Music 2005

I don't have much to say about music right now that I haven't said before. Here are some lists and notes. Mainly I wonder how much new music I'm going to hear next year. Low on funds and reliable internet access, I might be able to piece together some idea of what's going on singles-wise through the MP3 blogs, but who knows about the albums.

Here are a few links: blog post on Intonation, my "Summer Music List"; PY columns in reverse-chronological order: Oct 18, live M83 review, ambient listenening.

Here are the critics and lists I used to find the things I missed in 2005.

Singles

Michaelangelo Matos
Jess Harvell
Dominique Leone
Matthew Murphy
Scott Plagenhoef
Mark Richardson
Philip Sherburne
Sam Ubl
Chris Lemon-Red
Simon Reynolds
Sasha Frere-Jones
Village Voice Pazz & Jop Poll (Mid-Jan)

Albums

Jess Harvell
Dominique Leone
Matthew Murphy
Scott Plagenhoef
Mark Richardson
Philip Sherburne
Dave Segal
The Wire
Textura
Michaelangelo Matos
Metacritic
Simon Reynolds
Sasha Frere-Jones
Village Voice Pazz & Jop Poll (Mid-Jan)
Andy Beta

Now, then, here are my favorites from 2005:

Favorite Albums & Mixes

Antony and The Johnsons: I Am a Bird Now
Black Mountain: s/t
Bloc Party: Silent Alarm
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: s/t
F.S. Blumm: Zweite Meer
Great Lake Swimmers: s/t
Keith Fullerton Whitman: Multiples
LCD Soundsystem: LCD Soundsystem
My Morning Jacket: Z
Wolf Parade: Apologies to the Queen Mary
Various Artists: Total 6
Certified Bananas: Lemon-Red Mix
DJ /rupture: Low Income Tomorrowland
Doubt Beat: Romance Is for Solids

Favorite Songs from Favorite Albums

Antony and the Johnsons "Hope There's Someone"
Antony and the Johnsons "For Today I Am a Boy"
Black Mountain "Don't Run Our Hearts Around"
Bloc Party "Like Eating Glass"
Bloc Party "Banquet"
Bloc Party "This Modern Love"
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah "Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away"
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah "Details of the War"
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah "The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth"
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah "In This Home on Ice"
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah "Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood"
Keith Fullerton Whitman "Stereo Music for Yamaha Disklavier Prototype..."
Keith Fullerton Whitman "Stereo Music for Acoustic Guitar..., Pts. 1 and 2"
LCD Soundsystem "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House"
LCD Soundsystem "Losing My Edge"
LCD Soundsystem "Yeah (Crass Version)"
My Morning Jacket "Gideon"
My Morning Jacket "What a Wonderful Man"
My Morning Jacket "Anytime"
My Morning Jacket "Lay Low"
Wolf Parade "We Built Another World"
Wolf Parade "Shine a Light"
Wolf Parade "I'll Believe in Anything"
Wolf Parade "It's a Curse"
Wolf Parade "This Heart's on Fire"
Juergen Paape "Cream" (from Total 6)
Rex the Dog "I Look into Mid Air" (from Total 6)
First half of "Low Income Tomorrowland"

Favorite Songs Otherwise

!!! "Get Up"
Art Brut "My Little Brother"
Bun B "The Inauguation"
Cadence Weapon "The Gorilla Is for Sand Racing"
Cadence Weapon "Oliver Square"
Caribou "Medium Sized Working Dog (Steady Steady)"
Five Deez "Fugg That"
Four Tet "Smile Around the Face"
Game ft. 50 Cent "Hate It or Love It"
Gnarls Barkley "Crazy"
Gorillaz "Feel Good Inc."
Hollertronix "Snoop vs. The Cure"
Hollertronix "Tippin Toxic"
Lady Sovereign "Fiddle with the Volume (Ghislain Poirier Remix)"
M.I.A. "Amazon"
Madvillain "Money Folder (Four Tet Remix)"
Missy Elliott "Lose Control"
Pedro "Assembled by 33"
Pretty Ricky "Grill 'Em"
Purple Ribbon Allstars "Kryptonite (Cadence Weapon Montreal Remix)"
Spoon "The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine"
Spoon "I Turn My Camera On"
Spoon "Sister Jack"
The Strokes vs. Chemical Brothers "The Modern Chemical Age"
Supersystem "I Was Born into the World"
Test Icicles "Circle Square Triangle"

