Archives

Purchase log, 2024-05-07

[Donna Summer - Bad Girls]

I catalog my music purchases on Collectorz and Discogs, but they don’t give me a sense of change over time. So I’m noting them here weekly as well.

New releases

Files
  • Wayne Horvitz, Live Forever, Vol. 3: Wayne Horvitz, Bill Frisell Duo

Catalog

CD
  • Arc Angels, Arc Angels
  • Desaparecidos, Read Music / Speak Spanish
  • Donna Summer, Bad Girls
  • La Bouche, Sweet Dreams
  • Pet Shop Boys, Discography
Files
  • Mahogany Throttle, Push Forward for Speed
  • MONO, Heaven, Vol. 2

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Purchase log, 2024-03-05

[Soundtrack - Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould]

I catalog my music purchases on Collectorz and Discogs, but they don’t give me a sense of change over time. So I’m noting them here weekly as well.

New releases

Files
  • Wayne Horvitz, 11 Improvisations for Piano and Amplified Piano

Catalog

CD
  • Domenico Scarlatti, Sonaten (Ivo Porgelich)
  • Maxim Vengerov, Vengerov Plays Ysaÿe Shchedrin Bach
Vinyl
  • Barcelona, Basic Man
  • Camouflage, Methods of Silence
  • Elastica, Elastica
  • Full Force, Full Force
  • Ice Spice, Like…? (Deluxe)
  • MONO, New York Soundtracks
  • XTC, White Music
  • Soundtrack, Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
Files
  • Mahogany Throttle, Depth & Diving
  • Wayne Horvitz, Live Forever, Vol. 2: Horvitz Morris Previte Trio – NYC Leverkusen 1988-1989

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Purchase log picks, March 2021

Riz Ahmed, The Long Goodbye

I liked Rogue One probably a lot more than an average Star Wars fan might, so I was willing to entertain Riz Ahmed’s hip-hop work with the usual skepticism afforded to Hollywood actors dabbling in music. This work is no dilettante effort. Ahmed prosecutes the societal forces in the UK that brought about Brexit in an astonishing performance.

Wayne Horvitz, Live Forever, Vol. 1: The President – New York in the 80s

Wayne Horvitz dives into his archive to surface this must-have collection of live recordings and outtakes.

Kelela, Take Me Apart

I love how modern day R&B artists are willing to blur the lines between pop music and indie rock.

fIREHOSE, If’n

I’ve known about this album since it was first released in 1987, but I was too young at the time to have understood the impact of the Minutemen on independent rock.

sungazer, vol. I
sungazer, vol. 2
Adam Neely, time//motion//wine

I never paid much attention to YouTube till I learned about Adam Neely and music theory YouTube. It’s been a year now since I discovered his channel, and YouTube has since eclipsed Science Channel as my television entertainment of choice. Neely’s own music combines electronic beats with rhythmically complex jazz, and while I enjoy watching him explain music theory, I sometimes wish the YouTube algorithm would give him enough slack to create more music.

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Purchase log, 2021-03-09

[Riz Ahmed - The Long Goodbye]

I catalog my music purchases on Collectorz and Discogs, but they don’t give me a sense of change over time. So I’m noting them here weekly as well.

New releases

Files
  • Wayne Horvitz, Live Forever, Vol. 1: The President – New York in the ’80s

Catalog

CD
  • Björk, Telegram
  • Heiner Goebbels, The Man in the Elevator
  • Ikara Colt, Chat and Business
  • Marilyn Manson, Mechanical Animals
  • Steve Reich, Reich Remixed 2006
  • Talitha Mackenzie, Indian Summer
  • The Darkness, Permission to Land
  • Tone Lōc, Lōc-ed After Dark
Files
  • Adam Neely, “…it ain’t my fault”
  • Adam Neely, “7:11”
  • Adam Neely, “a.i. lo-fi #1”
  • Adam Neely, “Clarity” (with Little Kruta)
  • Adam Neely, “g a r o t a”
  • Adam Neely, Gig Vlog M I X T A P E vol. 1
  • Adam Neely, “no pride (leonard bernstein remix)”
  • Adam Neely, “polytonal lo-fi”
  • Adam Neely, “the ’15 minute’ tune”
  • Adam Neely, time//motion//wine
  • Adam Neely, “two microtonal lo-fi jams”
  • Adam Neely, “we got people playing pianos”
  • Adam Neely, “優待 k m a r t ジャズ”
  • Duran Duran, “Five Years”
  • George Walker, Sinfonia No. 5 (Seattle Symphony, Thomas Dausgaard)
  • Riz Ahmed, The Long Goodbye
  • sungazer, sungazer vol. I
  • sungazer, sungazer, vol. 2
  • sungazer, “want to want me”
  • Test Pattern, “This Is My Street”
File upgrades

These albums were previously purchased as MP3 downloads and upgraded to FLAC.

  • Duran Duran, “Boys Keep Swinging”
  • Eluvium, Shuffle Drones
  • Kronos Quartet, Plays Sigur Rós
  • Shaprece, COALS
  • TV Mania, Bored with Prozac and the Internet?

