Published by James March 2nd, 2007
in Random.
It can be said with great certainty that I am a man full of excuses, especially since the birth of my daughter, and my posting here has been particularly slack-assed. So what have I been up to? What am I listening to? Short answer: a pile of new stuff. The only problem is that I am wicked unfocused, more than normal that is, and all this music is sort of floating about my head like a fog, ephemeral and indistinct.
Now, maybe the problem is that these ten albums are all over the place from the quirky progressive stylings of Deerhoof to the grind of After The Burial and everything in between from the sparse House tracks of Bodycode and the trance inducing song cycles of Etran Finatawa. Who knows.
Anyway, while I continue to nosh on these albums for the weekend I’m hoping to get my head back in the game and knock out a couple of reviews before I am completely buried. So apologies all around for my absence and hopefully your heart remains fond of us here at Candied Pop.
Published by Scott August 25th, 2006
in Meta-Chatter.
I’ve begun sifting through my mp3 player, culling my favorite tracks from albums and jettisoning the rest. That probably sounds like the obvious thing to do but I must admit to being somewhat of an album freak. I usually have to hear a work in its entirety so that I can appreciate the artist’s statement as a whole and listen to each song in context. Or something like that.
Lately I’ve come to the realization that I have an obscene amount of music and only twenty-four hours in a day, a significant portion of which is spent working and sleeping. I pick up a few albums each week and there is so much that only gets a cursory listen before being cast aside in favor of the next one. I’ve decided I need to pare down to select tracks so that I can enjoy a greater quantity and variety of the choice stuff I really want to hear.
Of course there are some albums that are stellar from start to finish, so I can have my cake and eat it too in those instances. I’ve left myself an out in case I fall off the wagon. So far Slanted and Enchanted, Marquee Moon, and The Modern Lovers have made the cut in their entirety. Most albums are chopped down to one to three tracks though.
My ultimate goal, the Holy Grail of this effort, is to cram my 30 GB player full of just my personal favorites so that I can press random- that’s right! I said it- and leave it all to very controlled chance. I just can’t bring myself to do it until I finish the weed out because I’m fairly certain that the first hundred or so songs would turn out to be of the ponderous ten minute quiet-builds-to-a-roar post-rock variety. And that wouldn’t be much fun.
Okay, so maybe you can bump the descriptor from that phrase, “album freak.”
Published by James June 30th, 2006
in Random.
I’m not a man that purchases singles, whole albums are what captivate me. To hear an artist’s vision across an hour or so is to be transported for a moment into their world, which is something singles, 12″, and EPs often cannot do. However, when it comes to listening I prefer to toss all those tracks in the air and hear them as they flutter back down.
The beauty of random play is just that: it’s random. All sorts of serendipitous connections are made between what might otherwise be construed as disparate pieces of music. Can a Bach Cantata really flow into an Ellington Ballad to only shift course into a Cumbia number? Only random listening will tell you (for the record it does and amazingly at that). Music becomes a joyous process of rediscovery as artists and songs take on new meaning through different associations and contexts.
The unfamiliar can drive some to distraction. My wife in fact hates random playback as she finds comfort in the anticipation of what song follows; music is linear and therefore should be heard in an obviously sequential manner. Order rules her listening habits. Throw caution to the wind, I say. Two-Step Garage numbers should be allowed to precede Swing, and by all means Post-Rock can follow an flowing organic Ambient piece. Live your life a little less certain and you could be surprised by what you find.
