Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?”
So she was considering, in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her. -A fragment from Alice In Wonderland.

1. Tune-Yards – Little Tiger
   Bird -Brains (Marriage Records, 2009)
2. Emily Neveu – My Cosmonaut Edit
   I Wonder If the Children Know (Lefse Recors, 2009)
3. Holly Miranda-Waves
   Waves (XL, 2009)
4. Super Furry Animals - Zoom!
   Love Kraft (Beggars Banquet, 2005)
5. Cornelius- The Micro Disneycal World Tour
   Fantasma (Matador, 1997)
6. Birds & Rarities – I’ll Never Sleep Again
   I’ll Never Sleep Again (Self Release, 2008)
7. Broadcast & The Focus Group-The Be Colony
   Broadcast & The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age (Warp, 2009)

This playlist is called “Waiting For Santa”. Music for children and gnomes…made by both :-)
Photo: Andross

Since you asked for it, Matt, a bit of history: The year 1621 brought us not only the first Thanksgiving, but the first Thanksgiving Day football game.

Naturally, it was the Pilgrims vs. the Indians. The Indians, not wanting to be politically incorrect, wore a picture of a Native American on their helmets. By helmet, I mean a decorative maple leaf, which covers the loins.

Records show that they used a thirty-five-pound turkey as a football. It is hard to throw a spiral with a thirty-five-pound turkey, and darn near impossible to kick one through the uprights, so the ground game was key. And the Indians, running silently in their moccasins so as not to be detected by the defense, racked up touchdown after touchdown, although their dancing in the end zone was seen as bad sportsmanship. The Pilgrims were encouraged by lone cheerleader Hester Prynne, who shouted from the sidelines, “Gimme an ‘A’!” … – Turkeyball.

” Love and Desire in a small Room ”

01. Bach - Concerto No. 2 in E major II. Adagio
Bach: The Concerto Album. Lara St. John (Ancalagon, 2002)
02. Medeski Martin & Wood – Buster Rides Again
Tonic (Blue Note Records, 2000)
03. The Kinks - Set Me Free
The Ultimate Collection (Red X, 2002)
04. Muddy Waters – I’ve Got My Mojo Working
At Newport (1960)
05. The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Wait Until Tomorrow
Axis: Bold As Love (1967)
06. Antony and Johnson – you are my sister
I Am a Bird Now (Secretly Canadian, 2005)
07. Jega - The Girl Who Fell To Earth
Variance (Planet Mu, 2009)
08. Jose James – Desire
The Dreamer (Brownswood, 2008)
09. Quantic - The 5th Exotic
5th Exotic (Tru Thoughts, 2001)
10. Steve Reid Ensemble – Welcome
Daxaar (Domino, 2008)

note: I hope everyone has a nice thanksgiving day. I don’t have my hardrive with me, so this is whatever I can wip up from my little SD card that is on my laptop. Sort of little thanksgiving feast, almost random combination of crazy holiday meal that you always suspect your gramm makes the whole thing up just so she can show off her cooking skill. So here is brightly color songs in minor keys, something about boy chasing girl, fall in love, breaks his heart, becoming a little wiser and falling in love again, and live happily ever after. All in a single thanksgiving afternoon. Enjoy.

image: amayu

“Matter thus offers an infinitely porous, spongy, or cavernous texture without emptiness, caverns endlessly contained contained in other caverns: no matter how small, each body contains a world of pierced with irregular passages, surrounded and penetrated by an increasingly vaporous fluid, the totality of the universe resembling a pond of matter in which there exist different flows and waves.” Gilles Deleuze, The Fold, (English translation) 1993

1. Make me Stronger – Bei Bei & Shawn Lee feat. Georgia Anne Muldrow (Floating points remix) (Ubiquity, 2009)

2. Fallin’ Down – Julian Dyne feat. Parks (‘Pins & Digits’ LP 2009)

3. Lover’s Carvings- Bibio (Leatherette remix) (‘Apple & the Tooth’, 2009)

4. Nereci – Djavan (‘Djavan’, 1978)

5. Say what? – Aphrodesia (2009)

6. Poye – Issa Bagayogo (2009)

Things are picking up down here in Melbourne. Holidays for students like me, summer, nights walking barefoot in the middle of the road, and similar future nostalgia fodder. Whilst I do like the warmer weather, I’m equally exited to be going to the red bull music academy this coming feb in cold London. The list is a handful of excellent records that I’ve been playing lately – afrobeat, beats, ‘exotic’ percussion, etc.