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Purchase log, 2020-05-05

[Nakamori Akina - AKINA BOX]

I catalog my music purchases on Collectorz and Discogs, but they don’t give me a sense of change over time. So I’m noting them here weekly as well.

Catalog

CD
  • Nakamori Akina, AKINA BOX, 1982-1989
Vinyl
  • … And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, X: The Godless Void and Other Stories
  • Bruce Springsteen, The Rising
Files
  • Torche, Part Time Punks Sessions
  • TOUMING MAGAZINE, 4 TRACKS EP
  • Wayne Horvitz, Simple Facts

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Purchase log, 2019-11-26

[Luke Evans - Luke Evans]

I catalog my music purchases on Collectorz and Discogs, but they don’t give me a sense of change over time. So I’m noting them here weekly as well.

New releases

CD
  • Alex Cameron, Miami Memory
  • Blood Orange, Angel’s Pulse
  • Luke Evans, At Last
  • Wayne Horvitz, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Catalog

CD
  • John Adams, Naive and Sentimental Music
  • Prodigy, Music for the Jilted Generation
  • Tyler, the Creator, Flower Boy
Vinyl
  • Bananarama, Bananarama
  • Chic, C’est Chic

Reissues

CD
  • The Police, Every Breath You Take: The Studio Recordings
Vinyl
  • Lisa Stansfield, Affection (Deluxe Edition)
  • Queens of the Stone Age, Rated R
  • Queens of the Stone Age, Songs for the Deaf

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Four questions: Pigpen, Half-Rack

[Pigpen - Half Rack]

Artist

Pigpen

Title

Half-Rack

Original Release Date

May 7, 1993

Purchase Date

Fall 1993

What is the memory you most associate with this title?

I jumped on the bandwagon of shopping for music on the Internet really early. How early? Amazon hadn’t even launched when I was sending checks to complete strangers on the rec.music.marketplace group on USENET.

CD Connection had a TELNET interface where you could buy albums at warehouse prices. Interstate taxation hadn’t yet become an issue, although the markup to ship to Hawaii was obscene.

As terrific as Tower Records was, they couldn’t fit everything in the store, and they couldn’t cater to someone with tastes as esoteric as mine.

I bought Halfrack on the Internet, most likely from CD Connection. I knew it would take Tower weeks, if not months, to stock it, so I cut out the middle man and got it myself.

What was happening in your life when it was released?

In May 1993, I was preparing to move back to Honolulu after spending two semesters in New York City on the National Student Exchange Program.

This program allowed students to attend another university in the country while paying either the in-state tuition of the host school, or the in-state tuition of the visitor’s school.

I had wanted to go to the Mainland for college like a number of my high school friends, but my family couldn’t afford it. My parents’ combined income put us out of reach of financial aid, unless I opted to take out loans, which my mom insisted not happen.

I didn’t appreciate the gesture at the time, but I’m glad for it now. I have no student debt, and I’m sure I would be in a worse financial position now had I saddle myself with it.

What was happening in your life when you bought it?

The Internet wasn’t just the World Wide Web. Before the web gave the internet a graphical user interface, there were mailing lists, newsgroups, talk daemons and IRC.

And I was exploring anything music-related through these command-line interfaces. I sold and bought CDs on USENET. I developed friendships with people I would never meet through a shared love of Duran Duran. I chatted with high school friends if the finger command revealed they were online many time zones away.

I also started to shift my academic focus away from music and onto journalism. I wrote a few reviews for the Hunter College newspaper when I lived in New York, and I liked the experience so much, I kept writing for the paper at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

The seeds of this web site were pretty much being sown right around the time I picked up this album.

What do you think of it now?

I have to admit I didn’t listen to Halfrack as much as I could have at the time. V as in Victim followed shortly afterward and quickly monopolized my listening time.

Halfrack set the tone for what would follow, including moments of tenderness next to controlled chaos. At five tracks, it whetted the appetite for more, and even 25+ year later, it’s an astonishing piece of work to behold.

The influence of Naked City is inescapable, which means it will always be a perpetual favorite.

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Purchase log, 2018-12-11

[Wolf Hall - Tudor Music Soundtrack]

I catalog my music purchases on Collectorz and Discogs, but they don’t give me a sense of change over time. So I’m noting them here weekly as well.

In addition to big scores at the thrift shops, I headed up to Vancouver, BC to visit Sikora’s Classical Records before it closed down for good.