Film Notes 2005

You'll note that there are no one-star films on the list. Actually, Decasia originally had one star, but I decided to lump it in with the two-star films. This means that I didn't see any films that lacked any redeeming value in the past nine months. There are such films out there, but I tend to avoid them pretty successfully. Next year great films will get three stars and lackluster films will get none. I plan to actually write something about the films I note, although the main list will stay on the right of the page. Since it's five titles long, every time I get through five movies, I'll hopefully post an entry with something more substantial about each one. This should motivate me to write more about movies since that's something I want to do periodically but not every time I finish watching one.

And now, on through the list. Brokeback Mountain left an unbelievable number of shots and scenes imprinted on my brain. Manohla Dargis in the NYTimes details the film's merits perfectly.

Cafe Lumiere is probably the most lyrical, visuals-over-plot film I've seen in a theater. The big screen does at least as much for something like this as for spectacles like King Kong.

Andrew Adamson directed Shrek. I think his Narnia movie is directed at the same audience. Neither delighted me.

I made a lot of notes on the themes covered in Hiroshima Mon Amour and then I lost them. They probably included destruction on macro and human scales, architecture, the facade of sanity vs. the presence of sanity, association of person and place, memory vs. dream vs. madness, among other topics.

It's possible that nothing this year, film-related or not, was more memorable than the Film Society screening of Bad Education that started in Boliou and ended in Olin.

Memorable: George Sanders as the theater critic in All About Eve, esp. his devastating scene with the titular actress Eve near the end.

Memorable: John Malkovich vs. Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons.

Memorable: The Hardacre Film Festival, incl. Riding Giants.

Claude Chabrol, in Phantom of the Cinematheque, recalling Henri Langlois's advice that a film should be significant not for its perfection, but for the unforgettable moments it creates.

Memorable: Midnight screening of Mallrats at the Uptown with Jack.

And finally, here are the lists I used to determine which films from 2005 I should get around to seeing. Individual lists were capped at around 10 and communally generated lists at 20. Each mention on each list was tallied, even though I value some more than others.

David Ansen
American Film Institute
Sight & Sound Poll
Roger Ebert
Peter Travers
Richard Schickel
Richard Corliss
Stephen Holden
Manohla Dargis
A.O. Scott
Village Voice Take 7 Poll
J. Hoberman
Dave Kehr
Kent Jones
Metacritic
Film Comment Poll (not yet)

Films List 2005

Here is my review of films I watched since April 23 of this year, the date on which I began to make a note of everything I watched. First, the 2005 releases:

Brokeback Mountain [Ang Lee] *****
Mysterious Skin [Gregg Araki] ****
The Squid and the Whale [Noah Baumbach] ****
Cafe Lumiere [Hou Hsiao-Hsien] ****
Broken Flowers [Jim Jarmusch] ****
The Greenan Tapes [Shep Salusky] ****
No Direction Home [Martin Scorsese] ****
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe [Andrew Adamson] ***
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory [Tim Burton] ***
Return of the Sith [George Lucas] ***
Batman Begins [Christopher Nolan] ***
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy [Garth Jennings] **
Little Manhattan [Mark Levin] **
Hide and Seek [John Polson] **
Domino [Tony Scott] **

Next, all other films sorted by rank, then chronologically.

*****

• Trouble in Paradise [Ernst Lubitsch, 1932]
• His Girl Friday [Howard Hawks, 1940]
• Rififi [Jules Dassin, 1955]
• The Killing [Stanley Kubrick, 1956]
• Hiroshima Mon Amour [Alain Resnais, 1959]
• The Apartment [Billy Wilder, 1960]
• Get Carter [Mike Hodges, 1971]
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest [Milos Forman, 1975]
• The Elephant Man [David Lynch, 1980]
• Sherman's March [Ross McElwee, 1986]
• Jesus of Montreal [Denys Arcand, 1989]
• Bright Leaves [Ross McElwee, 2003]
• La Mala Educación [Pedro Almodóvar, 2004]

