Sergei Nikolaevitch, a round little man with a plump, light-complexioned face, gazed first at the master of the house, then raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘I had no first love,’ he said at last; ‘I began with the second.’

‘How was that?’

‘It’s very simple. I was eighteen when I had my first flirtation with a charming young lady, but I courted her just as though it were nothing new to me; just as I courted others later on. To speak accurately, the first and last time I was in love was with my nurse when I was six years old; but that’s in the remote past. The details of our relations have slipped out of my memory, and even if I remembered them, whom could they interest?’

‘Then how’s it to be?’ began the master of the house. ‘There was nothing much of interest about my first love either; I never fell in love with any one till I met Anna Nikolaevna, now my wife,—and everything went as smoothly as possible with us; our parents arranged the match, we were very soon in love with each other, and got married without loss of time. My story can be told in a couple of words. I must confess, gentlemen, in bringing up the subject of first love, I reckoned upon you, I won’t say old, but no longer young, bachelors. Can’t you enliven us with something, Vladimir Petrovitch?’

‘My first love, certainly, was not quite an ordinary one,’ responded, with some reluctance, Vladimir Petrovitch, a man of forty, with black hair turning grey. -The Torrents of Spring.

“ Spring 2010. No.1 ”

01. Federico Aubele - Otra Vez
Amatoria (ESL Music, Inc., 2009)
02. The Clientele - Never Anyone But You
Bonfires on the Heath (Merge Records, 2009)
03. April Smith and the Great Picture Show - Colors
Songs for a Sinking Ship (Little Roscoe, 2010)
04. Devendra Banhart - Some People Ride The Wave
Cripple Crow (2005)
05. Holly Golightly - It’s All Over Now
Up the Empire (Sympathy 4 the R.I., 1998) (Live)

note: Ahh, spring is almost here. The snow is melting and your eyes are scanning the horizon from bedroom window. Your head is full of thousand plans. Drawing them in scrap papers to explore and conquer the backyard hills, and calling friend for secret meetings at the tree house. There will be more paper hats, wooden swords and unlimited supplies of lemonade and candies than last year. The world will be ours. This summer will be the most glorious ever.

image: swisscan

I have a friend in the tire business in Vladivostok. Alexei Gorbunov is 26, bearded, and not much of a dancer, and when we first met in the bar of the M.V. Rus car ferry in the middle of the Sea of Japan, he was drunk out of his mind. He was not alone. The dance floor was filled with gyrating car traders and scrap metal dealers and a troupe from Moscow’s Bolshoi Circus, which was taking the slow boat home after a tour in Japan. There were a few foreigners on board—a Finnish girl running from a boyfriend in Tokyo, a Japanese family about to take the Trans-Siberian Railroad to Germany, a Serbian motorbiker on his way back overland to Belgrade—but the vibe and pounding techno were perfectly Russian. The crowd drank vodka. The acrobats threw backflips. - 6,000 Miles to Moscow

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” East-West. No.1. Lake Baikal. ”

01. Radio Citizen - Dust
Berlin Serengeti (Ubiquity, 2006)
02. Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou - The homeless wanderer
Ethiopiques, Vol. 21: Ethiopia Song (Buda Musique, 2006)
03. Matmos - Memento Mori
A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure (2001)
04. Skalpel - Theme From Behind the Curtain
Skalpel (2004)
05. Radio Citizen - Nightingale
Berlin Serengeti (Ubiquity, 2006)
06. Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou - Ballad of the spirits
Ethiopiques, Vol. 21: Ethiopia Song (Buda Musique, 2006)
07. Quantic & His Combo Bárbaro - Undelivered Letter
Tradition In Transition (Tru Thoughts, 2009)
08. Quantic - Not So Blue
Apricot Morning (Tru Thoughts, 2002)

note: I am in weird mood. One of those late winter/almost spring blues. So this is a complete self indulgence list, the rhythm is a little off, melody is sweet, but in very strange mode, etc. It is based on Maryam Guèbrou work, ethiopian blues. I also tried to do east meet west list. If there is anything, imagine a song for riding highspeed train across the siberian plain at 250kph. It’s so fast, everything floats except distance grand landscape and background chatter. Maybe little drink and friendly conversation with stranger about odd life circumstances and meeting on trans siberian train. The list suppose to be a little futuristic, but ends up very traditional, the melody part is very lovely. I might make another attempt with this theme. Yes I know, rock and punk are completely neglected. but what can i say. anyway njoy.

