Final day again...

Playlist (Play) (Download)
Jon Hopkins - Immunty
Roy Harper - The Dream Society
Cloudland Blue Quartet - Twenty Four Paintings

Last day of the year - here's a quick recap...

...and the not much changing face of your correspondent....

A lazy day indeed...

Up reasonably late - working on various podcasts to add to here - next year I think I'll cut back - one a day is too much work...

Enjoyed "Man of Steel" - including a couple of tear-jerking moments...

A break and then a French film starring one of our faves, Isabelle Huppert - a fairly inconsequential film but very enjoyable nonetheless...

Probably too much chilli peanuts, red wine and Bailey's were consumed by Mr CBQ, truth be told....

To the kitchen...

A curry to be concocted...

Meg the Black cat insisted on helping out, given the presence of raw lamb at the outset...

I was on onion duty...

Anne was on everything else duty...

It was a question of merely adding every ingredient to a pan and cooking for two hours...

In the absence of Ghee, we melted some butter to add to the mix...

This is what happens when you take your eye off your cat and there's a pot by the sink waiting to be washed which recently held melted butter...

We held our nerve and refrained from complicating matters while "Poirot" was watched...

The curry was an extremely tasty success...

As we approached the final hours of the year, "The Inbetweeners Movie", which has languished on the Tivo for some considerable time was finally watched and found to be good in a puerile, adolescent way...

"Only an excuse" was deemed not bad - then the firewroks at Edinburgh Castle and off to bed...

Adios 2013...

Highlight of the Day : Home made curry...

Top 100 Acquisitions of the Year 2013...

This isn't a list of the (in my opinion) 100 best albums released in 2013 (although there are twenty of those here)...

Rather, it's my (kind of) top 100 (split into 12 categories) of the 493 discs I acquired in 2013 - far too many I know but, as ever, it will be a New Year's resolution to try to cut down...

It's divided between:-

• Rock & Pop (2013 Releases, Recent Releases, Reissues, Compilations, Live, Various Artists)
• Jazz (Studio, Live, Various Artists)
• Classical (Single Composer, Single Artist, Various Composers)

Rock & Pop

2013 Releases

David Bowie - The Next Day

Dream Theater - Dream Theater

Roy Harper - Man and Myth

Mogwai - Les Revenants

65daysofStatic - Wild Light

Sumner McKane - Select Visual History

Pet Shop Boys - Electric

Everything Everything - Arc

Dutch Uncles - Out of Touch in the Wild

The Physics House Band - Horizons-Rapture

Agnes Obel - Aventine

Black Sabbath - 13

Depeche Mode -  Delta Machine

Greg Haines - Where We Were
Jonathan Hopkins - Immunity

Karl Bartos - Off the Record

Lady Gaga - Artpop

Biffy Clyro - Opposites

Hans-Joachim Roedelius/Lloyd Cole - Selected Studies Vol 1

Tosca - Odeon

Recent Releases (2008-2012)

Laurie Anderson - Homeland

Dar Williams - In the Time Of Gods

Laura Pausini - Inedito 

Jason Lytle - Dept of Disappearance

Keith Emerson Band - Keith Emerson Band feat Marc Bonilla

Shawn Colvin - All Fall Down

Françoise Hardy - L'Amour Fou

Lucy Kaplansky - Reunion

Bersarin Quartett - II

The Unwinding Hours - Afterlives

Reissues

Yes - Close to the Edge (Definitive Edition)

Thomas Köner - Permafrost

Herman Van Veen - Elf Lieder

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F#A#Infinity

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada

DAF - Fur Immer

Bill Nelson's Red Noise - Sound on Sound

Dead Kennedys - Frankenchrist

Chicago - The Chicago Transit Authority

Sarah Slean - Night Bugs

Compilations

Pink Floyd - The Best of Pink Floyd : A Foot in the Door

Rush - Retrospective I : 1974-1980

Ultravox! - The Island Years

Black Sabbath - The Best of Black Sabbath

Lee Scratch Perry - The Black Ark Years - The Jamaican 7"s

Live

King Crimson - The Road to Red

Klaus Schulze - La Vie Electronique 4

Herman Van Veen - Heute Abend

The Velvet Underground - 1969

Kansas - Two For the Show

Various Artists

Various - Time Machine : A Vertigo Retrospective

Various - 20 Jahre Kompact : Kollektion 1

Various - Greasy Truckers Party

Various - Northern Soul : The Collection

Various - The Trojan Story

Jazz

Studio

Alex Machacek - 24 Tales

Gary Husband - Dirty and Beautiful Vol 1

Gary Husband - Dirty and Beautiful Vol 2

Dave King Trucking Company - Good Old Light

Shiver - Shiver #1

Dave King - I've Been Ringing You

Gary Husband - The Things I See

Lund Quartet - Lund Quartet

Pat Metheny - Orchestrion

Dave King - Indelicate

Live

Miles Davis - Agharta

Bill Frisell - East West

Miles Davis - Live in Europe 1969

Various Artists

Various - The Old New Thing

Various - Jazz Actuel

Classical

Single Composer

Maxwell Davies - Naxos Quartets 1-10

Ligeti - Etudes Books 1 and 2

Gubaidulina - Solo Piano Works/Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra

Stockhausen - Piano Music

Tippett - String Quartets 1-4

Hindemith - Complete String Quartets

Rihm - Piano

Feldman - String Quartet (1979)

Holzmann - Wandelung

Einaudi - Islands: Essential Einaudi

Single Artist

Baroque Orchestra B'Rock - Vivaldi Cage : 8 Seasons

Arditti String Quartet - String Quartets by Rasmussen and Sorensen

Michel Oudar - Cahier pour Michel Oudar

Steffan Schleiermacher - Piano Music of the Darmstadt School Vol 1

Glenn Gould - Mozart Piano Sonatas

LaSalle Quartet - Lutoslawski/Cage/Penderecki/Mayuzumi String Quartets

Peter Lawson - American Piano Sonatas Vol 1 - Copland/Barber/Carter/Ives

Das Alban Berg Quartett - The Teldec Recordings

Corigliano Quartet - Corigliano/Friedman String Quartets

Anne-Sophie Mutter - Mutter Modern

Various Composer Collections

Various Composers - Edition Zeitgenossischen Musik 75

Various Composers - Lumieres : Music of the 18th Century

Various Composers - Musik in Alten Stadten und Residenzen

Various Composers - Music of Our Century

Various Composers - Music of Our Time

Various Composers - 50 Jahre Neue Musik in Darmstadt

Various Composers - Edition Zeitgenossischen Musik Vol 5

Various Composers - Edition Zeitgenossischen Musik Vol 3

Various Composers - Edition Zeitgenossischen Musik Vol 6

Various Composers - Music of the 20th Century : Avantgarde

Been and gone...

Playlist (Play) (Download)
Roxy Music  - Country Life
Tosca - Odeon
Cloudland Blue Quartet - Twenty Four Paintings
The Velvet Underground - VU
Alex Machacek -24 Tales
Agnes Obel - Aventine
Black Sabbath - 13
Ethan Iverson Quartet- Live at Smalls
Dead Kennedys - Frankenchrist
Roy Harper - The Dream Society
Rush - Discography
Yes - Yesshows

Awoke at 4 and at the computer by 4:30 due to inability to sleep...

Discovered several tracks for the new album had been corrupted on the drive on which they are stored....

Luckily, they were backed up - or were kind of backed up in some cases - final edits chosen were not backed up as they were done relatively recently...

To work - ably assisted by Meg the Black Cat...

...and coffee, obtained from the kitchen via the new look dining room...

By the time the Exec Producer emerged into the light, I'd already been up for five and a half hours...

The weather was lousy...

Horrible pouring rain...

The forecast predicted a let up, so we waited...

And we waited...

At 1, we decided just to head into town anyway...

Anne was getting prepped for a new curry recipe to be tried out tomorrow and a tasty tea tonight - while I was having a look round some record shops - as you do...

The weather remained fairly bleak...

The funfair is in town - I was not enticed...

Christmas has been and gone...

This, my pic of the day as I sat in Sainsbury's car park blasting out the new Black Sabbath album - I may need to amend my albums of the year list after today's acquisitions...

On returning home, a message from my mum - the doc had visited and now she had a prescription which needed to be filled...

A 75 minute out-take as I drove over, collected and then submitted the prescription, then collected and delivered the drugs...

Meanwhile, Anne was cooking...

In the evening, did my best to stay awake - taking in a particularly bad episode of "Atlantis"...

Lady Gaga's show with the Muppets was abandoned and deleted after 10 minutes...

I retired at 9:30 pm...

Highlight of the Day : Annie's tasty tea...

The new new old...

Playlist (Play) (Download)
Keith Emerson Band - Keith Emerson Band with Marc Bonilla
Various - Capital Models Covers : The Originals
Rush - Discography
Klaus Schulze - La Vie Electronique Vol 4

Up late and into Bruntsfield to a new to me place for breakfast - which lasted all day (I mean nourished me for the day rather than us sitting in the place all day)..

A walk in the cold morning sun...

Out to my mum's - unwell but doing ok - "normal" lurgi...

Errands run for her and a table cloth found at last for us...

Back home and enjoyed the first set from the Rush DVD received on Xmas Day...

This led me to listen to possibly too much Rush but probably not...

In the evening, "Person of Interest" followed by a relatively early night...

Highlight of the Day : Rush music...