New releases

CD
  • ASIAN KUNG-FU GENEARTION, Hometown
  • Wayne Horvitz, Those Who Remain

Catalog

CD
  • Alarm Will Sound, Modernists
  • Anton Webern, Complete Webern (Pierre Boulez)
  • Bob Mould, Workbook
  • Cocteau Twins, Heaven or Las Vegas
  • DJ Shadow, The Private Press
  • Fugazi, Instrument Soundtrack
  • George Antheil, Symphony No. 4 ‘1942’ / Symphony No. 5 / Over the Plains (John Storgårds, BBC Philharmonic)
  • ISIS, Panopticon
  • John Adams, Absolute Jest / Grand Pianola Music (Michael Tilson Thomas, San Francisco Symphony)
  • John Rutter, Requiem
  • mclusky, mclusky do dallas
  • The Dillinger Escape Plan with Mike Patton, Irony Is a Dead Scene
  • The Mars Volta, De-Loused in the Comatorium
  • Tweet, Southern Hummingbird
  • yMusic, Balance Problems
  • Soundtrack, Star Wars: A New Hope
  • Soundtrack, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
  • Soundtrack, Wolf Hall: Tudor Music

Vinyl

  • Giovanni Palestrina, Missa Papae Marcelli / Missa Brevis
  • The Sonny Clark Memorial Quartet, Voodoo
  • William Byrd, Mass for Five Voices / Mass for Four Voices
  • Witold Lutoslawski, Concerto for Orchestra / Funeral Music / Venetian Games
  • Witold Lutoslawski, Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2
  • Witold Lutoslawski, Symphony No. 3

Reissues

Vinyl
  • Kate Bush, Remastered in Vinyl IV

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Favorite Edition Rewind: 1989

[De La Soul - 3 Feet And and Rising]

A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.

It shouldn’t be a surprise the largest expansion in my collection focuses on the late 1980s, i.e. my high school years. The Favorite 10 list from these years won’t see much change, as 1989 demonstrates, but the expanded lists risk becoming ridiculously long.

  1. The B-52’s, Cosmic Thing
  2. Camper Van Beethoven, Key Lime Pie
  3. Julee Cruise, Floating Into the Night
  4. Faith No More, The Real Thing
  5. Steve Reich, Different Trains/Electric Counterpoint
  6. Fugazi, 13 Songs
  7. Emmylou Harris, Bluebird
  8. Tears for Fears, The Seeds of Love
  9. Madonna, Like a Prayer
  10. Janet Jackson, Rhythm Nation 1814

Other favorites from the year:

  • The Replacements, Don’t Tell a Soul
  • Hoodoo Gurus, Magnum Cum Louder
  • All About Eve, Scarlet and Other Stories
  • XTC, Oranges and Lemons
  • De La Soul, 3 Feet High and Rising
  • Nirvana, Bleach
  • Pixies, Doolittle
  • Wayne Horvitz / The President, Bring Yr Camera
  • John Zorn, Spy Vs. Spy
  • Bulgarian State Radio and Television Female Vocal Choir, Le Mystère de Voix Bulgares, Vol. 2
  • Nakamori Akina, CRUISE
  • Depeche Mode, 101

Fugazi displaces The Replacements, who made a shot for the charts by cleaning up their sound.

I saw this ad in Pulse magazine and scoffed at it:

[I came in for U2. I came out with De La Soul]

Today, I nod my head and say, “Yeah, that’s about right.” But it took 30 years before I had enough life experience to understand how breathtaking 3 Feet High and Rising is.

Nevermind introduced me to Nirvana like the rest of the world, but I prefer Bleach.

The events in Nakamori Akina’s life at the time CRUISE was released overshadowed the maturity of the album. It’s not ground-breaking the way Fushigi is, but it’s an album that could have only been recorded after it.

I saw Depeche Mode in concert in 2017, and 101 ruined my experience of it. I had been listening to 101 in the weeks leading up to the concert, and understandably, the band stacked the set list more toward recent work than “the hits”.

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Favorite Edition Rewind: 1992

[Helmet - Meantime]

A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.

We’ve actually revisited 1992 earlier in the year, and this list hasn’t changed, although I did tack on L7 and Helmet in the extended list.

  1. Wayne Horvitz / The President, Miracle Mile
  2. Máire Brennan, Máire
  3. Henryk Górecki, Symphony No. 3 (Dawn Upshaw, David Zinman, London Sinfonietta)
  4. k.d. lang, Ingenue
  5. Sade, Love Deluxe
  6. En Vogue, Funky Divas
  7. Prince and the New Power Generation, 0(+> (Love Symbol Album)
  8. Emmylou Harris and the Nash Ramblers, At the Ryman
  9. Kronos Quartet, Pieces of Africa
  10. Robin Holcomb, Rockabye

Other favorites from the year:

  • The Sugarcubes, Stick Around for Joy
  • Faith No More, Angel Dust
  • Sonic Youth, Dirty
  • Helmet, Meantime
  • L7, Bricks Are Heavy

Helmet got caught up in the grunge craze of the early ’90s, even though they were clearly not grunge. Wikipedia says Helmet’s staccato riffage would influence Mastodon, Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, Korn and Linkin Park.

I’ll admit I picked up Meantime because of the grunge-adjacent marketing hype. I didn’t hold onto it, but like Shudder to Think’s Pony Express Record, I couldn’t shake it. So I brought it back into my collection when it was reissued on vinyl earlier in the year.

Bricks Are Heavy also suffered a bit of guilt by association. Butch Vig had been doing miraculous work with Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana and Sonic Youth. Surely, L7 would follow in that vein. I didn’t warm up to it. I’m not sure how 25 years turned around my perception of the album, but it did.

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