Until last Saturday, Stereolab existed in my mind as not much more than a series of symbols. I’d for whatever reason never taken the steps to seek out what the group actually looked like, and was content with whatever imagery came to mind while listening—typically something along the lines of a group of Marxist scientists [...]

I’m not totally positive what the “Fab Four” refers to, but when paired with “Suture”, all I get is “Strawberry Fields”, “A Day in the Life”, sliced-up tape reels and George Martin piecing them together. And the ingenuity it takes to wrench from your surroundings (analog tape and 4-Track recording) two masterpieces—one made from layer [...]

Here are the last two:

marathonpacks year-end mix, vol. 3 (128k mp3, 68.4MB) (expired)
1. Black & White Town–Doves
2. A Little Bit More–Jamie Lidell
3. Gone (f. Cam’ron & Consequence)–Kanye West
4. Trouble With Dreams–Eels
5. All We Are–Fischerspooner
6. Gideon–My Morning Jacket
7. Like A Honeycomb–British Sea Power
8. There Goes the Sun–The Pernice Brothers
9. I Was A Teenage Rainphase–Stereolab
10. So Begins [...]

For this week’s podcast, I’ve decided on an (ahem) gynocentric tone. This one’s for the ladies. These songs, to a degree, represent the breadth and depth of the female representation in all forms of music today, minus (egregiously) the hip-hops. I just got on a roll with this mix and couldn’t find a place for [...]

I should be upgrading the site in a day or so, thus I’ve decided to try my hand at podcasting. No RSS feeds or anything (yet), just a radio mix this time of some of the best and most recent from this year–a lot of stuff I’ve already hosted here, and a good chunk of [...]

(This is the first installment of my top 50 albums of the 1990s, and will continue on a daily basis through the revelation of number one on Thursday.)
I was 13 in 1990, and 22 in 1999. This list represents, to a large degree, the span of the maturation of my popular musical development. I really, [...]

I’m posting this list in the interest of providing visitors an idea of what I’d consider my “canon”–for the last five years, at least. Any music aficionado would agree that a list like this actually goes together pretty quickly, by sorting one’s iTunes by year and taking a glance at the CD rack. My main [...]

At the halfway point (or a little after), I thought I’d issue my halftime top ten (then I saw the stalwart largeheartedboy’s own version–I swear I had this almost done last week). Anyhoo, here goes:

Spoon Gimme Fiction–A remarkable work from the most iconoclastic songwriter around today. A longer piece on this album will come [...]