mischung.net feed

The nonapologetic list vol. 2010

2010-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

Aware of the fact, that this blog is thus becoming an annual dump of my impressions of the last year’s music, I am doing it all over you all over again (if you catch my knowledgeable 70’s prog-rock reference). This time my list contains even less entries than the last one and would be of little use for the avid listener, who’d already checked them out.

Frankly, though, I’ve been almost exclusively listening to Wilco.

That’s all right, isn’t it? What matters more is the music of the past. One year is barely sufficient to judge a record. You have to let it grow on you, listen to nights and days, letting yourself to it in times of uncertainty or loneliness. Otherwise it would be only a matter of dull hype.

Here are the albums I’d probably treasure for months to come.

“I Speak Because I Can” by Laura Marling. I like Laura. The way I am almost blushing while listening to her on this album.
“Lisbon” by the Walkmen. My pick of the year.
“S.t.” by Pascal Pinon. This comes from Iceland, which, as you might imagine, is pretty melancholic. But it has this feature, which often gets lost in production: it is intimate, human. Could have been by my pick if it wasn’t the Walkmen. Even bolachas loves Pascal Pinon! Highly recommended.
“Islands” by the Townhouses. This encompasses everything I love about electronic music: it is intricate, mesmerising, crafty.
“Forgiveness Rock Record” by Broken Social Scene. Legendary!
“Talk about Love” by Belle and Sebastian. Call me emo, I love B&S so much, I would never leave them out. Besides that the album is not bad at all.

The ones that didn’t quite make it: The National and Arcade Fire.

Besides listening to Wilco I’ve been reading a lot—or—more than I ever did previously. I remember, that Salinger’s death made me aware that there was a world I was missing. Reading started an incessant chatter in my head, made me a bit more restless and anxious. Among other things it made me quit meditation somewhere early this year.

In another respect it’s been a great year. I’ve seen Wilco and Arcade Fire live and spent one of my best days on this Earth around those events. I have a job, which pays my rent—i.e. is fairly insufficient—but rather fulfilling. I have friends, who care about me and whom I love. May I never put them down or wish them ill!

Happy new year!

2009 in music

2009-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

I haven’t listened to as much music as I have in the previous year. 2009 has been fairly silent and hopeful for me, except at its ending. As I am looking forward now, there is more anxiety than cheer toward what’s to come.

Here is a list of the albums I’ve always enjoyed indulging in when silence wasn’t bearable. In no particular order or pretension for completeness or representativeness:

Sigh no More, Mumford and Sons. I am no big fan of banjo or dobro, or whatever. Other passions I simply cannot ignore.
Veckatimest, Grizzly Bear. Everyone likes this album. In fact, it’s very hard not to like it.
Tight Knit, Vetiver.
God Help the Girl, God Help the Girl.
The Beat of the Travel, Jens Carelius. If I had to pick one album for this year, this would be it. Jens is absurdly fantastic!
Vol III, Birch Book. Sadness which makes you kinda high.
The Sleeper, The Leisure Society. From start to finish, this album is love.
Other Lives, Other Times.

Happy new year everyone! May you always have the courage and determination to face what’s to come.

Bold Sketches

2009-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

“Bold sketches” is a title I didn’t really anticipate for this post. It came by itself, driven unconsciously rather than being thought up. Not surprisingly it suits my ideas about an introductory text well enough. I noticed that writing really starts in the ambience of the mind where thoughts interact in strange and illogical manner. It is more like observing and listening that interaction rather than taking part in it. I’ll leave it that way.

One little drawback of this letting-it-grow approach is that it’s slow. And before losing my whole day staring at the editor and daydreaming, let me tell you about what happened to this place and how I wish it’s going to develop. Let me justify the title.

About two years ago I started a site without a clear idea what I should put in it. Either there weren’t exciting things to write about or I didn’t find it so exciting to write about them online. So the blog naturally entered into a hiatus and never became something worthwhile. In the meantime there were some unpleasant things going on in my life, none of which I handled skilfully. Fortunately I managed to find my way through them and even willingness to look forward. That’s why I restarted my online endeavour—this time with some clear directions how to shape it.

I’m in my fifth semester at the university right now and I have a lot to catch up with. Learning is taking a very large part of my time and though I find it fulfilling and interesting, there are other things I’d like to work upon. And I cannot wait till the end of the course of studies to attend to them. One of these things is programming. I would like to turn programming into a serious hobby and—well, why not—even into a profession later on.

Part of the plan is to make my environment an opportunity to learn by simplifying it and stripping it to the bare essentials. I’ve ditched the dynamic CMS Textpattern in favour Jekyll, which generates static pages and lets me track the contents via version control. Instead of relying on preset hosting solutions, I’ve set up the whole server stack manually onto a bare OS. Instead of signing up for the latest (social) web app, I’d integrate it in my own environment and tailor it to my needs. This approach opens up a lot of small problems to be tackled by programming – from setting up the backup scripts to automating deployment – which make them an ideal opportunity for practice.

The second part is what I’m trying to address with this web space. It would be very nice and beneficial if I could find someone to code along with. So if you get excited about an idea and would like to join me or infuriated about a deadly programming sin I’ve committed (no pun intended) I’d be very happy to hear from you. All my projects will be hosted here.

The time resource that is available for all this learning effort is minimal. So everything that would result from it would be nothing more than bold and very rough sketches. I hope someone would find them useful and engaging.

If not, here are the other recommendations: