Some Things We’ve Enjoyed This Year…
20 December 06
4AD
Word into Art – Artists of the Modern Middle East exhibition at the British Museum in London ( JA )
Ryoji Ikeda @ Sonar, Barcelona and The Duddon Valley in Cumbria ( EH )
Simien Mountain National Park. Northern Ethiopia ( CS )
John Darnielle ( The Mountain Goats )
Metallic Falcons, Desert Doughnuts (Voodoo Eros)
Ralph Towner, Time Lines (ECM)
David Byrne and Brian Eno, My Life In the Bush of Ghosts (reissue,)
Kaito, Hundred Million Light Years (Kompakt)
Om, Conference of the Birds (Holy Mountain)
Kaki King, ...Until We Felt Red
Keith Jarrett, The Carnegie Hall Concert
non-new things that helped a lot:
Burning Spear, Marcus Garvey
Joni Mitchell, Night Ride Home
Bach, St. Matthew Passion, Gabrieli Players dir. Paul McCreesh (Deutsche Gramophon)
Franz Lizst, various
and as always, the Anonymous 4
supplementary materials:
Yogi Tea's "Cocoa Spice" tea
visit to Farm Sanctuary [http://www.farmsanctuary.org] during fall tour
Derrick Bostrom's blog
Scharpling & Wurster discs
Rickshaw Recycle notebooks (made from raddi - Hindi for "recyclable waste": the pages are cut from discarded textbooks, magazines, and other visually interesting discarded paper)
David Edwards ( Minotaur Shock )
Watching A Hawk and A Hacksaw and Sunburned Hand of The Man play at Seymours Family Club in Bristol. The music was great, but the venue was better. A local social club, perfect for hosting children's parties and other such celebratory events. Cheap drinks, very old, bemused bar staff and lots of balloons and banners still stuck to the walls. Sadly, it's closing down soon. Oh yeah, and getting hold of a very nice turntable for £15 from a junk shop in Bedminster and being able to play vinyl for the first time in a long long while.
Johann Johannsson
A few highlights of the year:
Discovering the music of Baby Dee.
Watching Werner Herzog's "Lessons of Darkness"
Re-discovering Carl Dreyer's "Day of Wrath"
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Kazu Makino ( Blonde Redhead )
The first thing that came to my mind about 2006 is a superstar race horse who retired this year called 'Haru Urara'. She somehow managed to draw public attention because she was always the last. Many famous jockeys challenged and tried to make her win but all failed. Some record breaking attendance just to see her lose. She finally retired this year after losing 131 races consecutively. People identified with her as the ‘loser that keeps running'.
Oh, one more thing, she always wore 'hello kitty' mask when she raced Isn't that something ?
Emma Pollock
Kate Bush's " Ariel "
Midlake's "The Trials Of Van Occupanther"
Simon Singh's book " Big Bang "
Louise Welsh''s book " The Cutting Room "
Eating steak at the Kendal Arts Centre on the last night of the Phrased & Confused tour.
M. Ward
My favorite record of 2006 was made by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs - I like the way
he plays guitar and I like the way she sings and I like how
they don't have/need a bass player - I got a chance to see them in concert
for the first time here in Portland this summer and I thought the show
was just as good as the record - maybe better I dont know.
Ivo Watts Russell ( The Hope Blister )
Paper sleeves.
V23
Vaughan
Continued enjoyment of Football with the Wandle Wanderers aka Littlebeggars.
4AD introducing me to M. Ward
Working with Scott Walker
Shinro Ohtake's retrospective at MOMA in Tokyo. All three floors – unprecedented.
Cooking spiced lentils w/ Cod.
Chris
TVOTR @ Koko in London
Working with Johann Johannsson
The Burial album on the Hyperdub label
Scott Walker
Of the things I've heard I can recommend two outstanding releases ...
TV On The Radio's Return To Cookie Mountain and Acoustic Ladyland's Skinny Grin - even though I mixed a track on that one, I promise I'm not being biased.
The book this year would be Philip Roth's Everyman ; The film would be Volver Almodovar.
Penelope Cruz is sublime.
Joel Byrne ( Wolf and Cub )
Been listening to Wilco actually, “A Ghost Is Born" which is great ; really krauty.
Also I got turned on to some more psych stuff : Hawklords, Helius Creed, Gentle Giant
Lots of Hawkind - mostly “ Space Ritual “.
Can't seem to get enough T-Rex either.