On the playlist, or the scant moments I’m not hearing my own damn self

When I get productive in my home studio, I usually work in month-long bouts. I’ll work and work and work, then reach a stopping point where I go back to juggling other stuff. But moving into a new apartment where I’ve got an entire room dedicated to the home studio has made it difficult to tear away. It’s hard to post to a music blog when the only thing I’m listening to is … myself.

So here’s a stop-gap entry to give this site the remotest flicker of life. Whenever I post a "One-Sentence Reviews" entry, they inevitably cover what’s on my Winamp playlist. So I’m just going to redub it "On the Playlist". Here’s the stuff I’m actually kind of not listening to at the moment.

  • Anton Webern, Complete Works for String Quartet and String Trio, Artis Quartett Wein For years, I’ve been wanting to explore the conciseness of Webern’s work.
  • Béla Bartók, Complete String Quartets, Vermeer Quartet I usually hate Flash, but very rarely do I find a good use for it.
  • Bonnie Pink, Thinking Out Loud It doesn’t seem to be the mess of Golden Tears, but it doesn’t leave the kind impression as Present or Even So.
  • Cocco, Kira Kira I wasn’t expecting much, but I didn’t think I’d have to lower those expectations.
  • Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová, The Swell Season I think I want to see Once again.
  • Ivri Lider, Ha’anashim Ha’chadashim It’s disorienting to hear Japanese and Yiddish on the same track.
  • John Corigliano, Tournaments Overture / Elegy / Concerto for Piano, Louisville Orchestra I think I’m only exploring the First Edition releases because they have such direct cover art.
  • Levi Kreis, The Gospel According to Levi I am so getting my indie cred card revoked.
  • Smashing Pumpkins, Zeitgeist Kudos to you Billy Corgan — you still annoy me, but I’m going to overlook that because this album r0x!
  • Tokyo Jihen, "OSCA" Sorry, Rufus Wainwright — "Waiting for a Town" would have been my Single of the Year, but it doesn’t have the WTF-ness of "OSCA".
  • Soundtrack, Once Reviewers describe this film as a musical, but I think it’s a series of music video strung together by a storyline — and done really well, too.