Spinning

I've been in a hip hop mood all of a sudden. Digging the last Non Prophets album Hope and the leaked Jaylib and MF Doom Are Madvillain album. The first has a nice laid back beat and solid production work by Joe Beats which reaches back towards an earlier era of hip hop. The latter is a series of cuts Jaylib had put on a mix tape to take to Brazil with him. The Madvillain album is out now and I'll have to get that soon. Rounding things out, I've been listening to Oval's 94 Diskont, a glitch electronic album with an ethereal initial 24 minute track that barely seems a song at all until it slowly reveals the music's patterns, and Nigasa Ni Te's Feel. The latter is a Japanese indie rock duo whose stripped back lo-fi album owes a bit to the Velvet Underground and Nick Drake.    

The Gates

On Feburary 12, 2005, Christo and Jean-Claude will launch their first project in New York City. 7500 gates, each 16 feet tall will follow the edges of the walkways and will be perpendicular to the selected 23 miles of footpaths in Central Park. Free hanging saffron colored fabric panels will be suspended from each of these gates, drooping to seven feet above the ground. The name comes from Frederick Law Ohlmstead's reference to the various arches already located throughout the park as "gates." I'm already trying to think of places above the park from which to take photographs. If there's a reason to stay in New York for another year, this would be it. Read more about the project here.

New music

O.K. I've been bad lately with updating this site. I'll try harder in the coming weeks. As far as recent music, I've been listening to Stars' Heart, Depeche Mode's Black Celebration, and Club 8's The friend I Once Had. At least those are the albums in heavy rotation. Lately, I've been having some trouble finding something else to listen to. The DM infatuation lingers, however. I actually rented 101 a week or two ago and was surprised how popular they really were. I also finally realized that the final concert was not in the Hollywood Bowl. For some reason it always played there in my mind. Stars is a somewhat twee indie rock band, and Club 8 are a poppy rock band where the lead singer bears a passing resemblance to Dolores O'Riordan.