What I Listen To

Apr 27, 2007:

Now I'm really falling behind with this page. My next idea is to plug a lot of titles into a database and log activity to show what I listen to most. First I want to write my own blogging system. (Whoa - sounds ambitious!) and, migrate it all to the other server. Here are some recent acquisitions:

• Explosions in the Sky
• Ateleia

Jan 14, 2007:

Some long overdue updates. I picked up a disc from M83, a French synth group who sound a bit like a mix between Air and My Bloody Valentine. Also some Captain Beefheart re-releases. "Doc at the Radar Station" and "Ice Cream for Crow".

Aside from that, I'm still churning through the collection. I can see that I'm still listening to most of the same stuff from three months ago. I guess the center of gravity doesn't change all that fast.

Oct 17, 2006:

I've been tempted recently to start writing for work. I would have to keep up, and I'm not sure how well I would be able to do that. I would have to pass everything through the Marketing Manager. She'd probably be happy for the contribution - except that - It would also mean writing about more recent releases, or failing that, coherent collections of music that are still on sale at the store. I listen (and read) a lot of old material. I don't like hits. I find value in works that stand the test of time. Once in a while I find I really like an old flash in the pan song. Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was like that. Becuase everybody liked it, I was sure that I didn't. I had to stick my head in the sand to avoid it - it was everywhere on the radio. I was vaguely pleased that a 'cool' band was getting attention, but I didn't care enough about Nirvana to be posessive. Only later, driving along in a receptive mood, the radio played that song, and I realized how brilliant it seemed. Sometimes it's simply the moment. Or it could have been the discussions about strange similarities to Boston's "More Than A Feeling" that had sunk into my unconscious. Not so different from how Cibelle dug deep into my soul one afternoon on the first listen. Or how St. Etienne's "Like A Motorway" made me think of a specific person once, and the plaintive voice combined with the brutally efficient synth programming.

So the problem of a writing commitment is quite serious. I want to explore my feelings. But the temptation will always be there to descend into mindless drivel simply because it could sell some CDs at the shop. It's always been about the music, honestly composed - It was never really about the discs, despite the joy of putting a needle on fresh vinyl, or mix tapes, or the first look at the rainbows in a silvery CD face. I got excited about those things at the time, no doubt. But in the end they were media - getting in the way of pure enjoyment. Beside the point.

Oct 6, 2006:

• Cibelle The Shine of Dried Electric Leaves
• Marisa Monte Infinito Particular

Sometimes you just need a sexy girl to sing to you in Portugese. And it doesn't matter how many CDs you already have fitting that description. The Marisa Monte is new, and I almost didn't get it since it would still be there months later, but the Cibelle was down to the last copy. I have her first album Cibelle, and somehow I heard a song I'd never heard on a radio somewhere and recognized her voice (She's on the Suba record too). Anyway, how was I supposed to go another day wondering about that title. The Shine of Dried Electric Leaves. The news is not all good, however. I can't sit the whole way through Dried Electric Leaves yet. I don't want to play it for anyone else. It doesn't do what I need a CD to do - which is entertain me while I do something else - usually sit in my office with my coworkers. This is hardly rare in my collection, the unacceptable disc for shared boombox play. That's when I start burning mixes. But of course, there is another use for music. And, I'm never this conflicted about a CD. The excellent songs are too emotional for me to play at work. They unmask me, and I hardly want that in my workday. Some woman from a different hemisphere has figured out how to break my heart. And I was just minding my own business listening to the stereo.

• Kaki King ...Until We Felt Red
• Kaki King Legs To Make Us Longer

I must be in some strange kind of mood, because here in this stack I have another example of a guitar player who probably couldn't affect me more without beating me over the head with her guitar. I heard Legs in the store one time visiting my girlfriend. I remember liking it, but I wasn't paying that much attention. Later on I was up late, switched on David Letterman and caught her banging out "Playing With Pink Noise". I got the impression it was all going to be crazy fretboard hammering. It wasn't. But it is a lot of skilled guitar playing. I don't like to play it with other people in the room, and it doesn't entertain. It is music to be performed in a concert hall, with programs and and intermission. I feel like I should be dressed up just to listen to it. The second to last track Magazine is a sickenigly good odyssey that wears me out just listening, and when it's over My Insect Life begins like she causes the sun to rise in the morning. Am I too sensitive about these things? Do I allow the music to have its way with me? She sings for the first time on the whole record with a breathy half-humming. After the exhasution of following the dense fingerwork, these simple guitar lines speak with a clear voice all their own. A similar thing happens to me at the end of Brian Eno's "Taking Tiger Moutain", evoking climbers reaching a windy mountain peak.

Horrible Things I Do To Instruments...

This is new. Expect more soon. It will all be broken down into smaller chunks, and take advantage of the filesystem hierarchy.

last updated 1 year ago #