****

• Stagecoach [John Ford, 1939]
• Now, Voyager [Irving Rapper, 1942]
• All About Eve [Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950]
• Strangers on a Train [Alfred Hitchcock, 1951]
• Casque D'Or [Jacques Becker, 1952]
• Kiss Me Deadly [Robert Aldrich, 1955]
• Written on the Wind [Douglas Sirk, 1956]
• Pickpocket [Robert Bresson, 1959]
• California Split [Robert Altman, 1974]
• Star Wars [George Lucas, 1977]
• Days of Heaven [Terence Malick, 1978]
• Manhattan [Woody Allen, 1979]
• Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown [Pedro Almodovar, 1988]
• Dangerous Liaisons [Stephen Frears, 1989]
• Time Indefinite [Ross McElwee, 1993]
• True Romance [Tony Scott, 1993]
• Maborosi [Hirokazu Kore-eda, 1995]
• All About My Mother [Pedro Almodovar, 1999]
• Dancer in the Dark [Lars von Trier, 2000]
• The Fat Girl [Catherine Breillat, 2001]
• Capturing the Friedmans [Andrew Jarecki, 2002]
• Primer [Shane Carruth, 2004]
• Riding Giants [Stacy Peralta, 2004]

***

• City Lights [Charles Chaplin, 1931]
• A Nous La Liberte [Rene Clair, 1931]
• Frankenstein [James Whale, 1932]
• Dinner at Eight [George Cukor, 1933]
• Twentieth Century [Howard Hawks, 1934]
• Bride of Frankenstein [James Whale, 1935]
• The Philadelphia Story [George Cukor, 1940]
• High Sierra [Raoul Walsh, 1941]
• The Letter [William Wyler, 1942]
• The Southerner [Jean Renoir, 1945]
• The Lavender Hill Mob [Charles Crichton, 1951]
• All That Heaven Allows [Douglas Sirk, 1955]
• The Party [Blake Edwards, 1968]
• Saturday Night Fever [John Badham, 1977]
• My Dinner with Andre [Louis Malle, 1981]
• The Empire Strikes Back [George Lucas, 1980]
• Return of the Jedi [George Lucas, 1983]
• Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story [Todd Haynes, 1987]
• Kundun [Martin Scorsese, 1997]
• Cinemania [Angela Christlieb, 2002]
• Russian Ark [Alexander Sokurov, 2002]
• Holes [Andrew Davis, 2003]
• Ginger & Cinnamon [Daniele Luchetti, 2003]
• The Station Agent [Tom McCarthy, 2003]
• Metallica: Some Kind of Monster [Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky, 2004]
• Napoleon Dynamite [Jared Hess, 2004]
• Maria Full of Grace [Joshua Marston, 2004]
• Closer [Mike Nichols, 2004]
• Henri Langlois: The Phantom of the Cinematheque [Jacques Richard, 2004]

**

• You Can't Take It With You [Frank Capra, 1938]
• The Palm Beach Story [Preston Sturges, 1942]
• Shadows [John Cassavetes, 1959]
• Mallrats [Kevin Smith, 1995]
• Spectres of the Spectrum [Craig Baldwin, 1999]
• Waiting for Guffman [Christopher Guest, 1996]
• Decasia [Bill Morrison, 2002]
• Elf [Jon Favreau, 2003]
• Coffee & Cigarettes [Jim Jarmusch, 2003]
• Northfork [Michael Polish, 2003]
• Two Harbors [James Vculek, 2004]
• The Saddest Music in the World [Guy Maddin, 2004]

Analogy

Ben Folds "Sports and Wine" : Elvis Presley "That's All Right" ::
Ben Folds "The Luckiest" : Lefty Frizzell "Mom and Dad's Waltz"

Missed

It's early yet, and not all the lists have been added, but here are the top singles, albums, and movies that I missed in 2005 according to my particular list-combing system.