image: remuz [Jack The Ripper]

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” 2 a.m. Heroin Vapour ”

01. Bohren & Der Club Of Gore - Destroying Angels
Black Earth (Ipecac Recordings, 2002)
02. Charlie Haden & Egberto Gismonti - Silence
In Montreal [Live] (Ecm Records, 2001)
03. Jaco Pastorius - Portrait Of Tracy
Jaco Pastorius (1976)
04. Christian McBride - Mwandishi Outcome Jam
Live At Tonic (Rope-a-Dope, 2006)
05. Miles Davis - Teo
Someday My Prince Will Come (1961)

note: Somewhere between cool jazz and recent sound. All in slow bass. It is a 2 am deep night list with classic imageries of jazz, with early sixties texture. That near hallucination perfect brass and bass combination, when demons lurk at the boundary of consciousness or seduction dissolve in warm night. Your other is in control and it’s perfectly engulfing the night. Rupture.

see also: Suspended Variation III
image: missha

How beautiful the sun is on warm evenings! How deep space is! How powerful is the heart! Bending over you, queen of adored ones, I thought I breathed the perfume of your blood. How beautiful the sun is on warm evenings!

Night deepened like a wall, and my eyes in the darkness sensed your eyes, and I drank your breath, O sweetness! O poison! And your feet slumbered in my brotherly hands. Night deepened like a wall.

I know the art of evoking happy moments, and live again my past curled up in your lap. For what is the good of seeking your languorous beauty elsewhere than in your dear body and in your so gentle heart? I know the art of evoking happy moments. - The Balcony. Charles Baudelaire, ca. 1856. trans. Elaine Marks (1962).

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” Map of undiscovered Land. ”

01. Joanna Newsom - ‘81
Have One On Me (Drag City, 2010)
02. Be Good Tanyas - the coo coo bird
Blue Horse (Nettwerk Records, 2001)
03. Charlie Patton - Poor Me
Founder of the Delta Blues (Yazoo, 1969)
04. Liu Shui - Flowing Streams
Voyager Golden Record (NASA, 1977)
05. 5′nizza - Солдат (Soldat)
Pyatnitsa (2003)
06. The Go Find - Everybody Knows It’s Gonna Happen Only Not Tonight
Everybody Knows It’s Gonna Happen Only Not Tonight (Morr Music, 2010)

note: A short evening list. The songs seem innocent and ordinary, but turn out to be more than that. It’s like hearing an old friend telling odd personal revelation in random evening. Past and present are all in one spot, image and stories simply float out in the evening air. Anyway the list set flow is a little hurried, so maybe the songs contrast will act as a consolation. I am in scattered mood. They are a piece by Newsom, an applachian country, pre war blues, NASA audio file, ukrainian duo and an indie for closing. It’s a lose evening theme with blues.

see also: Voyager Golden Record
image: Abbey Lee Kershaw for Numero#110 by Greg Kade

And when the noodles are finally gone, the bowl empty of everything but a few oleaginous blobs, each diner sets his bowl back upon the counter, mumbles “Gochiso-sama deshita” — roughly “Thank you for the meal” — pays the 700-yen fee (about $7.85 at 89 yen to the dollar) and wanders back out into the daylight world where Ganko suddenly seems like a hallucination, a Wonderland dream of noodly bliss. -One Noodle at a Time in Tokyo.

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” Late Winter Noodle Lunch List ”

01. Magnolia Electric Co. - Little Sad Eyes
Josephine (Secretly Canadian, 2009)
02. Surfer Blood - Anchorage
Astrocoast (Kanine Records, 2010)
03. Beach House - Lover Of Mine
Teen Dream (Sub Pop Records, 2010)
04. Generationals - When They Fight, They Fight
Con Law (Park the Van, 2009)
05. Local Natives - Sun Hands
Gorilla Manor (Frenchkiss Records, 2010)
06. AM - Self Preservation
Future Sons & Daughters (Filter US Recordings, 2010)
07. Cass McCombs - Dreams Come True Girl (featuring Karen Black)
Catacombs (Domino Recording, 2009)

note: Something soft for lunch. Slight late winter melancholy, but with warm noodle side. It’s mellow head bopping surf rock. Enjoy. (ok. I need to dig back into old directory to find my half ass best of decade list, cause Moka wants them. oboy. this is going to be ugly.)

image: nekotank