In my dream, in the theatre, I punched the air and yelled “yeah!” Looking at it now, it looks like dream wisdom, but that can be useful and sorta applicable in real life if you think about it enough.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCoJoKq5_BU

Thick cloud — steam rising — hissing stone on sweat lodge fire
Around me — buffalo robe — sage in bundle — rub on skin
Outside — cold air — stand, wait for rising sun
Red paint — eagle feathers — coyote calling — it has begun
Something moving in — I taste it in my mouth and in my heart
It feels like dying — slow — letting go of life

Medicine man lead me up through town — Indian ground — so far down
Cut up land — each house — a pool — kids wearing water wings — drink in cool
Follow dry river bed — watch scouts and guides make pow-wow signs
Past Geronimo’s disco — Sit’n’Bull steakhouse — white men dream
A rattle in the old man’s sack say — look at mountain top — keep climbing up
Way above us the desert snow — white wind blow

I hold the line — the line of strength that pulls me through the fear
San Jacinto — I hold the line
San Jacinto — the poison bite and darkness take my sight — I hold the line
And the tears roll down my swollen cheek — think I’m losing it — getting weaker
I hold the line — I hold the line
San Jacinto — yellow eagle flies down from the sun — from the sun
We will walk — on the land
We will breathe — of the air
We will drink — from the stream
We will live — hold the line
Hold the line — Hold the line
We will live — hold the line
Hold the line

I’ve said it before, and it never felt more true: nothing about me is ever true until I actually say it.

This is the 1993 single for David Sylvian and Robert Fripp’s “Darshan”, a track off The First Day, their album from the same year. As you can see, it’s an attractive cover, thanks to the talents of Vaughn Oliver at V23 (who you may know from doing nearly everything 4AD ever put out). It has three tracks: the song in question plus two remixes. One remix is by The Grid, the other remix is by The Future Sound of London. It opens with the remix by The Grid. It’s one of the highlights of their career, an uplifting, lightly funky piece that sustains a groove and doesn’t bore the listener even though it’s 16 minutes long. The Future Sound of London remix diverges a bit more, enough so to get retitled “Darshana” and for Dougans and Cobain to get a writing credit. If The Grid remix is one of the highlights of their career, the FSOL remix would be a highlight of anyone’s career. It’s perhaps stylistically similar to some of the remixes Global Communication were doing around the same time, and has a sense of beauty and lightness that GC often achieved in their remixes, but has a slightly off undercurrent and a psychedelic quality that FSOL were known for. In other words, it’s a keeper, and I could listen to it for a loooooooong time.

Take a listen. I guarantee that in the right frame of mind, any of these three songs could be one of the best things you’ve ever heard.

Young America Primitive “These Waves“
God Within “Raincry” Submerged
The Future Sound of London “Papua New Guinea” Journey to Pyramid
Chicane “Offshore“
Lush “Stray” Groove Mix
Dance 2 Trance “Hello San Francisco“
Utah Saints “Trance Atlantic Flight“
Spooky “Little Bullet (part one)“
Jam & Spoon “Stella” The Lost Bet Mix
Orbital “Lush 3–4 Warrior Drift“
Feedback “I’m for Real (1)“
The Shamen “Rausch”

Yeah, it’s progressive house and trance. Disturbing from me, isn’t it? I mean, holy crap, it’s fucking “Offshore”. Well, y’know, it’s a decent tune and mixes so well into that Lush remix…yeah, a Lush remix by the Drum Club. Stick around for the end: the Feedback track is LFO in disguise, and the Shamen track is from their out-there album, Hempton Manor, and is pretty bangin’. So, yeah, fucking trance music was good back in the early ‘90s.

Download these beats

People have accused me of living in the past. This is simply not true — I just don’t appreciate the present until it’s become the past. I think it started when I was around 15. I have (had?) very few memories of childhood, so it makes sense that I can’t really miss the past until there’s enough of it at a distance to miss, and I’m old enough (self-aware) to actually notice it. Also, I’m not missing the past specifically: I have always missed the first time I felt any particular way. Well, maybe “miss” is the wrong word. I long for that moment when I recognise I am feeling a new (to me) emotion or noticing the way sensory inputs have aligned in a particularly sublime way.