Singles

• Damian Marley "Welcome to Jamrock"
• Amerie "1 Thing"
• Lindstrom "I Feel Space"
• Clientele "Since K Got Over Me"
• Three 6 Mafia "Stay Fly"

Albums

• Isolee We Are Monster
• Dominik Eulberg Kreucht & Fleucht
• Animal Collective Feels
• Edan Beauty & the Beat
• Jackson & His Computer Band Smash
• Konono No. 1 Congotronics
• The Clientele Strange Geometry
• Black Dice Broken Ear Record
• Broadcast Tender Buttons
• Jamie Lidell Multiply
• M.A.N.D.Y. Body Language
• Optimo Psyche Out
• Roisin Murphy Ruby Blue
• The Go-Betweens Oceans Apart

Movies

• A History of Violence
• Munich
• Cache
• Kings and Queen
• 2046
• Capote
• Grizzly Man
• The Holy Girl
• Crash
• Good Night, and Good Luck
• Last Days
• Tropical Malady

Christmas Gifts

I absolutely concur with Matthew Baldwin's feelings about Christmas, expressed at The Morning News:

Yes, this is what Christmas has come to: People taking perfectly good money, converting it into a significantly less useful currency (i.e., one that can only be spent at Hancock Fabrics), and then unloading it onto others, in much the same way that Three Wise Men presented baby Jesus with gift cards from “The Precious Metal and Aromatic Gum Resin Warehouse and Emporium.”

It would be nice if we could someday cut out the middleman entirely. I envision a future where you just send your bank a list of family and acquaintances, and then, at midnight on Dec. 24, a cronjob triggers a suite of perl scripts that transfer $40 from your account to each person on your list. Just think of how relaxing Christmas morning will be when you no longer have to go through the tedium of opening presents or experiencing joy, and can instead log on to your credit union’s website to see how you made out.

Grist in 2005

Here are my most recommended Grist articles that we published this year if you're interested.

• Queer Eye for the Green Guy Yes, clothes really do make the activist
• Ped Dispenser John Francis, a 'planetwalker' who lived car-free and silent for 17 years, chats with Grist
• Cost in Translation Seriously, now -- why aren't organics getting affordable? (See also Food and class in Gristmill)
• Cizik Matters An interview with green evangelical leader Richard Cizik
• Take a Peak An interview with peak-oil provocateur Matthew Simmons
• Not a Car in the World Can a Brit survive in North America without a driver's license?
• Heaven Help Bus A visit to Iceland spurs dreams of a hydrogen future
• Drowning Myself in the Gene Pool When it comes to having kids, this global citizen can't bear it

Snowcover

Going home for Christmas? This shows how much snow to expect upon arrival.

The Yearly Canon

PY column

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My favorite year-end list so far, from Textura. A very nice format:

Eluvium (Matthew Cooper)

“1.—morning / waking / standing—Arthur Russell's World of Echo—(I think this came out in January; I could be wrong)

“2.—day / walking / headphones / light / recognition—Odd Nosdam's Burner—(I found this in my mailbox the other day—attention needs to paid to this work—there is something important in here)

“3.—sunset / traffic / too many people / clutter / frustration / beauty—Amina's Animamina—(everything is making sense, I think—slowing down—speechless)

“4.—evening / reading / wine / conversation / cooking / composing—Colleen's The Golden Morning Breaks—(rediscovery, passion, and most important ... honesty)

“5.—daydreams / nightdreams / hope—Susumu Yokota's Symbol—(contagious happiness and wonder—continue, continue)”

Website: Eluvium

Del.icio.us

So, I got rid of the links on the sidebar because the Javascript loaded pretty unreliably. Until the Del.icio.us "thingy" starts to work for Blogger, there may be a few more upcoming posts like this one.

A couple of donation opportunities I noticed the other day at work, I think on Treehugger. The first is a charity, Architecture for Humanity. The second is a micro-loan program called Kiva. I've heard about microfinancing from several quarters, and it seems to be a nearly unimpeachably good idea. In developing nations, small institutions are set up to fund initiatives conceived and carried out by the local population. The loans are often unbelievably small -- Kiva is suggesting as low as a $25 investment -- and they go to support things like tea shops or agriculture or whatever might fit well in the area. It seems to be a very productive way to promote jobs and necessary improvements in places where international aid tends to dominate. I've read things like Paul Theroux's NYTimes op-ed from time to time, and the argument against unaccompanied aid and for free trade along with empowerment, education, and guidance toward good government, seems to make a lot of sense. Kiva is as good a way as I've seen to get involved yourself, and, since it's a loan and not a donation, even misers can take part!

