Dusty Chalk

The new Afghan Whigs on NPR First Listen (will have to finish The Both later)

Didn't even realize the Michael Hutchence connection. Yah, poor Bob!

The Both (Aimee Mann and Ted Leo) on NPR First Listen

Pfff...I didn't even know Monoprice made microphones.

Happy belated! (party favour noise)

Finally finished Dexter. Fucking awesome, I don't know why anyone would be disappointed in that. And also -- is that not the longest running show with the exact same title sequence for 8 years?

This has actually been going on for decades. J. Geils Band's Freeze Frame actually looks pretty blinding on a spectrum analyzer. Not only is it compressed all to shit, it's compressed all to shit in all the frequency bands. It actually sounds pretty good, because the compression was done in the analog realm, and wasn't completely brick-walled, but it's still really high up. It can be done well, trust your ears. There is a certain amount of vetting that can be done by looking at the wave form (true square wave decapitations), but ultimately trust your ears.

Dayum

I made it the whole way. She's doing some weird skippy beat shit, so I'll probably revisit it when I have a chance. It's funny, I crave more skippy beat shit in pop music, and now here's an example, and it's fairly...meh.

New tune-yards May 6

Apparently, the covers of Gramophone are designed by diarrhoeic unicorns:

I never get tired of stuff like this:

Ocoeur, Light as a Feather -- IDM/ambient -- totally dig this.

I know, right? She's not always easy to read, but I find myself wanting to read her anyway, because quite frankly, it's an interesting perspective. I would recommend shuffling up the order, were anyone to take on my CD collection -- you could spend a loooong time in the Klaus Schulze section, and if it ain't your cuppa tea, it's going to be a tedious fucking chore. This is not:

Rega, Project, and Music Hall were the go-to for "entry level" (by audiophile standards) turntables (Rega being #1 in my book). I don't know if any others have entered the fray since I last looked. Also several years ago (again, since I last looked, things may have changed), the de facto "entry level" phono stage was Bellari.

I've been doing a lot of meat sauces lately. Brown meat and onions, throw in crock pot with tomato sauce, add spices, turn temperature down to low, add garlic. If I add beans, I call it "chilli"; if I add olives and oregano (and other more "Italian" herbs), I call it an arrabiata variant, but otherwise the recipe is the same, lollers. I've stopped doing both (olives and beans), mostly for variety. Need to start figuring out some Thai recipes. Am also going to try that Japanese curry and some stews.

Recipe?

Animated borders map A woman reviews her husband's entire record collection, one at a time

The Bad Plus, Rite of Spring, on First Listen

probably to be followed by http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ-Gh3phpx0

It's been snowing here for a couple hours, just started sticking to the pavement when I posted that. We should get a goodly amount down here.