entombed in the shrine of zeroes and ones

• Rodrigo y Gabriela, Jazz: a 3-track EP of covers.  The "Lingus" cover in particular is a marvel.
• Mogwai, As the Love Continues: i knew of them but this is their first listen for me.  Solid post-rock.
• Ben Babbitt, Kentucky Route Zero- Memory Overflow: odds and sods from the KRZ soundtrack.  I must insist again that you give the game a shot.
• St. Vincent, Daddy's Home: a pitch-perfect pastiche of `70s rock that somehow feels flabby.
• Mdou Moctar, Afrique Victime: more Tuareg rock guitar wizardry.
• Jean-Michel Jarre, Amazonia: at the intersection of Zoolook's sampling of folk melodies and Waiting for Cousteau's ambient drone.
• Garbage, No Gods No Masters: my album of the year.  They're so good.
• James, All the Colours of You: more of their bright pop with the occasional unexpectedly sharp lyrics.
• The Joy Formidable, Into the Blue: a bit of a disappointment; a lot of their music club singles and demos were really good but they didn't make it into the album.
• Venus Hum, Kindness Rages On: they collect their five previous singles and more than satisfactorily flesh out the album.
• Takénobu. Always Leave a Note: Nick and Kathryn are married now and the new direction shows throughout the album.  Lovely melodies and lyrics.
• José González, Local Valley: González finally adds Spanish and Swedish to the lyrical repertoire of his acoustic guitar tracks.
• Maybeshewill, No Feeling Is Final: optimistic post-rock.  They came back after a long hiatus and i believe this is their best album, easily.
• Adele, 30: not fond of some of the backing vocal arrangements, but it's Adele.  More mature, more polished, all the quality you're used to.
• Dead Engine, Mantis: a San José band!  Old school power trio rock.

In alphabetical order, 2019 releases:

• Battles, Juice B Crypts— The band's down to two members now.  Bleepier.  Vocal collaborations like Gloss Drop.
• Andrew Bird, My Finest Work Yet— He's not kidding.  He keeps getting better.
• Ioanna Gika, Thalassa— She had a guest appearance on Stumptown, where she played an amazing cover of "One Thing Leads to Another", so i looked her up and yeah, sold.
• The Joy Formidable, Y Falŵn Drom— The band reissued their debut mini-album A Balloon Called Moaning for its 10th anniversary, but also recorded new versions of the songs with Welsh lyrics.
• Juan Luis Guerra 4.40, Literal— He remains a force, so very good at what he does, and barely looks like he's aged since he came across my cultural radar 30 years ago.
• Mdou Moctar, Ilana: The Creator— Tuareg Nigerien rock.  Recommendation from a friend, another instant buy.
• The New Pornographers, In the Morse Code of Brake Lights— Another TNP album without Dan Bejar, which is fine by me.  Doesn't feel as good as its predecessor.
• Rodrigo y Gabriela, Mettavolution— Fabulous.  They stretch by adding more multi-track work, electric guitar, and vocals.  Their arrangement of Pink Floyd's "Echoes" is epic.
• Takénobu, Conclusion— Nick Ogawa is joined now on violin by his fiancée Kathryn Koch; here, they re-record some older tracks and add new ones.  They're great together.
• Tool, Fear Inoculum— It's good but... the tracks lack separation.  The overall feel is too similar.  And their ultra-deluxe CD packaging ($45, if you can find it) feels like a cash grab from their legion of slavering fans (i bought the MP3 album).

<dem> idaho is being bitchy hot. grr. weather.
<todd> Outlaw weather by executive order.
<todd> It'd be totally cool, but those damned activist judges....
<todd> And how.
<rone> i have a hot activist judge in my pants
<lb> rone, did you finally rename your manpart from Judge Judy?
<rone> i think it still bears the name i gave it in high school
<lb> so, Judge Wopner, then?
<rone> Fapner
<lb> Nice.
<rone> time to go pound the gavel
<lb> honorable mention: "I'm holding you in contempt".

This'll have to do until i set up my own publishing platform.  I mean, i could write a Note on Facebook, but that site is pure evil.  Google+ is the Democratic Party analogue to Facebook's GOP; it has a real chance to do things right but settles for not shitting itself or setting things on fire.  This site doesn't exactly cover itself in glory; this posting interface doesn't seem to have been updated since DW was founded and no evidence of a mobile app exists.

Anyway, for the few who are reading this and didn't already read it elsewhere, i'm three weeks away from my 1-year anniversary of the onset of Guillain-Barré syndrome.  I had a particularly shitty case of it and am now finally getting around to walking.  My hands are still not able to touch-type due to weakness, stiffness, and impaired sensation.  Parts of my face are still paralyzed.  I'm going back to working from home part-time on Feb 1.

For this kid, who grew up in Ecuador in the `80s, David Bowie was "Let's Dance", "Modern Love", and "Blue Jean".  I didn't hear anything else of his until i caught some of his `70s hits on classic rock radio in the mid `90s.  Some time in 1997, an acquaintance gave me Diamond Dogs on cassette, but i didn't care for it.  I didn't revisit Bowie until the next millennium.

In 2002, Amazon previewed "Slow Burn" (featuring Pete Townshend on guitar) on their site and that hooked me in, so i acquired Heathen and found it quite enjoyable (and later discovered while listening to the Pixies' Surfer Rosa that Bowie had covered "Cactus").  During that time i was well into my peak King Crimson phase, so i picked up "Heroes" given that Fripp played on it, but i found it uneven and certainly overrated.  I didn't try again until 10 years later (at his point i am verifying this via my last.fm listening data), when i listened on Spotify to another of the vaunted Berlin trio, Lodger, because i'd heard "African Night Flight" on Pandora and liked it, but the album was a mess.

Then everyone was stunned when he released The Next Day.  I thought it was excellent, and i bought it; after that, i decided to listen to the albums that were released near Heathen, and that yielded better results, and i picked up Black Tie White Noise.  Things were quiescent on the Bowie front for me until the ★ news came out, and, well, we know what happened after its release.

After his death, i resolved to listen to his entire œuvre.  Most of the pre-Berlin stuff is good but not gripping; Low is as good as advertised; the two albums after Let's Dance are as bad as people say they are; Tin Machine does not deserve the mockery it gets; and everything from then on is really quite good but nobody seems to hold it in as high regard as his other stuff.  So maybe it's just me.

One side effect of my romp through the Bowie discography was catching more of the references that peppered The Venture Bros., including this gem.

Of course, i came down with GBS two weeks after his death, so maybe i needed him more than i could possibly have understood.  Writing this up was one of the many things i thought about during the times i was lying there, unable to communicate.  So now here it finally is.