As my childhood was, er, abnormal, it’s no real surprise I didn’t really start to learn about and recognize emotions until I was in my pre-teens. I think the first time one of these moments occurred was when I was around 11, and I remember missing it within a few years. Since then, it’s been at least one thing every year that gives me a sort of bittersweet, existential feeling.* I’ve catalogued all of these sensations of heightened self-awareness and I wish I could turn back the clock to feel them again…but not at the age I was when it happened, because I didn’t actually appreciate the experience until a couple years later. I want to be myself at my current age as an omniscient observer of my internal dialogue at the time when I was breaking into new emotional territory. Oh, man, that sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? I should think about that for a minute.

…

Ok, I’ll stand by that, but maybe I need to realize that the way I live now, yearning for the experience of the new, has great value to me. This actually brings me to the main reason why I’ve embarked on writing this utterly self-serving blog entry. Only in the past year or so have I learned that I am not doomed to a life of longing for the past via its traces in the present.** I realized, like the genius that I am, that every year a couple new things happen. Taking it to another level, things have never stopped happening. Oh snap, that means they probably won’t either. Now why might it be worth more for me not to notice how I’ve learned (important word) after a few years? This allows me to take the experience that has happened to introduce me to a new emotion and see how I have unconsciously learned from it (or not), seeing if I did well or if I need to make changes.*** If I was in tune with it at the time, I’d undoubtedly fuck it up and learn from it incorrectly. Another aspect of getting older is that I know that my first impressions of an experience are usually poor, so a relatively ingrained behavior of ignoring my first impressions is pretty advantageous to my personal growth. This is a complicated thing perhaps ready for another blog post in a few months, if I even feel like discussing publicly is something that merits doing. Although it is why I started this post…

Yeah, I’ll finish the thought. This may sound sorta like bullshit, but I’m trying to reconnect. See: childhood, awkwardness therein; further see: syndrome, Asperger’s, my. Ahh, been a while since I dragged that old chestnut onto al-bloggariya, hasn’t it?**** Well, it’s been on my mind WAY more than usual lately. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to suggest that the time has come for me to finally transcend that and join the regular folk. Ha, no, as if. Lately, though, I have been noticing that my natural inclinations have been preventing me from being the person I want to be, so I wish to add new traits and perhaps refine some that I already have, all while keeping my identity intact (that means you, Hans’ handiwork).

Changing? Keeping your identity intact? Sounds hard, some might say. Pish posh, I say. Change is for those who’ve made mistakes and don’t like themselves, some say. Well, shit, they don’t say that to me, because I don’t know anyone who’s a closed-minded fool who believes that it’s a good idea to stand in the way of change (= progress, look it up, dammit).

[see, I told you this would be pretty self-serving]

* So, in a way, an existentially bittersweet feeling is one of the first emotions I became familiar with. No surprise I was a pretentious shit in high school, eh?

** Who grokked hauntology from the moment he heard of it? This guy, that’s who.

*** E.g.: 2003 was when I learned about jealousy. Yeah, I’d never felt it until then. Those were fun times; I’m sorta still trying to atone for them.

**** I’ll thank you for kindly refraining from informing me that it’s been a while since I really dragged much of anything onto here.

As a modern gentleman, I tweeted about this at about 3am that day — er, early the next morning — and remarked that my apartment was pretty much a black hole that day. This was largely in reference to a) the flexible nature of time, especially in a self-contained/-constructed environment that the outside world does not intrude upon b) my mood, which was a type of void, albeit non-consumptive c) my general inclination to sit in the dark. I received a response that suggested that my heart was still beating, probably interpreting this message as a depressive cry for help, not even remotely unheard of on Twitter and/or Facebook. OK, perhaps calling it a suggestion is not giving the responder any credit, because, obviously, my heart was and is still beating. It’s a fact, was a fact. Flip the coin over, though: my heart was beating. Also, the sky was still blue, apples still fell from trees, and the international criminal and enabler of pederasty now known as Pope Benedict XVI still wore a funny hat. In other words, acknowledging the continuation of life is of no help to people who do not want to be helped.

