Tttttt

• White Fir - Lake Seeds Vol. 2: An Afternoon In the Hair of the Earth - like strings and field recordings found in a small wooden box buried under a tree.
• The Smashing Pumpkins - Adore - turns out I really like a Smashing Pumpkins album? before this I had only heard Siamese Dream and a handful of their other singles and sort of assumed that their stuff was mostly just 90s meathead rock that gradually accumulated layers of hubris as they went on. and that I hated most of it. this is totally different from what I expected, way darker and more subdued. I still hate Billy Corgan’s voice most of the time (and I still think he’s a stupid weirdo) but I’m really surprised at how much I’ve been enjoying this and wanting to listen to it again.
• Grimes - Visions - not sure yet if anything really matches “Oblivion” and “Genesis” but yeah this is great, as expected.
• Donovan Quinn - Honky Tonk Medusa - Your Wicked Man took a while to settle in and reveal how great it was, and I’m expecting this new one will be the same, though it sounds pretty great already apart from some weird/unbalanced mixing in the first few tracks. looking forward to holing up and spending more time with this once it gets colder.
• Carlo Gesualdo - Madrigaux a 5 voix (Les Arts Florissants) - not going to pretend to be knowledgeable on this stuff, but this is a super impressive recording of some really dark, fascinating, and gorgeous renaissance music. the ensemble manages to make all of gesualdo’s weird chromatic shifts and twists sound completely natural, letting the listener focus on how beautiful and complex the music itself is instead of how difficult it must be to perform.

special pre-recorded 2-hour best of 2011 show! playlist:

1. Bill Callahan - Drover
2. Big Troubles - Softer Than Science
3. Kurt Vile - Peeping Tomboy
4. Stranded Horse - Fields
5. Laura Arkana met Peter Broderick - Huilen
6. Red Sled Choir - Piles
7. Talons’ - Old Kayak
8. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy - New Whaling
9. Timber Timbre - Do I Have Power
10. Julian Lynch - Back
11. Peaking Lights - Hey Sparrow
12. Sandro Perri - How Will I?
13. Ford & Lopatin - Too Much MIDI (Please Forgive Me)
14. Holy Other - Know Where
15. Grimes - Vanessa
16. Inc. - Heart Crimes
17. Sleep ∞ Over - Casual Diamond
18. Sean McCann - It’s Alright
19. Sepalcure - Fleur
20. Andy Stott - Execution
21. The Field - Then It’s White
22. Balam Acab - Oh, Why
23. Tim Hecker - In the Air: I-III
24. Lee Noble - Cop Show