Music and Me
Top picks of 2008
Top picks of 2005
Top 10 of 2004
Top 10 of 2003
Top 12 of 2002
Current playlist
My collection
On my iPod - 40GB
On my iPod - 80GB
On my iPod - 160GB
About me
Our wedding
Moment of Zen
Courtesy of Timmay
Blog posts are no longer happening here. Visit blog.nervousmusic.net for the latest updates.
Twitter Updates
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Nervous Music has moved!
I've started blogging again, but in a new location at blog.nervousmusic.net. Update your bookmark and feed, if you wish. Read more about why I moved on the new site. Hope to see you there.
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Apnea Monofin Mix
I've had an idea for a good mix in my head for a long time. I've been too unfocused lately to actually mix it, though. So I'm just offering up the unmixed version. You'll have to pretend that the tracks flow together seamlessly until I'm ready to labor over some mixing software. I hope you enjoy it just the same.
Friday, September 04, 2009
A Bug's Life
Here's a great way to start off a holiday long weekend. A few minutes after getting home from work, I spy a small bug a few feet away on the wall. It looks a bit like a tick, but its body seems a little long for a tick. In any case, I go in for a closer look just to be sure. I'm just a few inches away and I scare it. It starts to fly. So it's definitely not a tick. And it flies right into my mouth and I promptly swallow it. Happy Labor Day!
Sunday, August 30, 2009
The “50 Mile” Vegetarian Beer Dinner
No, the beer wasn't vegetarian. But everything else was. We celebrated our 4 year anniversary last week at Armsby Abbey in Worcester. It has quickly become one of our favorite restaurants of all time. They consistently serve great, fresh, local food with an excellent rotating showcase of 20+ beers on tap.
On August 26th, Armsby Abbey closed from 6pm to 10pm to host 65 people for a 5 course vegetarian meal. All ingredients were sourced from farms and other spots within 50 miles of the restaurant. Accompanying each course was a beer from the Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project based in Cambridge, MA.
The owners of Armsby Abbey as well as the couple behind the Pretty Things project made their rounds to say thank you and check in to see how the food and beer was treating everyone. Everything was remarkably good. A 5 course meal each with its own beer over 4 hours in a chilled, laid back atmosphere. A perfect way to spend a late summer evening.
It was so refreshing to see local restaurant and farm owners gather together for one special evening. I only hope they make a habit out of this kind of thing. Everything was delicious and you can see for yourself in the night's menu.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Two hailstorms in two weeks
I'd like to think it's an auspicious sign of things to come, but I can't help but think that two hailstorms in two weeks is not a good thing. I witnessed a hailstorm while in central India in early May. And then just last weekend an even bigger hailstorm in central Massachusetts. What gives?
Friday, May 15, 2009
Water buffalo buffalo buffalo
I just returned from a two week visit to India. It was my 6th time visiting the country, but my first time exploring anywhere outside of Chennai. This trip took me to Chennai, Delhi, Agra (the site of the Taj Mahal) and Bangalore. Quite a crazy trip, but very productive work-wise and it was very eye-opening to experience other parts of an amazing country.
I've posted lots of photos from the weekend side-trip to Delhi and Agra. I also took a bunch of (shaky) videos with a Flip camera including this one -- we were surrounded by water buffalo as we took a tour around Agra.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Fun with Words
Using a new service called Wordle, you can create a tag cloud of your website. Neat!
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
What is a mote?
Apparently a mote is a small particle or speck, usually in reference to dust, but can also refer to an atom. I learned this word through a new Windows game called Osmos.
In Osmos, you're a mote. And your objective is to absorb other motes to become the biggest mote on the block. I was drawn to this game for the same reasons that I was drawn to Electroplankton: simple yet mesmerizing gameplay along with its outstanding soundtrack and musical qualities.
Three artists provide the musical backdrop to Osmos: Gas (from em:t fame), Julien Neto and Loscil. All tracks fit quite well into the ambient, dreamlike nature of the game. I learned about Osmos from reading the blog of Mat Jarvis (Gas/High Skies) where I also purchased the remastered version of his em:t 0095 release.
Nice music from nice people. If you enjoy these tracks I advise you to also buy the albums. I've been exchanging emails with Paul from Microscopics who has been very friendly and informed me that although there are no plans to release the mysterious em:t 2298 album (love the cover art), some of the tracks will be released under the High Skies moniker.
Excerpts from Osmos soundtrack (zip), including:
Happy mote-ing!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Dusty's Theme Song
I have an addendum to my top picks for 2008. I can't believe I forgot about this one. Lindstrøm's Where You Go I Go Too was a fantastic little EP of 3 songs all clocking in at over 10 minutes each, with the title track almost pushing a half-hour. So maybe it's considered a full-length?
Regardless, it's a great piece of work that I've heard referred to as a collection of epic ambient disco revisionism. Listen for yourself as the ball drops. Happy New Year!
Saturday, December 06, 2008
It's the most musical time of the year
A few years have passed since I compiled a formal list of my year's favorites. My "Tracks of the Week" are long gone and my podcasts also died quietly. A year ago I didn't reflect back on 2007 to pick my favorites because I didn't feel like I discovered much new music then.
This year is different. Particularly over the last six months, I found myself enjoying quite a few new releases. The majority of this list is electronic music, or at least influenced by electronic music. But I'd like to think that there's still variety to be found.
You can sample some of the albums yourself with a zipped collection I compiled.
In order of enjoyment:
Happy listening and happy holidays!
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Dub and Dubber
Lately my listening habits have been focused solely on a genre of music called dub techno. I tend to get sucked into a certain style of music until I've run out of air. This happened about 5 years ago with a quirky brand of electronic music called tech-house or micro-house. And more recently I leapt back to the early 20th century to explore western swing.
Unlike earlier instances where I can't pinpoint how I was suddenly swept up by a particular genre, this time I can say I know exactly when dub techno got ahold of me. It was Thursday July 31st at 7:09pm. I was commuting home and listening to Boston College radio when I heard a track called "Distance" by Rhythm & Sound (mp3). I already had some Rhythm & Sound in my collection, but not their self-titled debut album. Looking back, the track isn't particularly mind-blowing. But for some reason it caught my ear and pushed me to dive into my dub techno CDs when I got home that night. Ah the wonderful Basic Channel metal tins from the mid '90s. Clever design, but the CD is left extremely vulnerable to scratches. Beautiful vinyl too.
Part of the enjoyment is the thrill of the hunt for these rarities. Because, after all, how much of this stuff do you really need to own? But over the last few months, through various sources like Beatport, eMusic, iTunes and some independent sellers like Polybonk and Juno, I've tracked down a mammoth amount of releases.
Dub techno is a blend of electronic music and dub which has its roots in reggae. One of its originators, owners of the Basic Channel label were interviewed in 1996 by The Wire magazine which offers a pretty good description of the music. In general, dub techno is downbeat, slow and warmer than traditional techno. Occasionally you'll have some singers involved, but primarily it's instrumental music. I find it a great match for driving, reading, or working on the computer. It's repetitive and discreet enough to work just fine as background music; but I find it rewarding when listening carefully too. So it's feeding my music obsession quite well.
It's been a long time since I've created a podcast and this could be a good topic for a new one. But I'm taking the lazy route and offering up some samples in a zipped bundle. If you follow the link, here's what you'll get:
If you're up for it, drop a note in the comments and let me know about your favorites.
Bringing you Nervous Music since October 2003.