Now, let’s not read ahead of the script: I am not a person who does not want to be helped. I just wish to point out that it is hard to help people who may be depressed because their brains are not like non-depressed brains. Furthermore, depressed brains are not even like other depressed brains (related: the personal nature of death, noted in an old post I wrote after Chris died), so connecting as a depressed person to another depressed person is one of those things that seems easier than it actually is. You think, “oh, I’m in that club, we speak the same language.” Not so fast my friend.

So, did I just gloss over admitting to being depressed right now? No, I did not. I didn’t admit it because it doesn’t need to be admitted. First, there’s no stigma there to me, and I sure as shit hope you don’t stigmatize depression either. No way in hell you’re perfect, chump. Second, I am prone to depression, but because of my outlook on life and my (improved but still irksome) disconnection from myself, I don’t notice it so easily. +1 to myself, eh? Ahem. Finally, I am not depressed right now…but I can’t help but think I should be, and/or I may be headed down that very road shortly.

I’m working on two years (probably at least a year to go) of emotional roller coastering that is only apparent to me when someone else points it out (friends, therapist, etc). I have had many opportunities to be joyous and depressed in that time. I remember times of elation; I remember being crippled occasionally. Right now, though, I have a future. That’s sorta fucked up for me. I’ve never had one of those before. All I had was stuff that hadn’t happened to me yet. Now I have stuff I haven’t happened to yet. I have been told this is the way you end up thinking when you’re on the home stretch of college. I have this quarter to go, and then, inshallah, one more class that I can take anywheres before I’m up and officially done (though I can actually graduate at the end of May). It’s exhilarating, astonishing, and frightening. This means I occasionally feel like crying, but never really know why.

The other angle to this awkward state of Micahly affairs is that I have learned what optimism means. The last few months have had very serious moments of despair and rage because there are some things I simply cannot control, namely the emotional states of people dear to me. (This also means that, somewhere along the line, I gained a lot more empathy than I previously possessed. That’s a shocker, right there.) All I can do is hope that things get better, right? Well, I’ll be damned if that kind of cornball sentiment wouldn’t’ve caused my patented Glare of Cynicism at previous points in my life…when I thought being a realist was the way. All along I preach grey areas as the truth, and I paint myself into a black corner. Cynician, heal thyself, eh? No easy path, though: I never saw it happen, so I can’t explain it, but apparently I learned that optimism and realism can coexist in the same personality. Now, I won’t be the annoying motherfucker who gets preachy and tells you why you should live like him and why your ways of viewing the world are wrong. As a realist, I know that shit ain’t gonna fly. As an optimist, I know those who want to talk about it will.

Well, yeah, I’m about to graduate. Apparently, I have learned skills that will help me have a successful career in a field I enjoy (at least, I’ve been told I am eminently employable: as graduation approaches, I find that I think I haven’t learned anything. I hear this is normal). I will look for a job in San Francisco, a city I have fallen for deeply and feel is NYC’s only rival in this country. I will look to create a home, and prepare myself for what I hope will be decades of learning more about myself and the people I care about, having new adventures, while earning an income that allows me to support myself and someone else. I believe all of these things are possible. Actually, I think they’re pretty likely. So then, why am I terrified? Well, I think the future is terrifying only when you have one. If you believe you don’t have a future, then you can’t really be scared of it (that’s logic, kids, sorry). The default human fear of the unknown is what makes your future terrifying, even if you do think It Will Turn Out OK. Of course things will change, and the future you depict now probably won’t show up the way you envisioned it. Change is inevitable, just make sure you’re changing as well. Uh-oh, I feel myself veering off towards preaching again…

Then, in summation: I am not depressed, though I may become so (albeit for good reasons, but it will not stay). I am terrified, though I feel things will be fine. The future is coming, but you won’t notice it, because now is endless and it’s the only thing you have control over.

So, remember how I did it last year? The tiering system, as opposed to rankings? Yeah, that’s how I’ve been rating everything since then. Hard and fast rankings are for the inflexible and narrow-minded.

The movers

The xx The xx
Telefon Tel Aviv Immolate Yourself
DJ Sprinkles Midtown 120 Blues
The Lullaby League Dormio Animus
Monolake Silence
Intrusion The Seduction of Silence

Yep, these are the best. Not only are they really good, but they’re really moving. That may come as a surprise in the case of Monolake. It’s a good Monolake album, on par with Interstate, for sure, but moving? Perhaps an odd claim, but I find this album really affecting. The same goes for the Intrusion album. Not only am I completely comfortable calling that one of the best (dub or otherwise) techno albums of all time, it’s so evocative.

