Monday, December 28, 2009

I'm not listening to Kraftwerk...

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...though this tidy array of Kraftwerk vinyl I spied at the Compact Disc Store almost makes me want to rejoin the scratch-a-needle-on-polycarbonate cult again. I read an account from a critic that went to an audiophile's loft once and listened to Autobahn on a 5-digit turntable through just as pricey speakers and said it was the most beuatiful thing he'd ever heard. But I am not listening to Kraftwerk now. I am listening to

Hasidic New Wave - Live in Cracow (listen)

Some klezmer-meets-jazz-meets-racket psychedelic Matzoh ball jamz I saw up at the record store. This stuff has my number - it's like a cross-culture sampling of teenage boys jittering their legs against the same massive table until everything rattles and eventually falls to the floor. I saw two CD's by them but didn't buy them. Instead, I bought

Jim O'Rourke - The Visitor

As I sit here and wait for my computer to import it in more time than it would take for me to one-click download it, I wonder what's the point? Physical media is so cumbersome to me now. I gotta go see if you have it and then pay more for it and then carry it home and then sit by a special machine to play it? I'm not even factoring in the specialness of playing a vinyl record - careful don't bump it or the thing is ruined forever. Ahhh! get on with it, y'all!

But then in the course of all this, I just got a handwritten letter from an friend saying he and his wife are having a baby in a couple of months. Happy news, and take your time!

Jim O'Rourke takes his time moving from theme to theme in this 38-minute piece, lilting ans swaying in the breeze like a funk-free Return to Forever, and lovely as that experience it may be, it left me thirsty for the full thing so I leapt into

Return to Forever - Romantic Warrior
(listen)

which is a bit much but then it's all a bit much when you think about it. And as much as we wanna burble down the Autobahn, single minded about going fast and forward, the reality is that you gotta have yr swing ready.

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