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.

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

hopefully owen's vol. 2 will follow shortly.

anyway, turn them headphones up!

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.

:(

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

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

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.

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?

is anything more russian than russians?

fun movie

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...

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.

... 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).

Labels: concerts, the knife

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!

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)

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!