DJ Sprinkles is Terre Thaemlitz’s moniker for house-influenced material, as opposed to his usual glitched ambience. Amazing how one guy (er) could do two such diverse genres so well. Midtown 120 Blues is one of the three best house albums I’ve ever heard. Granted I’m not a house head, so my tastes are a bit off, but this is a classic. It’s really warm and organic, uplifting yet moody, and just sloppy enough. Oh, you can dance to it, of course. Now that you know about Terre, I bet the Lullaby League is the obscurest thing here. I don’t know much about them either. I stumbled across this album, and it transfixed me. It’s also warm, organic, and kinda sloppy, but it’s a slightly glitchy ambient album with some great spoken word on top. It does wonderful things: when you’re trying to fall asleep and listening to it, it keeps you in the space between asleep and awake. Really cool.

Many know the story of the Telefon Tel Aviv album at this point: two guys, one of them kills himself the week before this album is released. I don’t bite on those kinds of stories; the music stands alone to me. In the end, I am selfishly moved by his death, because this is the first Telefon Tel Aviv album that blew me away…and now I don’t get another. Shitty. So go buy this one. It’s shoegazey-IDM-synthpop. Odd combo, I know, but I love it.

And then…the xx. Forced to choose, I think I have to go with this album as my favourite of last year (with very close competition from Intrusion). It’s pretty much perfect. A lot has already been said about it, so I’ll try and not repeat any of it. It’s amazing. Go buy it. (Crap, that’s already been said.) The most astonishing thing about this album is its restraint. To make an album so subtle and relaxed is not completely astonishing, but it is for four 20-year-olds. That’s the age when rocking is important. Subtlety is for the old who can’t handle the noise. Let this be the first sign of a new era in barely-there music.

Weird-looking, but secretly the most interesting people at the party

The Twilight Sad Forget the Night Ahead
Shackleton 3 EPs
Piano Magic Ovations
Bvdub White Clouds Drift on and on

Kind of an odd assortment here, but they make sense together: they’re all very good, but there’s a little hook to each one that might drive some people away. If you can get over the hump, though, you’ll be rewarded. (The bumps? Twilight Sad: “Haven’t I heard this before?” Shackleton: “This is a little repetitive.” Piano Magic: “This is kinda wannabe late-period Dead Can Dance.” Bvdub: “Wait, it’s over and I forgot to pay attention.”)

Precocious vinyl

Burial / Four Tet split 12″
Others in Conversation “Two Instrumentals“
Data & Cell “Doors of Perception“
Indigo/Synkro “Runes/My Own World”

Putting out two tracks on a piece of vinyl usually precludes you from getting on year-end best-release lists. Not for me. Qualitatively, these records are 100% awesome.

Returns to form

Gus Gus 24/7
Tortoise Beacons of Ancestorship

Tortoise and Gus Gus are each coming off two albums or so of so-so material. Ah, they’re back! These albums hold their own against their best.

Doing what they do, and doing it well

Fluxion Constant Limber
Alva Noto Xerrox vol. 2
jj jj n°2
Lawrence Until Then, Goodbye

Much like finding your way back from a period of pointlessness, there’s something to be said for knowing how to do what you do, and then doing it very well. (Junior shout-out to Fluxion, who decided to make a track with a vocalist, and made my jaw drop. It was so unexpected and not terribly original, but the fact that it happened and was successful is something.)

Artist of the year

Fever Ray

Oh yeah, yes, YES. Karin Dreijer Andersson, welcome to the pantheon, Micah’s Pantheon of Sorta-Crazy, Intensely Creative, Inspirational Women. You already know Kate Bush and Björk, of course.

This album is stunning. The singles are stunning. The remixes are stunning. The graphic design and videos are stunning. The live show (going from the live album) was stunning. What can’t this woman do? I was surprised at how mellow, dark, and personal this album is. The Knife are dark, and sorta personal, but rarely mellow. She turned it around for the album. The moment that gets me the most is in the album’s centerpiece, “Keep the Streets Empty for Me”. The last line, repeated, is “uncover our heads and reveal our souls”. Definitely heavy coming from a woman known for wearing strange and complex masks for public appearances.

