Stuff I've Been Spinning / The Hope of Being Spun

I've been trying to get out of my Arcade Fire/Bjork/Owen Pallett/Sufjan Stevens loop that tends to take up 2/3 of my listening time. I've been listening to a conveniently (or mostly) alphabetical set of albums:

Venetian Snares - Rossz Csillag Alatt Született

Kaki King - ...Until We Felt Red

Incredible String Band - 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion

Basia Bulat - Heart of My Own

Beach House - Teen Dream

Bela Fleck - Flight of the Cosmic Hippo

The Venetian Snares is positively religious, I got addicted to Gloomy Sunday from the cover of the Billie Holiday cover. I'd listened to the Kaki King before and was unimpressed, but it's become a much more emotionally intense experience. She knows how to craft a compelling emotional arc, even if her musicanship can be kind of boring. "You Don't Have to Be Afraid" is one of the more beautiful things the last decade saw, I think. Incredible String Band is a new favorite: musically loose, yeah, and not always deliberate, sure, but very spirited, narratively fun, and if you're able to wade through the mess of twanging: well-thought and well-imagined music. The Basia Bulat seems to be blah generic folk...reminded me of Goldfrapp's 7th Tree, but it deserves another listen. Same with the Beach House, which had a lot of interesting licks...it's probably more headphone music. But oh god, Bela Fleck. So worldly. So 80s.

I had one of those "7 hours of recording and mixing - > 150 seconds of music" moments with the Akron/Family contest: cover this song and we'll try to find a gig in your area. It sounds ok, and the two people who I know listened to it have given me positive reviews. Vocals (badly recorded; not the proper mic, and too far from the mic), flute and clarinet doubling vocals, drums and melodic bass, piano (could stand out more), and backup winds (two ocarinas and a recorder; say it with me: awww!). Now that I realize we have 2, count them 2, micraphones, I'm thinking of rerecording my piano with more...deliberate (read: loud) recording. My only two songs that actually exist are my Song for Kevin and Song for Rachel, the rest are idle musings which could be turn into songs. There's also a medley of my own stuff that I want to do with accompaniment...and shitloads of covers. Lots to do! I've especially been digging into my Beethoven and working on a new Owen Pallett cover from Matt Winkelworth the genius transcriber. Flare Gun!

And stuff!