Pic: If you are thinking that the puppy is cute, keep in mind that it stole one of my thongs and gnawed it to pieces whilst I was in a temple in India.

Photo: Leighton Roberts

Subo hacia el segundo piso y me doy cuenta de que la tiniebla está untada a las paredes, carne de los muros, como si éstas fueran ella misma y yo pudiera transponerlo, como se horada la neblina y, de esa forma, atravesar todos los edificios del Centro, mirando sus vergüenzas y sus orgullos, sus amores y sus melancolias, sus crimenes y sus nacimientos. Necesidad imperiosa de que la tiniebla anciana explique, diga, cuenta cada historia, que resuenen en este silencio los estallidos y las voces poderosas, que se escuche el llanto de una mujer, las canciones de una serenata, la agonia de los viejos. Entonces comprendo que la principal vocación de primera tiniebla es la sugerencia.

-Guillermo Samperio, Algo sobre las tinieblas.

1. La Barranca – Como una sombra
   Tempestad (Fonarte, 1997)
2. The Besnard Lakes – And You Lied To Me
   The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse (Jagjaguwar, 2007)
3. Beirut - La Llorona
   The March Of The Zapotec / Real People Holland   (Pompeii, 2009)
4. Steven Wilson- Harmony Korine
   Insurgentes (Kscope, 2008)
5. Young Galaxy – Lazy Religion
   Young Galaxy (Arts & Craft, 2007)
6. Priestbird – Mandog
   In Your Time (Kemado, 2007)
7. UNKLE – Chemistry
   War Stories (2007)
8. Efterklang And The Danish National Chamber Orchestra – Cutting Ice To Snow
   Perfoming Parades (The Leaf Level, 2009)

The selection contains music from La Barranca (one of my favorite bands from Mexico; Tempestad is a great album, and its artwork is simply: amazing), Priestbird (recently discovered),  Beirut (Dear reader, Mexico is more than Mariachi), Steven Wilson (yes, the member of Porcupine Tree; Insurgentes is one of the best albums of the decade), Young Galaxy and The Besnard Lakes from Canada, UNKLE providing a pounding rock scorcher and finally, the soft and delicate sounds of Efterklang + The Danish Orchestra to end it all in a light note.
The Martians (have kidnapped me) and I say: Enjoy.

The presence of extra structure relates these types of groups with other mathematical disciplines and means that more tools are available in their study. Topological groups form a natural domain for abstract harmonic analysis, whereas Lie groups (frequently realized as transformation groups) are the mainstays of differential geometry and unitary representation theory. Certain classification questions that cannot be solved in general can be approached and resolved for special subclasses of groups. Thus, compact connected Lie groups have been completely classified. – Group theory.

” The Road Of Golden Dust ”

01. ESPERS - The Road Of Golden Dust
III (Drag City, 2009)
02. Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions – Sets The Blaze
Through The Devil Softly (Nettwerk Records, 2009)
03. Sufjan Stevens – Movement II: Sleeping Invader
The BQE (Asthmatic Kitty, 2009)
04. Grizzly Bear and Feist – Service Bell
Dark Was The Night (2009)
05. Air – Night Hunter
Love 2 (2009)
06. Walter Meego – Wanna Be A Star
Voyager (Almost Gold, 2008)

Note: a list for internal purpose. I am trying to find different psychological construct from what MdM is normally doing. Usually the process is finding obvious musical connection to give strong coherency then staple a theme onto it. It’s been very fruitful technique but in a way, it’s also gotten a bit mundane. The usual result certainly can strongly emote, but it is static. So I am trying to create a series dedicated to explore aspects beyond the usual method to put list together (relationship between rhythm, melody, mode, etc). I don’t know what yet, this could be a simple directionless exploration. The list above certainly has that feels, compared to other lists it feels different. There is that “something different, but not sure what.” feel. I cheated and put in slower tempo and comfy key progression, but I don’t think it’s a simple random collection of pretty songs. Basically, the softer tone is intentional to help me find out if there is something more to the usual method. Something to do I suppose. Hey, with the way things are going this could end in MdM only needing to do single post for entire next decade that one can play over and over. We are hopelessly lazy, but at least we are trying to do in style. (haa haa, cough cough.)

The music. Espers is from standard mdm psychdelia palette. The latest album by Hope Sandoval, An art album by Sufjan Steven, and a big collective song album containing favorite indie rock artists “Dark Was The Night”. All worth exploring. Walter Meego is a crazy little disco rock album. They are all highly recommended albums. So if this project fails, at the very least we end up knowing bunch of good albums.

image: Ed Yourdon