Remixes of the year

Florence & the Machine “You’ve Got the Love” xx Remix
Hell “The DJ” Radio Slave Remix

Hey, it’s the xx again. These damn sneaky kids, in addition to producing their own album, are apparently capable enough to turn out an amazing remix of a song, not in their style, and twist it around to their style. [shakes fist]

I’ll keep shaking my fist at Matt Edwards, Mr Radio Slave, doing what he does so well: showing you that when you think you’ve had enough, sticking with it a little longer is better than enough. Great track for him to work his magic on, too. This DJ Hell album missed the above shortlist by only a little bit (ironically, it’s too long), but this track is great. It’s good on the album, better as a remix. All of this is prelude to my saying that I’m astonished I ever loved a track with Diddy (yes, Sean Combs) ranting about DJs who only play edits and should be playing the extended versions instead.

(If I hadn’t already given the praise to Fever Ray, we’d see the Rex the Dog remixes of “Triangle Walks” and the Scuba remixes of “Seven” here.)

Great producer choice

Fuck Buttons Tarot Sport

Their previous album I loved when I first heard it, but it fell down the list pretty quickly. Why? Too narrowly focused, no soul. What can fix that? Getting Andrew Weatherall to produce, of course! A turnaround and a great piece of work. Cheers, gents.

Ask me when summer comes

King Midas Sound Waiting for You

I think I like this…but as a soft-yet-thick reggae album (or a dubstep-with-vocals album), I’m not going to know until summer. Just the way it is. Can’t fully grok this kind of music until it’s warm out and I’m living on Cruzan Single Barrel Estate Rum.

It’s ambient music

Leyland Kirby Sadly, the Future is No Longer What It Was

It’s four hours of distressed recordings of worn-out 78s. Oh, it’s ambient in the traditional Eno definition: aural wallpaper. Wallpaper can be oppressive and really affect your subconscious, though…

Disappointment

Sven Weisemann Xine

The “Xine Zero” 12″ is great. A pretty tight little combination of electronic rhythms, strings, and piano. It’s quite original. So why is the album so painfully dull? Not enough electronics. Only a couple tracks really bring it all together nicely. Without the beats, it just sounds like sketches for a snippets of a soundtrack. A shame, as I was really looking forward to hearing this kind of sound…

Oh wait, what’s this?

Field Rotation Licht und Schatten

Hey, here it is, subtle electronics with strings and piano. Sven has more of a minimal-housey flavour to his work, Field Rotation sounds more like Move D: sorta housey, sorta ambient techno. Damn good. Excellent work by this obscure producer. Now, make haste over to his webpage for two free remix EPs.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvU0RWQzHik

blood on the tissue on the floor of the train
sun goes down
temperature drops
beautiful burnout, beautiful burnout
bird
chrome

that’s it. simplicity always creates a stronger image.

my top 20 artists for the year:

1. depeche mode
2. pet shop boys
3. brian eno
4. coil
5. the cure
6. new order
7. peter gabriel
8. einstürzende neubauten
9. the orb
10. b! machine
11. muslimgauze
12. the church
13. current 93
14. and one
15. front 242
16. de/vision
17. the the
18. project pitchfork
19. david sylvian
20. covenant

part of me is a little let down that it isn’t “weirder”, but that’s really a foolish thing to complain about. in retrospect, i guess i had a pretty crummy year, so no shock i went with “comfort” music.

two relatedlys:

• yeah, there’ll be a best of 2009 list. probably the end of next week.
• i’m launching a new website for music reviews. no, really, i am, around about the same time. still no idea what to do to replace the podcast.

if this seems like a blog post that somebody would put up if they were posting more often, i.e. you expect there to have been more serious, realistic content before this, especially in light of the year changing and holidays and all that crap, well, you’re right. there is a bunch of content in the space between this and my last post. no, you can’t see it. it isn’t written, it probably will never be written, and, really, there’s nothing melodramatic about that. consider this my apologia to myself for beating myself up over not posting more often. just because i’m not “posting to my blog” doesn’t mean i’m not recording events and generating content. it just doesn’t transcribe to this format.