Other links:

• Speaking of Bono, here's an S/FJ photo essay on U2's recent MSG concert.
• Wired with a very lively piece on hacks for the new Firefox 1.5
• Phil Kline's Unsilent Night, "an outdoor ambient music piece for an INFINITE number of boom box tape players."
• The Story of John Doe, which I stumbled upon after Harold Pinter's Nobel acceptance speech caused me to look up "Joe Doakes."
• I'm not yet a big Talking Heads fan, though I'll admit to admiring the Brick, but David Byrne has a great site. Check out the blog as well as this month's radio netcast (Saturday MP3!) of classic country.

Eno, Fripp & Sometimes Cale

Here's a list of mostly Brian Eno CDs I just requested from the library:

• Ambient 1: Music for Airports
• Ambient 4: On Land
• Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks
• Before and After Science
• The Equatorial Stars (w/ Robert Fripp)
• The Essential Fripp & Eno (w/ Robert Fripp)
• Evening Star (w/ Robert Fripp)
• Neroli
• Songs for Drella Lou Reed & John Cale
• Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)
• Wrong Way Up (w/ John Cale)

Far, Far from West Virginia

Man, I went to bed last night at 8:15. I was just sitting downstairs finishing the crossword puzzle, then I took my bag upstairs to my room and, BAM, I straight got into bed with my clothes on and didn't get up until it was time for work. It kind of sucks because it means I'll be wearing the same socks for four or five days in a row due to laundry issues and time constraints, but perhaps that will encourage to go buy some more.

Also, I have been listening to Charles's Clap Your Hands Say Yeah album all week. It's been weird knowing that I would love the album for so long and then finally getting to hear it. I got real excited when Kyle played "Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away" this summer and I could tell it was really solid when they played it in the bar prior to the My Morning Jacket show. Thanks be to Charles.

Lately I've been feeling that this blog could be a lot better, perhaps as more than one blog, so some or perhaps a lot of thought will go into that with some or perhaps a lot of changes to come.

Saturday MP3 #10

Two re-blogged songs today. In the next few weeks there should be two year-end mixes: one of tracks from albums I own and one of uncollected tracks and singles, all from 2005.

First is "Fugg That" by Five Deez. Scissor Kick, while not the most frequently updated blog, is one of my favorites; almost every MP3 they post does something for me.

"Fugg That" is the perfect example of smart, courageous hip-hop production, moving perilously close to genre overkill yet stopping just short of the excess to qualify it as near-genius. I know I may be a little over the top, but it's just not that often that a track recalls vintage IDM and drum n' bass AND a dirty south/crunk cadence all in a single track. Somewhere out there I'm sure Cee-Lo is ready to channel Sun Ra, but until that happens you can't get more intergalactically funky than the new record from Five Deez. The mothership has revisited...

Then there's Tiefschwarz's "Warning Siren (ft. Matty Safer)" from Lemon Red. I'm a big fan of their monthly mix series (though I won't be hearing the December installment by Catchdubs until I find a better connection than Caffe Vita's) in addition to the MP3s. The Tiefschwarz track struck me first as terrific dance-punk but it's more like straight dance music with vocals on top in the yelping style that's been in vogue since "House of Jealous Lovers."

Five Deez "Fugg That"

Tiefschwarz "Warning Siren (ft. Matty Safer)"

Foreign Policy

Unless you're a diehard law-and-order right-winger or a supporter of blind patriotism, you should really go and read Harold Pinter's Nobel acceptance speech. It's probably the best articulated and most rousing indictment of United States foreign policy (past and present) I've ever read.

Mashups

I feel like I've linked there a lot lately, especially considering the frequency of his posts, but Matos is on the money with his observation about mashups. Not 100% true for me, since I started listening to mashups concurrently with or after reading music critics who had probably also "seen the light" as described.

Saturday MP3 #9

MMJ Part 3

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Ross McElwee's camera obsession is both an extension and symbol of the much more common need to analyze before/during/instead of feeling. Time Indefinite made this explicit.