MEGA FEELING

now, don’t go imagining that the relative enormousness of the following contradicts remarks here previous about lean times and thin gruel (confirmed by almost everyone I speak to these days, which is both reassuring and disheartening), no it's simply that it's been about five months since I last did one of these, and as you can imagine an awful lot of so-so’s been sifted to produce this relatively bumper-seeming harvest

(I was asked recently to participate in some kind of interweb project that was purportedly set to create some kind of "revolutionary" net community, the gist of it being that you’d install some program in your computer and you wouldn’t need to do anything, it would just automatically pass on information about what you were listening to so everyone would know what everyone else was digging, knowledge would be pooled, buzz and subcultcapital accrued, mainstream media channels bypassed, and utopia brought that little bit nearer. BUT apart from the fact that it reminded me a tiny bit of the "spy in the cab" (you remember, truck drivers having their work rate clocked, now totally common in the work places, but back then, controversial), and apart from being vaguely ideologically opposed on some gut-level to this sort of web-utopian connectivity talk, and apart from the fact since it wouldn’t monitor my vinyl listening it would hardly reflect my listening, apart from all that, the main flaw for me was that of necessity the greater part of my daytime, in-front-of-computer listening is stuff I don’t like--sounds crazy i know, but think about it, the job entails shoving in promo after promo, the bulk of which are only ever going to provoke tepid responses. So this system would not in fact give any indictation what I liked or thought was good. Whereas below you'll find a list of the things that made it through the sieve these last several months and that I do voluntarily listen to--or would, if so much ear-time weren't taken up with the sifting.)

Feeling

Jackson and his Computer Band, Smash (Warp)

Delia Gonzalez and Gavin Russom, The Days of Mars (DFA)

Art Brut, Bang Bang Rock’n’Roll

The No Neck Blues Band , Qvaris (5 Rue Christine)

Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice, XIAO/Buck Dharma/The Flood

Todd Edwards, “Like A Fire” (i Records)

The Kills, No Wow (Rough Trade)

Vocokesh, The Tenth Corner (Strange Attractors)

Kudu, Death of the Party (forthcoming on Nublu)

Rvng Prsnts Mx4 ‘Crazy Rhythms’, mixed by Mike Simonetti & Dan Selzer

Damian Lazarus, Suck My Deck

Avenged Sevenfold, “Bat Country”

Various Artists, The Electric Institute (New Religion)

High Contrast mix cd Fabriclive 25

Dubstep Allstars: Vol 02 mixed by DJ Youngsta (Tempa)

M.A.N.D.Y mix (Get Physical)

DFA Records Holiday Mix 2005

DJ Koze, Kosi Comes Around (Kompakt)

Boards of Canada, The Campfire Headphase (Warp)

AFX, Analord 01 to 11 (except the boring tracks) (Rephlex)

Franz Ferdinand, new album

Animal Collective, Feels (Paw Tracks)

Lady Sovereign, Vertically Challenged EP (Chocolate Industries)

Three Six Mafia, “Stay Fly” (BET)


Really Feeling

Vex’D, Degenerate, (Planet Mu)

Skream, "Midnight Request Line" (Tempa)

Hot Chip, Coming On Strong (Astralwerks)

Franz Ferdinand, “Fade Together”

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, House Arrest (Paw Tracks)

Menstrual Chinese Dream Cdr

Doctor, Bearman, L Man, Purple, “Let It Go (Eye of the Tiger Vol 1)” (True Tiger)

The Advisory Circle, Mind How You Go EP (Ghostbox)


Retro-Feeling

Van Der Graaf Generator, The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other (Caroline/Astralwerks)

as Mercernarias, O Comeco Do Fim Do Mundlo (Soul Jazz) (and live in Sao Paulo)

David Chesworth, 50 Synthesiser Greats (W. Minc)

Eric Random, Subliminal (LTM)

Todd Tamanend Clark, Nova Psychedelia (Anopheles Records)

Maximum Joy, Unlimited (1979-1983) (Crippled Dick Hot Wax)

Ike Yard reissue forthcoming

Delta 5, Singles and Sessions 1979-1981 (kill rock stars)

Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Scream Expanded

The Fire Engines, Codex Teenage Premonition (Domino)

Talking Heads, Box

OHM: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music -- 1948-1980 (3CD box reissue plus all-new DVD)

The CD that comes with The Music Library book (see below)

John Martyn reissue bonanza: Bless The Weather, Inside Out, Sunday’s Child, etc


Retro-Really-Feeling

Van Der Graaf Generator, H to He Who Am The Only One
-- Pawn Hearts

The Stooges, Funhouse Deluxe
-- The Stooges Deluxe Edition

Comus, Song To Comus (Sanctuary)

Robert Wyatt & Friends, Theatre Royal Drury Lane 8th September 1974
(I actually wrote" the best releases of 2005 was recorded 31 years ago", not “one of the best”. Maybe they were right to tone it down. Maybe not.)

Retro-(Unreissued)-Feeling

Andrew Rudin, Tragoedia (Nonesuch)

Morton Subotnik, Touch,

Quintessence, “Notting Hill Gate” (Island)

Shocking Blue, “Love Buzz”

Spooky Tooth, “Lost In My Dream”

Various, NDW Selection (Woebot Productions)

Janet Kay, “Silly Games”

Cool Notes, “My Tune”

Tim Hart and Maddy Prior, ‘Folke Songs of Olde England Volume 1’ especially “Maid That’s Deep In Love”
--- Summer Solstice

Luke Vibert, Nuggets, library music compilation of some years back

Rattlebone and Ploughjack (Island, 1975)
[Ashley Hutching’s Morris Dancing project!]

Monoton (see NDW comp)

Luciano Cilio, Dell’ Univers Assente

Nuno Canavvaro - Plux Qubu
-- Ultramarina

Klaus Schulze, oeuvre (presque, pre-digital) entiere

Tomita, The Planets (RCA Red Seal)

George Harrison, Electronic Sound (Zapple)

Conrad Schnitzler, Con

Non-sonic Feeling

Saint Etienne Presents Finisterre (Plexifilm)

K-Punk, London Under London audio-mentary/radio-docu-derive

Frank Kogan, Real Punks Don’t Wear Black: Music Writing By Frank Kogan (The University of Georgia Press)

Ethan Brown, Queens Reigns Surpreme: Fat Cat, 50 Cent, and The Rise of the Hip Hop Hustler (Anchor)

Marta Petreu, An Infamous Past; EM Cioran and the Rise of Fascism in Romania,
(Ivan R. Dee)

Jan Jagodzinski, Music in Youth Culture: A Lacanian Approach (Palgrave)

ed. Jonny Trunk, The Music Library (Fuel)

I Am Not An Animal

Bodies (except the crap last episode)

Hero Blackcurrant Jam

Ahmed Mixed Pickle in Oil Hyberadi Taste