tunequest

This year's end summary is going to be a little shorter than in the past, for two principle reasons: 1) 2008 was a lot busier for me than recent years, so my opportunities to explore and listen to new music were more limited, and B) I spent a lot of the free time I did have listening to audiobooks and podcasts rather than music. Indeed, 2008 saw only 510 ...

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From the single Jenny Ondioline (1993). Also appears on the Oscillons from the Anti-Sun box set (2005). For nearly a decade now, Stereolab has been a consistent "A list" band in my library, but I've, more of than not, been more disposed toward the groop's laid-back, lounge-infused work. The band's early, fuzz-laden krautrock-inspired recordings generally don't strike me as much (though I do enjoy krautrock as a rule). While ...

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When I began the original tunequest in February of last year, I had ~6000 songs in my iTunes library that had a play count of zero. Part of that list consisted of old CDs that just hadn't been played since they were digitized. A good number of them were the result of over-zealous music collection and exploration. That was one of the reasons I decided to undertake the endeavor ...

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While it is a song with an incomprehensible name Puncture In The Radar Permutation from an album with an incomprehensible name Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night, here's the song that got me hooked on Stereolab. It's a song with several movements, beginning with a haunting tension that mounts to a climax around 2:20. Then it totally breaks down and melts that tension with super-smooth ...

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Sound-dust was Stereolab's first release since Cobra and Phases... the record that really exposed me to their music. It came out as I was slowly digesting the groop's extensive back catalog. The previous records had built expectations and I was trepidatious toward the possibility that it might not meet them. I was a fan, but I just didn't know what to expect. On the first couple listens I found it wasn't ...

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Ping Pong is an unusually uptempo, rockin' song from Stereolab's mars audiac quintet. It's one of my favorites from the groop and the increase in tempo gives its lyrics a stronger visceral impact. Though released in 1994, the lyrics show a degree of timelessness, given the current geo-political situation. it's alright 'cos the historical pattern has shown how the economical cycle tends to revolve. in a round of decades three stages ...

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stats: 262 songs played for 19 hours and 22 minutes of listening time. 6 songs were added this week (new tracks from stereolab's fab four suture) and a whopping 81 songs were removed from the library, for a net progress of 337 songs, which is excellent progress indeed. the graphs have been updated for the week, and for the first time, the projections actually seem to suggest ...

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Here are some quickies; enjoy:Spiritualized, some drifty, hazy, drugged-out psychedelia. Lots of fuzz. The Aluminum Tunes album is nothing special, but anything by stereolab is worth listening to. I didn't know anything about this heat other than I enjoyed their album Deceit until I checked out the wikipedia, which pretty much reflects the album. Based on their sound, I would have pegged them as German, except for the lyrics to Independence, ...

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wow. a whirlwind of music the past couple days. i guess that's what happens when impending deadlines force you to stay at the office into the wee hours of the evening. who says publishing isn't a rewarding field? some great music this time around: alan silvestri [back to the future ii] christopher franke [babylon 5: the ragged edge] string theory [anhedonia] ...

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