Now

Everyone will die. Love them now.

Top 9 Albums of 2011

My list, in no particular order. It was a good year.

• When Saints Go Machine – Fail Forever EP (OH MY GOD. Kills me every time. This is actually #1 no matter how I slice it.)
• Future Islands – On the Water
• Active Child – You Are All I See
• Gardens & Villa – Gardens & Villa
• Sepalcure – Sepalcure
• Warm Ghost – Narrows
• Julianna Barwick – The Magic Place
• Little Dragon – Ritual Union
• James Blake – James Blake

It’s been a while… but here is some holy shit

Me: Holy shit. This is beautiful.
Jesse: Yeah, truly.
Me: I haven’t holy-shitted an album in a long time. I’m totally holy-shitting this one.

NPR First Listen: Future Islands, ‘On The Water’ (comes out tomorrow, 10/11/2011)

Takes me places

I was looking for a link to simply play this track for you, but found this video instead, and it is much, much better. If you love cities as much as I do, you will cry happy tears as I did.

Do Make Say Think, “Chinatown”

Winter Sky

Sweet words

From my favorite this morning, while discussing my impending departure to Montana:

Is there a phone app to send kisses?

Top 9 Albums of 2010

Here are 9 albums that rocked my socks in 2010, in no particular order.  Why not 10? Well, I like to be a little different, and 9 is my favorite number. And plus that’s just kind of how it worked out.

1. Pantha du Prince – Black Noise
2. Baths – Cerulean
3. Future Islands – In Evening Air
4. Local Natives – Gorilla Manor
5. Miike Snow – Miike Snow
6. Yeasayer – Odd Blood
7. The Tallest Man On Earth – Sometimes the Blues is a Passing Bird
8. Four Tet – There is Love in You
9. Caribou – Swim

Sometimes the Blues is Just a Passing Bird

Sometimes the Blues is Just a Passing Bird

After listening to “A Little River” about a million times, and finding other songs from the EP that moved me as well, I bought the whole album this morning and I’m listening to it on repeat. Here is this cloudy morning, grey as Seattle winter gets, and I’m bathing in sunlight.

Part of my swooning is over the cover image. The photo is simple.  There is nothing to recommend this image, ostensibly. It’s crooked, snapshotty… but it’s beautiful.

Something about both the music and the image takes me to my very early childhood, or perhaps some idealized image I have of it – but I don’t think it is, really. I feel like it existed for a moment in time: There was always music, there was light, there were always so many plants – so much green. My parents had no money, but somehow they collected beautiful antiques and amazing art – much of which came from their friends. I can see them sitting around a table, laughing, smoking, drinking coffee or wine, and me at some infant age impressing this image into my psyche.

Though the rest of my childhood grew dark over time, this light is where I come from, and where I want to be.

Little River

A song by The Tallest Man on Earth. Go, listen, love.

A Dinner Party

This video is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. I get chills every time I watch it. It reminds me of a pivotal moment in my life – a dinner party in college. My first dinner party.  It was a beautiful, wine-soaked evening. People were drinking and talking and playing guitar and dancing. All of it softly, organically happening – nothing scheduled, nothing forced. Somehow food kept arriving at the table, people talked and glowed over gas stove flames and steaming pots of things in the kitchen, cats sat on laps, candles flickered.

It was such a beautiful evening that it was seared into my consciousness. It was then, and continues to be, an image of the good life to me. Such simple pleasures are also captured here, I think.

#40.3 – The National – Start a war
Uploaded by lablogotheque. – Watch original web videos.

All of the Concerts à Emporter (Take Away Shows) are pretty amazing. I wish I could spend my life capturing and sharing beauty like the guys behind these films do.