Tuesday, December 31, 2013

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

Monday, December 30, 2013

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...

Sunday, December 29, 2013

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...