trying to guess which critcs were which without checking their nametags. i think i did pretty well, though ned raggett was such a gimme that i probably shouldn't count him.

oh, and drew daniel was in the urinal next to me when i went to pee. i tried to check out his wang, but to no avail.

currently

2006-04-18T21:22:00.000-07:00

digesting/enamoured with:

the new arthur russell comp
the mobilee catalogue
the ghost box catalogue
the burial ep and recent radio mix (advice: hit up the link for the latter, it's really really great)

still really loving:

not liking as much as i hoped:

new jlc remixes
new matmos (i think maybe this one just needs more time though)

offended to the core of my being by:

nicky siano's "full original arrangement" remix of kiss me again (listen at your own peril! (cf "this tastes so bad. try it!"))

note to self

2006-04-16T23:45:00.000-07:00

track down the burial album when it comes out.

mad decent

2006-04-11T13:15:00.000-07:00

i was just checking out sasha frere-jones's best of 2006 list (dude needs to stop hosting tv shows and get back to hogging his blog) and followed his link to the mad decent podcasts. so far they are infuriatingly good.

smells like rex pt. 2

2006-04-10T20:14:00.000-07:00

laptop is back, and now that i've had some alone time with the old girl here's the rex the dog remix of röyksopp's beautiful day without you i alluded to in the last post's comments. i still like italian skyline better (shit got slammed in twentyfourhours' comments (actually i think that's where i originally found this song), but those dudes are just so so wrong, italian skyline is pretty damn perfect), but i guess you can decide for yourself.

smells like rex

2006-04-08T18:31:00.000-07:00

i can't find any info about this track i grabbed from the old ilx ysi thread. it was posted as a rex the dog track called italian skyline, and it certainly sounds like rex, although discogs.com seems completely ignorant of it.

lindstrøm

2006-03-29T09:33:00.000-08:00

every time i hear something new by this guy, i try really hard not to like it and inevitably fail...

i think the track i tried hardest not to like was mighty girl. i am a miserable failure, because i absolutely love this track. the fast-paced, spacey harmonies reminds me of the space rock synths in the music made by the timeout drawer. i'm dying to hear a sample of their new album, nowonmai if anyone could help me out.

here's another good lindstrøm track that was pulled from the ilm ysi thread a few weeks ago.

mixes

2006-03-27T20:54:00.000-08:00

luciano's new mix is my favorite of the year so far. not that it doesn't have some decent competition in the get physical 4th anniversery mix, but somewhat counterintuitively that didn't hit me so hard and fast. philip sherburne's new mix is also nice, as is the tape crew's, but my oh my is sci.fi.hi.fi. volume 2 in a whole 'nother league of purdy. it's also nice to hear a mix where i don't know most of the tracks, and to hear someone try to mix with a track off of achso (and make it work).

i would feel bad about linking to the whole mix if ysi's new look didn't portend that it'll be impossible for me to do so in the future. so here it is, for a brief time:

luciano – sci.fi.hi.fi vol. 2

blog crush

2006-03-22T05:04:00.000-08:00

i am completely in love with geeta dayal's last few weeks worth of postings over at the original soundtrack; most of the tracks she's been writing about have been my march soundtrack. i feel silly even posting some of them, but i know most of you guys aren't as obsessively soulseeky as i am (i won't even attempt to write about them, really you should go check her posts, they've been wonderful). anyway, here's some of the tracks that have been rocking me lately:

p for prig (for david denby)

2006-03-20T18:31:00.000-08:00

why do people who hate movies write about them? the march 20 new yorker contains a nasty movie 'review' of 'v for vendetta'. in the second paragraph, denby claims that 'in normal circumstances, only a literal-minded prig would treat graphic novelists or big-screen fantasists as if they had any responsibility to truth.' this assertion serves as a prelude to the rest of the article, which is essentially a rant about the irresponsibility of glorifying politically motivated violence (as opposed to, say, drug related violence) in pop culture. he also seems offended by the movie's orwellian portrayal of the uk, an 'icon of liberal democracy'. in the course of this rant, denby postures himself as an apologist for the very real abuses of power spawned by the bush administration's war on terror, which include inhumane prisons and the domestic spying program. he downplays this role with an aritificially casual reference to the 'ineptitude and folly of the bush administration', but the makers of this film would have been lucky to get away with such light criticisms.

needless to say, i went to see this movie asap after reading the review. it wasn't phenomenal, but i didn't think it was a bomb, or 'blowup' (maybe B or B-). according to denby, if you did like this movie, then you're either a 'matrix lover', a 'punk, goth, or grunge' devotee, or 'an aging kid stoned on pop rapture' (i would probably fall into this last category).

(sorry this post has nothing to do with music, but the soundtrack was uninteresting.)

feeling

2006-03-17T20:29:00.000-08:00

these songs, among others:

minilogue – the girl from botany bay

my my – serpentine

these first two songs (and holden/fake - the sky was pink and the koze songs/remixes on my 2005 cd) have been KILLING for the past couple of days. they were my near exclusive (and constant, while traveling) soundtrack for my recent trip to vancouver. i need more holden RIGHT FUCKING NOW. also, anything philip sherburne posts about. geeta dayal as well.

hot chip remix is justus being cute like only justus can be (that "laid back" pun is amusing me far too much). walking through heaven is awesome blissy synths (heard it on optimo's psyche out mix last week and it was one of the standouts among the tracks i hadn't heard before).

achso, rentcode (post #100)

2006-03-15T13:30:00.000-08:00

i got achso in the mail the other day and haven't been able to stop listening to it. it sounds so nice on vinyl coming out of good speakers (don't mistake me for an audiofile). it's like the music goes from the air straight into my head (and body), somehow managing to bypass my ears altogether - like smooth milk chocolate that tastes better in your throat than on your tongue.

speaking of things i can't stop listening to, i must have listened to this weird rentcode track about 20 times in the last 3 days. i don't remember where i downloaded it (TAPE being the most likely candidate), and i don't know much about it other than it consists of at least justus kohncke's 'timecode' mixed with marit bergman singing 'rent'. also, it sounds better than i would have dared to imagine. someone could make a career out of selecting unexpected vocal tracks to lay on top of kohncke tracks.

also, has anyone (besides s/fj) heard the new streets album 'The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living'? is it any good?