It's mostly been a week of irritations, highlighted by a spectacularly pointless meeting on Friday in which I had to endure someone claiming a) that an organization with less than 25% of its members participating (and probably a smaller percentage of its members voicing their opinions and voting) is an example of a democratic organization and b) that charging dues is, in and of itself, a threat to a democratic organization. Sadly, those were not the most ludicrous statements made in that meeting. It would be comical, but these are supposed to be intelligent people, so it's just sad instead. Had I any political ambitions (I don't), they would have died a slow and painful death in that conference room on Friday afternoon. More uplifting was receiving word that a panel I'd submitted with some colleagues to the Louisville Conference has been accepted. I got that email at the start of the week. Would that I could have switched Friday with Monday this week.
I'm starting to whittle down my list of albums of 2011. Initially I'd thought that this year would have less of an obvious pick at the top of the heap compared to last year. Nothing seemed quite as earthshaking as Flying Lotus' Cosmogramma. However, it turns out that there have actually been several such albums this year, they've just been more subtle about it. In fact, the problem now is distinguishing between a good album and a very good album. 2011 has been a surprisingly top heavy year: the albums that are good are very, very good, but there are a lot that seem pleasant and enjoyable now but that I can't see myself listening to next year (some of them haven't even managed to make it to the end of the 2011 without sounding a little tired to my ears). A few might yet have a resurgence, but, by and large, the best before date on some of what I thought were my favourite albums of the year turned out to be much sooner than anticipated.
The other surprising thing for me has been the dominance of electronic albums in my preliminary lists. I'm by no means a rockist (or I at least stopped being one a few years ago), and I can say that there's been a general trend towards more electronic music in my listening over the past five or six years. I can easily see this year's list not containing a single "rock" album per se, though, which would be a first. I can't say that I'm any kind of connoisseur or that I have stellar taste--I've poked around a little bit on YouTube to listen to the "brostep" that Reynolds talks about here, here, and here: it sounds largely anonymous to me, like everything I tuned out every time I tried to get into electronic music earlier in life; certainly I don't quite understand the cause for celebration of one (often irritating) feature of the music, though this post is an enlightening read--but I'm definitely on board with the things I like.
Speaking of things I like, this is an old favourite (and I'm surprised I got into this as early as I did--I think that I mostly assumed it was of a piece with "Djed" and accepted it on those terms) that I've been listening to on repeat lately (in between a lot of Tim Hecker--I've got a post on him that I'm trying to finish up) as I read and write. Talk about holographic music! It sounds like a malfunctioning computer's idea of music for a tropical vacation.
Oval - "Do While" (1/3) - off 94 Diskont (1995)
Oval - "Do While" (2/3) - off 94 Diskont (1995)
Oval - "Do While" (3/3) - off 94 Diskont (1995)
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